OR
HOW THE ROMANS CAME
TO THE POSSESSION
OF MESOPOTAMIA TULICIANA
First book: The Walls of Rome
Chapter One
The Strife on the Mud
The Temple of Concord ּ Idle Bread ּ
Senate adjourned three hours ago. The cold eyes of the godess Concord watched over Cicero and Cato. She watched as a matron might do as she waits on the very last guests in her house, reproaching them for the mess they made of it.
Cato lifted up a piece of fabric. It was a priestly toga. He suddenly felt great relief. It was as if a great evil was lifted from the city and from the world. While all things appeared to him purer and grander, he felt himself darker and smaller. He felt exhausted and powerless. He was in the paralyzing presence of the gods.
"Well, Porcius… he's out and we're in.” said Cicero. “I salute you. I could not have done it better."
His hands were holding a sack open, sorting through the incriminating scrolls that have stripped tonight countless commoners and noblemen from their dignity, their property and of their very life. He felt like an actor packing the props after a comedy. This sack, he thought, contained a greater Unity of the Classes then his entire long, exhausting career.
"Yes. Catiline was your enemy and Caesar was mine”, said Cato. “What Catiline was to you is what Caesar is to me. The account is settled, and I shall come here no more."
Cato looked deeply and intently into Cicero's face. For a moment he imagined a crow. He saw his long beak and strong jaw looking for nuts and worms and shiny things for his nest. He hated himself for seeing this.
"Why? He is still alive. Can war die before the enemy?" asked Cicero. He felt himself uncomfortable for using such great words in conversation. But Cato had set the tone. He had no choice but to follow, or appear low-spirited and gauch.
Besides, he was still under the impression of Caesar fleeing in his tunic. He could still hear the Senate roaring, booming and hissing after him. It was as if the gods were banishing him from the land of the living, sending all their serpents and eagles after him.
"War? I had nothing as dignified as a war with Caesar, Tully. Only a common criminal case. Rome cannot wage war upon herself. The civil wars aren't waged between Roman Sulla and Roman Marius but between Romans and those who chose not to be so. Such a war is now upon us…"
“And here we go again” thought Cicero. Marius and Sulla, Optimates and Populares, Pompey Strabo and Pompey Magnus and so on and so on. Gods! Better to cut your own veins! The Consul's expression was enough to silence Cato. Cicero regretted it. It was necessary that they will coordinate their next actions.
"I must go to the Camp of Mars to see for the troops. What do you plan on doing?"
"The war is your business, Consul, I am going home” said Cato coldly.
"But I would appreciate you taking take charge of the walls”, Cicero held the Tribune’s arm tightly. “You, Porcius, are the best man who I will trust."
And it will be better for you, Marcus, thought Cicero, to be busy around the walls than in his home while brooding over what we have done today.
"Ask the Urban Praetor. I am busy" Claimed Cato and abruptly pulled his arm from Cicero’s grasp.
"No, you are not. I know it and you know that I know it. You will just go home. You will sulk in your library. You will shout at your wife and make your daughter cry. In the name of Juno and Concord I hereby swear that I will not let this happen".
"Sir, against my better judgement, I have done you great service tonight", Cato’s voice was almost a whisper when he lifted Caesar's toga in his arms. "Now you call me again to serve your cause. You are telling me that you can’t trust anyone else. You told me the same about the first service. Am I to conclude that the only man you trust to deal with Caesar is me?"
Cicero was irritated. ‘How dare this dried-up Stoic insult me?’ he thought.
"You may conclude what you want, Tribune", The Consul emphasized Cato’s lesser office.
"In other words, you have no allies in the Senate and must rely on me because I at least have them in the streets", Chuckled Porcius.
"The entire Senate is on my side!" Tullius’ voice rose to a shriek. Porcius grinned internally. The Actor, as he always called him in his head, was forgetting his lines.
"The Senate is not on your side.” He accentuated sharply, savoring the words. “They do not care for you one bit. Nor for me. Most of them don't even care for the Republic that much. They shrieked and wiggled like the fat pigs and slimy eels they are. They still remember how old butcher Sula and old fisherman Marius have competed at selling their ancestors' flesh in the forum. They only united against a new breed of vendors who will sell pork and eel on the same venue."
********
Portia was on the verge of tears. Tata hasn’t returned. The later he comes home when they are in the city, she knew, the angrier he is. He never saw her or Mama while he was angry.
They would always wait worryingly at his study’s door. He would emerge in the morning, saddened and subdued and would order them to pack and get ready to return to Tusculum. Apart from the times he rambled about some horrid actor whose name was never spoken. In those times he wanted to go to Umbria. It was always the same actor. The strangest thing was that Tata hated the theater and they never went.
Mama Atillia prepared a meal for him. She had made it as simple as possible. In the study waited a bowl of cabbage soup, a loaf of rye bread and some sausage. She always wore her simplest robe at those nights and sent away the slaves. Tata liked things to be this way when they were in town.
There was a knock on the door and Portia ran to open. Tata was the only man on the Palatine to knock before entering his own house. He said that everyone that lived under Sulla knows that you can never know if a house is yours or not, so you better be careful.
She opened the door herself. A stranger stood there. He had puffy cheeks and a protruding gut. His face was pasty and pale. His hands were big and covered in old burns. She knew that man. This was Otiosus the baker. One of her father’s clients. She looked again at his hands. They were holding a peel whose edges looked suspiciously sharp.
“Health, young lady Portia. We are friends of your father’s.” said the baker.
“Health, Otiosus the baker. My father is not home.” Answered the girl.
She lifted her eyes and saw that Otiosus was not alone. A crowd of her father’s clients stood at the dark street. She recognized some by their faces and some by their tools. Bakers, sailors, cobblers and flute players all waited silently.
Otiosus bowed low. He extended his arms forward with the palms of his hands upwards as if he was pleading. “Young mistress, your father sent us to guard this house. He is sending a message.”
He took out a note from his purse and showed it to Portia. It was sealed sevenfold. She opened the seals and read:
‘I went to a place I know well. We all shall be safer from now on. Burn incense to the Old Man and say a prayer to Concord. The bread should arrive with this letter. The chickpeas would be with you shortly’.
Portia took Otiosus’ calloused hand. “You are welcome here, Friend Otiosus. You have my gratitude and that of my family’s”.
At that time Atillia came to the door and look at her daughter and the baker curiously. Portia gave her the open scroll. Atillia perused it quickly and her eyes darkened with understanding and concern. “Portia”, she said to her daughter in Greek, “go and ring the bell for the servants. Make sure we have full attendance in the atrium. Then go to the reclining room and do as your father commanded”.
She turned to Otiosus “Friend Otiosus, I am obliged for your help and courtesy. The master of this house shall know of the respect you had paid him tonight. Refreshments shall be made available for you and your men shortly”.
The big man smiled and relaxed his stand. “Kind and worthy lady,” he said in a reverent tone “it’s the honor of my collegium to consider ourselves the clients of such a great and patriotic man as your husband.”
Atillia smiled graciously. “My house is honored by the respect such virtuous men as you are paying its master. We view the friendship of the most ancient and sacred collegia opificum".
she looked into the night sky as if in prayer “may we all find safety and liberation from the criminals and traitors under Caesar’s banner.”
While she spoke, the slaves came filing from either side of the house. They were carrying rough wooden tables and steaming pots. “Sirs, you are my guests and my husband’s. Please do not insult us. Accept our bread and wine and let us be friends.”
Otiosus accepted the offer and while Portia passed him, she could see how he ate his bread, standing, washing it down from a clay cup filled with watered wine.
She went to the triclinium, the common drawing room where the sacred hearth burned and the cupboard with the images of the holy ancestors stood guard. She took a long wick from besides the hearth and dipped it onto the flames. She lighted the bowl of flour and placed it on the floor in front of the cupboard. As the only Roman virgin in the house, she alone could perform this service, since the holy fire could not be sullied by the touch of ravished or the enslaved.
“Oh household-gods, most propitious and virtuous fathers of this house.."
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