sun had just come over the hill above Secunium. In that clear, soft light, the six old women took off their clothes before us, crying and snivelling in shame.
So, our families, our laws. Then, third, we Romans are bound by our gods. It’s hard for me to know what to say on this subject, because I no longer know what I believe. Bostar and I were discussing the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, Xenophanes of Colophon, a night or two ago after dinner.
‘If donkeys had gods, they would conceive of them as donkeys,’ Bostar said.
How right he is. Jupiter is merely a manifestation of anthropocentrism. Perhaps I am with Xenophanes a monist. I probably think that there are no gods. Is there, instead, a single, self-sufficient and eternal consciousness? And, if so, does that consciousness not govern through thought the universe, with which it is itself identical?
But I wouldn’t try this on Cato. It is for such beliefs, and others, that I have been tried. Cato and others of the reactionary brigade – I wish I could say old, but they are mostly young – really do, I think, believe in the Pantheon, in Mars and Mercury and Juno and Diana and all that lot. I remember the last opening of the Saturnalia I attended. Cato was doing the invocations on the Senate’s behalf. He went droning on, ‘per Iovem, per divos, per astra, agimus vobis gratias, quantas possumus maximas …’ as if his life depended on it. Perhaps it does. I remember thinking how hot it was, and wishing he’d get it over with.
Well, our Pantheon is simply the Greek one, however hard we try to pretend we’ve made it ours. It’s the one aspect of Greece that leaves me cold. I can’t accept those stories in Homer of the gods coming down to earth every ten minutes and meddling. A battle’s going on, and suddenly Athena or Ares or even Poseidon or someone’s right in the thick of it. Preposterous. At times, Homer even has the gods fighting each other. Greek gods are simply men with bells on.
No, by our gods I suppose I mean our religion. Our word religio means, after all, a non-material bond or restraint. I have no quarrel with such things. They are one of the glues that hold Romans together. The patricians like Cato may think themselves close to Olympus. But the gods and the religion of the people are much closer to home. Their gods lie in their hearths and hearts. Their gods are the Penates and the Lares, Vesta and the Manes. Such I understand.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pressed my chin down on my chest. I had seen the rape of Similce, Hannibal’s wife. I could bear to see no more. That memory engulfed me. I felt sick.
I heard the man dismount, smelt him come: sweat, garlic, wine. The pain when he jerked my head back by the hair was sharp. The dagger at my throat was cold. ‘Open your eyes, dickhead, or die.’ The leader’s voice was soft. I had seen and done enough with death. I wanted life. Or did I? Was a part of me willing to see more of the madness that can be man?
I opened my eyes slowly to the light. Of the six naked women standing in a huddle, some had crossed their arms to cover their breasts. The two at the front had their hands across their privates. Their breasts were shrivelled, flabby, old. All the women but Sulcipia were sobbing quietly with lowered heads.
‘Bring the rest of the village here too,’ the leader shouted.
Prodded by pila and swords, Sosius and the others, old men and young boys, soon formed another huddle near the women.
‘Right, lads, who’s first? Not exactly virgins, but a hole’s a hole, boys, a hole’s a hole!’
The six men who had dismounted shifted uneasily on their feet. The two on horseback looked at each other. Flies buzzed. No one moved. A small, blond-haired man with an enormous nose and a long, red scar across his forehead spoke. ‘After you, Tertio.’
Tertio took his dagger from my throat. ‘All right, matey. Come and hold this one. Make him watch.’ Scarface’s dagger was at my back.
Tertio moved forward, dropping his fur, then unbuckling his belt as he went.
Every Roman household, plebeian or patrician, has its shrines to the Penates and the Lares. The first are the guardian spirits of the family larder. Their name comes from penus for store-cupboard. In our house in Rome, their shrine was in an alcove down the passage leading to the kitchens. Its lamp never went out. The votive barley cakes were renewed each day.
That eternal light has never left me. In later life it stayed with me, burning on. Often as a child when I could not sleep I slipped out of bed, through the sleeping house and sat down in the passage before the shrine. The flickering lamplight cast shadows and gleams on the figures of the gods, two men crudely carved in ebony. I used to wonder why their wood was black. I came to see a balance in it, in the light and dark––
Yes, Aurio? What is it?
Lunch, master.
Goodness! Can it be that time already? Tell Mulca we’re on our way.
Shuffle, shuffle, then the softly closing door. I am fortunate in my servants, although I suppose by comparison with some masters they are fortunate in me. Cato, for example, prides himself on treating his slaves like dirt. As soon as they can no longer work, he kicks them out. So do many others. I don’t. I support my old slaves until they die.
I have been praised for this, and criticised. I am indifferent to both. Such kindness comes from my nature, and my upbringing. I was ten, perhaps eleven. School had been hard. I was tired, hungry. I was to dine with my father, who had important guests. He had sent his own body-slave, Festo, to help me dress. I was fidgety. When he slipped the pin of the brooch I was to wear through the fabric on my chest, he went too deep and pierced my skin. I howled and, without thinking, slapped Festo in the face. He ran from my room.
The dinner guests arrived. I was called. I remember long and heated conversations about things I didn’t understand. After the last course, before the wine was brought, my father looked across the room, caught my eye and nodded. I went to bed.
He woke me early in the morning. He held a strap in his hand. ‘I am going to beat you, Publius,’ he said quietly. ‘You must never, ever, strike a slave or servant. It demeans not only you, but also them. But before you learn your lesson, I want you to understand. Sit up and listen.’
I sat up, drew a blanket over my shoulders. My father sat on the end of my bed. Its leather thongs creaked. ‘You know, Publius, about the building of the Athenian Parthenon, and how every citizen of Athens contributed as best he could?’
‘Yes, Father,’ I said rather weakly, unsure where this was leading. But of course I remembered the stories of the building of the Parthenon. Only last year Rome had sent an embassy to Athens to see how it had been done.
‘Well,’ he went on, ‘when the building was finished, do you know what the Athenians did? They turned loose the mules that had worked the hardest. They declared them exempt from further service, and put them out to grass for the rest of their lives at public expense.’
‘Remember that, Publius, when next you’re angry with any living creature. Now, get up, and bend over the end of the bed.’
I did as I was told, and I have always remembered.
I never knew the name of the woman Tertio grabbed and threw down on the ground. He knelt on top of her, forcing her legs apart
