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Against Rome |
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Back to Chapter 1 | Sections ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi of this chapter Samples: II. Scipio, Rome, 219 - 218 B.C. i Marcellus
had been on Scipio’s mind for almost as long as he could remember. Scipio
admired Marcellus immensely, as did all Roman boys, for who could not? But
unlike his brother and their friends, Scipio understood something about
Marcellus. Crossing the new wooden bridge onto Tiber Island, Scipio knew that,
from where he, Scipio, stood, even though Marcellus had not long ago been a
consul of Rome and Scipio was barely a man at not quite eighteen, Marcellus was
a threat. “What’s
that?” Lucius said, pointing. Scipio
stopped at midstream. His friend and age-mate Marcus Livius Salinator collided
with him. Like Marcus Livius, Scipio—Publius Cornelius Scipio to all but
family and friends—had already put aside childish things and donned his manly
toga. Little brother Lucius Cornelius Scipio was nearly fourteen. Their personal
slaves lingered a few feet behind. “What?”
Scipio said, scanning the river. “There,
upstream.” Something
dark floated towards them, still well above the bridge. It sped nearer, tumbled
by the current, but still he could not identify it. A
moment later, the object swept down to the bridge and under. The young men spun
around to watch it downstream. It popped out from under the bridge and resolved
itself into a tangle of matted black hair that bobbed and swirled in the flow,
swift next to the island. Ah—the
swollen carcass of a dog. When
it struck an eddy below the bridge, its head rolled into view, one dead eye
staring up at them. Lucius
recoiled and jerked his bulla from inside his tunic. He held the little
amulet up to ward off the evil eye. Scipio
laughed as the dog floated on by. His own bulla no longer dangled on a
thong against his chest, given up to the gods on the day of his manly ceremony.
Nor did he still reach for it. “Jupiter!
That was a wolf—a wolf, Scipio, Rome!” Marcus Livius said, scrabbling for
his own bulla, gone like Scipio’s. “It’s a bad omen.” “What
do you make of it, O superstitious ones?” “Don’t
talk that way. The gods will hear,” Lucius said. “It’s
an omen.” Marcus Livius rolled his eyes upward, in the general direction of
the Capitoline Hill, a hump of important temples just east of the river. “Rome
being drowned by Carthage, maybe a sea battle.” “Ye
gods,” Scipio said. “How did you come up with that?” “A
wolf drowned in the Tiber, Rome’s own river—and who else have we fought on
the water?” “It
was a dog, actually, only a dead dog. And who says it drowned? Calm down, both
of you. It had nothing to do with Carthage, or with Rome, or with sea
battles.” Lucius
only shuddered and averted his eyes. Marcus Livius looked at Scipio with evident
pity. Scipio
stood for a moment longer gazing down the river, where the dead animal had
already disappeared. Marcus Livius only thought he’d seen intimations of Rome
dead. Scipio believed in the living Rome he saw all around him. Rome was
eternal. In
the blur of noise from across the water, a donkey brayed, the sound cutting
through the vegetable hawkers’ shouts in the Forum Holitorium. A huge crash
followed, punctuated by roars of laughter. The lads turned towards the sound.
Excited merchants and shoppers danced back, shouting, a blur of gray and brown
tunics, with here and there a white toga. The donkey had pulled down the
merchant’s stall to which it had been tied. Rome. This was Scipio’s living
Rome. “Come
on, you two.” Lucius
kept staring downriver, face anxious. Scipio was used to this very Roman
behavior. Omens and portents were as thick in Rome as stars at night. To a
Roman, anything out of the ordinary was like the prophetic configurations the
priests sought to divine in the entrails of their sacred chickens. What else
then might a wolf in the Tiber be but the muttering of gods? |
