Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“A gladiator may win the rudis,” Batiatus interjected.

“Quite so!” Cicero said. “As my good friend Batiatus has taught me! A gladiator fights for his life. He may fight with such bravery, and win such victories, that he might be presented with true freedom and permitted to leave the ludus. Why, what is there to stop such a gladiator, or perhaps his freeborn son, enlisting in the Roman army, and rising to rank of centurion or tribune? What is there to stop such a man becoming a farmer with a life of honest toil? And from there, perhaps, the same course of honors that awaits men of patrician families.”

“Or,” Verres interrupted, “his brutish ways might lead him to fail at farming. His unbridled nature might lead him to desert the army. He, or his hypothetical freeborn son, might turn to criminal acts, becoming robber and brigand. Within a generation your freeborn man might be dead in the street, or choking up our prisons, or reduced once more to slavery.”

“Of course!” Cicero cried in elation. “You are so right, my friend. We are entirely in agreement.”

“We are?” Verres asked.

“We are!” Cicero smiled. “Any New Man stands at a portal of opportunity. Before him lies the uncertain life and prospects of any free individual. Above all there is the opportunity to become a man of virtue. Blessed or despised by the gods, women and wine, prosperity and decline, the chance to reach for greatness.”

“And behind him?”

“Behind him lies the mire from which he came. Temptation toward crime and corruption. Perhaps, indeed, he or his descendants will soon fall back once more into the bestial, ignorant world of slaves. But can we not agree that there is at least the chance of rescue? You say that slaves are slaves because they are irredeemable, but not all slaves are so. What of the African king fallen on hard times? What of the noble Roman soldier captured by Pontian pirates?”

“Death before dishonor!”

“Thus speaks a man who has never held a sword in battle!”

“Nor have you!”

“Roman law recognizes that good Roman citizens may fall upon hard times. Slavery is a state of suspended death, but providence may bring the fortunate soul back from its brink.”

“That cannot be true!”

“Ask your scribes, ask your magistrate. Ask them of the status ‘postliminium.’ It exists for those Romans who lose their freedom as prisoners of war, but have it restored to them by the inevitable military victory that is sure to follow wherever an insult is raised against the Republic!”

Cicero glanced around him at the expectant faces in the lamplight, and saw that all were waiting for him to explain. Verres quaffed at a flagon of wine, unused to the prolonged exercise of his voice. His opponent was occupied, and that meant that Cicero could strike. He took a deep breath, and gazed around his audience with wide eyes, inviting attendance, and imagination.

“My friends! My friends!” Cicero called. “I would ask you to paint a picture in your minds… that even as we duel with words here tonight, Lydian pirates, hundreds of miles from their Asian haunts, steal ashore and raid the house! Oh, how the Romans fight. The women scream and flee, and we menfolk make brave stand with table knives and candlesticks.

“Brave Verres cries: ‘You shall never take me alive!’ but he is struck from behind and falls into the arms of Morpheus. Asleep. When he awakes, he is bound in chains! He is tied to a bench as a galley slave! What should he do? Should he sit, arms folded, as though halfwitted, unable to fight back as the slave masters whip him for his lack of labors? Or should he grit his teeth and pull on his oar in virtuous confidence, secure in the knowledge that every sweep of the oars surely drives his galley closer to a moment of retribution and revenge?”

The echoes of Cicero’s voice died away in silence, as he surveyed a hushed, thoughtful crowd. He paused just long enough for his words to sink in.

“Sure enough,” he continued, “be it days, weeks or even months later, the Lydian pirates’ run of good luck comes to an end. Fortuna smiles upon our Roman hero as marines storm the ship! In the chaos, seizing opportunity, Brave Verres grasps the harsh slavemaster and, with his own chains, strangles him! He takes possession of the keys from the cruel pirate’s belt and unlocks his manacles. Then he turns to the expectant mob of his fellow rowers, and casts the ring of keys into their grateful midst!

“Brave Verres tells them: ‘Free yourselves!’ And he takes up a sword and runs swiftly onto the deck to give aid to the Roman soldiers as they extract vengeance upon the pirates!”

The chamber erupted in cheers at Cicero’s story, crushing Verres beneath a flurry of pats on the back in appreciation of his imaginary heroism.

“WAIT!” Cicero shouted, arms raised, calling the merriment to a sudden quiet. “I ask you now: Is Brave Verres a slave? He has toiled under the lash for many days. In appearance he is indistinguishable from the slaves on either side of him, who pulled on the same oar. And yet we know him to be a virtuous Roman, this man we see before us today. The Roman law of postliminium says that his slavery was but a temporary condition-a misfortune visited upon him, but soon evaded. He can return to Roman life as if he has returned from death itself. But what of the man next to him? What of thousands like him? What of those who toil in the silver mines or scratch letters as scribes or haul rocks as builders? We are all born free! Should all of us not aspire to remain so?”

There was applause, wild applause.

“Good Cicero,” Verres laughed. “I still feel you have proved nothing, and spoken of wild ideas, but you can boast of having laid claim to the hearts of the crowd.” He held up two fingers in a parody of gladiatorial submission. “The day is yours!”

There was enthusiastic and admiring applause, while Cicero bowed graciously.

“A prize!” Batiatus called. “Give him a prize!”

“Whatsoever you desire,” Timarchides laughed, slumped half-awake at the base of a statue. “From what little remains in this house.”

“An audience,” Cicero said immediately.

“With whom?”

XIV

FENESTRAE

“What, then, Medea?” Spartacus growled through the metal grate that separated their cells. “What would you have me do? My wife is sold into slavery. My labor is beholden to the one man who can bring her back to me. My body fights in the arena for the glory of the Republic I despise. What would you have me do?”

“Despair,” Medea replied. “Lose hold on those last of your hopes.”

“If I give up hope, I will have nothing.”

“Nothing but vengeance. Nothing to lose but your chains.”

“And my life.”

“What does your life matter if you have no hope?”

“I hope for Sura. While she yet lives.”

“And if she does not?”

“Do not speak such words.”

“The gladiator is hurt by words? The gladiator is injured by mere prospects? What if your wife is dead?”

Spartacus rattled the bars between them, but Medea stood unflinching before him, her nostrils flared with passion.

“Then I will kill them all,” he said.

“And for that you will need help.”

“No help but my arm. No help but my fists.”