language. Familia means not just immediate family but the entire extended household, including slaves: the word comes from famulus, slave. A paternal uncle, patruus, is only pater, father, with a different suffix. Our words ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandchild’ are almost the same as those for maternal uncle and niece. I knew my paternal uncle’s wife, Julia, as ‘amita’, the same kind of word as ‘mummy’ or ‘nanny’. My mother’s sister, Antonia, I knew as ‘matertera’, in effect ‘mother’. All my maternal cousins were – and some still are – sobrini or consobrini, obviously connected with soror, sister––
All right, Bostar, I heard that. The cough again. You think I should be dictating my memoir, not a treatise on linguistics. What is my point? That Hannibal was fighting not individuals but members of a gens and then, too, members of a familia. In killing one member, he drew on himself the vengeance of the rest. Hannibal would not have won so long as one Roman remained alive. It was through ties of blood that Rome fought on. This point may be over-didactic. But it is true.
Not only that. There is an extraordinary stubbornness about these people – but that is not the word. It is more than that, the quality I mean. It is a capacity to endure, always to go on. Any other people would have surrendered after Cannae. But when news of the disaster reached the Roman Senate, the praetor mounted the rostra in the Forum to tell the people and ‘Pugna magna victi sumus’ was all he said. ‘We have been defeated in a great battle’ – that and nothing more.
There cannot have been in all of Italy someone who had not lost a father, husband, cousin, friend. Yet the Senate declared a prohibition on mourning – which was, of course, obeyed – and raised new legions. When we heard they were made up of slaves, Hannibal laughed. What we didn’t understand was that, as Scipio has just observed (actually, my cough this time was genuine), these were not slaves as Carthaginians know them. These were all members of a familia. They may not have been free, but they belonged. They didn’t fight for their freedom, granted. That didn’t matter. They fought for Rome. Those who were not slaves were men like Sosius.
He and I were hoeing, again. He worked hard, despite his lack of thumbs. He had been telling me, matter-of-fact, of all that he and his village had suffered in the war. ‘But why did you put up with all this?’ I asked him. ‘Why didn’t you just give up and go away?’
Sosius straightened, squinted in the sun. With the back of his hand, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. ‘Teacher, we are born to this, born to fight for Rome. My father fought in the first war against Carthage. My uncle was killed in the battle of Ausculum, trampled by one of Pyrrhus’ elephants. His people almost starved.’ Sosius kicked a clod of earth. Disturbed, the ants underneath it scurried away.
‘My father’s favourite story, Teacher, was about a Bruttian peasant, much like him or me. His wife died in childbirth. His sons were killed in Gaul. His crops were ruined by a freak hail storm. Then, to crown it all, his hut caught fire and burned to the ground. When he saw the smouldering remains, he fell to his knees and raised his eyes to heaven. “Jupiter, Jupiter, why me?” he called out. “Why me?”
‘Well, there was a flash of lightning and Jupiter appeared from a cloud. He looked down on the terrified man and said, “Because I’ve never really liked you.”
‘I suppose, Teacher, that’s why we’ve kept on.’ He looked up at the sun. ‘Come on, another hour to go.’
Underpinning all, we Romans have the law, under which even I have just been tried. Plebeian or patrician, we are all equal before the law and for us the law lies in the Twelve Tables. Inscribed on sheets of bronze, they stand in the Forum, where everyone can see them. When Rome was burnt by the Gauls two hundred years ago, the first thing the Senate did was replace the Twelve Tables. They are Rome’s soul.
Like every Roman child, I had when I was eight to learn them by heart. ‘I am your fabrus, your blacksmith,’ my father told me, ‘and the first thing I want you to understand is the law.’
I found the learning easy. ‘Si in ius vocat ito, ni it antestamino, igitur em capito: if a man calls another to court, he must go; if he does not, call him as witness, and thus seize him. If a patron commits fraud on a client, let him be sacer – sacred, accused, outside the law …’ The laws, after all, seemed to me to be common sense. But then I suppose one of my grandmother’s favourite sayings is right: ‘There’s one thing about common sense, it just isn’t common.’
I heard the drumming of the horses’ hooves, pulsing through the earth. I was awake and up and out. In the half-light, I saw them come, nine horsemen, bearded, wrapped in furs and armed. Mine was the nearest hut. I stood outside.
A pilum thudded into the ground at my feet. ‘Stay where you are!’ came a voice, and the first of them was upon me, his bay stallion rearing, phlegm from its snorting landing on my chest. The rider was tall. He wore a Gaulish helmet and, under his furs, a leather jerkin. He carried a sword and a battle-axe. His cheekbones were pocked. I can still remember his rank, sweat-soaked smell.
The nine formed round me in a semi-circle. ‘Move and you’re dead,’ the tall one growled. ‘How many of you are there here?’ I couldn’t place his accent. Ligurian?
‘Perhaps thirty,’ I said clearly.
‘Any women?’
‘Some, but …’ The tall one gestured with his head. Three of them turned their horses. I heard them canter down the street.
‘But, bastard? But what?’ and suddenly his horse was forward, his sword-point at my neck.
‘But they’re old,’ I said very slowly.
He guffawed. ‘We’ll see if they’re too old for us!’ The other five joined in their leader’s laugh.
A jab with the sword. ‘Any gold, silver?’
‘No. This is a poor place. See for yourselves.’
The sword was dropped. The leader turned. In the growing light, he surveyed Secunium, its shabby huts, its dozy, skulking dogs.
‘It may or may not be poor, but it sure stinks.’ Another gesture of the head. Three more rode off. I stood still. The man to the leader’s left, swarthy, dark-skinned, took out a flagon, drank, belched and passed it on.
It wasn’t long before the first three came back. Stumbling up the street in front of them were Sosius’ wife, Sulcipia, and five other old crones. ‘Is that the lot?’ the leader asked.
‘’Fraid so,’ one of the three replied.
‘Not even any girls?’
‘No.’
‘Damn. I like ’em young. And we haven’t had a virgin for bloody ages. Oh well, we’ll see what we’ve got, eh, lads!’ Again, that barking guffaw. ‘Right, you lot,’ he said to the women, ‘Strip!’ Sulcipia wailed.
