corpse. He had been hit by two thunderbolts in the space of as many hours: sudden, instant and inexplicable love for a city that he had only seen from afar and for a girl that he had only glimpsed for an instant. Who was she? But he’d probably never see her again. Gathering himself with difficulty, he turned his horse to follow his family, yet as he passed through the Porta Collina and entered Rome, his heart was still pounding.
CHAPTER VI
Once through the gate the Via Nomentana narrowed so that two carts could just pass each other. The makeshift huts and tombs on either side were replaced by three-, four- or even five-storeyed tenements – insulae – that prevented the sun from reaching the street level except for an hour or so around midday. Each building had open-fronted shops on the ground level selling all manner of products. Costermongers squeezed in between pork butchers and leather-goods salesmen; stores selling live poultry next to taverns, barbers, fortune-tellers and purveyors of small statuettes of gods and heroes. Sweating smiths hammered at ironwork on open forges alongside tailors hunched over their stitching and bakers filling shelves with loaves, pastries and sweet buns.
The cries of the shopkeepers advertising their wares resounded in the air, which was already bursting with the aromas, both sweet and foul, given off by such a variety of human activity. Vespasian was overwhelmed by the throng of people, free, freed and slave, going about their everyday business pushing and shoving each other in an effort to remain on the raised pavements so as not to soil their feet in the mud, made up mainly of human and animal excrement, which covered the road.
On the outside of the lower buildings, in order to maximise the rentable living space inside, rickety wooden staircases led up to equally precarious balconies that gave access to the rooms on the first and second floors. Women, mainly, populated these upper levels; they scrubbed garments on wooden boards beneath lines of nearly clean washing that fluttered in the breeze. They prepared the evening meal, which would be cooked in the local baker’s oven, whilst gossiping with their neighbours as their children squatted at their feet playing at knucklebones or dice. Brightly painted whores called out their services and fees to the passersby below and made lewd jokes with each other, cackling with unashamed laughter, whilst the elderly and the infirm just sat and stared greedily at the life they could no longer participate in.
An underclass of thieves, confidence tricksters, charlatans and cheats preyed on the unwary or the dull, weaving their way stealthily through the crowds looking for likely targets and picking them off with a finesse born of a lifetime’s dishonesty. What profit they could not cream off they left to the lowest of the low: the beggars. Blind, diseased, maimed or malformed, they struggled, with a desperation known only to those who have nothing, to elicit some scraps or a small bronze coin from the few who cared enough to even notice them.
All forms of human existence were here – except the wealthy. They lived up on Rome’s hills in the cleaner air, above the heaving masses that they saw only when they had to pass the squalor on their way through the city to or from their more fragrant country estates.
The Flavian party made its way along the street that plunged, downhill, straight as an arrow, towards the heart of Rome.
‘We need to keep on this street until it divides in two, then we take the right-hand fork,’ Titus called out to their hired guards, who were doing a fine job of easing their passage through the crowds. He turned to look at his younger son. ‘Well, my boy, what do you think?’ he asked.
‘It’s a lot bigger than Reate, Father,’ Vespasian replied, grinning. ‘Though in truth I don’t know what to say… it is everything that I was expecting, except magnified by ten. I was prepared for a lot of people, but not this many. I knew that the buildings would be tall, but this tall? How do they stay up?’
‘Well, sometimes they don’t,’ Titus replied. ‘The landlords build these insulae as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then cram them with as many tenants as they can. They often collapse, and when they do they just put up another and to Hades with the poor buggers who got crushed to death. There’ll always be people happy to pay rent to live in the city, even in a death trap; it’s that or in the tomb shantytowns outside the walls. At least in the city the poor can take advantage of the free corn dole; the Emperor won’t let his people starve, that would be political suicide. Anyone with any money will tell you that we are only ever an empty granary away from revolution.’ His father smiled at Vespasian. ‘But you don’t have to worry about all that, it’s no concern of ours; let others take care of their own as we do of ours.’
They came to the fork in the road. At its apex stood a tavern outside of which lounged a group of hard- looking men drinking and playing dice on rough wooden benches. As Titus’ party took the right-hand fork one of the group stood up and approached Titus.
‘You’ll be needing protection, sir, if you’re thinking of going down that road,’ he said in a quiet, menacing voice. He had the build and cauliflower ears of a boxer; the scars on his face attested to his profession. He stood squarely in front of Titus and made no attempt to move as Titus tried to push his horse past him.
‘I said that you’ll be needing protection on that road. My name is Marcus Salvius Magnus and my crossroads fraternity here can provide you and your party with that reassurance,’ he insisted. ‘A denarius apiece for me and two of my lads will see you safe enough on your way.’
‘And from whom do we need protecting, Magnus?’ Titus asked, his voice filling with suppressed rage. ‘You and your murdering bunch of cronies no doubt.’
‘There’s no need to be uncivil, sir,’ the boxer replied. ‘I just wouldn’t advise you to proceed without an escort who knows the area. Who knows where to go and not to go, if you take my meaning?’
Titus struggled to control himself; the last thing he wanted to do was to lose his dignity to a mere thug. ‘Why do we in particular need protection?’ he asked and pointed to a passing group of travellers. ‘What about them, why don’t you offer them your protection?’
‘They don’t look like they could afford it, sir. Them that can’t afford it don’t need it, because if you’re too poor to afford protection you’re too poor to rob. Your party on the other hand looks as if it can afford to buy the protection that it therefore quite obviously needs.’ Magnus looked pleased with the logic of the argument.
‘Ah, but we have our protection, three armed guards all very capable of looking after themselves and us,’ Titus said, gesturing towards the ex-legionaries who had now dismounted and drawn their daggers.
‘And very lovely they look too, sir, but there are only three of them and there are a lot of very bad people down that way, I can assure you of that.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ Titus seethed, ‘but what if we decide not to take your very well-meant advice?’
‘Then that would be very risky, sir, and somewhat foolish, if I may be so bold.’ Magnus gave a smile that did not reach his eyes. Behind him his comrades had started to get up; the whole situation was getting rapidly out of control.
‘Just pay the man, Father,’ Sabinus whispered, realising that they would come off worst if it came to a fight.
‘Over my dead body,’ his father replied forcefully.
‘Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that, sir. It’s to prevent that that I’m offering you our services. Tell us where are you heading and we’ll see you safely on your way,’ Magnus insisted. The Flavian guards had now surrounded him, yet he showed no sign of backing down.
‘Just what is going on here, Titus?’ Vespasia had got down from her litter and stood next to her husband.
‘These thugs wish to-’
‘As I said, there is no need to be uncivil,’ Magnus cut across him.
‘Uncivil! You disgusting, uncultured ape,’ Vespasia shouted. ‘How dare you delay us? I shall speak to my brother as soon as I see him.’
‘Hush, my dear, I’m afraid that won’t help us at the moment.’ Titus looked at Magnus’ cronies, who were now completely blocking both their way forward and their retreat. He realised that fighting was futile and made a mental note to one day extract a painful revenge. ‘We are going to the house of Gaius Vespasius Pollo,’ he spat out, ‘on the Quirinal.’
‘What? The ex-praetor? Why didn’t you say so before, my friend? That changes everything. I know him well; there’ll be no charge. A silly misunderstanding; please accept my apologies, sir, madam, and pass on our greetings to the honourable senator.’
