SPQR IX: The Princess and the Pirates Page 13

  I dipped the seedcake in honey. “Politics consists of a constant rearrangement of support and power blocs, as each of the great families seeks to place as many of its own members and supporters in high public office as it can. Yesterday’s deadly enemy becomes today’s staunch ally. An exile voted by an indignant Senate may be rescinded by a friendly tribune passing a law in the Plebeian Assembly.”

  She shook her head. “It sound like anarchy. It’s political chaos.” “It can be confusing, but it works well for us. For instance, the nearest naval base is at Tarsus. The commander there is Scaevola, and he is a supporter of Pompey, who detests the Metelli. If I were to send that letter under my own seal, he’d put it on the slowest scow on the sea.

  “I would send the letter to Cicero to read to the Senate. Cicero has always been friendly with me and usually with my family as well. He once attacked Gabinius in a lawsuit. As I recall, he characterized Gabinius as ‘a prancing, effeminate dancing boy in hair curlers.’”

  “That is difficult to imagine,” she replied.

  “Nothing is too scurilous in a Roman lawsuit. A few years later, he ably defended Gabinius in a lawsuit for extortion; but Cicero was no longer so popular in Rome, and Gabinius was exiled. Gabinius is a strong supporter of Caesar though. So when Caesar returns from Gaul, he will have Gabinius recalled and restored to all his honors. This sort of thing happens all the time.”

  She sipped at her wine and said nothing for a while, then declared, “You people are insane. That is no way to run a petty city-state, much less a great empire. Can you really administer anything on a basis of friendships and feuds and temporary pacts of assistance between families and individuals? Can anything of importance be decided when four separate assemblies have to take a vote? When one consul can overrule the other and a decision of the Senate can be blocked by the veto of a single tribune? It is madness!”

  “We’ve done rather well with it,” I said, with some complacency. “We control most of the world and are quickly expanding into the rest of it. Our system may lack the orderliness of a monarchy with a king and a hereditary nobility, but it spares us the government of pedigreed imbeciles. In Rome any man of great will and ability can shape the destiny of the world.”

  My confident words were purely for her benefit. The sad fact was that our rickety old Republic was fast coming apart. It was being destroyed by self-seeking megalomaniacs like Caesar, Pompey, and Gabinius, and, I hate to admit, by reactionary, aristocratic families like my own. We thought ourselves conservative because we steered a moderate course between the would-be Alexanders, but our maneuverings always had the goal of expanding our own clientage, holdings, and influence.

  “Rome may be master of the world,” she said, “but soon one of your great men must make himself master of Rome. There can be no other outcome.”

  The coming years were to prove her words prophetic.

  THAT NIGHT A DREAM CAME TO ME. MOST people make far too much of dreams, attaching vast import to the most banal reflections of everyday cares, woes, and ambitions. I do not believe that the gods often put themselves to the trouble of sending prophetic visions to individuals, and it is usually a mark of vanity to believe oneself the frequent recipient of such divine messages. When the gods wish to communicate with us, they speak to the entire community; and they do so through the medium of thunder and lightning, the flights of birds, and signs put in the heavens. We have officials and priests whose task it is to interpret such omens.

  Personally, I have never believed that the entrails of sacrificial animals have anything to do with it. That is mere Etruscan superstition.

  Nevertheless, upon very special occasions, I experience a dream vision so remarkable that I think it must be sent by some divine agency, although perhaps not by a true Olympian. My vanity is not that great. Each of us, man or woman, is born with an attendant genius. These spirits watch over us and inspire us throughout life. It may be that they are in contact with other, equally supernatural beings and are able, at times of great import in our lives, to pass on messages from a world invisible to us.

  However, it is the custom of the immortals to speak in signs, riddles, and conundrums when communicating with mortals; and so it was this time. For what it is worth, this was my dream.

  I opened my eyes as from a deep sleep and discovered myself to be surrounded by clouds. In an instant I broke free of the clouds and saw below me a mass of brown and green surrounded by a deep blue-green. At first I could make no sense of what I was seeing. Then it came to me that I was gazing upon a great island lying in the sea. This, I understood, must be how the world looks to a soaring eagle. In the manner of dreams the great height at which I hovered did not alarm me, nor did it occur to me to wonder how I could be flying in the first place. Dreams take place in another world in which there is no past leading to the events we experience there.

  I flew down toward the island (somehow I knew how to do this) and began to see details that had been invisible from higher up: ships upon the sea looking like children’s toys, jewel-like towns with white walls and red roofs, and cattle no larger than ants grazing the hillsides.

  I began to circle the island and, as I did, saw a disturbance in the wine dark sea perhaps a legionary mile offshore (distances are hard to judge when one is flying). There arose a great boiling and foaming, as if a volcano were erupting far below. The foam rose into a tower and began to take human shape. Soon there stood, larger than the greatest colossus, the form of a beautiful woman. She was, of course, the goddess Venus (well, Aphrodite, to be precise). She was still composed of semitransparent foam, for which I was grateful. To behold a real goddess would have blasted me to vapor even in my dream state. Such sights are not for mortals. I felt no fear but rather experienced awe of a purity I have seldom known in my long life.

  Like a great cloud in motion, she strode across the waves, her feet indenting the water as if she walked upon a blue-green mantle thrown across a bed filled with the finest down. When she reached the coast, I expected to see great activity from the tiny towns: people rushing to see, songs of praise ringing out, a great stoking of altar fires. But I detected no reaction from the minute inhabitants of this place. They did not see her.

  With a graceful gesture the goddess beckoned to me, and I followed her. Along the coastline of the island we went, passing many small coves, some of them lively with small fishing craft, some deserted. I was no longer at eagle-soaring height, though I was well above the tallest trees on the shore. I felt now more like a cruising gull, but that was because I was over water. As an attendant of Aphrodite, I suppose I was a dove, that bird being sacred to her.

  We came to a part of the island that was different from the rest. A great district was denuded of trees, its soil gouged away into deep pits. Everywhere I saw columns of smoke rising to the heavens, as if a hundred farmsteads were burning.

  The goddess arose from the sea and began to walk over the island, her toes just touching the crests of the hills as she strode inland. I followed, flying at the level of her perfect waist.

  Inland the devastation was enormous. Whole hillsides and valleys were reduced to bare dirt and rock, furrowed with erosion, the stream muddy and foul. Everywhere the pits and tunnels made the island leprous. Gradually, light faded from the sky, and from the base of every column of smoke there came a sullen, red glow, as of a fire burning night and day.

  We came to the other side of the island, and it was dawn again. The night had passed with the magical swiftness of dreams. The goddess walked out upon the waves once more. Below me the coastline was green and beautiful. Here no unnatural despoliation blighted the landscape, and all was serene perfection.

  Aphrodite (if it truly was she and not some phantom in her shape) turned a last time and regarded me with a look of great sadness upon her wonderful features. Then she began to lose shape, to collapse in upon herself, returning to the sea until she was no more than scattered streaks of white atop the waves.

  THE NEXT MORNIN
G I WENT ABOUT IN A daze. The dream did not fade from memory as most of mine do but rather stayed sharp in all its details, and I had no doubt that it was a vision of utmost significance. But what did it mean? There are those who interpret dreams as a profession, but I had always doubted their gifts. In any case I felt that the goddess had not spoken to me in riddles, but rather had shown me some real thing, though whether this was a reflection of the present or a prophecy of the future I did not know.

  Leaving Hermes in the house to relay any messages from the naval base, I walked out into the town. The hour was early, but already it was abuzz with news of the murder. People eyed me warily, perhaps expecting some sort of violent vengeance from Rome, but I paid them no attention. For once my political and street senses were in abeyance. I had my mind on higher matters. Almost without conscious volition, my steps took me back to the Temple of Aphrodite.

  “Senator!” The priestess lone regarded me with some surprise. “You are back so soon?” She was supervising a bevy of her ever-charming acolytes who were hanging enormous, colorful wreaths all over the temple and its grounds.

  “I hate to bother you when you are so busy preparing for the festival,” I said to her. “But last night I believe your goddess sent me a vision.” I added hastily, “Please, I am not the sort of person who has visions all the time. Quite the contrary in fact. That is why I hope you might be able to help me.”

  “Surely,” she said, as if this were the sort of request she received every day. Maybe it was. She issued instructions to the white-robed women and asked me to accompany her. We went to a secluded part of the garden surrounded by a high hedge, its open side over looking the sea. I sat beside her on a marble bench supported by carved dolphins and told her of my dream. She followed this recitation with a look of deep seriousness, saying nothing until I was finished.

  “This is most unusual,” she said, when I was done. “Aphrodite very often appears in dreams. Most often it is because the dreamers are troubled in matters of love or fearful of barrenness or the dangers of childbirth. She has dominion over all these things. Here on Cyprus and some of the other islands she guides the thoughts and decisions of seafarers as well. What you saw in your dream is most uncharacteristic.”

  “Then perhaps it was merely a reflection of my own worries and the goddess had nothing to do with it,” I said, almost relieved.

  “No, what you saw was a true vision. I know this. Her appeararance as sea foam means she was Aphrodite of Paphos and no other.”

  “But what can it mean?”

  “Do you have your purse with you, Senator?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “Then take out the smallest coin you have.”

  Mystified, I took the marsupium from beneath my tunic and rummaged through it. I drew forth a copper coin, the smallest minted in Rome. It bore the image of an augur from a previous generation, indifferently struck. I handed it to her, and she weighed it in her palm.

  “What do you call the metal this coin is made of?”

  “The Latin word is aes,” I answered.

  “And what is it called in Greek?”

  I thought for a moment. “Kyprios.” Then I made the connection. “It means ‘Cyprian,’ doesn’t it?” And then it struck me that, in poems, Aphrodite is often called “the Cyprian.”

  “Exactly. Copper has been mined on this island since the days of the pharaohs. The copper mines of Cyprus have been the wealth of the island, as the silver mines of Laurium were the wealth of Athens. What the goddess showed you in your dream is the result of more than two thousand years of copper mining. The land is ravaged, its soil destroyed by digging and erosion, its timber harvested for wood to smelt the ore.”

  “How much of the island is ruined?” I asked her.

  “Most of it,” she said sadly. “What seems so fair from offshore is a wasteland just a short walk inland. This island has enriched pharaohs and Great Kings and Macedonian conquerors and now, it seems, it is to enrich Rome. But I do not think that if Aphrodite were to choose a home now, she would pick Cyprus.”

  I was shocked and saddened. If there is one thing that is sure to enrage an Italian, it is the destruction of productive land. We treat other people with great brutality at times, but we always respect and honor land. At heart we are all still small landholders, tending our few acres of field and orchard.

  “Why did she reveal this to me?” I asked. “Surely there is nothing I can do about the ruination of her home.”

  “Someday you may be able to,” she said. You are Roman, of a great family, and destined to hold high office. People say that Romans can do anything—that you divert rivers to serve your purposes, drain swamps to make new farmland, create harbors where there is only exposed shoreline. Perhaps such a people can restore Cyprus to the garden it once was.”

  “We admit to few limitations,” I agreed. “It would be an intriguing project.” I would never admit to her that anything lay beyond the powers of Roman genius. “When I return to Rome I will speak to the College of Pontifices. Caesar is Pontifex Maximus, and he is fond of undertaking projects in the name of Venus, since she is the ancestress of his house. Venus, or Aphrodite, was the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who fled the burning city and settled in Italy. The Julian gens trace their descent from his son, Julus.”

  “I see. He is busy in Gaul, is he not?”

  “Yes, but soon he will return to Rome. He will be incomparably rich and ready to undertake all sorts of extravagant things. That is his style. My wife is his niece.”

  “Ah, then there was good reason for Aphrodite to make her wishes known to you. Rome is the new master of Cyprus, you have a great future ahead of you as a Roman statesman, and you are related by marriage to the most glorious Roman of the age, who, it seems, is her many times great grandchild.”

  It always annoyed me when people spoke as if Caesar were the greatest man in Rome, but that was how he publicized himself so I suppose it was excusable.

  I took my leave of lone with many thanks and a gift for the temple. I fully intended to carry out my promise to approach the pontifices, whose pronouncements the Senate would follow, as soon as I returned to Rome.

  It is not every day a goddess visits you and makes her wishes known.

  8

  BY MID AFTERNOON THE TOWN WAS IN full uproar for Silvanus’s funeral. The house slaves were out in the plaza between the governor’s mansion and the Temple of Poseidon, wailing fit to terrify an invading army. With military thoroughness, Gabinius had organized the whole affair. Carpenters were hammering away, erecting temporary stands for the local notables, men were roping off an area for the common spectators, women were bringing in heaps of flowers, and a funeral pyre of expensive, fragrant woods was being stacked in the center of the open area.

  I thought it was clever of Gabinius to make such a show of it. Surely, whatever the state of anti-Roman sentiment, nobody would start a riot amid such solemnities. Everyone loves a good funeral. Just in case, though, Gabinius’s hard-bitten veterans were everywhere to be seen. I even spotted a few on the roof of the temple. It pays to be cautious, but I couldn’t catch even the sound of anti-Roman grumbling, and I’ve been in enough newly conquered cities to develop sharp ears for that sort of talk.

  Seeing that everything appeared well in hand, I walked down to the market. The place was as busy as always and there was lively conversation about the demise of Silvanus, but the mood was not ugly and nobody cast evil looks in my direction.

  I passed the stalls of the silk merchants, the glass sellers, the cutlery mongers, the sellers of bronze ware, and the rest. My nose led me to a section devoted to such things as perfumes, spices, medicines, and, naturally, incense.

  The largest such stall was owned by a fat Greek who clearly did not share his countrymen’s passion for athleticism.

  “How may I help you, Senator? I am Demades, and I sell incense of all kinds and in all quantities. I can sell you a pinch to burn before your household gods or a year’s
supply for the largest temple in Rome. I have cedar incense from Lebanon, subtle cardamom incense from India, fir gum incense from Iberia, balm incense from Judea. I even have the rarest of all, an incense compounded with oil of sandalwood. It comes from trees that grow on an island far east of India. From another island of that sea I have incomparable benzoin, as useful for embalming as for burning before the gods. I have incense of myrrh from Ethiopia, famed for its healing properties. What is your pleasure?”

  “Tell me about frankincense.”

  “Ahh, frankincense. The noblest of all the fragrances, and the most pleasing to all the gods. How much do you want?”

  “Actually, I want to know about its history and where it is harvested and how it gets from its place of origin to places such as—well, here, for instance.”

  “You are a scholar?” he asked, somewhat puzzled.

  “Of sorts. Immensely curious, in any case. And whenever I desire to learn about a subject, I always go to the one likely to know the most about it. When I inquired about frankincense, I was told that Demades was the very man I needed.” Flattery costs nothing and often yields handsome results.

  He beamed. “You were informed correctly. My family has engaged in the frankincense trade for many generations. There is no aspect of the traffic with which I am unacquainted.” At his hospitable gesture, I took a chair at the rear of the booth, and he sat on a large, fragrant bale. He sent a slave boy off to fetch us refreshments.

  “First off, I know that it comes from Arabia Felix, but I am a little hazy concerning the geography of that part of the world.”

  “Arabia Felix takes its name from its near-monopoly on the frankincense trade,” he said. “If I had that monopoly, I would be happy, too.”

  “You said ‘near-monopoly’?”

  “Yes. The greater part of the frankincense gum is harvested in a small district near the southern coast of Arabia, but the shrub also grows in a small area of Ethiopia bordering the Red Sea. The greater quantity is harvested in Arabia, but the Ethiopian gum is of higher quality, almost white in color. It burns with a brilliant flame and leaves less ash residue. In both areas, local tribesmen harvest the gum, scratching the bark of the shrubs, letting the sap bleed forth and harden. These droplets, called ‘tears,’ are then scraped off, bagged, and carried on camels to the ports. The tribesmen are jealous of their harvesting grounds and trade routes. They fight fiercely to defend them.”