Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven - Страница 122

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“I shall move on tomorrow, I promise.”

“Nonsense!” said Julia. “You can stay here for as long as you like.”

Lucius groaned inwardly, but Gaius spared him the awkwardness of objecting.

“Thank you, sister, but for my own safety I need to keep moving. As soon as I’m able, I must leave the city and get as far away from Italy as I can. If it weren’t for this damned ague, I’d be gone already. Sulla wants me dead.”

Lucius shook his head. “How did it come to this? In our grandfathers’ time, Gaius Gracchus was beheaded and his killer collected a bounty, and the bodies of the Gracchi were thrown in the Tiber, without proper burial, but decent Romans were outraged. Now scores of heads are added every day to the display on the Rostra, and men do nothing. The headless bodies of citizens are dumped in the river like refuse from the fish market, without a thought. Did you hear the latest outrage? Sulla disinterred and then deliberately desecrated the body of your uncle, Marius, the one man who might have stopped his madness. He cut the corpse into pieces and smeared it with feces, gouged the eyes from their sockets, and cut out the tongue. What an age we live in! Strong men no longer fear the gods. Wickedness has no limits.”

Gaius turned pale. “Is it true, about Marius? Would even Sulla commit such an abomination?”

“Everyone is whispering about it. Why shouldn’t it be true? Sulla will stop at nothing to punish his enemies. He tortures them while they live. Now he desecrates their corpses after they die.”

Gaius stared into his cup of broth. His expression was a blank, but Lucius knew that his brother-in-law was deep in thought. By nature, young Gaius was analytical and dispassionate. Brought low by sickness and finding himself in precarious circumstances, he nonetheless held his emotions in check. Lucius envied his self-control.

“You ask how it came to this, Lucius. You hint at the answer when you mention the Gracchi. In the days of our grandfathers, the destiny of Roma lay upon one of two paths-the way of the Gracchi, or the way of their enemies. Their enemies won. The wrong path was taken. Nothing has gone right since.

“Gaius Gracchus attempted to expand the rights of common citizens, and to extend those rights to our allies. His selfish, short-sighted enemies thwarted his legislation, but the problems arising from injustice and inequity didn’t go away. Instead, a long, bloody war erupted between us and our Italian allies. What the Gracchi might have accomplished peacefully was instead settled by bloodshed and brute force. What a waste!

“Because the Gracchi saw a better future, they were destroyed. Their enemies got away with murder, and ever since, men in power have never hesitated to use violence. When the Gracchi were killed, people were shocked to see Romans kill Romans. Now we’ve suffered a full-scale civil war, and a catastrophe that would have been unthinkable to our ancestors-a Roman army laid siege to Roma herself!”

In retrospect, the civil war of which Gaius spoke had perhaps been inevitable. Roma’s expanding foreign wars led to the mustering of ever-larger armies, and the acquisition of ever-greater wealth by her military commanders. An era of conquest had given rise to a generation of warlords whose power grew to exceed that of the Senate. Driven more by personal ambition and mutual suspicion than by politics, the warlords turned on one another. In the brief but ferocious civil war that resulted, it was Sulla, surviving his rivals Marius and Cinna, who emerged as the last man standing. Sulla had marched on Roma, laid siege to the city, and then forced the Senate to declare him dictator.

“Now the winner holds the city in his grip,” said Gaius. “He piously vows to restore the Republic and the lawful rule of the Senate, but not before he purges the state of all his enemies and potential enemies, and divides their property among his henchmen.”

Gaius lowered his eyes and gazed into the cup of broth. Because Marius had been his uncle, and because Gaius had recently married Cornelia, whose father Cinna had been another of Sulla’s rivals, he was certain to be counted among Sulla’s enemies.

“That such a monster should rule over us is proof of our decadence,” declared Julia. “The gods are angered. They punish us. In olden times, ‘dictator’ was a title of great honor and respect. Our ancestors were blessed to have a dictator like Cincinnatus, a man who rose up to save the state and then retired. After Sulla, ‘dictator’ shall forever be a dirty word.”

“A monster, as you say,” muttered Lucius, nervously gnawing at his thumbnail. “A madman! Do you remember when the first proscription list was posted? Men gathered at the posting wall to read the names. How shocked we were to see eighty names on the list-eighty! Eighty citizens stripped of all protection, eighty good Romans reduced to animals fit to be hunted down and slaughtered. We were outraged at Sulla’s impunity, appalled at such a number. And then, the next day, there was an addendum to the list-two hundred more names. And the next day, two hundred more! On the fourth day, Sulla made a speech about restoring law and order. Someone dared to ask him just how many men he intended to proscribe. His tone was almost apologetic, like a magistrate who’d fallen behind in his duties. ‘So far, I’ve proscribed as many enemies as I’ve been able to remember, but undoubtedly a few have escaped my recollection. I promise you, as soon as I can remember them, I’ll proscribe those men, as well.’”

“He was making a joke,” said Gaius ruefully. “You must admit, Sulla has a wicked wit.”

“He’s as mad as Cassandra!” said Lucius. “The killing never stops. Every day there’s a new list. And anyone who gives shelter to a proscribed man is automatically proscribed as well, even a man’s parents. The sons and grandsons of the proscribed are stripped of their citizenship and robbed of their property. It’s happening not just in Roma, but in cities all over Italy. Men are being murdered every minute of every day, and every killer is given a reward, even a slave who kills his master, even a son who kills his father. It’s madness-an insult to our ancestors, a crime against the gods.”

“It’s a way for Sulla and his friends to accumulate a vast amount of wealth,” said Gaius. “The first men on the list were genuine enemies, men who’d fought against him in the civil war. Then we began to see other names-Equestrians who’d never taken an interest in politics, or wealthy farmers who never even came to the city. Why were they proscribed? So that Sulla could seize their property. The state sells the goods at public auctions, but the dictator’s friends are the only men who dare to bid.”

“It’s as simple as that,” said Lucius. “Men are being murdered for their property.”

“Men are being murdered by their properties,” said Gaius. “I was down in Alba the other day. I rode by a beautiful country house with gardens and vineyards, and the fellow with me said, ‘That’s the estate that killed Quintus Aurelius.’”

Julia groaned. “Gaius, that isn’t funny!”

“Then I don’t suppose you’ll laugh when I tell you that men who’ve committed murder are arranging to have their victims inserted retroactively in the lists. They say Lucius Sergius Catilina pulled that off, after he murdered his brother-in-law. The killing was not only made legal, but Catilina received a bounty for it!”

The grim conversation lapsed for a while. Gaius drank more broth. Lucius pondered the untouched food before him. Julia finally spoke.

“Do you think we can take Sulla at his word, when he promises to lay down his dictatorship and retire to private life? He’ll do so in a year, he says, or at most two years.”

“We can only pray that he’s telling the truth,” said Lucius glumly.

“And what if he is?” said Gaius. “What will have changed, if Sulla steps down? Elections will resume, and the Senate will be in charge again-with all Marius’s men dead and Sulla’s men taking their places. But the state will still be crippled. The things that were broken before the civil war will still be broken, merely patched together with makeshift remedies. Gaius Gracchus, if he’d had the chance, might have sorted things out and breathed new life into the Republic; a petty, vindictive tyrant like Sulla is not the man to accomplish that. It will take someone else to save Roma, someone who can combine the political vision of the Gracchi, the military genius of Scipio Africanus, and a measure of Sulla’s ruthlessness, as well.”

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