Tribune of the People Read online

  Tribune of the People

  A Novel of Ancient Rome

  Dan Wallace

  Copyright © 2016 by Daniel C. Wallace

  Published 2019 by Wylisc Press

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Wylisc Press, 313 Burnt Mills Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20901-1205

  A trade paperback edition of this book was published

  in 2016 by Branden, Books, Wellesley, MA.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (pending)

  ISBN 9781733572507 Paperback

  ISBN 9781733572514 E-Book

  Cover design by Robert Hickey

  Front cover photograph Ara Pacis relief by Miguel

  Hermoso Cuesta

  Wylisc Press

  Silver Spring, MD 20901-1205

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  To Ivey, love of my life.

  Cast of Characters

  (in order of appearance)

  Tiberius Gracchus – son of plebeian Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus Major. At age 17, fought against Carthage in the third Punic War; in 133 BCE., appointed the quaestor in charge of money and resources for the Roman army at war against Numantia in Hispania (Spain). Later, a Populares candidate for tribune of Rome’s plebeians.

  Claudia – wife of Tiberius Gracchus, daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher and Antistia.

  Cornelia Africana – patrician mother of Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius, and sister Sempronia; wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus Major, and daughter of Publius Scipio Africanus, celebrated conqueror of Hannibal in the Second Punic War.

  Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus – plebeian father of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, and Sempronia; husband of Cornelia Scipius. Conqueror of Numantia in 212 BCE and twice consul of Rome.

  Gaius – Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, younger brother of Tiberius.

  Sempronia – sister of Tiberius, married to Scipio Aemilianus.

  Appius – Appius Claudius Pulcher, father-in-law of Tiberius Gracchus, husband of Antistia, father of Claudia; princeps senatus (senator with high honors), former consul, censor, and leader of the Populares faction.

  Scipio – Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, son of Paullus, a victorious general in the Macedonian Wars; adopted son of Publius Scipio Africanus who defeated Hannibal in the second Punic War; brother-in-law of Tiberius Gracchus.

  Polydius – Greek slave who tutored Tiberius and his two siblings; later, Tiberius’s personal manservant.

  Lysis – young Greek slave who became Tiberius’s manservant after Polydius moved into his own home.

  Philea – Greek slave who raised the Gracchi children.

  Crassus – Publius Lincinus Crassus Dives Mucianus,

  member of an extremely wealthy Roman family; younger stepbrother of Scaveola; former consul, princeps senatus; close friend and ally of Appius; member of the Populares.

  Scaveola – Publius Mucius Scaveola, adopted son of the Crassus family, older stepbrother of Crassus; member of the Populares.

  Crassus – Publius Lincinus Crassus Dives Mucianus,

  Diophanes –Greek rhetorician exiled from Mitylene; close associate of Appius and the Populares.

  Blossius – Gaius Blossius, philosopher from Cuma who studied with the Stoic Antipater of Tarsus; close associate of Appius and the Populares.

  Nasica – Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul with Brutus Callicus, distant cousin of Tiberius through Sempronia’s marriage to Scipio Aemilianus; leader of the Good Men faction in the Senate.

  Rufus – Lucius Rufus Faba, vast landowner, senator, member of the Good Men, and close associate of Nasica.

  Mancinus – Gaius Hostilius Mancinus, consul of Rome in 137 BCE, commander of the Roman campaign to conquer Numantia.

  Fabius – Quintus Fabius, military tribune and righthand man of Hostilius Mancinus since the Roman campaign against Corinth in Greece.

  Spurius Postumius – member of the Good Men faction, political rival of Tiberius for tribune of the people.

  Sextus – Sextus Decimus Pateus, member of the wealthy merchant class whose members served as auxiliary cavalry in military campaigns.

  Casca – Lucius Casca Naso, Tiberius’s primus centurion and bodyguard, twin brother of Manius Casca Capito; their father was a former slave, later a centurion.

  Didius – centurion in Tiberius’s legion, from Sicily.

  Ulpius – centurion in Tiberius’s legion, from the city of Etruria (now Lucca) in northern Italy.

  Shafat – centurion in Tiberius’s legion, son of Carthaginian slaves; he declined taking a Roman name despite his outstanding military reputation as a legionary.

  Avarus – head chieftain of the Numantines in northern Hispania who years earlier had won a war against the Romans.

  Caciro – Avarus’s youngest son and a military leader.

  Rhetogenes – Numantine chieftain, ally, and close friend of Avarus.

  Quarto – Sacerdus Quarto, an evocatus (retired) centurion primus met by Tiberius during his march to Hispania. Cheated out of his land by avaricious patricians, Quarto and his family joined other pedites wandering Italy in search of food and shelter. His eponymous son Sacerdus Quarto Minor joined him in enlisting in Tiberius’s legion

  Fannius – Gaius Fannius Strabo, friend of Tiberius since their school days.

  Marcus Octavius – a friend from Tiberius’s youth who later joined the Good Men in opposition to the Populares.

  Eudumus – trusted secretary of King Attalus Philometer of Pergamum, a wealthy Greek city on the Aegean Sea near the modern Turkish city of Bergama.

  Prologue: 146 BCE

  Streams of smoke spiraled up from the city against the dark cloak of a troubled sea sky. The endless trails could be the effects of the burning bundles constantly lofted over the city walls by the Roman mangonels. They had been fired day and night for the past six months, signaling the end nearing at last, a full three years after the arrival of the first legions at the walls. The twining smoke also could mark the funeral pyres of Carthaginians dead from starvation or disease. The sickening stench that rode every shift of the wind toward the Romans verified the source.

  Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus peered between the stakes in the earthen rampart atop the stone mole that blockaded the harbor. Notorious Carthage, he mulled, for so long the bane of Rome. The smoldering city was the birthplace of Hannibal, who nearly destroyed Rome. He had so petrified the Roman tribes that nannies would threaten misbehaving children with his name. Now, his city, Carthage, was about to be destroyed. After gazing at the smoke traces for so long, Tiberius could picture them as streams of water trickling down a slate cliff rather than rising to the heavens.

  “Not such an imposing place anymore, eh?” said Gaius Fannius Strabo. He stood next to Tiberius, looking out at the city walls himself. Of middle height and heft, Fannius was seventeen, too, but he had his full beard. Tiberius stood taller than Fannius by a good four inches, but his face appeared as bare as a child’s, despite his thick, black hair. He lacked the grown man’s brawn of Fannius, too, instead being rangy with long sinew for muscle. Tiberius was strong, but somehow not as imposing as Fannius, who possessed the bearing of a proper Roman citizen, robust, dark, and self-assured. By comparison, Tiberius sometimes felt of himself as looking more like a stork topped by a black tuft of feathers. Fannius delighted in trimming and combing his beard, occasionally decorating it with ribbons for Bacchanalias, all the time teasing Tiberius for having the sweet complexion of a woman. But they were fast friends, having grown up to
gether, both schooled by Diophanes and Polydius, the Sempronii household slave. Both had trained together every day on the Campus Martius until they had come of age. Now, here they were, serving as military tribunes appointed by Consul Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, and Tiberius’s brother-in-law. Along with cleaning up the mess in Carthage, Scipio also took the opportunity to help Tiberius and his

  friend on the cursus honorum, the twisting path of political offices that young men must negotiate to achieve senatorial rank.

  “All those soaring gold towers, the skying parapets covered with gleaming panels made from the teeth of those giant elephant beasts,” Fannius mused, “black now, from the flames and smoke. You would think the greatest enemy in Rome’s memory would put up a better last fight for their city.”

  Tiberius shook his head, “They’ve held out for three years, now, haven’t they? Even after giving us all their arms and hostages for peace. When we showed up at their gates even so, they refused to abandon their homes. The women cut their hair, they say, to braid into rope for catapults.”

  “I guarantee you, they didn’t hand over all of their weapons,” Fannius replied. “Casca says that when they first marched in, they faced a good four legions worth of Carthaginians, fully armed, in tight formation outside the city. The best our boys could do in those first two years was to breech the walls, once, in just one place. Then, they were beaten back. That’s why we’re here now with your illustrious brother-in-law Scipio given command, to put them down for good.”

  Tiberius stiffened at the mention of Scipio. Then, he nodded, “The Carthaginians lost the first two wars, and the toll exacted by Rome has been severe, especially after Hannibal’s defeat. These sea merchants may have become rich again, but they’re not powerful anymore. This time, they fight for their lives.”

  His mind went back to the night in the vast praetorium tent listening to the newly minted consul Scipio Aemilianus, promoted upon Rome’s bidding to deal with Carthage once and for all.

  “This should have been an easy campaign,” Scipio said, lounging back on his camp bed as his adjutant unwrapped the leather ribbons of his sandals. Scipio reminded Tiberius of a mature version of Fannius, a physically powerful man at ease in his own skin. Unlike Fannius, however, Scipio struck Tiberius as man who took joy in life, not for living well, but in exercising unquestioned power.

  He sat up and gestured toward a pitcher on a small tripod table. The adjutant quickly stepped to the table to pour a mixture of water and vinegar into a plain, grey metal goblet, which he brought back to the consul. The other military tribunes in the tent drank wine and water.

  “Carthage has nothing left. We never really needed to be here at all, if it’s supposed to be about any sort of threat to Rome.”

  “Then, why are we here, Consul?” Tiberius asked. The others looked at him as if he were mad, brother-in-law or not, still one of the most junior officers in the tent daring to interrupt Scipio with a question. Bemused, Scipio assumed an indulgent expression. “Why, for the goods, boy, the gold, the ivory, the slaves, everything. That, and because the indomitable Cato the Elder, may his spirit rest with the gods, said we should be here: ‘Carthage must be destroyed,’” Scipio intoned, raising a finger to the tent roof, “and the members of our most august senate concur.” He dropped the finger, “Of course, they concur on the gold, the ivory, and the slaves, too.”

  The tent filled with laughter, and Tiberius raised his voice to be heard, “If that’s true, Consul, couldn’t we simply ask for more tribute rather than waste time, money, and our good legionaries? If we destroy Carthage as Cato insists, won’t we be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?”

  Fannius kicked him in the side of the calf, but the damage had been done. The laughter died out, and Scipio stood up, surprisingly short but plainly spry and sharp. At 39, only a bit of grey had invaded his curly aura of hair and beard. His dark eyes sparkled as he spoke.

  “My dear boy, perhaps your naiveté is a result of having lost your honorable father so young. Or, it could be an understandable consequence of your education at Diophanes’ knee, who teaches the old values, including thrift. Nonetheless, there are still certain ineluctable facts in life that trump even these considerations. One of them is politics. If the Senate wants us to destroy Carthage, Carthage will be destroyed. No matter what the trumped-up excuse might be, the horror of Hannibal relived, the refusal of these Phoenician renegades to yield unconditionally to our rule, or any other irrational assertion, we will do as the people of Rome wish―the people of Rome who count, that is. We will pluck this little sea-side bird clean. We will roast it, eat it, and shit it out so that it is indistinguishable from the offal of the other wild animals roaming this fecund land.”

  Tiberius remembered how the rest of the tribunes cheered, while Fannius pulled him into the background. “Brother-in-law or not, you’re lucky he decided to be funny.”

  Never far from the surface, the thought of his sister Sempronia’s unfortunate marriage washed over Tiberius again. “How can he say such things so freely, so openly?” Tiberius asked.

  “By the gods on the mount, you are naive. He’s Scipio Aemilianus, hero of Macedonia and adopted grandson of the great Scipio Africanus, who alone defeated Hannibal. And, if he has his way, he’ll soon be a bigger hero than his grandfather. Great Mars, they elected him consul five years before he reached the proper age, he can say any damn thing he wants!”

  “That doesn’t make me wrong,” Tiberius said, petulantly, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. He was right, this war was a waste. Yet, here he was.

  He wished he was back in Rome. Impossible, he thought, with his mother there. His mind traveled back to the day before he left for Brindisium to board the transport galley that would take him to Carthage. His mother had summoned him to her chambers. Reluctantly, he entered her bedroom, where she sat in a curule chair in low light.

  “Tiberius,” she said, “tomorrow, you leave for your first war. In a few months, when you are about to scale the walls of Carthage, Rome’s great enemy, I want you to remember who you are. You are the oldest surviving son and namesake of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, twice consul, once censor, the conqueror of the Hispanic people, Rome’s greatest man. I, Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus and member of the oldest and most noble patrician family in Rome, married your father, a plebeian. To me, it mattered not that he was a plebeian, but that he was to be great. My only regret is that he did not live to see this day.

  “Now, your father gave me twelve children, Tiberius,” she said to him, “and only your sister, Sempronia, you, and your little brother, Gaius, have survived. It has been hard. Your sister has done her duty in marrying Scipio Aemilianus, and now it is your time. In the memory of your father and your lost siblings, you must abide by the Greek lesson that Polydius has taught you, that of the Spartan mother’s instruction to her son: ‘Come back with your shield or on it.’

  “Come,” she said, “embrace me, and go win honor.”

  Now, he awaited the order for the final assault. The engineers had switched loads for the mangonels, back to throwing heavy stones at the fortifications instead of the bundled firebrands. Great shards of stones cracked off parts of the walls from the constant pummeling by the machines, and the Carthaginians had to crouch low to try to avoid the heavy missiles. They, too, must know that the end loomed.

  Centurion Primus Manius Casca came striding up, a boulder of a man on a frame of average height. His helmet looked as though he’d propped it on top of his head, then used a rock to beat it down to fit. Hence, his cognomen Capito, big head. But he was as good a centurion as any Roman legion would know, with experience against the Macedonians and for the last three years, the Carthaginians. Although Fannius and Tiberius ranked Casca technically, they would never think to challenge him on the basic rules of combat.

  “Check your arms, again, boys. Don’t tighten your loricas too much, you’ve got to be able to move. And, if you didn’t do it last nig
ht, be sure to trim your beards tight. Don’t want any of those dog-loving, burnt-skinned pirates grabbing your whiskers to cut your throat. Your mother won’t like it, your head flopping around while you’re pounding away at her again, trying to get back into the womb.”

  The soldiers laughed, the younger ones nervously. “Remember, above all, be sure the stalks of your beautiful Hispanic flowers are sharp on both sides.” Casca pulled out his gladius spina, the long sword adopted by veterans after encountering them in Hispania long ago, and caressingly ran his finger down one edge, then the other. “Like I warned you last night, this battle won’t be won by pila, it’ll be close-in work, heads flying about, the sky and the sea turned red.” He caressed the blade of his sword again, looking at it fondly as he said, “My dear Hispanic gladiola is ready to sip the moisture of Rome’s enemies all the way to their taproots.”

  The veterans smiled, used to Casca’s constant reminders before a battle and the pun nickname he had for his sword.

  Later, Tiberius asked him quietly, “Soon?”

  Casca stepped closer to him, “I saw Scipio leaving his tent and head toward the line. The augurs were with him, carrying fowl. They’ll dispatch them quick, the auspices will be favorable, I’ll wager, and the consul will give the order. I’ve seen it a dozen times before. The gods always smile upon Scipio’s battles.”