“I hardly knew them,” my master replied, and there is no way to convey the amount of sadness and pain those words carried. Looking down at the woman, he said, “Thank you for telling me and for your. . kindness. Were our accounts with you in order? Is there anything that we owe you?”
She shook her head, saying that everything that had been owed was paid. With that, he turned away and walked past me to his horse, leaping astride it and gathering up the reins.
“Goodbye,” was the last thing he said to the woman, leaving her standing there as I trailed behind him.
We rode in silence, retracing our route out of the city, the streets even more deserted than when we came, the sound of our horses’ hooves echoing off the buildings. We exited by the same gate. Fortunately, the guards did not make any comment at our departure, for I believe they would have died if they had. Under normal circumstances, we should have been finding a place to sleep for the night, but I suspected that there would be no sleep for us this night.
A third of a watch passed, then two, and finally I could take it no longer. “Master, is there anything I can do?”
He did not answer for several moments, then finally he replied, “Yes. You'll never talk about what you saw back there. And I'll never speak of it again. My wife, my son, and my daughter are dead. There's nothing I can do to change that and there's no point in dwelling on it. This is the last I'll ever talk about them.”
And he was true to his word. After that night, I never heard him speak of his family again.
Chapter 8- Triumph
I have little recollection of the journey back to Rome, and I doubt I would have made it if Diocles had not been with me. We returned to the army, camped on the Campus Martius, where the men were readying themselves for the first of four triumphs that Caesar planned for Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa. While the 10th would march in three of the four because of my time with the 6th, I would be marching in all four, meaning that Diocles was kept busy, making sure all of my uniforms and decorations were in order. The men were understandably in a state of high excitement, a state that I could not share, though I did try. Here I was finally at the gates of the city that I had dreamed of seeing all of my life, yet I saw none of the color and vibrant life that flowed in and out of the city all day. Finally, Scribonius showed up at my tent one morning after formation, informing me that he was taking me on a tour of the city, brushing aside my protests about paperwork. Entering the city was like entering another world, a place of constant noise and movement, full of people of all colors and sizes, every one of them seeming to be in an incredible hurry as they conducted what was obviously very important business. I had never seen so many slaves in one place before, and they were as varied as the freedmen walking about, each slave wearing the bronze placard around their neck that proclaimed to whom they belonged. The streets were positively jammed with humanity, the smell indescribable, a mixture of humans, animals, and the aromas of baking bread, spices, and the gods only know what else. It was all a bit overwhelming, but it was at least nice to tower above most of the people so that I could look around and take in the sights.
“Well, what do you think? Is it everything you thought it would be?”
I was not sure if I should be polite, since this was Scribonius’ city, or be honest. I opted for the latter. “It’s the dirtiest place I’ve ever seen. And it’s a lot more cramped than Alexandria.”
If Scribonius was disappointed or insulted, he did not show it. He just laughed. “It is that,” he agreed, taking my elbow to point me down another street.
One of the things I found so disconcerting about the city was the seemingly haphazard way that the streets seemed to run, with no discernible pattern to them. I realized that the time I had spent in Alexandria, with its wide, ordered streets laid out in a grid, had set an expectation that Rome would be the same, yet it was not. Because we had come from the Campus Martius, the first great structure we encountered was Pompey’s Theater, and despite vowing to myself that I would not act like a country bumpkin, I found myself standing there gaping at the sheer size and opulence of the place. It was a massive semicircular structure, with the stage positioned at the bottom of the semicircle. Scribonius told me that it had been built and dedicated while we were fighting in Gaul, during Pompey’s second Consulship, and it had caused some controversy because building such a large theater as a monument to himself was considered sacrilegious. Therefore, to avoid censure by the Senate he erected a small temple to Venus Victorious at the top of the theater, looking down at the stage. He was not so concerned that he did not have a huge statue of himself erected and placed in the main entry hall so that all who entered had to pass literally under his feet. Of course, it was at Pompey’s feet that Caesar was to be murdered, but we were happily unaware of what was to transpire. Leaving the theater, we headed to the Forum being built by Caesar, called appropriately the Forum Julii, to look at the temple to Venus Genetrix, the goddess from whom the Julii were descended, which was basically completed and awaiting consecration. This was going to take place during the first triumphal parade in just a matter of a couple days. The building was under guard, but since it was being watched by men of the 10th, they did not hesitate letting their Primus Pilus and Secundus Pilus Prior enter the temple, as Scribonius and I looked at each other, smiling like schoolboys who have managed to avoid classes that day. The temple had several alcoves, almost all of them empty at that moment, which would hold some of the booty taken by Caesar during his military campaigns, but only after they were paraded before the people of Rome as proof of all that Caesar had conquered.
As we looked around, Scribonius said something that had been rattling around in my own head, yet I had not wanted to say aloud. “You know, this temple belongs just as much to us as it does to Caesar and the Julii.” Scribonius said this quietly enough, but I still caught myself looking guiltily about to see if there was anyone there to listen.
Fortunately, the temple was empty except for us.
“That may be true, but that’s not something you want to say very loudly,” I replied. “Still, you’re right. But it belongs more to the men who won’t be marching with us than anyone.”
“Like Romulus and Remus,” Scribonius whispered.
“And Calienus,” I added, feeling a sharp stab of grief at the thought of our old Sergeant, which was immediately followed by a vision of a woman with flame-red hair, holding a baby on her hip.
I was horrified to feel tears start to fill my eyes, but if Scribonius saw, he had the good grace and sense to say nothing about it.
“So many of us gone,” he said sadly, then we said nothing for several moments, each lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, I shook myself and said that we had more to see, so we left the temple, the guards at the entrance saluting us as we departed.
~ ~ ~ ~
By the end of the day, I was feeling dizzy and wanted nothing more than to return to the relative quiet and routine of the camp. To my ordered military mind, Rome was nothing but chaos and disorder, a maelstrom of sights, sounds, and smells that threatened to overwhelm me. While Alexandria is similar in population size to Rome, the Egyptian city is much more spread out, due mainly to the lack of hills to enclose the space in the same manner as Rome. We walked through every area of the city, save one, the Palatine, and although I wanted to go see where the rich folks lived, Scribonius refused to take me. At first he gave the excuse, plausible enough I suppose, that the sight of two men of the 10th Legion would not be welcome after what our men had done to the area, but it did not take me long to recognize that this was merely an excuse. Scribonius’ reluctance was from some other cause, yet try as I might, I could not pry from him what it was, so I finally just gave up, much to his relief. We did go into the Subura, and I refused to believe that this was where Caesar had grown up, because it is one of the filthiest, dingiest places I have ever seen in my life. I could just not imagine that a man as high born as Caesar would have ever walked through the place, let alone live there.