Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“Assuredly.”

“So speaks the sacrificial bull, nurtured and pampered throughout its life-unaware of its ultimate fate.”

Barca chuckled at the Thracian’s deft reversal of Varro’s argument, but soon grew solemn again.

“Do you not think that the Carthaginians said something similar around their campfires?” Spartacus said. “Right up until the moment they were sold into slavery.”

Across the fire, Barca glowered silently.

“Carthage was fated to fall,” Varro stated carefully, with an apologetic nod at Barca. “Rome is fated to rise.”

“On whose authority? On that of the gods that have shown you such ill favor?”

“Of course.”

“Show me their words. Show me their assurances.”

Varro chuckled.

“What you ask for is not beyond the reach of men.”

The fire crackled between them, as if daring each of them to speak.

“We have no other entertainment,” Spartacus said. “Tell us.”

“You do not wish to hear this,” Varro said. “It will make you seem yet more foolish.”

“Really?” Barca interjected suddenly. “Spartacus will look foolish? What better entertainment than that?”

There was muted laughter all around.

“You surely know this story?” Varro said. “It is told to Roman children in their cradles.”

“I am a Thracian,” Spartacus said.

“I am the last of the true Carthage,” Barca said.

Bebryx snorted in his sleep, and then turned over, still dozing.

Varro sighed.

“Then I shall tell you,” he said. “I shall tell you a story that you would have done well to know before your peoples thought to oppose the might of Rome. It is a tale that dates back to the age of kings, before Rome became a Republic. A story of the last of our kings, the feckless Tarquin the Proud.”

“Are you allowed to call a Roman nobleman ‘feckless’?” Barca mused. “We would be whipped.”

“I can call him that,” Varro replied. “For I am a Roman, myself. Those were the days when Greek culture had impact much greater on Italia, when Greek customs and beliefs held great sway with the people. You might even say that Italia was not the center of the world. Instead, it was regarded as a land of distant Greek colonies, ‘Greater Greece.’

“Not far from here, in Cumae, there was a prophetess, a strange woman from the east, who dwelt in a cave on the slopes of the citadel. Some say her name was Amalthea, some Herophile, others Demophile. The Romans simply call her Sibyl. And this Sibyl came to King Tarquin with the strangest of offers. She offered him nine books, for a costly sum.”

“What was in nine books that was worth so much?” Spartacus wondered.

“Ah!” Varro said. “What indeed?”

He glanced round at the expectant listeners, enjoying their anticipation.

“What could possibly be worth a hundred lifetimes’ wealth? I can see you thinking on that very question, as did King Tarquin when he returned to his hearth. What madness was this? What did the witch know? Moreover, what knowledge did she possess when, in full view of Tarquin, she threw three of the books upon the fire?”

He kicked the embers before him for effect, throwing out a cloud of sparks and glowing ash.

“Tarquin watched as the papyrus curled and burned, as the wooden covers darkened and smouldered. Through the flames, he caught sight of ancient letters, scrawled in fading inks, succumbing to the flames! But still he did nothing. And the witch turned to him, brandishing the six remaining books, and asked him if he wanted to buy them at double the price!”

Spartacus laughed. Barca muttered something about the foolishness and melodrama of women, particularly hypothetical prophetesses.

“If nine books cost a hundred lifetimes’ labor,” Varro continued, “how could six be worth twice as much? King Tarquin laughed at the crazy Sibyl, this addled crone from the smoking fields of Cumae. He scorned her offer and told her to leave him in peace, and she looked at him with pleading, tearful eyes. Once more, she begged him to take the books for the sum she demanded, and once more Tarquin turned away in disgust.

“And so, the Sibyl held up three more books, half the remaining total, and weeping this time, as if she were murdering her own child, she cast them also onto the fire!”

Varro kicked at the hearth again, sending up another flurry of sparks.

“Tarquin stared into the flames, and watched three more books burn into cinders, while the witch wept silently. She looked mournfully at the three remaining books, and spoke through her sobs. ‘King Tarquin,’ she said. ‘These last three are all that remain, and they are yours for ten times the original asking price!’

“Ten times, my friends! A thousand lives’ labors, for a mere fragment of the original!”

“But what in the books was of such value?” Spartacus pressed.

“Tarquin wondered that himself. He saw something in the witch’s eyes that told him this was his final chance. He sensed something in her inverted, perverse means of bargaining, that struck fear into his heart. And so, angry at himself, rage boiling up in his breast, he ordered his slaves to bring him the fortune the witch desired. She went away with a thousand lifetimes’ wealth, and left him with nothing but the three books. And Tarquin opened up the books, and looked at their strange lettering, a form of Greek so ancient as to be barely intelligible to the educated Roman. He read verse after verse of arcane oracles, and began to understand the enormity of what he had done. Only now, as he sat in the fading firelight, unrolling these delicate, brittle scrolls, did Tarquin start to realize his monstrous crime. And Tarquin sat by his hearth and wept.”

“What was in the books?” Barca demanded, seemingly ready to punch the answer out of the storyteller.

“You tell me! What could it be that was worth more, the less there was of it? What text could there be, that would cause a ruler to weep as he read through to its premature end?”

“The… the history of Rome…?” Spartacus asked.

“THE HISTORY OF ROME! From the first time the word was uttered on the banks of the Tiber, to the fall of the kings and the foundation of the Republic. Our tribulations against Carthage and the crisis of Hannibal’s invasion. The Social Wars, and our campaigns in Greece and Hispania. You and me, here at this very moment! All our victories and our loves. Our children yet unborn, and our children’s children! Slaves and nobles, farmers and soldiers, wives and mothers. Everything we are and will be. The people we meet and the enemies we fight; the women we love and the places we settle; the seas we cross and the mountains we climb! Anything and everything that Rome has been or ever will be, was in those books!”

“And Tarquin watched six of them burn…”

“So he did.”

“Fool,” Spartacus murmured.

“Maybe so.”

“Rome’s history is Rome’s history. I shall not be part of it.”

“Oh, but Spartacus, you already are. Whether you desire it or not.”

“All books must end,” Spartacus said, thoughtfully.

The bolt rattled in the door to the cell, and the men looked round to see a guard fumbling at the lock.

“Varro. You are summoned,” the guard grunted.

The three gladiators looked at each other in surprise.

“Spartacus is the Champion of Capua,” Varro said, carefully.

“Varro. Varro alone.”

“Are you sure they do not want the Beast of Carthage?”

“You, Varro. Now.”

Lucretia sat up with a start.

“I see you found quiet room, far from moving lips,” Ilithyia said.