While they waited, Cato moved behind Scipio, his face craggy and lined, dressed austerely in the old-style toga of his ancestors, looking disapprovingly at the cluster of bearded Greek teachers below the rostrum who were trying to keep a class of unruly young boys in order. As far as Fabius could tell, the only Greek whom Cato had ever really approved of was Polybius, and only then because Polybius was the foremost military historian of the day and one of Rome’s most vocal proponents, so much so that Cato himself had called for him formally to be released from his status as a captive and made a Roman citizen. Cato spoke close to Scipio’s ear, but Fabius overhead. ‘When I was your age I stood at this very spot, over fifty years ago when Hannibal had crossed the Alps with his elephants and was threatening Rome. Your father who stands beside us now was like one of those boys below, though back then we used battle-hardened centurions to show our boys how to be men, not these effeminate Greeks.’
‘You did well to support the academy, Cato,’ Scipio replied, cupping his hand towards the old man’s ear to make himself heard. ‘Those of us who attended will always be grateful. The centurion Petraeus taught us the mos maiorum, the ancestral ways.’
‘The academy was the idea of your adoptive grandfather, Scipio Africanus,’ Cato replied. ‘All I did was ensure that the boys of families who support our cause against Carthage were offered a place, and that the treasure from Scipio’s triumphs that he willed for the purpose was used to employ the best teachers in the art of war. But the academy is closed, and I fear will not reopen. All I see around me are senators who would appease and negotiate rather than prepare for war. Even some who support us have come to believe that with Macedonia now vanquished, Rome’s wars of conquest are at an end, that their future lies not in military glory but in the law courts and the Senate. We both know how wrong they are. Peace may lie ahead of us, but it will only be a transitory peace, a lull before the storm. Mark my words, Scipio.’
‘Those of us who have been through the academy will ensure that its ethos survives,’ Scipio replied earnestly. ‘You need have no fear.’
Cato looked towards Metellus and the other young officers strutting on the podium below. ‘I can remember what it was like to be your age with my first taste of battle, and to be itching to go again. For me there were fifteen years of hard campaigning ahead before Hannibal was finally defeated at Zama — all of the blood and glory that a young man could want. But for you the path to the next war is less certain, and you are burdened with expectations. You must not let that armour of Scipio Africanus weigh you down. One day you will earn it in your own right and stand where your father is standing now.’
‘If the gods will it, and the people of Rome.’
Cato pursed his lips. ‘The time will come when men will not just play out their ambitions against each other in the debating chamber but will seek recourse in intimidation and assassination. When that happens, the struggle for power will be long and bitter. Armies will be raised against each other, and there will be civil war. And when Rome rises again — if Rome rises again — she will no longer be a republic. The man who stands astride the new Rome will be the one who can cast aside the shackles of the past and see Rome for what she is: the core of a mighty empire, not some theatre play of intrigue and squabbling and lofty speeches in the Senate full of clever rhetoric that signifies nothing.’
Scipio turned to him. ‘But these shackles are the mos maiorum, the ancestral ways.’
‘The mos maiorum are honour and duty, not patronage and privilege bought with bribes and intrigue and dynastic marriages,’ Cato growled. ‘I am the staunchest Republican that Rome has ever known, but if she loses sight of the old ways I would rather she were ruled by one man who knows the mos maiorum than by the many who do not. That was the other reason why we set up the academy; it was not just about military training. It was about restoring honour and duty to those who would lead Rome, not just in war but also in peace.’ He looked towards Metellus and the other tribunes, his cheeks creased and his brow furrowed. ‘With some, with you and Ennius and Brutus, with the foreign allies Gulussa and Hippolyta, we have succeeded; with others I fear not. They are the dangerous ones, as dangerous to you as any foreign enemy, and you must watch them. I must leave now. I have one last role to play, in the last great triumph I shall witness in my lifetime.’
Scipio bowed towards him. ‘Ave atque vale, Marcus Porcius Cato. Until we meet again. I will remember your words.’
He turned towards his father, resplendent in his golden cuirass and plumed helmet, knowing that at this point in the triumph the son gave formal congratulations to his father. ‘Salutations, Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus,’ Scipio said, for the first time using the agnomen awarded to him that day for his defeat of the Macedonians. ‘No more glorious a triumph has ever been celebrated in Rome. Mars Ultor shines on you.’
By tradition the triumphator remained dignified and silent, presiding over the triumph like a god himself, but Aemilius Paullus allowed himself to turn and smile. ‘Mars Ultor shines over my son too for prowess in battle, and over all Rome this day. I will give thanks in the shrine of our ancestors in my house this evening when the games are over. Will you join me?’
Scipio raised his arm in salute so that all those around could see him honour his father, and he bowed his head. ‘I shall attend, Father. And then I will sacrifice at the lararium of my adoptive grandfather Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who watches your glory from Elysium.’
Aemilius Paullus bowed in turn, showing due respect to the revered memory of Scipio Africanus, and then turned back to stare at the Sacred Way through the Forum. Outside the Temple of Fortuna the priests were dedicating a statue of Athena by the venerated Greek sculptor Pheidias, raising it up in the temple precinct and then following it between the columns. Fabius watched the statue totter through, carried on a bier by captured Greek slaves, its golden helmet and vermilion chiton more vivid than the sombre colours of Roman sculpture. In all the temples of the Forum the gods and goddesses of Greece were being made subordinate to Rome, just as the houses of the wealthy had been filled with looted bronzes and paintings brought back by the officers of the legions who had fought in Macedonia, spoils of war that had been the right of victors since time immemorial.
But there was more to it than just loot. Aemilius Paullus had also commissioned the Greek artist Metrodorus to make paintings of the main events of the campaign, and had ordered them attached to the sides of the bullock carts full of treasure that had trundled through the Forum. Fabius knew from Polybius that Metrodorus had saved his crowning achievement to last, and it was coming towards them now, a towering structure covered in a shroud and carried on poles by Macedonian spearmen of the phalanx captured at Pydna. They set it down in the last remaining space beside the rostrum and then marched off towards the Field of Mars, the whips of the slave-masters cracking against their taut muscles and sending sharp reports through the still air of the Forum. Metrodoros himself appeared last in the procession, tall and bearded, bowing towards Aemilius Paullus and picking up a cord attached to the shroud that covered the structure. Trumpets suddenly blared from the steps of the Capitoline Temple behind them, a shrill blast that must have been audible all over the city. The crowd waited with bated breath, watching for Aemilius Paullus to give the signal. Scipio turned and whispered to Fabius. ‘It’s made of wood, but it’s the model for a stone monument that’s being set up at Delphi in Greece outside the Temple of Apollo. When my father travelled there after Pydna he found a half-finished monument like this that had been commissioned by King Perseus before his defeat, and it seemed only fitting that the victor should complete it with his own embellishments on top.’