Chapter III
"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” - Horace
I ran across Mars' Field that day feeling happy. I came to a breathless halt in front of my tutor. The Campus Martius was crowded that day. Young men ran to keep fit, others practised swordplay and groups of soldiers were being drilled by their Optios. I was smiling.
'I'm sorry I'm late, the training group has only just finished,'
'What have you been up to?'
'We've been running races and practicing with swords and shields. I won the contest.'
'Physical pursuits are always beneficial but the mind must be exercised as well.'
My mental picture of Gennadius is as a short, bald, kind man with a small wart on his left cheek. He told me once that he felt it made him look distinguished. He had never worried whether it would put women off. He had never married. He explained this to me one day, by saying that it was because the learned and sheltered life that he had led had kept him away from the opposite sex.
I think he enjoyed his bookish nature and took pride in his academic life perhaps as it turned out, because he had other distractions. Despite this, I knew by instinct that Gennadius understood children well, which the Greek would have been delighted to hear, for he had been teaching for almost thirty years.
'Yes Gennadius, I know. Can we go and look at the soldiers training over there first?' I indicated a squad of legionaries practicing their drill further away.
'Yes, but not too long. I must get back in good time to your uncle's home and your father has also asked me to meet him to discuss your further education.'
We walked a little closer and watched the recruits drilling on the hard, dry, cracked earth. I remember that I felt happy then and comfortable with my tutor who I had now known for more than four years.
The recruits had shiny new equipment and clean uniforms so I guessed that they were fresh untested soldiers. I was surprised at how well they performed. Open order, close order, columns of four. The drill went on and the men performed each manoeuvre as if they were one man.
Half an hour later, as Gennadius and I walked back towards the Capitoline to return home, I noticed a group of men, young and old, standing at a desk in front of a tent.
'Who are they?' I asked.
'They are legionary recruiting officers. Stay well away from them! They will tell you anything to get you to enlist and they are not fussy about how old you are! They are quite happy to take boys who are much too young for military service. Once you sign your name you are committed to twenty years of service and they strangle deserters.'
'Next month I can take up my manly robe and choose a career,' I said, I’m sure I could pass for fifteen.’
'In the next month, you should consider where to take your education further. I have friends in Alexandria and for a nominal cost they would take you for further education in philosophy and mathematics provided I recommend you.'
My mind was as far from philosophy and mathematics as it was from jumping into the Tiber with my clothes on, but I said nothing, for fear of offending my tutor. I wanted to join the Roman army and become a soldier like my grandfather and my great grandfather.
I had been brought up on tales of their military careers and was sure that one day I could lead armies too. I dreamt how the Senate might award even me a triumph. My mind pictured the scene already. Garlands of flowers being strewn around in front of my chariot, Aulus the Great standing, throwing silver coins to the adulation of the masses who lined the triumphal route. The cheers, the jollity…
'Aulus look there,' Gennadius was pointing to the city southwards. Wrenched from my reverie, I saw there was a plume of smoke rising in a dense cloud from somewhere to beyond the Forum Boarium, where my parent's home was.
It was the greatest fear of any Roman. Huge parts of the city were built of wood and a fire could spread rapidly. The whole of Rome could burn if only one small house fire became uncontrolled. There was no fire fighting service and if there were a fire, the whole neighbourhood would gather with buckets to help put out a blaze. It was not fellowship and support but self-preservation and the authorities knew this, which was why they had never felt they needed a fire-fighting service. It was expected that the citizens would react quickly and mostly they did, with help from the Town Guard.
Gennadius and I hurried south along the Via Triumphalis towards the Capitoline hill and ran part of the way, despite Gennadius holding us up with his breathlessness and his limp. We ran past the Ara Maxima and turned left at the Circus Maximus to the Clivus Scauri where the tenement I lived in was situated.
I drew to a halt, breathless and with my heart thumping. I had realised that the fire was in our neighbourhood as soon as I had crossed the Capitoline and stood stock still as I surveyed the scene before me. Gennadius joined me and stood by my side. Neither of us spoke, for words were unnecessary. The entire tenement had burned down. There were people milling all around the street outside and the Town Guard had turned out both to help and to keep people away from the blaze, which was under control by now.
We both rushed forward. I screamed at the guard who was keeping the crowd back.
'I live here.'
'In there? Not any more you don't,' he said.
'My parents, where are they?'
'If they got out, they may be over there,' the soldier said over the noise of the crowd and the crackles of the dying embers of the tenement building. The Town Guard had already collapsed the burning building to prevent spread of the fire. He pointed towards the far corner of the block of buildings.
Ignoring Gennadius, I began frantically calling my parent's names as I ran to the area the soldier had indicated. As I pushed through the crowd with urgency, I looked in desperation a familiar face and saw none. Gennadius joined me then. The throng of people had slowed him down. I saw an old man who lived nearby and who knew my parents. I pushed through the crowd towards him, followed by the small Greek.
'My parents. Have you seen them?' I pleaded.
The man turned to me.
'Aulus, where have you been?'
'I was on the Campus Martius. Where are my parents?' I had to shout above the noise of the crowd, but my voice had a desperate and high-pitched tone this time. I was on the verge of tears. My mind was racing.
'I haven't seen them, all I know is that there were shouts from the street to leave the buildings and by the time I came out the soldiers were collapsing the building to prevent the fire spreading. Were they both at home when you left?'
'Yes, but maybe they got out.'
'If they were caught in there, then they maybe couldn't get out. No one could live through that blaze. Someone said something about it smelling as if oil had caught fire. All the lamps must have caught. Sorry, Aulus I haven't seen them.'
'Where would they go if they got out?'
'They would still be in the street, I imagine, I will help you look for them,' the old man said, looking round at the crowd.
I began to walk up and down the street, frantic to find my parents. Soldiers, bringing buckets of water, were damping down the residual smouldering timbers. I approached one of them. I recognised him from the Campus Martius. My terror made me bold.
'Have you seen anyone come out of the building?' I asked, this time with tears streaming down my face, desperation in my voice.
'Sorry sonny, no one made it out of there. It smelt as if someone had burned a whole load of oil in the place. If there was anyone in there, they won't be coming out now. Lucky the whole street wasn't burned down. Did you know any of the occupants?'
'Yes,' I said, my sobs getting the better of me. I could not speak any more. Words would not come. I squatted in the street crying. Gennadius knelt at my side. He put his arm around my shoulders and I turned into the fat little Greek's embrace and sobbed inconsolably.
* * *
It was dusk, the sun sinking beyond the temples and tenem
ents of our great city, threw long, almost solid shadows across the street. Gennadius and I knocked on the gate of the big house on the Quirinal. There was a smell of baking from a house across the road although it was a long way away and there was fearsome barking from the hounds in the house's compound. The gate hatch opened first as if the occupants needed to apply caution, but perhaps it was only my imagination, for evenings in Rome are never a safe time and roaming gangs of thugs and thieves abound even on the Quirinal.
'I'm sorry sir; the master has left strict instructions that the boy is not to be allowed in. I can't disobey him. I would be whipped if I did,' Cerberus said. He looked at me strangely.
'Don't you realise what has happened? This boy's home has burned down and maybe with his parents inside too. Have you no heart man?'
'I'm sorry sir. Maybe if you go up to the house and explain, the master will change his mind?'
'All right I'll try. Aulus wait here and I will go and see your aunt, if she will receive me at this hour, that is. I can't imagine that she would leave you out in the street.'
Gennadius walked up the path to the entrance. As he disappeared from sight, Cerberus let me sit in the janitor's hut for I must have looked ready to collapse.
Within a few minutes, Gennadius reappeared, walking as fast as his short legs and limp would allow. When he was half-way to the hut, Marcus the younger walked out of the doorway and picked up a stone. He threw it at the Greek and it hit him on the shoulder.
'Now get out, you filthy little Greek! And take that little dung heap with you.'
Gennadius did not as much as look behind him.
'Come on Aulus, we need a place to stay and tomorrow we will find out what happened to your parents.'
'What happened?'
'I am no longer employed by your uncle and your aunt was forbidden to see me even when she was told about the fire. I have never encountered people like this in all my travels.'
I felt as if my whole world had come apart. I could see no future. We made our way to the Subura. There was a Greek tavern there, which Gennadius was familiar with and he hired a room. I felt benumbed by the day's events. I knew it was unlikely, but I kept an ember of hope in my mind, that my parents might have escaped the fire and would be looking for me.
I sat on the straw mattress staring at the floor. What would become of me? Where would I go? I noticed my hands were trembling and felt tears welling up again in my eyes. When I looked up, Gennadius was opening the door and he entered carrying a small bundle of food. There was bread, figs and fruit.
'Here is something to eat,' the Greek said, 'You must keep your strength up. Tomorrow we will search the place thoroughly for any signs of your parents and then start questioning the neighbours to find out whether they escaped the fire.'
'No, I'm not hungry. Thank you. I don't know what to do now. Everything has gone away, I don't even know if they died or not.'
'That is just what we are going to find out tomorrow,'
I still stared at the floor, then exhaustion took me, I lay down and my eyes closed by degrees, as Somnus took me away, far from that terrible day, a day that was to remain in my memory forever.
Morning came. I had awoken before dawn and when Gennadius awoke, I was looking out of the window into the street. I had been staring at the cobbles below and watching an old woman emptying her chamber pot into the central channel of the street below. It emptied into the city's drains that led by circuitous routes into the Tiber. I had been wondering how it would feel to float all the way to the sea, away from Rome, from pain and grief. I turned to face the Greek when I heard him stir behind me.
'I think someone started the fire deliberately,' I said.
'What makes you think this? I don't think anyone would risk setting fire to a tenement in Rome for any reason. It could have spread to the whole city.'
'The soldier said it smelt of burning oil. My parents had only a little oil in the house for two lamps. It must have come from somewhere. I think someone set a fire but I know of no one who would do such a thing. Everyone loved my mother and father. They were kind people who hurt no one.'
I felt a lump in my throat and moisture in my eyes, thinking of my parents.
'Come, there is no need to think like that. We will go back to the street and start some enquiries.'
Gennadius and I packed up and left. We walked south through the busying streets as dawn rose on another day in the greatest city in the Empire. Street vendors were already out in the hope of getting custom from the students and trades people, who had begun to populate the streets on the start of another working day. The smell of the central channel of the street hung in the air, but no one noticed. The odour was so commonplace that no one noticed let alone remarked upon it. It occurred to me that it was quite an ordinary day for almost everyone except me and it confused me. No one else could be feeling as I did and no one apart from Gennadius understood.
The blackened ruins of our home gave few answers at first, but as we pushed our way through the charred remains, we came across two terribly charred bodies. It was clear they were human bodies but the twisted, blackened remains looked more like statues of charcoal than human forms to me. Perseus must have died too. We found a third body in the slave's room on what remained of the cot.
I knew in my heart that the bodies had been my parents and in an unexpected way, I felt relieved, as if the answer to a question had presented itself to me. There was a numbness in my thoughts, as if the truth of my grief evaded me. I could at least now arrange the funeral rites and could mourn them.
I had no idea how to organise such things for I was only a child, but Gennadius at least, was there to help and when we found the bodies, the tutor put a gentle hand on my shoulder for comfort.
When we went to the temple of Venus Libitina to arrange the funeral I realised how much trouble Gennadius was prepared to go to on my behalf. We did not even get to speak to the undertakers, the Libitinarii, but stood in line the whole morning, merely for a slave to deal with us.
'Were the deceased wealthy?' the Pollinctor said seated behind a desk on the steps of the temple. He had noted the names of my parents on a scroll before him and looked up at us with unblinking brown eyes. We had stood in line most of the morning and neither of us felt like going into details.
'No, not wealthy. They were in a burial society though. We have little money with which to pay.'
'Right, well, what we have on offer in that case is a simple ceremony. Where are the bodies?'
'They are still in the burned-out house,' Gennadius said.
'There is an extra charge for fetching the bodies I'm afraid. We can provide the flautist to follow them. Who is giving the extremum vale, the funeral oration?'
'I will speak on the boy's behalf.'
'Right, we will have to do the anointment here at the temple and we can take the short route out of the city after the extremum is spoken. Any special requests?'
'Do the Libitinarii perform the rites here or outside the walls?'
'Usually outside. They have many rites to perform now because of the fever in the Subura so it's quite busy. It will be a short ceremony I'm afraid. Death stalks the Subura just now.'
'How soon can you perform the funerary rites?'
'This afternoon, after the midday meal. We take about an hour's break at that time. Got to keep up our strength, death is all around us you know.'
I witnessed the whole conversation with a vague feeling of detachment. It was almost as if I was standing next to myself looking on and taking it in without being more than a spectator, like seeing a play unfold before me.
I remember the funeral well. It rained. There had been no need for the Pollinctores, the Libitinarii's slaves to wash the bodies because of their charred state. They anointed them with spices and perfumes.
I still felt benumbed, as they bore the bodies out of the city. A dreary tune played on a flute accompanied us to the city walls and they laid my mother, my father, and Perseus
on three piles of wood. The oil burned with a strange smell of cooked meat mixed with incense. My father had belonged to a funerary club and they made a place in the Columbarium where they interred the ashes with all the others.
The whole business seemed to mean so little. It was a kind of anticlimax to their lives and I had no idea how to react. I had never experienced anything like this. Even when the Libitinarius sprinkled me with the purifying water, I did not react. A reaction to grief is involuntary. It grips you and leads you, passive in its clutches, to the despair that flows through all your thoughts.
* * *
'Aulus, you must try to eat something,' Gennadius said.
'I don't feel like it,' I replied. We were sitting in another bedroom in another tavern in the Subura. This was Rome's roughest area. It was a den of thieves characterised by gangs of thugs, who extorted money from shopkeepers and tavern-owners. They robbed and stole almost without any control. Few honest citizens were abroad after dusk.
A small oil lamp burned on the table in the impoverished lodgings in which I found myself. The smoke from the lamp irritated my nostrils. The flaking plaster and the rough, worn floorboards added a depressing atmosphere, as I sat on the straw palette on the cot under the window. The straw smelled damp. Someone laughed, drunk, outside.
Gennadius had tried to find work and he had received one or two interesting offers but he was living off his savings and with two mouths to feed, it was becoming a struggle. I knew that the present situation could not last forever. I understood that I would need some kind of work but since the death of my parents, I seemed to have lost all volition.
I spent most of my time in the room, grieving. The depths of my despair and bitterness had not made me good company and I knew it, but I was powerless in the grip of such strong emotions.
Gennadius had been kind, I think he realised that and it puzzled me. The Greek tutor had not only given me free tuition when my parents were alive, but had now taken me in and looked after me through the aftermath of the fire. Gennadius had paid for the funeral as well making all the arrangements. I understood all this but could still not come to terms with my grief enough to control my feelings and express my gratitude.
The tutor sat down beside me on the bed.
'Poor Aulus, what shall we do with you?'
'I don't know, I suppose I need to find some work.'
'Work? No, you are like a son to me. I will support you and you can finish your education. I am very, very fond of you.'
Gennadius, taking me by surprise, put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him. His left hand moved to my thigh stroking, patting.
'Oh Aulus such affection as a man can have for his pupil! My fondness goes beyond anything I have felt before. In my home country such relationships as ours, between an understanding man and his willing pupil are well recognised to enhance both mental and physical existence!'
The Greek leaned forward, eyes closed and made to kiss me on the mouth. I was not large but I was muscular and strong for my age, at least enough so to push the potentially amorous man away with such force that he ended sitting on the floor looking up at me.
'What were you trying to do? I don't want to kiss you. You're a man!'
'It is just a sign of affection for someone you care for. Please don't be upset!'
The plump man got up and with both arms outstretched reached for me again as I stood by the door. For my part, I was horrified. I most certainly did not want any kind of physical relationship with anyone and least of all this Greek tutor. I felt angry and confused. I had been so grateful to Gennadius but now was suspicious of his motives, past and present and found it hard to face him.
I slipped through the door as the Greek clutched the empty air I had occupied seconds before. I ran down the stairs and out into the emptying street to the accompaniment of Gennadius wailing from the window, 'Aulus, Aulus, come back!'
I was angry, disillusioned and above all fearful about what to do next. All I could think was that I had to get away from the Greek. Gratitude seemed to take very much a second place in my thoughts, although I knew that might have been wrong.
Heads turned as I made my way through the alley. In my anger and confusion, I ran down the small cobbled street and came into a small square. It was getting dark and there were only a few people abroad there, most of them hurrying home. With no street lighting and no protection from the gangs of thugs that roamed the Subura, few Romans would want to be out in the dark. Those that were, stared at me, for a lone child wandering the streets at that time was unusual.
I must have looked scowling and sullen for no one spoke to me or even smiled. I slowed to a walk when I reached the far end of the square. I sat in a doorway wondering what to do. A spider crawled across my hand. I flicked it away and looked around me. As the shadows lengthened, I could see no one. I was alone. The street was empty as my purse.
As I sat and pondered my position, I decided not to return to Gennadius. He had tried to kiss me! Why? What would make a man behave like that? I had heard my father laugh about Greeks and make jokes about how they were fonder of each other than of their wives, but had not then understood what the humour was intended to express.
I thought I knew now and I thought with revulsion that it was wrong. With anger rising again within me, I put my chin on my knees and tried to sleep but no sleep came. I realised that I was hungry and it was early yet.
I toyed with the little green stone around my neck. Feeling it’s neatly wired exterior beneath my fingers, I thought of my father. The thoughts forced their way into my consciousness like an unwelcome guest. I saw his face in front of me, his smile, his rounded features and I felt pain deep inside me. It was pain I had no experience of, nor had I imagined how acute such pain could be.
Where had my life gone? In only a few days, all had gone. My home, my mother’s arms, her soft caresses, had vanished into a nightmare from which I wished I could awaken. I wanted my parents. I needed to feel the warmth, the enveloping love - but it was all gone now. No. I could not think about it. I would not think about it. Think of something else. No use.
Only a few days ago I was on the Campus Marius, running, playing, with no concerns apart from where my education might take me. Then all gone, into smoke, into fire. Gloomy thoughts of death, destruction and disillusionment were all I had left. The amulet seemed to grow then in my fingers or perhaps in my mind. It was all that was left - it was my family, a thought, a consciousness buried deeply, darkly, within it. My father, my mother, everything. It represented to me all that I loved and I was almost comforted that I had that still. The fact of that love was intangible, elusive but still mine, as embedded in the amulet as it was inside me. I chose to bury the pain. I forced myself to avoid it. Think about something else.
Gennadius. What had he been thinking? I had trusted him. Had he been trying to seduce me? Had he planned it all along? My young mind began to wonder if he had set the fire. Could he have done that to get me on my own? No, not Gennadius. I had known him long enough to know that he was a genuinely kind man and anyway, he had been with me when the fire happened. I knew deep inside that he was good. He was a slave to his nature - a prisoner.
I began to ponder what I could do now. I knew I was too young to join the legions and too small in the body to pass for a fifteen year old, despite anything I had proclaimed to Gennadius. It dawned upon me that I would have to find work or try begging. I had seen beggars at the Servian Gate before and although my father had said not to give them anything, I had done so once. Father had been angry, saying that giving to beggars encouraged them. I began to realise what made people beg. I resolved to try to get work as a delivery boy but if that did not work, the Servian Gate was only a short walk away and I could try begging. Surely, someone would give me enough for a meal. The feeling of hunger was unfamiliar and I was alone.