The Roman Republic, 133-121 BCE
The Roman port of Ostia was thriving
again, now that the wars were over.
Dozens of ships were moored off the quay, sails reefed and yards down,
and the quay itself was bustling with stevedores unloading large bags of grain,
or working cranes to lift heavy amphorae into the holds of ships making ready
to sail off to some distant shore.
Maximus could not be more pleased.
His own ships had returned from Hispania and Africa so heavy-laden with
grain that they almost seemed to be sinking as they tied up to the wharf. This more than made up for the decline in the
Sicilian trade, disrupted as a result of Eunus’s slave rebellion.
“The trading went well,” he said,
greeting his friend Quintus Fabius, who had come down to the docks from Rome
upon hearing that the ships had arrived.
They met under an awning, outside Maximus’s warehouse, where he sat
surrounded by his account scrolls.
“Three thousand bushels of grain – finest quality, too – from Hispania
and Africa.”
“Excellent,” Quintus replied, and he
could not help but grin. “And the return
on the investment...?”
Although a patrician from a family
of ancient nobility, Quintus was remarkably canny when it came to his money,
and this was the primary bond between him and Maximus: the latter, a plebe merchant, handled
Quintus’s fortune and made it grow, as it was unseemly – even illegal – for a
member of the Senate to engage in business directly.
“If I cannot manage four to one, I
do not know my business,” Maximus smiled.
Nodding to the young Greek slave who attended him, he snapped, “Wine and
two goblets. The Falernian, but
well-watered, mind – use the strainer!”
Handing Quintus one of the scrolls on his table, he added, “Your share,
my friend, by my calculation, is one hundred and fifty thousand denarii.”
“A celebration is in order, I
think,” Quintus laughed. “I’m certain
we’ll get a good price. There are all
these mouths to feed, aren’t there?”
Wrinkling his nose, he added, “Rome is becoming far too crowded, in my
opinion, but what can be done?” He
shrugged, accepting a glass of well-watered red wine from the Greek slave
boy. “Why would anyone hire a free
citizen when all these foreign creatures can be had on the cheap?”
It was indeed true. The slave markets were glutted with captives
– men, women, children... the victorious Roman armies, crushing Carthage and
her allies, had brought them back by the hundreds of thousands. Thanks to the wars in Hispania, Mecedonia,
and Syria one heard foreign languages almost as frequently as the Latin
tongues.
“Speaking of which,” Maximus said,
somewhat hesitantly, “when is the Senate going to put down this uprising in
Sicily? One hears the most alarming
stories – Roman colonists butchered, and the Sicilians who have sided with us,
too.”
“Well,” Quintus said, but cleared
his throat, clearly unwilling to answer.
“It’s difficult. As you know, I
was Praetor in Sicily just before the war with Carthage. It’s still a foreign country, in many ways,
and probably always will be.” To Maximus's dismay, Quintus drained the
rest of his goblet in one go and nodded to the slave, requesting another.
“It’s bad for our business, Quintus
Fabius,” Maximus smiled. “Perhaps the
Senate could do something? I mean, after
all, aren’t these rebel slaves led by some sort of Syrian conjuror? How difficult can it be for Roman troops to
stop them?”
“Have you ever been to Sicily?” Quintus laughed, accepting another goblet of
Maximus’s Falernian wine, which the Greek slave mixed in their presence, for it
was famously strong stuff. It was said
that if you applied fire to it, the flames would flare up. “No, the problem is that it’s a slave
revolt,” Quintus admitted, lowering his voice as the Greek slave withdrew. “The Senate doesn’t vote you a triumph for
defeating slaves, no matter how many of them you crucify. And we’ve put thousands of the bastards up on
crosses, and it still hasn’t broken them.”
“How is your brother?”
“Still in Hispania, fighting the
Celtiberian tribes of Numantia,” Quintus replied. “The enemy stronghold is surrounded, and he
wrote, in his last report to the Senate, that the siege was going well.”
“I heard morale was low,” Maximus
remarked, sipping his own wine. “The soldiers
are worried because the men who came back from Africa with your brother didn’t
receive any land grants.”
“I suppose they want to be paid,
too? Are we not Romans?” Quintus scoffed, saying this, and took a
rather deep draught of wine. “Ever since
the beginning of the Republic, men have volunteered for military service,
without pay. It’s our tradition – it’s
our heritage.”
“Yes, but in the beginning of the
Republic, our enemies lived over the next hill, not on the other side of the
sea. Wars didn’t last for years and
years in the old days. Things have
changed.”
Quintus merely grunted,
irritably. “If you start paying
soldiers,” he said, after a thoughtful pause, “they’ll expect the sun, moon,
and stars. And the moment you can’t pay
them, you’ll be in trouble.”
“It seems a shame, though, that men
are fighting for Rome for years at a time, only to come home to financial
ruin,” Maximus sighed. “No wonder no
one’s volunteering for this Numantine War.
Why on earth would they?”
“Love of country?”
“You can’t eat patriotism....” He had heard that raising troops was more and
more difficult, since so few commoners now met the minimum property requirement
for military service. “Well,” Maximus
said, at last, “paupers really are not my concern. I’ve a business to run. If I don’t mind my expenses, I’ll soon be out of business, and that won’t do
anyone any good, will it? As it is, I
give thanks to the gods that the profit I bring in more than makes up for what
I’m asked to pay in taxes.”
Quintus looked morose for a
moment. “I sometimes wonder: what’s happening to Rome? Where does this end, eh? Our forefathers didn’t live like this, with
such a great division between the rich and the poor.”
Maximus smiled. Quintus Fabius was a sentimental old fool in
many ways, fond of imagining a golden past that had never existed. Of course, he believed his own tales, being a
patrician. It couldn’t possibly be the
fault of his own class that things now were as bad as they were.
“Here’s a thought,” Maximus said,
according his friend a wry look, “why don’t you take your estate down in
Campagna and share it out equally to all these poor, shiftless hayseed
bumpkins, as a service to Rome, and then we’ll see what comes of it.”
Quintus sipped his wine thoughtfully
and, after a moment of serious thought, nodded, “They’d all be right back here
in the blink of an eye, wouldn’t they, clamouring for handouts? Someone would just go in there and buy them
all out. They can’t really make a go of
it, can they, the small farmers?”
“Not really. Now, I don’t know anything about farming, but
I know business. A large farm employs
labor more efficiently than a family farm:
the end result is a more abundant, cheaper, marketable product. And one of these latifundia, stocked with
slaves? Well, labor doesn’t get any
cheaper than free, does it? Throw them
some second-hand rags and a few handfuls of parched grain and there you go.”
Quintus nodded, “Well, you can’t
divide up an estate equally. Every acre
of land is different. It’s not as if the
gods saw fit to make all our land the same.”
“See,” Maximus snorted, allowing
himself a generous gulp of wine. “Even
the gods are against equality. Nature
herself is opposed to equality.”
“Perhaps you should buy yourself a
farm,” Quintus snorted. “Or even rent
some of the Ager Publicas – the public lands – from the state. No, I mean it. Your ships could be plundered by pirates, or
sunk by a storm, and then where would you be?
You might consider diversifying your investments, Maximus. Not unlike the way I invest my profits from
the Campagna estate in your
business. Just a thought.”
* * *
Maximus’s profit was indeed
four-to-one, and Quintus was paid one-third of the net income of the
venture. Quintus celebrated his
windfall. He invited Maximus and his
wife, Clodia, to a banquet at his mansion in Rome, adding that his cousin,
Publius, also would be present. Maximus
did not really follow politics closely, but he knew – as did everyone – that
Publius was Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest.
In Rome, however, this office had a distinctly political odor to it,
rather than one of sanctity. It was an
appointment like any other, with its share of emoluments and influence.
While the men reclined around the
circular tables, their wives sat opposite them, in chairs, attended by slaves
who either stood, awaiting orders, or rushed back and forth, bringing anything
that might be desired. The banquet began
with small dishes – Egyptian lentils, salted kale, olives, and pickled carrots,
asparagus, and radishes. Salted and
stewed snails, raw clams, and sea urchins also were brought to the tables.
“Maximus!” Quintus exclaimed,
rosy-cheeked after perhaps too many goblets of wine. “I must introduce you to my cousin, Publius.”
“Quintus tells me you’ve come into a
considerable fortune?” Publius asked – remarkably businesslike for a priest.
“The gods smile upon my affairs,”
Maximus replied, eyeing the special purple-bordered toga that only the Pontifex
Maximus could wear.
“Tell me,” Publius said, “as you are
a Plebeian, do you support the new Tribune of the Plebes, Tiberius Gracchus?”
“I attend to my business,” Maximus
said. “However, I understand Tiberius
Gracchus is related to you, sir.”
“My cousin, Scipio, married his
sister,” Publius laughed. “She’s over
there....”
“Oh,” Maximus blushed, glancing now
at Sempronia, a rather thin and plain-looking woman in her thirties, who was
sitting next to his own Clodia. “I am
more interested in business than in politics,” Maximus said as Quintus filled
his glass with the excellent wine of Campagna.
“The machinations of the Plebeian Assembly have little bearing on the
grain trade.”
“So you say, but now that the wars
are over, they are the same, surely,” Publius remarked. “The politics of Rome is now the politics of
property, taxes, wages, and immigration.
What they call urban development – aqueducts and what-not. Roads.
Tiberius Gracchus says he wants to seize the latifundia, in Campagna,
and distribute the land to the soldiers fighting with my cousin in
Hispania. He’s already making plans to
survey the Ager Publicus, to dole that out to the veterans of the war in
Africa. What will it be next? Free grain, doled out by the state?”
“If the state pays me a good price
for the grain, why should I care?” Maximus asked. “If that happens, any taxes I pay will go out
one door and come right back in at the other.
However, I would prefer to see things remain as they are.”
Maximus was fully aware that both
Quintus and Publius – like most patricians – rented thousands of iugera of
public land, which they let out to tenant farmers or farmed more profitably
with small armies of slaves. However, he
knew that it was important, in business negotiations, to make it clear to
potential partners that he, for one, had other options.
“The problem is this,” Quintus
explained. “Appius Claudius Pulcher is
Princeps Senatus right now – that means he controls the agenda of the
Senate. Now, his daughter, Claudia – a
former Vestal Virgin – is married to Tiberius Grachchus.”
“Who is the radical Plebeian
reformer?” Maximus smiled. “I begin to
understand – oh, well, families....” He chuckled.
“I s’pose I should pay more attention to politics, but I’m rather busy
trying to keep Rome fed....”
“Well, let’s make it absolutely
clear to you, Maximus,” Publius said, firmly.
“Tiberius wants to seize the whole
of the Ager Publicus – all the
public land in Italia – and distribute it to the veterans. He wants his brother, Gaius, to head the
commission that’s going to divide up these lands. And he
wants to set a limit on how much land anyone can let or own.”
“Well,” Maximus smiled, “that will
be interesting.”
Clodia, listening to her husband’s
evasive words, shut these exchanges from her mind and devoted her attention to
Quintus’s wife, Domitia, who was saying:
“I can just see you now as the
mistress presiding over a country villa, Clodia – you simply must prevail upon Maximus. Really, my dear, are you to while away your
days among the fishwives of Ostia? No,
no – I mean look at what’s becoming of Rome....”
“I like Rome well enough,” Clodia
replied.
“Oh, nonsense – how can you? It’s filthy.
Why, the smoke is so bad, now, one can hardly draw breath, and you can’t
even see the sea from the Roman hills most of the time. Look at how the soot and dust covers
everything. And now they’re putting up
all these elevated aqueducts, to block out the sun. And all these insulae that are being built –
six, seven storeys, even, with families stacked on top of each other like I
don’t know what. And they’re built out
of concrete? What on earth is that –
sand, water, and a little mud? No, no –
you must insist, my dear. I know Quintus
has broached the subject, but the fact is, if you don’t invest in land now, very soon there won’t be any
left. If Gracchus doesn’t give it away,
someone else will buy it. So, it’s take
while the taking’s good.”
“D’you really think so?”
“Absolutely,” Domitia replied. “Right now, you could afford to buy a
mid-sized estate just with this year’s profits.”
Roast pork drenched with little
dishes of mackerel sauce was served up for the main course, and in general
their conversation revolved around the subject of land. Publius extolled the virtues of the Etruscan
lands – excellent for growing wheat, he said.
Quintus favoured the vineyards of Campagna, while Maximus – although out
of his depth – remarked that he had heard the Po Valley was ideal. Anything could be grown there, although it
was rather far from Rome.
“There are aesthetic considerations,
gentlemen,” Domitia interjected. “The
seaside has much to recommend it.”
“Aesthetically, yes, but not from an
agricultural point of view,” Quintus said, gently. “You want your estate to be a little ways
inland, but not entirely out of the hills.”
“At the bottom of a hill is best,”
Publius added. “At the bottom of a hill,
but on the edge of a plain. The hill
ought to be positioned to protect the farm from the north wind... but you also
want the rains to carry the fertile earth from the hillside down onto your
farm, so – if you can – find a parcel adjoining a well-wooded hill. It
improves the fertility.”
At the sound of the word
‘fertility,’ Sempronia squirmed. She had
said nothing, and seemed rather morose.
“Mind the drainage, though,” Quintus
added. “You don’t want to end up with a
swamp. And there ought to be some trees,
too, for firewood and withies and so forth.”
“Oh, and make sure the manager has a
wife – buy him one if you have to, but be careful she’s not too pretty,”
Domitia interjected. “No man – no
workingman, that is – labours hard enough if his wife’s too good looking. And there are always problems when a
slave-girl is too pretty.” She winked at
Clodia, saying this. “She ought to be
plain, but a good cook. That’s the
thing. You want her to tempt the
manager, not the master.”
* * *
Clodia did not press Maximus about
buying a farm, although she could not stop imagining what it might be like to
live like a proper Roman lady, out in the country. She had all the same finery that the
equestrian and patrician ladies sported, and she was a very pretty young woman,
but she knew that the upper class women would never acknowledge her as an equal
as long as Maximus and she were so visibly connected with commerce. Business, they believed, was a low and
conniving way to make one’s fortune.
Indeed, Quintus’s brother, Scipio Aemelianus, had argued in the Senate,
even, that business corrupted one’s morals and promoted luxury and
licentiousness, with injurious results for the whole of society. Owning a farm would greatly enhance their prestige,
perhaps even open doors that now were closed.
Clodia was a good Roman wife: she attended to her domestic duties and
submitted to her husband in all things.
For his part, Maximus was a proper Roman husband – he performed the
sacrifices with due gravity, but most of all he pursued his duty with dogged
determination. It was like magic, the
way he would focus on a denari until one became two, or three, or four.... The profit of the grain trade he invested in
a silver mine in Hispania, and the next year after that he joined a fellow
merchant who was buying two insulae, as the value of rental property in Rome
was rising steadily. The income from
this investment was only three thousand denarii, but Maximus felt that Quintus
was right: he ought to be spreading his
investments across a number of different enterprises. In any event, he and his partner planned to
double the rent as soon as the apartments were full of tenants. The ship sent to the east to procure Lebanese
cedar, incense, silk, and Indian spices also turned a magnificent profit. The silk, he joked, was worth its weight in
gold, but he allowed Clodia enough of the precious, sheer cloth to have a
beautiful tunica and palla made for her wardrobe – something to wear when they
went out hobnobbing with Quintus’s friends.
Publius, meanwhile, urged Maximus to
stand for public office in the Plebeian Assembly, noting that the Senate, which
controlled the Treasury, was keen to extend honors, awards, and special
privileges to men engaged in the grain trade.
However, Maximus’s instincts told him that the political arena was not
for him. Indeed, when the patricians
accused Tiberius Gracchus of dividing Rome by inciting the poor Plebeians to
engage in class warfare, demanding land and handouts. Tiberius countered that it was his duty, as Tribune
of the Plebes, to represent all the people of Rome, not just the interests of
the wealthy and the aristocracy. Shortly
after this speech, however, one of Tiberius’s followers assaulted a public official,
and a mob of patricians and equestrians, led by Publius himself, cornered
Tiberius Gracchus and two hundred of his supporters near the Forum, not far from
the offices of the Pontifex Maximus, and beat them to death. It was the first time in many decades that a
political argument in Rome, during peacetime, had resulted in riot and
assassination on this scale.
Scipio Aemelianus’s army returned
from Hispania, shortly after the murder of Tiberius. It took three days for all of his exhausted, tarnished
troops to disembark from their transports, at Ostia. Scipio himself went directly to the Senate,
however, to report the successful conclusion of the siege of the Numantine
capital, but en route was surrounded by a crowd of people, furious that
Scipio’s cousin had murdered their hero and champion in cold blood, in broad
daylight, in public.
“Are you trying to intimidate me!”
Scipio roared, pushing the nearest protester back into the crowd, looking huge
and ferocious in his Roman military armor, with high, red-crested helmet. “I’ve faced the spears and arrows of Rome’s
enemies in the field – do you honestly think I’m going to run away from you,
stepsons of Italia, when you cry out like this?
You all sound like bleating sheep that got out of the fold! Tiberius got what he deserved!”
The crowd dispersed, cowed.
“You see, dear,” Maximus said to
Clodia, bitterly, as they discussed all the recent tumults in the city, “this
is why I don’t go into politics. Things
are bad, and they’re going to get worse.
Perhaps we ought to think about moving to the country after all. Who knows where this is going to end?”
“Will it affect our business, d’you
think?” Clodia inquired, worried, for her equestrian and patrician friends had
been spreading all sorts of rumors.
“No,” Maximus smiled. “Whoever wins, they’ll still need to
eat. That’s the beauty of the grain
trade. Food. It never goes out of fashion. If the populist party prevails, and the
Plebeian Assembly decides to dole out free grain, they still need someone to
bring it in from all over the world, and we merchants simply won’t do it if
they don’t pay us. We can’t do business
for free, and either can the state. We
have them at a disadvantage, you see.”
With a laugh, he added, “They can call it free grain, if they want, but
it won’t be free. Someone will have to pay for it.”
“I hope you’re right,” she frowned.
“Have I ever been wrong about
business? Look, the King of Pergamum
just willed his entire country to Rome, which means there will be all sorts of investment
opportunities, now, in Asia Minor, maybe even in the Black Sea. And there’s talk of establishing a new
province, in southern Gaul. These are
exciting times, Clodia. We’re going to
make a fortune – mark my words!”
* * *
Maximus sent an agent down to
Campagna to make discreet enquiries into likely parcels of land. The agent, Lucius, was gone for about a
month, submitting a bill for two hundred and forty denarii. Much of this, Maximus was sure, had been
spent on Caecuban wine and cheap doxies at the various inns along the coastal
road to Antium, but the agent returned with good news nevertheless.
“It’s not a big farm, mind – just
eighteen iugera – but it’s got a lot of potential,” Lucius said.
“If it’s a good farm, why would the
owners want to sell?”
“Same reason they all sell off,”
Lucius replied. “Debt.”
“Who’s the owner, and why is he in
debt?” Maximus asked, looking rather grave.
“Army guy, like most of ‘em – name
‘a’ Titus. His pa got the acres back
when they was still givin’ out farms to veterans. Wife, couple ‘a’ kids. They lost a farm, up in Etruria, when
Hannibal invaded. Took ‘em a while to
get back on their feet, an’ they laid up a pile ‘a’ debt, doin’ it. They was just about paid off, though, thanks
to the old man’s hard efforts, when this Titus, his son – who’s got the wife
‘an kids – got called up for the legions.”
“Africa?”
“Carthage – yeah,” Lucius said. “The last go, when we finally burnt ‘em
out. Well, three years later, he comes
home, the old man’s finally kicked it, and all their savings has been run
through. Ain’t got a quintari left to
their name. The money-lenders want three-for-ten,
on the debt – don’t hardly give ‘em enough to live on, an’ the Senate ain’t
bein’ so generous, these days, as it used to be.”
“How much do they owe?”
“A couple ‘a’ years’ income, sir –
maybe four thousand, but that don’t count overhead.”
“Well,” Maximus said, considering
the situation. “The farm’s a good one,
you say?”
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with the
farm, sir – this Titus fella’ just ain’t got the capital to work it proper,
that’s all. An’ he’s got to hire a
couple ‘a’ men to help ‘im, too, on account ‘a’ his wife bein’ sickly, an’ the
kids still little.”
“It has everything we were looking
for?”
“Oh, that and more, sir – it’s a
pretty place, it is. I bet your wife
would like it.”
“Well, let’s make Titus an offer of
ten thousand – and give him an apartment in one of my insulae, if he decides to
move to Rome... no, not ‘give’. Say,
fifty a month. An ex-legionary ought to
be able to find a job, you’d think. I
take it he’s got all his arms and legs still?
Didn’t leave anything important behind in Africa?”
Lucius looked sceptical, but said
nothing. He had not noticed any free
Roman citizens working anywhere near the Ostia docks, after all. Or anywhere else, for that matter. “Do I get a commission, sir?”
“One-in-ten,” Maximus replied,
swiftly. “And don’t wheedle – I won’t
offer a single copper more.”
“That’s alright, sir,” Lucius
smiled. “Silver sounds better jinglin’
in me pockets than copper, anyways.”
“That’s the spirit,” Maximus
nodded. “Now, get yourself down there
and make the offer before someone else does – and no expenses, this time. That comes out of your commission, which
you’ll only have if you get me this parcel.”
* * *
Maximus and Clodia travelled down to
the resort town of Antium to visit Quintus and his wife, who were staying at
their summer villa by the ocean. From
there, they were able to visit the farm that Maximus had purchased, and make
plans for its transformation.
“Well, that house puts the rustic in
villa rustica, but it’s a start,” Maximus laughed, contemplating the
dilapidated cottage that now stood empty at the bottom of the hill.
“Where will our villa be?” Clodia asked.
“Up there, I think, on the hillside,”
Maximus replied. “I should like to have a
terrace... be able to look out across these fields.”
“Can we have our own bath?” Clodia
said, excitedly.
“Yes – I think we can even divert
one of the streams – have a hot bath and a cold one, if you like. And we’ll need a fructuaria, next to the
villa rustica, I think. I intend for
this to be a working farm, after all.”
“Have you ever done anything without
a profit to show for it?” Clodia laughed.
“No,” he smirked. “That’s why we have the money to do this.... And, I must say, I like the distance from
Rome. Close enough, but not too
close. I looked over a couple of
properties out in Albani, but they just weren’t the same. You can still smell Rome from out there. And this place, Antium... it’s got real potential,
property-wise. Quite a few patrician
families are thinking about acquiring land around here. We got in just in time.”
* * *
The development of the villa became
a pleasant diversion for Maximus and Clodia even as their business grew. With the suppression of the slave revolt in
Sicily and the final pacification of Hispania, the whole of the western world
was strangely at peace, and Rome turned its attention to consolidating its new
acquisitions. Publius, far from being
punished for murdering Tiberius, was rewarded with a lucrative posting to
Pergamum, but he died soon after his arrival there under mysterious
circumstances. Maximus, however, did not
permit such matters to disturb his tranquillity. All that mattered to him was that Clodia had
never been happier than she was, living at their new home.
They could afford the very best, and
Maximus spared no expenses – very soon, a splendid mansion appeared on the
hillside, with a terrace, interior atrium, baths, and all the other features
and appointments of a proper Roman villa.
The architect worked wonders, and delighted Clodia with his lengthy,
detailed explanations about why each room ought to be oriented toward a
particular direction – how important light and air were, and how one ought to
take the seasons into account. He made
every window, every roof tile, seem special.
As for the villa rustica and the fructuaria, these also were given due
attention by the architect, all the more so because the estate was a working
farm.
“You want the ceiling in the kitchen
to be really high,” the architect
explained. “If there’s a fire, in the
kitchen, you don’t want it reaching right up to the beams, do you? Now... given that Maximus wants to acquire
additional property, I think we ought to plan ahead. Cells, adjoining the kitchen, first of all,
for the unfettered slaves – they ought to be able to get around to their
various working areas easily, but you want them to have full sunlight at the
equinox. As for the fettered slaves,
their cell needs to get some sunlight, too, or it’ll get all manky, but the
windows should be high enough that they can’t look out or reach them with their
hands.”
Clodia found it all fascinating –
there were so many details to keep track of, but the architect was brilliant. It all fit together like a great puzzle. She was especially amazed by the furnaces,
both those that fed hot air under the bath, and the one used for parching
grain. Only slightly less impressive
were the vats and presses that Maximus had built for the vineyard. It would take six years, he said, for the new
vines to yield, and nearly twenty for the olive orchard to mature, but in their
old age they would never want for anything.
The acquisition of Titus’s farm,
moreover, was like a chink in the armor of the local community – soon enough,
other indebted veterans settled in the area approached Maximus, and he began to
snap up their land. Year by year, his
estate grew as he acquired parcels, and since many of these had been bought up
by money-lenders anyway, it was not even a matter of persuading the farmer to
sell. He simply bought the farm from the
absentee owner and doubled or tripled the rent:
that usually got rid of the occupants in short order. One by one, the little farm houses became
empty, and one by one they were knocked down.
It was as if they had never existed.
* * *
Servilia sometimes cried, when Titus
was not around, remembering their little farm.
She never let her husband see her weep, though, because she did not want
to break his heart. He was a proud,
strong man, and she knew that their new life in Rome was killing him, too. The first year had not been so bad, since
they had money from the sale of the farm, but Rome was expensive, and although
he wandered the streets, door-to-door, from sunrise to sunset, Titus could not
find work anywhere. He even looked up
his old army buddies, but most of them were out of work, too. As for the officers, they either pretended
not to know him or said they had nothing to offer. But that wasn’t true: they all
owned slaves – thousands and thousands of slaves. It angered Titus, pushing his way home
through crowds of babbling foreigners he couldn’t understand, seeing how the
slaves, even, were better dressed and fed, a lot of them, than Roman men who
had spent the best years of their lives in the legions, fighting for Rome’s
glory, only to come home to this... this world turned upside down. They lived frugally, minding their savings,
but everything in Rome was so costly, and then their rent was doubled, from
fifty denarii to one hundred a month.
They had no choice but to move up to the top of the insulae, where the
rooms were cheaper, even though this meant more steps to climb, and a horrible
slog when there was water to be hauled up.
Poor Servilia, with her crooked spine and cough, could barely manage
it.
Servilia often sat by the open
window, gazing out over the city, wishing she could enjoy the view, but how
could she? Most of the time, Rome looked
like some vision of Hades anyway – the perpetual brown pall of smoke overhead,
and as far as she could see an unbroken sea of tenements, rust-colored or grey
concrete, smeared with soot, packed so closely together that the lanes between
them were dark chasms. Somewhere,
something always seemed to be on fire.
These insulae, she thought, were all death traps, waiting either to burn
or fall down if it rained too hard. And
the noise! They were packed into these
insulae like sardines in a fish market – the walls were paper-thin, just slats
and a little plaster; you could hear every argument, every screaming baby,
every splash of vomit when the young single fellow next door had drunk too
much, and – just about every night – all sorts of giggling and moans from the
neighbours, a newly-wed couple. Listening
to them, in the middle of the night, Titus often chuckled and said, “I dunno
what’s worse, love, this racket or the screamin’ baby they’re gonna make if
they keep that up.”
“We never should have come to Rome,”
Servilia sighed, closing her eyes against the shadows of their little concrete
box of a room.
“Did we have any choice, really?”
Titus asked, but he was sad himself. “If
I don’t find work soon, I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“This city is going to drive me
mad,” Servilia said. “It’s making me
old, Titus, and I’m not old. I never
used to be this tired. The sickness...
it’s worse, I think. I can’t breathe,
here. The food just doesn’t taste as
good, and the water! Can’t we
leave? Do we have to live here?”
“There’s nowhere else for us to go,”
Titus said, although he often wondered if they might be better off living in a
small town.
* * *
Eventually,
things became so bad in Rome that the Senate passed a decree prohibiting all
immigration into the capital from the Italian cities: new migrants had to prove their Roman
citizenship. Even so, this was not a
solution to the problems that were besetting the metropolis. Now that both Publius and Scipio Aemelianus
were dead – and both men, it was suspected, had been murdered in their sleep –
the populist faction returned to power, this time led by Gaius Gracchus. As Plebeian Tribune, Gaius promised sweeping
reforms – the decent life, the dream that the Roman commoners had fought for,
he declared, would finally be theirs.
After all, how could the Roman upper classes seriously expect these men,
who had conquered the whole Western World, to come home and not only receive
nothing, but have what little they possessed taken away from them?
* * *
Sempronia, the widow of Scipio
Aemelianus, also moved to Antium, distressed by the persistent rumors that she
had murdered her husband to avenge the murder of her brother. Sempronia sometimes visited Clodia, as
Maximus’s villa was not far away, and the two women became friends despite the
difference in their ages.
“I was never happy with Scipio, not
the way you are with Maximus,” she confessed one afternoon. They were enjoying the sea breeze on the
terrace, shaded by an awning, for it was not thought proper for Roman ladies to
be sun-browned, like peasants.
“I am so sorry to hear that,” Clodia
replied. “I know Tiberius’s death was a
terrible blow.”
“What really worries me is what
Gaius is doing,” Sempronia sighed. “I’ve
warned him: just because Scipio and
Publius have both gone to Hades doesn’t mean the conservatives aren’t
powerful. These reforms he wants to
implement go far, far beyond anything Tiberius ever wanted.”
“But surely the Lex Frumentaria is a
good thing?” Clodia asked. “And the new
roads – that’s good, as well. Men will
be able to find work, and it’ll be easy, soon, to go up to Rome and back.”
It was odd, she thought, but being
around Sempronia she had become quite interested in politics. Indeed, she often knew more about what was
going on in Rome than Maximus did, although her husband could tell you the
latest grain prices in Egypt, or the price of a Cilician slave down to the last
quintari.
“How does Maximus feel about the new
law?” Sempronia inquired, looking rather serious.
“Oh, he has no problem with it at
all,” Clodia smiled. “The Senate buys
grain to feed the poor; we get paid. Why
should that bother us? As for the roads,
well, Maximus is already looking into obtaining some very lucrative contracts
from the state. But Maximus often
wonders where the money’s going to come from.”
“Gaius’s plan is to make the
conquered provinces pay for Rome’s free food,” Sempronia replied. “And the new roads, I suppose.”
“Well, Maximus has always said it
wouldn’t be free – nothing is.” Looking
out over the fruitful vineyards and the olive trees, which were coming along
nicely, she said, “Isn’t this place beautiful?”
“Yes – you should be proud of it,
Clodia,” Sempronia smiled. “And you
really need to push Maximus into the political arena. You know, he does qualify to be raised to the Equestrian class. He could
hold one of the new magistracies. I
could mention it to Gaius. We need a few
sound men of business on board if the new welfare state is going to work
properly. Bread and circuses are one
thing, but your husband’s right: we need
to figure out how to pay for all this.”
“We’re quite happy as we are, I
think,” Clodia replied, gently. “To be
honest, we moved out here to get away from all that. Don’t you find it depressing, Sempronia, how
vicious people are becoming? There doesn’t
seem to be any middle ground anymore.
You’re either this faction or some other faction.”
“It makes me angry, to be sure, but
not depressed,” Sempronia replied, a fierce spark in her eyes. “I do miss the excitement of Rome,
though. I miss the parties....”
“But you never used to talk,” Clodia
chided.
“Oh, but I listened.”
“Ah... but isn’t Rome – well, it’s
filthy. It’s a constant stampede. And the people are so impatient, so
rude. Even the slaves are rude, in
Rome. It’s annoying.”
“I enjoy all that, if you must
know,” Sempronia admitted. “And I must
admit to a guilty little secret... gladiators.” She made a lunatic face, but added, “Perhaps
it’s just my age, but I enjoy watching a good fight between two monstrous men
like that. There’s something about
watching some giant covered in sweat and dust beat another man into bloody
shreds that turns me on. Now that Gaius
has permitted the commoners to watch the contests for free, they’ve become very
popular. I just love the energy of the crowds – everyone screaming and yelling. It’s almost as fun as the Lupercalia, only it happens
more often.”
Clodia smirked, hearing this, and
decided to change the subject. “I am
surprised, really, that you and Scipio were so unhappy.”
“Scipio was as passionate as a brick
wall,” Sempronia scoffed. “In fact, I
bet there are brick walls that are more passionate. But the real problem was his contempt. He said we couldn’t have babies because I was
sterile. Well, my family never had to adopt boys, like his. He never liked me – he never said I was
pretty, not ever. And now, to his shade
languishing in the Netherworld, I will say this: do not expect me to mourn you, vile man. Good riddance, to you. I am free and happy to be so.”
“That’s rather cold,” Clodia
observed.
“Well, cold feelings for a cold
man. Say, d’you have any of that
Egyptian liqueur – the stuff with the dates in it? I know it’s early, but I’d just love a little
tipple.”
* * *
Maximus travelled back from Rome as
swiftly as he could, and Clodia had never seen him look so shaken, so pale, so
visibly terrified.
“What happened?” she cried as he
stumbled into the villa, gratefully receiving a cup of water offered by one of
their slaves.
He could not speak at first, but
quenched his thirst, and at last, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic,
said, “There was a riot in Rome – a big
one, this time. Much worse than when
they killed Tiberius.”
Clodia regarded him, wide-eyed, and
asked, “What was it?”
“Gaius Gracchus,” Maximus said,
taking a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down. “He... well, the Senate ordered his arrest. There was a protest, it got violent. Some archers fired into the crowd. Gaius fled... they say he tried to take
refuge in the Temple of Diana, but then left the city. He was found, poisoned, in a grove on the
other side of the Tiber. The Senate – the
patricians – they’re on a rampage. I saw
them throwing bodies into the river with my own eyes – thousands.... It’s a
bloodbath. Anyone even remotely
connected with the Gracchii are under a ban.
They’re seizing their property, right and left. They’ve even decreed that Gaius’s wife is not
allowed to mourn him.”
“That’s horrible,” Clodia exclaimed.
Indeed, it was barbaric. Such a
decree went against everything Rome stood for, the most deeply-held values. It was the worst possible insult that could be
inflicted on any family.
“Look,” Maximus said, finding some
resolve, “I don’t want that woman Sempronia coming here ever again. Forget you ever knew her. I don’t know how far this backlash is going
to extend, but I don’t want us dragged into it.
The patricians mean to liquidate everyone
they think might be against them.”
“Do we need to be worried?” Clodia
asked.
“No,” he sighed, collapsing into a
chair beside the atrium. “I’m a
businessman. I’ll be acceptable to
whoever takes power.”
Clodia held her hands to her temples
and blinked her eyes. Sometimes the
world was just too much. “What’s
happening to Rome?” she asked.
“Who cares?” Maximus groaned. “I mean, seriously: what is Rome to us? We’ve got each other. We’re making a profit and we’re not
dead: that’s really all that
matters. And let’s not delude ourselves,
Clodia, into thinking that the old patrician families will ever let go of
power. The only reason they allow men
like me to become as rich as we can is because, like good Plebes, we don’t
challenge their right to rule.”
“Do you ever wonder what happened to
that soldier and his wife, the people who used to live here?”
“No,” Maximus replied,
irritably. “Why bring that up? Gods, it’s been years, now. They’re probably dead by now, or else they’re
doing just fine.”
“Oh... nothing, dear,” Clodia said,
at length. “You’re had a terrible
fright. I think a nice bath, and a jug
of wine, and off to bed with you.”
“That sounds lovely – maybe after a
jug of wine I can forget what I saw....”
* * *
Historical Note:
The
background of this story is the attempted reforms of Tiberius and Gaius
Gracchus following the Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage. The story begins in 133 BCE, eleven years
after the fall of Carthage. Much of the
Mediterranean had come under Roman rule in recent decades, and Roman society
was struggling to adjust to these new conditions, in particular the influx of
hundreds of thousands of foreign slaves into what had once been a somewhat
ethnocentric peasant-based society. The
formation of large estates and the displacement of indebted farmers, who had no
choice but to move to Rome, was a key theme underlying the political strife of
this period, which ended with the brutal destruction of the reform movements
through political violence. This marked
the beginning of the long, increasingly violent break-down of the Roman
Republic.
In
this story, the only fictional characters are Maximus, Clodia, Lucius, Titus,
and Servilia. The other characters are
all historical. However, the sub-plot
about the development of the villa and the sort of life Titus and Servilia
face, in Rome, is based on a number of primary and secondary sources, in
particular the many Roman writers who penned treatises on agriculture and
estate management. Antium, already a
“get-away” town for wealthy Romans, was to continue to evolve into an elite
resort, reaching its height during the early Imperial period. In modern times, it is better known by its
Italian name, Anzio.
Questions
for Discussion
1. What are some of the ethical
issues that come up in this story?
2. Do you think Maximus’s refusal to
become involved in Roman politics is morally justifiable?
3. Do you think the conservative
patrician senators were right to attack Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus? Conversely, do you think the Gracchi brothers
were doing the right thing?
4. What do you suppose happened to
Titus and Servilia and their children?
5. How would you have solved Rome’s
problems, working within the social and technological constraints of the
period?
Copyright William Lailey, 2012
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