Cornelia- the First Woman of Rome Page 4

  Physcon took a deep breath. “It wasn’t because of what they were teaching. It was their politics.”

  “Almost all of them were Greek scholars. You’ve no need for democracy in Egypt?”

  Physcon smiled sadly. “I can’t fool you, Cornelia. I never could.”

  The sound of others coming into the house stopped their conversation. Nadia announced Polybius and Blossius. Polybius was lean and angular; Blossius, a somewhat smaller version of Physcon, already had a cup in his hand. As they gathered in the atrium, Cornelia introduced her guests. “King Ptolemy, I believe you know these men.”

  Each man gave the slightest tip of his head.

  “I prefer the title of pharaoh, Cornelia.”

  “My apologies, Pharaoh. Let’s go into the library. Maybe we can open your mind to philosophy again.”

  “I’m more interested in what your son is doing,” quipped Physcon.

  “You’re thinking of land reform in Egypt?” asked Polybius.

  “Only that which her majesty the Nile chooses.”

  “I can tell we’re in for an interesting gathering,” said Blossius, slopping wine out of his cup as he led the way to the storied library. “It’s a shame Aemilianus can’t be here. His wit will be missed.”

  I heard their voices and went to the front of the house to join them. My home was one of the grander villas on the Palatine Hill and suitably decorated with the many trophies and pieces of artwork Aemilianus had brought back from his military campaigns. Like most of the homes of the Roman upper class, the house was laid out around the atrium, in our case an expansive two-story rectangular enclosure, defined by its portico of hand-painted columns and open to the sky for light. An ornamental pool caught rain in the center of the atrium and rooms of varied uses—the triclinium for dining, a small sewing and weaving room for making clothing, and several bed chambers for guests—lined the east and west sides. The south side opened onto the peristyle and a garden. On the north were the home’s main entry and a thick plank door leading out to the street.

  Aemilianus’ library was the largest room off the atrium. Its thirty thousand scrolls were stored on three walls in three-foot deep, floor-to-ceiling wooden racks, four scrolls to a niche, their ivory or ebony umbilicuses protruding just enough to pull them out. To prolong their life, the papyrus scrolls had been anointed in the oil of the cedar tree and filled the room with a sweet camphorous scent. Two walls were devoted to works in Greek, one wall to those in Latin. A small stool was available to help reach the highest racks. A bust of my grandfather sat on a pedestal in a cutout on the west wall. A portrait of Aemilius Paullus hung opposite it on the east wall. A large wooden table with four wooden chairs sat in the center of the room for unrolling and reading the scrolls. Slots cut high on the east wall accessed light from the atrium in the morning. Two oil lamps provided light the rest of the day.

  One of the most fascinating objects in Aemilianus’ library, beyond the collection of rare scrolls and the knowledge within, was a device that Aemilianus referred to as a terrella. About the size of a round of cheese, it sat on a shelf in the corner of the library and invariably caught the attention of anyone entering the room. Physcon was immediately drawn to it.

  “This looks interesting,” he said, approaching the large bronze globe encircled by seven smaller globes on wire hoops.

  All of us but Physcon knew the story behind it. Polybius the historian did the honors. “It’s a model of the solar system, Pharaoh, as imagined by the Greek Aristarchus of Samos. It’s unique because he places the Sun at the center instead of the Earth. The Sun’s the large globe. The planets and the moon are the smaller ones.” Polybius gave the globe a spin with his hand and all the smaller globes moved around it in their orbits.

  “The Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse made this terrella a hundred years ago. Claudius Marcellus brought it back from Sicily after his siege of Syracuse.” This was all material covered in Polybius’ latest book, which detailed Rome’s rise to world power. He had completed the massive history the previous summer. It was immediately called genius. He was considered one of the wisest men alive. He had been one of my tutors. I considered him a friend, and felt fortunate to know him.

  “Aemilianus,” I said, “received it as a gift from Marcellus’ grandson after the fall of Carthage.”

  The king pointed to the ceramic tank that stood beside the terrella. “What’s this for?”

  “It’s filled with water,” said Polybius, “and attached to the globe by this small waterwheel.” He touched the tiny connective gears, then pulled an empty bucket from the shelf below and positioned it on the floor. The tank had a stopcock. Polybius opened it, allowing a stream of water to pour over the waterwheel and into the bucket. The large globe began to rotate—along with all the smaller globes—like a fantastic water-driven toy. Physcon was mesmerized, as were all of us—and I had seen the device in action scores of times.

  Physcon stood back. “Where are the stars?”

  Polybius looked to Cornelia and smiled, apparently the circle had begun. “When Marcellus returned from Syracuse, he returned with two large spheres. He kept this one at his home.” He touched the big bronze sphere. “He placed the other, also made by Archimedes, in the temple of Virtus as a gift to the state. Have any of you seen it?”

  Cornelia had, but none of the rest of us.

  “That one is a blown glass sphere with the stars painted on the surface—to create a map of the heavens. The placement of the stars is based on charts made hundreds of years ago by Babylonian astrologers. Archimedes got the idea from the Greek geometer Thales of Samos. It’s large enough that the terrella could fit inside. Try to imagine that. The bronze spheres inside would rotate as they do here, while the glass sphere would turn at its own rate on the outside. We might consider that a rough model of the universe—our solar system surrounded by a halo of stars.”

  Physcon put a finger to his lips, tilted his head, and pondered Polybius’ description. After an extended silence, he nodded. “Yes, I think I can imagine that. But what goes on outside the sphere of stars? How far does the universe extend beyond that?”

  Polybius laughed. “That’s not a question a historian can answer.”

  “Then who can?”

  “Only a very brave philosopher,” replied Blossius. “And there are probably as many of them as there are answers to the question.”

  CHAPTER 8

  During the next six months, Tiberius surveyed the Italian countryside and talked to landowners. As he had assumed, there was a lot of undistributed public land. Much of it had been farmland, but now it was mostly open pasture, especially in the south. Local ranchers moved their herds through these pastures with the changing seasons at no cost, making cattle and sheep considerably more profitable than growing wheat or other grains. Herds well into the hundreds were not uncommon. The Lex Licinia Sextia livestock restrictions appeared to have been ignored as thoroughly as the land limits. Enforcing this seemingly forgotten law would have to be addressed as part of land reform.

  When Tiberius returned to Rome, he went straight to Diophanes and Blossius to discuss his findings. He also enlisted the advice of his father-in-law Appius Claudius and Publius Crassus, whose daughter was promised to Gaius. Both men were influential senators connected to the populares and knew Tiberius’ talents. They were as eager to see Tiberius get into politics as his tutors were. Crassus’ brother Marcus Scaevola, also a senator and one of Rome’s best legal minds, sat in one afternoon with Appius and Crassus to help Tiberius write the first draft of the bill. Now with a plan to promote, he could begin his campaign to become a tribune of the plebs.

  The tribune position had been created three hundred and fifty years earlier as a reaction to the aristocracy’s control of the government. When the Republic was first formed, all of the most important positions in Rome, religious and political, were restricted to patricians, men of the highest class. Fifteen years later, the entire population of plebs took over th
e Aventine Hill, refusing to move until they had some kind of representation in the process of governing. As part of the ensuing compromise, the position of tribune was created to act as a intermediary between the people and the Senate. When first enacted, the People’s Assembly, a voting body restricted to plebeians, elected two tribunes. Two hundred years later it became five. Currently ten men are elected annually to form what is called the tribunate.

  Any single tribune or collection of them can call the People’s Assembly together. One or all can convene the Senate to discuss legislation that will later go to the Assembly for a vote. A tribune can also veto a public action or remove a magistrate from office. A tribuneship is a powerful position and is considered sacrosanct. Interfering with a tribune in any way can result in being exiled from Rome. When Appius’ daughter stepped between her father and a tribune to stop his veto, it was unprecedented—one protected individual confronting another. Surprisingly no criminal charge was made against Appius’ daughter, something that would become an important issue in the near future.

  When Tiberius told me he was going to make his first public appearance, I decided to attend. It would be in the comitium, the sunken amphitheater at the west end of the forum. He would announce his candidacy and present his platform of land reform. He was an excellent orator. That was something Cornelia had demanded of all of us—that we could speak clearly, accurately, and with force. As a woman, I never had any use of this in public. It was worth even less in my marriage—Aemilianus’ word could not be questioned—but because of Diophanes, I was capable of appreciating a good speech when I heard one.

  Women rarely go to the forum. I rarely went out at all. With my ankle it would be a challenge, but I was determined to go—and to go alone and not in my litter, so as not to be noticed. It was a somewhat dangerous thing to do, so I borrowed Nadia’s hooded, raw wool cloak to disguise myself, and as discreetly as I could, made my way across the city to the forum.

  The forum is a large, rectangular plaza that stretches from the temple of Vesta at the east end to the base of the Capitoline Hill at the west end. Near the center is a large black rock that marks the tomb of Romulus, the founder of Rome. Stores, banks, and other commercial buildings line the north and south perimeters.

  When I reached the comitium, Tiberius stood off to one side of the speakers’ platform, waiting for a man who had an audience of less than twenty to say his piece. The platform itself is a bit of Roman history. It was made from six brass rostra—ramming beaks—taken from ships sunken two hundred years earlier at the battle of Antium. The rostra and the Senate building, called the Curia, sat directly opposite each other on the upper lip of the circular comitium so that speakers on the Curia steps or at the rostra could address those in the huge bowl-shaped amphitheater below.

  It was October. The sun was out, but it was cool and breezy. The large white clouds in the west were overhead by the time Tiberius finally stood up to the rostra to address whoever would listen. He took a moment to survey his meager audience. Then he looked off at the men moving about in the forum whom he hoped to draw in. He had no idea I had come to watch.

  “How many of you own land?” Tiberius called out to those who could hear him.

  None of the men in the amphitheater responded. Tiberius shouted the question again, louder. A few men in the forum standing close to the comitium perimeter turned to look at him.

  “How many of you have known a soldier’s life?” Tiberius asked his audience.

  Most of the handful of men in the amphitheater shouted back that they had. Several others standing around the amphitheater perimeter did the same. One man yelled back, “What of it?”

  “There is an honor to being a legionnaire,” Tiberius answered. “And there’s an honor to being a Roman citizen, and it comes with the pride of owning land and supporting your family off that land.”

  Several of those few who were listening responded with a mixed chorus of agreement. A single man stood up. “So what’s that mean for those of us without land? Are we not citizens?” A second man followed with, “Are you saying we’re nothing?”

  “No, not at all,” answered Tiberius. “I’m saying just the opposite—that you should have land. And that every citizen deserves a piece of land to call his own. Some of you might have had land when you enlisted, but have since sold it or have so small a piece of land it can’t support your family. That’s a problem in my opinion.”

  And it was. As men sold their land or lost it to economic pressure, they were no longer eligible to serve in the military—the greatest honor of being a Roman citizen. Several of the men along the amphitheater rim began to filter down the stairs and take seats. They were not sure where Tiberius was headed, but he had gotten their attention.

  I worked my way through the crowd to the edge of the comitum so that I could hear Tiberius more easily. He appraised his growing audience then continued, speaking louder and with more passion. “The beasts that prowl about Italy have holes and lurking places where they can make their beds. But many of you who have fought and suffered injury for Rome enjoy but the blessings of air and light. These alone are your heritage. Landless, perhaps even homeless, you wander to and fro with your wives and children with little more than the clothes on your back.”

  More people gathered along the top edge of the amphitheater, drawn in by the tone in Tiberius’ voice. This was how it always was. A speaker had to be provocative enough to gather an audience, and Tiberius was fully aware of that.

  “Our generals are in the habit of inspiring their soldiers to combat by exhorting them to repel the enemy in defense of their tombs and ancestral shrines. The appeal is an idle prompt to most of you. You cannot point to a paternal altar to protect. You have no ancestral tomb. You have no land at all.”

  The hubbub increased. More seats began to fill. Tiberius’ opening lines rang of something that they knew was true but had never really thought about.

  “And yet you are still willing to fight and die so that a very few might accumulate land and wealth,” Tiberius continued. “We Romans are called the masters of the world, but there is no clod of earth that you can call your own. Isn’t the man who has a stake in his nation—a piece of its land—more likely to be devoted to the security of the state?”

  “Yes, of course,” shouted a man at the back of the amphitheater, “but what do you intend to do about it?”

  “Give land to every man without.”

  Several of those in the audience laughed as this audacious answer, but it also drew more in. Who was this man? And what was he talking about? Giving land away?

  “How can you possibly do that?” came out of the gathering crowd that now filled more than a quarter of the comitium.

  “There’s plenty of undistributed land all over Italy, and there are also men with more land than Roman law allows. These same men have been steadily buying up your small farms and using slaves to do the work that you or your father used to do. You’ve all seen it. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the reason your grandfather or your father or you yourself sold your property and moved into the city.”

  Tiberius went on to lay out his plan for land reform. By the time his speech was drawing to a close the entire comitium was filled. But the audience was not just old soldiers and the landless denizens of the street. Here and there I recognized noted senators in the crowd, most of them frowning, uncertain what to make of this man at the rostra.

  “If what I’ve said makes sense to you,” called out Tiberius in conclusion, “if it rings true, remember the name Tiberius Gracchus when it comes time to elect this year’s tribunes. Given the opportunity I will find a piece of land for every landless Roman in Italy. It will give purpose to your lives and at the same time increase the size and loyalty of the Roman army. What’s good for the people is also good for the Republic. Long live Rome,” he shouted, then left the rostra.

  Many of those in the audience surrounded Tiberius as he made his way from the rostra to the forum, ask
ing him questions and patting him on the back. Tiberius responded as best he could as he pushed his way ahead, knowing he had accomplished what he wanted.

  After Tiberius had broken free from the crowd, I trailed after him as he headed east across the forum. I wanted to congratulate him, but with my ankle I was losing ground. All of a sudden our cousin Publius Nasica, the pontifex maximus—the highest position in the Roman religious hierarchy—and some twenty years older than my brother, came out of the crowd right in front of Tiberius so that he had to stop and face him.

  “Bold words, Tiberius. But foolish. What you’re dangling before the masses will never happen.” He was a short thick man, with a full beard and an arrogant manner. “Take some good advice from your cousin. Forget your radical politics and give up your false promises.”

  Tiberius was a powerfully built man with a reputation as a more than capable soldier. While in Africa with Aemilianus, he had been one of the first wave of men to surmount the walls of Carthage. But Tiberius was not a hothead and he responded without undo emotion or bluster. “What I am proposing, Publius, is not a radical idea. It’s what Rome must do to maintain her supremacy in the world. Yes, some men, perhaps like yourself, who have bought up more than their share of land, will have to give some of it up, but they should be proud to do so as part of their patriotic duty.”

  Publius Nasica glared at him. “I don’t think so, Tiberius. I’ve invested a lot of money and labor into my property. No one’s taking it away.”

  “Yes, that’s the case for almost every large landowner. But the law limits land holdings to five hundred iugera. This is not an idea built in the clouds. It’s part of our constitution. Distributing private land won’t be easy, but men like you will be compensated. And our nation will be stronger for it.”