Tribune of Rome

CHAPTER V

The brown cloud on the horizon was growing larger. It was the morning of the third day of their journey and as they neared the greatest city in the world Vespasian could feel its wealth seeping out into the surrounding countryside and beyond. Evidence of it could be seen everywhere. Farmland and farm buildings gave way to extensive market gardens where thousands of field slaves tended the long rows of lettuces, leeks, onions and herbs. Armed gatekeepers eyed passing travellers, as if each one was a potential housebreaker, from behind lavishly gilded gateways that led up to imposing villas with magnificent views on the slopes above. The road itself was busier than he could have imagined; every imaginable form of transport passed them heading back up the Via Salaria, and overturned carts with broken axles, spilt loads and slow-moving columns of shackled captives meant that they found progress was quicker just to the side of it, and easier on the hoofs of their mounts.

Their party was made up of Vespasian, his brother and father all riding horses; next came Vespasia in a four-wheeled, mule-drawn, covered carriage, a raeda. She sat on deep cushions under the awning being fussed over by two maidservants as the cumbersome vehicle rattled and jolted its way down from the hills. Behind the raeda came a cart with their luggage, driven by two household slaves. Finally came three more household slaves, the men’s body servants, riding mules. As guards, Titus had hired three mounted ex-legionaries, who had so far proved to be forbidding enough to ensure a trouble-free journey.

Progress down the Via Salaria had not been quick, owing mainly to the painfully slow speed of the raeda. This had had its advantages in that they had spent two nights on the road rather than one, staying with families with whom they had ties of hospitality. At dinner the families had traded favours to their mutual advantage. Titus offered promises of his brother-in-law Gaius, the ex-praetor, interceding in a court case or a civic matter in return for a letter of introduction to a magistrate or a member of the imperial household. Titus had been happy to trade on the name of his brother-in-law as Vespasia had assured him that all reasonable promises would be honoured, at a price – naturally – to himself some day in the future. For Vespasian it had been interesting to see at first hand the heads of two families supporting each other for common benefit one day, knowing that they could become arch-rivals the next.

As the small party drew closer to their destination Vespasian contemplated how he would advance himself in this highly competitive society that he was being forced into, where the only permanent loyalties were to Rome, one’s family and one’s personal honour and dignity. He looked up at the brown cloud in the distance as his horse pressed on up a hill and wondered whether he would be suited to, or even wanted, such a competitive life. The road ignored the steep incline as it forged ahead and before he had arrived at any firm conclusion it reached the summit.

Vespasian stopped and gasped. Forgetting all else he stared in disbelief at the most magnificent sight that he had ever seen. Five or so miles before him, crowned with a thick brown halo formed from the smoke of half a million cooking fires and the discharge of countless forges and tanneries, its seven hills encircled by huge red-brick walls punctuated by mighty towers, stood the heart of the most powerful empire in the world: Rome.

‘I remember stopping and marvelling in this very place forty years ago when my mother brought me here at your age,’ Titus said, pulling up next to him. ‘When a man sees Rome for the first time and feels her power and his own insignificance in the face of it, he realises that he has but two choices: serve her or perish under her, for there is no ignoring her.’

Vespasian looked at his father. ‘In that case there is no choice,’ he said in a quiet voice. Titus smiled and stroked the smooth neck of his mount whilst he contemplated the scale of the city below them.

‘If that sight overwhelms us so, imagine how some hairy-arsed barbarian from the forests of Germania or Gaul must feel when faced with such might. Is it any wonder that their chieftains are now falling over themselves to become citizens? Like our Latin allies over a hundred years ago, who fought a war against Rome for their right to citizenship, they too want to serve her rather than perish under her. Rome sucks you in, son, just take care that she doesn’t spit you out.’

‘One taste of that little runt and I’m sure he’ll find that in his case mistress Rome is a spitter not a swallower.’ Sabinus laughed at his own wit as he drew level with them.

‘Very funny, Sabinus,’ Vespasian snapped. As much as he enjoyed a coarse joke he was feeling far too unsure of himself to appreciate such flippancy. He kicked his horse forward and headed off down the hill to the sound of Titus admonishing Sabinus for his foul mouth.

As he gazed at the centre of the empire, immovable on the plain below him, bathing in the morning sun and feeding off the roads and aqueducts that pumped life into her, he felt inspired by her magnificence and power. His nerves steadied. Perhaps no longer would he be content to limit his horizons to the hills that surrounded his rural home. Perhaps no longer would he count himself fulfilled by the mundane business of farming and raising mules with nothing to mark the passing of time other than the change in the seasons. He was going to enter a larger and more perilous world, and there he would survive and prosper. With a growing sense of excitement he descended the hill, oblivious to his father’s calls to slow down. He weaved his way through the other travellers thinking only of arriving as soon as possible.

After a couple of miles the traffic slowed out of necessity as tombs, large and small, on either side of the road squeezed it in. Vespasian paused and felt the hand of history upon him as he read the names carved into the walls of each one. There were famous families alongside names that he had never heard of. Some tombs were very ancient, others newly erected, but all had one thing in common: they contained the remains of men and women who had in their lifetimes contributed to the rise of Rome from a few mud huts on the Capitoline Hill, almost eight hundred years before, to the metropolis of marble and brick before whose walls they were now interred. All the joys and disappointments of these past Romans, whose souls now resided in the shades, all their achievements and failures were now just part of the sum total of their city’s glory. They had all had their time, and he hoped that they had made the most of it because there was no coming back from that dark land once they had been ferried across the Styx. He vowed to himself that before he made that same journey he would do his utmost to leave the city that he was about to enter for the first time greater, in some small way, for him having been there.

Coming out of his reverie he realised that he’d got far ahead of his party and decided to wait for them there, amongst the tombs. He dismounted and tied his horse to a small tree and, pulling his cloak around his shoulders, sat down to wait, idly watching the passing traffic. After a short while a wagon pulled off the road near him and disgorged a family with its house slaves. The slaves immediately started to set up a table and stools in front of a small, new-looking tomb. The paterfamilias poured a libation and said a prayer, and then the family sat down and were served a picnic meal which they seemed to share with the occupant of the tomb by laying food and drink upon it. Vespasian watched this curious ritual as the family ate and drank with their deceased relative, talking to him as if he was still alive, seemingly oblivious to the traffic rumbling by on the road only a few feet away. Even death, it seemed, did not stop honour being shown to a man, if in life he had earned it in the service of his family and Rome.

The meal was coming to an end when he heard his brother’s voice bellowing at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing, you little shit, sitting by the side of the road without a care in the world? Do you think you’re a match for the cut-throats and worse that live amongst these tombs?’ Sabinus jumped off his horse and kicked his brother hard on the thigh. ‘You’ve had our mother half crazy with worry running off like that.’

Titus pulled up next to them. ‘What in Hades are you up to, Vespasian? Don’t you realise how dangerous it is travelling alone on these roads, even though they’re crowded? Which one of these travellers is going to stop and come to the aid of a young lad being mugged, eh? Only the very stupid, that’s who, and what good are they? No one in their right mind is going to risk themselves for the likes of you, if they even noticed you being hauled off behind a tomb.’

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Vespasian said, rubbing his bruised leg as he hobbled to his feet. ‘I didn’t think – Sabinus just told me-’

‘Get back on your horse and go and apologise to your mother,’ his father snapped.

Vespasian mounted up and did as he was told, but he could not stop thinking about the dead man in the tomb. Would he, Vespasian, ever earn such honour?

The road grew even busier as it approached the junction with the Via Nomentana less than half a mile from the Porta Collina, the gate through which they would enter the city. The tombs that still lined the way had become shantytowns housing the dispossessed dregs of the urban poor who could find no affordable accommodation within the city itself. The stench of their unsanitary dwellings, made of bits of wood covered by strips of sackcloth, permeated an atmosphere already thick with the smoke from their cooking fires to make breathing an unpleasant but necessary chore.

The city walls were now only a few hundred paces away. Their scale was awe-inspiring: solid mountains of brick dominating the skyline. To the north of the city, two miles to his right, he could see the graceful arches of the newly built Aqua Virgo, sixty feet high, as it entered the Campus Martius at the end of its twenty-three-mile journey ferrying sweet water from a spring that, legend had it, was shown to thirsty, victorious Roman soldiers by a young maid after some long-forgotten battle.

The noise of the crowd coupled with the grating of the unsprung iron-shod wheels of countless carts and wagons pulled by baying beasts of burden rose to a crescendo as the two roads, quite literally, collided. Vespasian surveyed the chaos of the free-for-all as vehicles, humans and animals pushed and shoved in all directions trying to get off one road and on to the other. No one was willing to give way, for to do so would mean more delay and, no doubt, a savage push from the vehicle behind.

The family’s ex-legionary guards were now leading the way, beating a path through the crowd with sturdy poles as they inched their way on to the Via Nomentana. Once they had negotiated a passage on to the new road progress became easier as to their left and right the trade wagons and carts, which were not allowed into the city during the day, pulled off the road to wait for the sun to set. Once night had fallen they would continue their journeys to their final destinations, ensuring, with the rumble of their wheels and the cries of their drivers, that peace would never come to the streets and lanes of Rome at any time of the day or night.

Titus had just secured the services of a litter for Vespasia to transfer into, close to the Porta Collina, when from behind them came the deep boom of a horn and shouting so loud that it could be heard over the surrounding din. Looking back over his shoulder Vespasian could see the dyed-red horsehair-plumed helmets of a turma of cavalry, a troop of thirty men, wading through the crowd.

‘We’d better wait for them to pass,’ Titus said. ‘They look to be Praetorian Guard cavalry and they’re not very polite, especially if they’re escorting someone important.’

They cleared the road as the turma approached, four abreast. Their white, high-stepping stallions, eyes rolling and mouths frothing at the bits, forced their way through the crowd, stopping for no one. Any fool unlucky enough to come too close was beaten aside by their riders with the flats of their swords or the butts of their spears.

‘Make way, make way, imperial business, make way,’ their decurion shouted. The trumpeter gave another blast on his horn. The guards’ bronze breastplates and helmets inlaid with silver sparkled in the sunlight; red cloaks edged with gold billowed out behind them; everything about them spoke of the wealth and power of the imperial family that it was their duty to guard. They kept their formation with a rigid discipline, their muscular thighs and calves gripping the sweating flanks of their mounts, steering them in a straight line down the centre of the road. In the middle of the troop travelled an ornately carved wood and ivory litter whose occupants were enclosed by lavish maroon curtains decorated with astrological signs embroidered in gold and silver thread. From each corner protruded a pole that was supported at waist height by three massive Negro slaves marching in step, double time, in such a skilful manner that the litter appeared to glide along without so much as a jolt to disturb its precious cargo. The smoothness with which they carried the litter could only have been learnt by years of practice under the watchful eyes of overseers keen to punish any mistake with a liberal use of the whip.

Vespasian watched the imperial cortege scythe its way down the Via Nomentana. ‘Who do you think is in that, Father, the Emperor?’

‘No, I doubt it. When he’s not in Rome Tiberius spends more and more of his time down south and would never enter the city from this direction. That must be someone in the imperial household with estates up in the hills to the east,’ Titus replied as the litter drew level with them.

Just then a rabid dog, foam oozing from its jaws, startled by the booming horn and the loud clatter of the horses, leapt out from under a cart close to Vespasian and launched itself at the lead group of Negroes. It sank its teeth into the left thigh of the man nearest the litter. He went down screaming, desperately trying to tear the maddened beast off him. His comrades stopped abruptly, causing their burden to sway from side to side. Guards immediately encircled the immobile litter, spears pointing out towards the onlooking crowd as their decurion raced back to assess the situation. He took one look at the unfortunate slave wrestling with the mad dog and with two quick thrusts of his spear put both out of their misery. He shouted a swift order and the guards re-formed their marching order and the column prepared to move forward.

Before it did the curtains of the litter opened slightly and a young girl looked out. Vespasian held his breath; he had never seen such beauty. Her thick black hair, which contrasted perfectly with her ivory skin, fell in ringlets that rested on her slender shoulders. Jewels hung from her ears and around her throat. Her lips, full and painted dark pink, sat perfectly between a delicately pointed nose and a firm, proud chin. But it was her eyes, two shining blue stars, that held him transfixed as they rested on his, for a few quickening heartbeats, before she withdrew back inside and the litter began to move forward again.

A loud snort brought him back to reality.

‘Look at that, Father, your youngest son sitting there with his mouth flapping open like some carp just landed in a fisherman’s net,’ Sabinus roared. ‘I think the poor little sod has just caught a shot from Cupid. I’d bet he’d give his right hand to know who she is. Not that it would help much, he’s way below her league.’

Vespasian reddened as his father joined in the laughter. ‘That, my boy, was the most vacant that I’ve ever seen you look. I don’t suppose you liked her, did you?’ Still chortling, he turned to order their guards to lead off.

Vespasian was left staring dumbstruck at the dead dog whose jaws were still locked on to the black slave’s corpse. He had been hit by two thunderbolts in the space of as many hours: sudden, instant and inexplicable love for a city that he had only seen from afar and for a girl that he had only glimpsed for an instant. Who was she? But he’d probably never see her again. Gathering himself with difficulty, he turned his horse to follow his family, yet as he passed through the Porta Collina and entered Rome, his heart was still pounding.