Roma - Saylor Steven - Страница 92
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Watching this raucous buffoonery, Kaeso heaved a deep sigh and felt himself slowly relax. How much more at home he felt here than in the house of Maximus! Kaeso’s eye fell on one of the younger actors, a newcomer with chiseled features and long blond hair. The youth reminded him a little of Scipio.
“I can’t blame you for staring at the Greek boy,” said Plautus in his ear, “but the fellow we need to impress this evening is the one sitting over there, wearing the very expensive-looking toga.”
“Who is he?”
“None other than Tiberius Gracchus, scion of a very wealthy plebeian family. He’s been elected curule aedile, so he’ll been putting on the annual Roman Games coming up in September. Along with the religious procession and the Feast of Jupiter, and the chariot races and boxing matches, there will of course be a day of comedies to entertain the masses. As Gracchus is footing the bill, and because he’s an aficionado of the theater, he’s taken a personal interest in picking the program.”
“I presume you’ve submitted a script for his approval?”
“Yes, indeed—a thigh-slapper I call The Swaggering Soldier. Adapted from a Greek original, as is the fashion, but I think I’ve managed to give the material a decidedly Roman twist. Gracchus came here tonight to return the script and give me his comments.”
“And?”
“He loves it! Said he fell off his couch laughing. He sees the buffoonish woman-chaser of the title as a lampoon on our bellicose consul Varro; says the play is both timely and hilarious. A good thing, since I’m asking a bigger fee for this production than I’ve ever dared ask before.”
“Your work is worth it, Plautus. You have the best actors of any troupe in the city, and you write the wittiest dialogue of any playwright alive. What Ennius is to poetry, you are to comedy.”
Plautus rolled his eyes heavenward. “And to think, I was raised a poor country boy in Umbria. Had to make my living as a baker when I first came to Roma; thought I’d never get the flour out of my hair. For years, I was just another starry-eyed, would-be actor with a funny stage name—yes, they called me Plautus on account of my flat feet, but I figured it was a name no one would forget. But Fortuna’s wheel turns round and round, and Plautus the clown is the best playwright in town. Boss, you make me blush.”
“Don’t call me that!”
They were both distracted by a sudden crash. The juggler had dropped everything at once. The lamp shattered against a wall. The cup skittered across the floor. The copper brooch struck one of the actors in the forehead. The fellow jumped to his feet and lunged at the juggler, fists flailing. The flute player trilled a shrill, discordant tune, as if to encourage them. Plautus hurried to break up the fight.
Kaeso heard a chuckle behind him. “I saw that coming! Got out of the way just in time. You’re Kaeso Fabius Dorso, I believe.”
Kaeso turned. “Yes. And you’re Tiberius Gracchus.”
“I am.” It was hard to judge the man’s age. His hair was turning silver at the temples, but his sunburned skin had few wrinkles. He had a powerful jaw and strong cheekbones, but the ruggedness of his features was softened by a mischievous glint of amusement in his gray eyes. If he was drunk, he didn’t show it. He carried himself with a graceful dignity that seemed entirely natural.
Kaeso and Gracchus conversed. Gracchus did much of the talking, mostly about the challenges of mounting the Roman Games and the fine work Plautus had done on The Swaggering Soldier. Gracchus had a remarkable memory. He recounted long stretches of dialogue verbatim, and his deadpan delivery make Kaeso laugh out loud. There was no talk of Hannibal or duty or death. Such weighty topics would have seemed out of place in the house of Plautus.
After a while, Kaeso’s eyes fell upon the young newcomer he had noticed before. The Greek youth smiled back at him.
“I believe his name is Hilarion,” said Gracchus, following Kaeso’s gaze.
“Is it?”
“Yes. Hilarion means ‘cheerful’ in Greek. The name fits him. Why don’t you try your chances with the boy tonight, before everyone else has him?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Kaeso.
Gracchus smiled knowingly. “Sporting with catamites was not the sort of thing our staid ancestors approved of, although I suspect they did their share of such things, whether it was spoken of, or not. Nor, I daresay, would your staid cousin Maximus approve even nowadays. But we live in a new age, Kaeso. We inhabit a much bigger world than did our ancestors—a bigger world than men like Maximus have eyes to see. The Spartans, who are renowned as great warriors, consider nothing more manly than the love of two soldiers; on her wedding night, a Spartan woman must cut her hair and put on a boy’s tunic, to coax the groom into desiring her. The Athenians put the love of an older man and a younger man at the very center of their philosophy. Carthaginian generals make love to their young officers before allowing them to marry their daughters. Jupiter had his Ganymede, Hercules his Hylas, Achilles his Patroclus, Alexander his Hephaestion—or perhaps it was the other way around, as Alexander was the younger partner. Nature gives us appetites; appetites must be fed. If your eye should fall on a handsome and available Greek slave, why not do something about it? So long as you maintain the dominant role, of course. The Roman male must always dominate.”
Kaeso nodded. The wine was hot in his veins. He gazed at the long-haired Greek youth and allowed himself to feel desire, but in his heart he longed for Scipio.
The midsummer month of Sextilis brought sweltering weather to Roma. Everyone complained of the heat; people grew listless and short-tempered. A stifling haze settled over the city, and with it an atmosphere of tension and foreboding.
Each day, the Forum was filled with people seeking news of the war, and the news was always the same: the Roman consuls and Hannibal were shadowing one another across Italy as each side maneuvered to engage in battle at the most opportune place. It was only a matter of time; the longed-for confrontation would take place any day now.
Kaeso was limping across the Forum, happily whistling a tune after an evening of pleasure at Plautus’s house, on the day the terrible news arrived.
Near the Temple of Vesta, a weeping woman ran across his path. Then he came upon two elderly senators in togas. At first he thought they were arguing, for one of them was shouting at the other.
“All of them?” The man said. “How is that possible? I don’t believe you!”
“Then don’t,” said the other. “The news is not official. There is no official news, since no officers survived to send word back to Roma!”
“It can’t be true, it simply can’t!”
Kaeso felt a prickling across the back of his neck. “What news?”
The senators looked at him with ashen faces. “Utter disaster!” said the quieter one. “Varro and Paullus met Hannibal at a place called Cannae, near the Adriatic coast. Somehow the Romans became encircled. The entire army was annihilated. Varro’s fate is unknown, but Paullus is dead, along with most of the Senate.”
“How do you know this?”
“A few survivors came straggling into the Forum this morning. Each tells the same story. A complete massacre! The largest army ever assembled—obliterated! The worst day in the history of Roma—even the capture of the city by the Gauls was not as bad as this. And there’s nothing to stop Hannibal from doing just as the Gauls did, marching on the city and burning it to the ground. There’s no one to stand in his way. There’s no Roman army left!”
“It can’t be as bad as that,” said Kaeso, shaking his head.
But it was.
Hannibal’s victory at Cannae was overwhelming. On the second day of the month of Sextilis, more than seventy thousand Romans perished, and ten thousand were taken prisoner. A mere thirty-five hundred escaped, and many of those were wounded. The magnitude of the loss was far beyond anything the Romans had ever experienced.
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