The Last Stoic (4 page)

Goths.  

“Marcus Aurelius Antoninus…, Germanicus…, Alamannicus…,
Alexander of Rome!
 
At long last, thanks to your bold vision and inestimable courage, we behold a
monument worthy of your greatness, worthy of the glory of Rome under your
unwavering guidance and generous patronage.  Our eternal city has never seen
such magnificence, nor will it again.  It is a fitting tribute to your majesty,
our father…, our Hercules…, our chief…, our commander.  Witness… the Thermae
Antoninianae!”

A score of trumpeters commenced
their bright fanfare as massive bolts of cream-coloured cloth fringed with
imperial purple dropped from the twelve storey external ramparts of the newly
minted baths of Caracallus.  A thunderous clamour arose from the many thousands
who had assembled at the broad, grassy plain beyond the old Servian Wall and
just south of the busy Via Appia.  Onlookers thronged well back from the face
of the baths up onto the hillock crested by the Via Ardeatina and all the way
back to the Porto Capena gate in the Servian Wall.  Curious youngsters managed
to scale the sides of the new Aqua Antoniniana, the aqueduct that provided
these latest baths with their fresh water, and sat perched on top shouting and
laughing as officials tried to remove them.  Just like everyone else in
attendance, Marcus, who was standing on the highest ridge of the Via Ardeatina,
craned his neck and stood on his toes to see what was taking place at the foot
of the bath’s ramparts.

The curtains fell away to reveal
the most spectacular building Marcus could imagine.  At the centre towered the
magnificent domed caldarium; the hot room, its bright bronze roof reflecting
the midday sun with blinding intensity.  The cavernous arches that opened from
the circular tower were four stories up from the ground and extended four
stories in height, on all sides, allowing light to pour into the pools within. 
Ledges and cornices were festooned everywhere with lush, colourful garlands. 
Marcus guessed that the exterior walls of the baths stretched from the
caldarium at least three hundred feet in either direction, breaching eight
stories on both sides.

Baths.  For a race of giants. 

Marcus was in Rome at the exact
time that the Thermae Antoninianae were to be officially opened.  A year
earlier, when Vincentius had received partial plans of the proposed edifice
from his old colleagues and Marcus had brought them in to the academy at
Verulamium, professors and students had scoffed at the blueprints. “They have
the vaulting resting on gratings of copper and bronze,” Rufus Caementarius had
said, when Marcus laid out the sheets and admired the scale of the project, “they’ll
never bear that kind of weight.  It’s folly.  You’d never catch a
self-respecting architect here building anything like that.” 
Shows how much
Rufus knows.  Here it is.  What would they say if they knew I was attending the
unveiling of Rome’s most impressive architectural feat?  What will grandfather
say when I tell him?  He’ll be pleased. 

Marcus scanned the monumental
walls again and remembered his last meeting with Vincentius before he
departed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The steady, measured clomp of his
hobnails echoed along the corridor. 

Vincentius appeared precisely as
he had since as far back as Marcus could remember.  The lamp threw shadows and
accentuated the many crags and fissures in his corrugated face.  A shock of
silver hair grew straight back from the sides of his head, as though caught in
a gale.  Vincentius stood just over six feet, but his long legs and narrow
frame made him look taller.  Marcus shifted uncomfortably under his furs and
looked up into grey-blue eyes which were just beginning to cloud from
developing cataracts.

“Good morning, grandfather.”

“Still in bed?  Carpe diem, carpe
diem, quam minimum credula postero!  Trust as little as possible in tomorrow! 
I assumed I would find you preparing for your journey.”

Marcus nodded toward a bulging
rucksack in the corner of the room and smiled weakly.

“All packed.” 

“Probus.  Ut sementem feceris,
ita metes. As you sow, so shall you reap.”

Vincentius spoke with a purer,
older dialect of Latin, not the patois adulterated with local mannerisms,
slangs, and rustic accent that most of Marcus’ contemporaries favoured.  The
old man pulled up a stool and perched himself on it next to Marcus’ bed.  He
put a large bony hand on Marcus’ calf, his calliper-like fingers gripping the
flesh firmly but affectionately, like he might clutch a skittish sheep.  He
leaned in toward Marcus, his prodigious white eyebrows animated above his
widened eyes.

“You must be very excited lad.” 

“Yes grandfather.”

“A great adventure awaits you
Marcus.  Seeing you here, green as a lily, I’m reminded of my first trip to
Rome.  I was there when your namesake, Marcus Aurelius, was emperor.  I even
had the great fortune to meet the man, face to face.”

Marcus murmured without
commitment.  He’d heard the story in its entirety and in all its variations at
least a dozen times. 

“Oh yes,” Vincentius continued,
“as a young apprentice.  I worked for the engineering firm founded by
Sextus Frontinus.  The original
Sextus Julius Frontinus.  Many consider him to be Rome’s finest engineer.  His
De Aquis Urbis Romae is still the definitive work on aqueducts.” 

“We studied Frontinus at the
Academy.”

“Of course!  He was a Gaul too. 
An Averni, but still a Gaul.  Interesting, isn’t it, how some of the best
Romans come from Gaul?  And Iberia.  And Greece.  Rome’s strength nowadays
comes from the provinces.  As Virgil says, E pluribus unum.  ”

Vincentius pulled out a torn,
yellowed map of Rome.

“This is where I used to live,”
he said, pointing to a smudge of ink in the left corner of the map.  “I’ve
heard from my associates that Caracallus is building a spectacular set of baths
just near there, below the
Via Ardeatina.  The architecture is said to be breathtaking.”

The old man hunched over the map
with the sort of childlike enthusiasm he might have displayed when he and a
younger Marcus examined a water pump, “If I were you that would be the first
place I would go when I got to Rome.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marcus was brought back from his
reverie to those very baths by a collective gasp rising up from the assembly.

He looked to the foot of the
thermae.  A chariot led by a single black charger burst from the end of a long
portico and into the square space of the arena that lay directly in front of
the soaring caldarium.  The charioteer, his black and dark purple cape
billowing wildly behind him, drove to the center of the square and stopped with
a vicious tug of the reins.  The crowd erupted. 

“Asinus!” spat the thin, young
German called Rauthwulfs standing nearby. 

Marcus had met Rauthwulfs and his
fellow Marcomanni at the way station on the Via Flaminia near where he’d parted
company with old Phoenix and they had traveled the last few leagues into Rome
together. 

“Who is it?”

“That’s our noble Caracallus.”

The charioteer wore a caracallus;
a long, hooded cloak that extended mid-calf in the German style.  Marcus had
only ever seen his likeness on coins, but there was no doubt it was Caracallus
himself, just one hundred yards away. 

“You don’t like the emperor?” 
Marcus asked.

“Why should I?  He hasn’t done me
any favours.”

“He made you citizen didn’t he?”
Marcus said, gesturing at the mob that pressed forward toward the iron fencing
circling the arena. “Those citizens seem to like it.” 

“You know the Romans, they love a
circus.” 

A tremendous roar erupted from
near the bath’s outer wall and radiated outward with the violence of a searing,
desert wind.  Four centurions wheeled a lion housed in a five foot by five foot
iron cage into the arena.  The soldiers marched away from the cage pulling
behind them a heavy hemp rope and when they reached a safe distance they pulled
to raise the iron gate.  The lion emerged from the cage, shook his mane, and appraised
his surroundings with a long, low growl.

“Good Jupiter!  He’s going to
fight a lion?”

“Yes.  It’s nothing.  Second lion
this year.  And scores of bulls, stags, bears…let’s see, an elephant, …a
crocodile…, a giraffe.  A hundred boar in one day last year.  He’s an
accomplished killer.”

“Yes, but…, on his own?  Against
a lion?”

“Don’t be a rube.  It’s been
handicapped.”

Marcus looked carefully and he
could see a bright red smear on the creature’s hind leg.  It hobbled as it
prowled near its cage.

“Hamstrung, of course.  And
mostly likely declawed and defanged.”

A half dozen archers standing
behind the iron fence at the west end of the arena loosed arrows from their
bows and two of the six missiles hit their target, plunging deep into the
animal’s flank.  The lion bellowed again, a booming, rattling rumble that
reverberated ten miles up the Tiber.  He made an attempt to charge the archers,
snarling and butting his head against the metal grating, and though he moved
awkwardly the crowd at that end of the arena recoiled in thrilled horror.  The
lion snapped his massive head back and shook the sky. 

With one hand Caracallus lashed
the reins against the black charger and the chariot leapt forward.  In his
other, he raised a lance.  The lion shook his massive collar and turned to face
his foe.  The chariot bore down on the immobilized lion and Caracallus drove
his lance into the animal’s ribcage, goring him badly.  The lance was ripped
from the emperor’s hands and fell to the dusty ground.  Another anguished roar
gusted from the arena out over the plain.         

Marcus shifted his weight from
his left foot, to his right, and back again.  Anticipation of further violence
tightened in his stomach like a fist. 

Caracallus rounded the chariot
back to its starting point and readied his charger for another run.  He pulled
a pilum from a sheath on the outside of the chariot, weighed it carefully in
his right hand, and then hoisted it above his head.  The lion, scarlet from the
wound in his chest streaming down his damp flanks, dragged himself up from the
ground until he was standing, swaying, on all four paws.  He turned again to
face Caracallus.  With a bark and a sharp lash the chariot lurched forward. 
Caracallus raised the pilum high in the air and hurled it down at the lion. 
The heavy javelin of ash and iron sailed through the air, past the waiting
lion, into the soft ground. 

The emperor missed.

Rauthwulfs snorted.  “Ha! 
Typical.” 

The crowd, expecting the final
blow, groaned.

Caracallus turned the chariot and
rounded the arena.  Still the lion did not move.  The emperor grabbed another
pilum from the sheathing on the side of the chariot with his right hand. 
Again, Caracallus let the javelin fly.  Again, there was a collective moan as
the pilum whistled wide of the panting, growling lion and sank harmlessly into
the dirt.

There were six more javelins
fastened to the chariot.  By the fourth lap, the lion had sunk to his haunches
and forelegs, his head drooping low.  By the sixth lap, the lion was lying fully
prone in the dust, his head lying awkwardly to the side, his great limbs
twitching.  There wasn’t a seventh lap.  The lion bled to death.  Caracallus
stopped his exhausted charger thirty yards from the motionless beast.  He
approached now on foot and when five feet away he launched his final pilum,
piercing the dead animal’s eye.  Tossing his cloak, he whirled around to face
the crowd in triumph. 

The Praetorian Guard that lined
the perimeter of the arena thumped their shields with the butts of their short
swords.  Some guardsmen entered into the crowds, demonstrating their
enthusiasm, encouraging others to join in.  Before long, a boisterous din
sustained itself for several minutes as dozens of dignitaries, senators,
consuls, praetors, and other men of eminence began to filter into the arena and
pay tribute to the emperor.  Macrinus, the Prefect of the Guard, stepped
forward and signaled to the centurions to cease their drumming.  The rest of
the assembly quieted.

“The emperor would like to say a
few words!”

Caracallus strode to the center
of the arena.

“My fellow Romans!” he cried. 
Marcus and the others around him on the Via Ardeatina strained to hear.

“These magnificent baths, of
which I conceived and to which I have leant my name, I present to you as eternal
proof of the greatness and the glory of our exalted city!  May Jupiter and
Juno, Minerva and Mars bless her forever and always!”

Polite applause ringed the
arena. 

“What did he say?” someone up on
the Via Ardeatina asked.

“Latin mangler.  Half the time
you don’t understand what he’s saying and the other half you wish you didn’t.”
said Rauthwulfs.

“It’s not so bad as all that,”
said an old man standing nearby, “Yes, he has his habit of blurting out
everything that comes into his head and of feeling no shame about airing all
his thoughts…”