Our army was around fifty miles from Rome, and for the first thirty of those a company of men led by Nergal trailed us. In the end I halted and rode to meet them. I sent them back to camp, telling Nergal that their presence would only provoke the Romans into attacking them. Nergal was most unhappy, but reluctantly obeyed and so I was alone with Ajax. We rode at a leisurely pace, he on a brown mare with his cloak wrapped around him, me on Remus dressed in my armour, white crested helmet and white cloak.
‘He’s a fine horse, sir.’
‘His name is Remus.’
‘Ah, named after one of the founders of Rome. A fitting name.’
I patted Remus’ neck. ‘He is a trusty horse, though willful. Which land do you come from, Ajax?’
‘Greece, sir.’
‘Have you always been…’ I hesitated to finish the sentence.
‘A slave? Since I was five, sir.’
‘Where you captured in war?’
‘No, sir, sold by my parents.’
‘Sold by your parents?’
‘It is a common practice. The Romans like Greek slaves to work in their households. They believe we are more intelligent than other races, on account of the great philosophers and writers being in Greece in the time when Rome was but a small village. The Romans wish to be better then the Greeks, you see, and one way they can do that is to learn everything about Greece and the Greeks. Since my first arrival in Rome I was taught languages, the law and financial accounts. And now I help run my master’s household in Rome.’
‘Have you no wish to see your homeland again?’
‘I have seen it, sir, three times. My master owns property in Greece as well as in Italy, and his business interests have taken me to Athens twice and Corinth once. But I have no wish to live there. I find the people irksome, with their continual complaints about living under foreign rule and their longing for the Golden Age.’
‘What is that?’
‘Supposedly when every Greek was free and lived in prosperity. In reality, it was a time of constant war when cities were burned and people enslaved. One only has to read their histories to discover that this was so. At least Greece is peaceful now.’
‘But under a Roman yoke.’
He laughed. ‘All men live under some sort of yoke, sir, even kings and princes. The burden of wanting to be a great or just king, or the continual lust for glory. For the poor man, the yoke of filling the bellies of his wife and children with food can grind him into nothing. The yoke of Roman rule can be worn lightly enough.’
I thought about the thousands of slaves toiling under the lash in the fields or in the mines. No doubt they would have a different view.
We stopped for the night in a well-appointed inn by the side of the road, which had good stables, clean albeit sparse rooms and served simple food in large portions. Ajax paid for our rooms in advance, with an extra amount for the horses to be watered and fed and then groomed. He paid the innkeeper in gold coins from a large purse that was full of money. He spoke to the man, a portly middle-aged gentleman with ruddy cheeks and a bushy beard, as an equal, and to the man’s servants as a master.
We set off at mid-morning under an overcast sky. Remus had been cared for well, and I had to admit that it was nice to sleep in a bed again. Ajax informed me that we would be in Rome by the afternoon, and I felt a tingle of excitement in my stomach. As we got nearer the city the amount of traffic on the road increased. Carts overfilled with wares to sell in the markets, herds of cattle and goats being marshalled for sale and then slaughter, and groups of travellers on foot heading both east and west. Most paid us no heed as we rode on the verge by the side of the road, for Ajax’s horse had no iron shoes on its feet. We were just two more among the throng that was heading for the city. I rode bare headed that day, fastening my helmet to the saddle. Amid the bustle and chatter of a thousand voices, war and killing seemed far away.
We had travelled along a road that Ajax informed me was called the Via Salaria, which like all Roman roads was a masterpiece of engineering. As we neared the city itself I began to see more and more gateways either side of the road, each one set in an immaculate high, white stone wall and leading to a grand villa. Ajax told me that they were called pars urbana, where rich citizens sought quiet and refuge from the bustle and smells of Rome. He informed me that his master did not have such a residence, being content to have one house only, in Rome itself.
We entered the city through the Porta Collina, the so-called ‘hill gate’, a massive structure with two three-story gatehouses flanking the two wooden gates, which were studded with great iron spikes. The walls either side of the gates were thirty feet high and patrolled by legionaries. There were also soldiers at the gates, who cast a watchful eye over all who were entering and leaving the city. A centurion watched us as we ambled up to the gates and then passed by him, but though he frowned at my long hair he did not stop us. Ajax must have noticed my unease.
‘Have no fear, sir. Many different races come to Rome. For all they know, you might be a foreign merchant coming to the city to seal a deal.’
I carried only my sword for protection, no bow, and those who looked at me at all must have assumed that I was a foreign soldier of some sort. By the different skin colours on display and the languages I had heard on the road, I realised that Rome must contain a host of different races. There were dark-skinned Africans, Arabs in their flowing robes, Jews with straggly beards, and fair-skinned men and women who must have originated from north of the Alps. One thing was certain, a solitary Parthian would not stand out among this collection of various peoples.
‘Do they close the gates at night?’
‘They do, sir, though the city has grown considerably since the walls were first built, and now large sections of Rome lie outside of the walls. And now, sir, if you please, we must wait for our escort.’
‘Escort?’
‘Oh yes. Otherwise it would take forever to get to my master’s house.’
We waited for around ten minutes, and then a detachment of legionaries appeared. There were twenty of them, commanded by a burly centurion with a red crest atop his helmet and the ubiquitous vine cane in his right hand. He saluted Ajax stiffly, noted me and then barked orders at his men, who formed up either side and in front of us, with the centurion at the head.
‘We must be at my master’s house by noon, centurion. Our business is most important.’
We travelled through streets teeming with people and crammed full of shops, taverns and eating places. Most of the buildings were whitewashed multi-storey affairs, with shops and eating places on the ground floor and lodgings above them. The level of activity was frenetic, with thousands of citizens shouting, arguing, laughing and haggling at the tops of their voices. The soldiers pushed anyone in their way rudely aside, and the centurion would occasionally shout. ‘Make way, by order of General Marcus Licinius Crassus.’ This Crassus was a man of some importance, given that people did indeed move out of the way at the mere mention of his name. Our journey took us to a flat-topped hill with two separate peaks called, so Ajax informed me, the Palatium and the Ceramulus. The hill itself was called the Palatine and was home to General Crassus, and judging by the magnificent villas that adorned it was also home to Rome’s richest residents. Here there were no crowds or shops, just walled villas, immaculately kept roads and quiet. We halted in front of a pair of wooden gates set in a high stonewall at which the road we were on ended. Ajax dismissed the centurion, who marched away with his legionaries. We dismounted and Ajax knocked at one of the gates. A pair of eyes appeared at a peephole and seconds later the gates opened. We rode through them and into a large landscaped garden filled with exotic shrubs, trees and brightly coloured flowers. Gardeners were tending to flower beds while other slaves were feeding huge carp that swam in ornate ponds. It was truly a magnificent place, heavy with sweet scents, and would certainly rival our own royal gardens in Hatra. Two slaves took our horses (Ajax assured me that Remus would be well cared for — I did not doubt him), and then we walked along a path flanked by cypresses to the villa itself, which had a peristyle of white stone columns enclosing the interior of the building itself. A slave approached and bowed to Ajax.