Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗
“Don’t be ridiculous! Hephaestion was Alexander’s equal as an athlete and a warrior, for one thing. Besides, Greeks are Greeks and Romans are Romans.”
Plautus shook his head. “Men are the same everywhere. That’s why comedy is universal. Thank the gods for that! A laugh is a laugh, whether you’re in Corinth or Corsica-or Carthage, I daresay. Every man likes to laugh, eat, spill his seed, and get a good night’s sleep-usually in that order.”
Kaeso shrugged and sipped his wine.
The playwright smirked. “Divine spark or not, your friend Scipio has fallen behind in his social engagements. Didn’t you say he intended to have me over, to celebrate our mutual success? It’s almost a month since the Roman Games, and I’m still waiting for my dinner invitation.”
“You can’t be serious, Plautus. Can you imagine how busy Scipio must be, preparing to take the command in Spain? He doesn’t have time to entertain! I was probably the last person with whom he actually sat down and enjoyed a meal.”
“You should feel lucky, then, and honored.”
“I do. It will be a very long time, I imagine, before Scipio smiles again as he smiled that night-relaxed and contented and with hardly a worry. Now the weight of destiny is on his shoulders.”
Plautus nodded. “He’s set himself an arduous task. It will make him or break him.”
“Only time will tell,” whispered Kaeso. He mouthed a silent prayer to Jupiter to watch over his friend.
201 B.C.
Eleven years later, Scipio had fulfilled the vows he made to Jupiter, to the shades of his father and uncle, and to the people of Roma.
After decisive victories in Spain, Scipio took the war to Africa and proceeded to menace Carthage. This was done over the strenuous objections of Fabius Maximus, who told the Senate that Hannibal should be decisively defeated in Italy rather than lured away, and who warned against the uncertainties and entanglements of an African campaign. But Scipio’s strategy succeeded brilliantly. Panicked, the Carthaginians recalled Hannibal from Italy to defend their city. Just as many of Roma’s jealous allies and subjects had eagerly betrayed her, so did many of Carthage’s neighbors. Scipio pressed his advantage. At the battle of Zama, some one hundred miles inland from Carthage, the long war reached its climax.
Before the battle, in a final attempt at negotiations, Hannibal asked to talk with Scipio, and the two met face to face in Scipio’s tent. For a long moment, both men were struck dumb with mutual loathing and admiration. Hannibal spoke first, asking for peace despite the bitter taste of the word in his mouth. He offered terms advantageous to Roma-but not advantageous enough. Scipio craved a victory, not a settlement. Nothing less would satisfy his vow to Jupiter.
Hannibal made a final plea. “You were a boy when I began my war on Roma. You’ve grown up. I’ve grown old. Your sun is rising. I see twilight ahead. With age comes weariness, but also wisdom. Hear me, Scipio: The greater a man’s success, the less it may be trusted to endure. Fortuna can turn on a man, in the blink of an eye. You believe that you have the upper hand going into this battle, but when the bloodshed and the madness begin, all the odds count for nothing. Will you stake the sacrifice of so much blood and so many years of struggle on the outcome of a single hour?”
Scipio was unimpressed. He pointed out that Roma had proposed terms of peace on numerous occasions, to which Carthage had always turned a deaf ear. Negotiation was no longer an option. As for Fortuna, Scipio was well aware of her vagaries. She had taken those dearest to him, but she had also given him a chance to exact his revenge.
Hannibal was allowed to return to the Carthaginian camp unharmed.
The next day, the two most famous generals commanding the two mightiest armies in the world advanced to battle. The closely fought contest was a test of sheer endurance for both sides. Scipio had prayed for a rout; he achieved a bare victory, but a victory nonetheless. Defeated, exhausted, abandoned by Fortuna, Hannibal fled back to Carthage.
The Romans’ terms were harsh. Stripped of her warships and military stores and made to pay massive reparations, Carthage was reduced to little more than a client state of Roma. A war that had wreaked havoc on the whole of the Mediterranean for seventeen years had at last come to an end, and Roma emerged stronger than ever, a power poised to rival the fabled Egyptians or the Persians at the peak of their empires. The survivors who had fought and won the war could rightly consider themselves the greatest generation in Roman history, and the greatest among them, without question, was Publius Cornelius Scipio, forever after to be called Africanus-conqueror of Africa.
“He’s cut his hair short! When did that happen? I’ve never seen him without his long mane of chestnut hair.”
Kaeso spoke wistfully. Through the peephole beneath the stage, he gazed at the crowded bleachers of the Circus Maximus, where Scipio had finally arrived to take his seat of honor. The crowd stood and cheered him for a long time, crying “Africanus! Africanus!” Eventually the spectators began to take their seats, and Kaeso was finally able to get a clear view of the recipient of their acclaim.
“Are you disappointed, boss?” said Plautus, who was performing a last-minute inspection of the trapdoor. The simple task made him huff and puff; over the years, he had grown fat with success. “Does short hair not suit him?”
“Quite the contrary! It suits him very well indeed.” Kaeso squinted slightly; his eyesight was not as good as it used to be. “He no longer looks like a boy-”
“I should think not! He must be at least thirty-five.”
“But he’s more handsome than ever. Not so much like Alexander anymore; more like Hercules, perhaps. He used to be almost too pretty, you know? Now he looks so rugged, so-”
“By Venus and Mars, stop swooning!” Plautus laughed. “He’s just a man.”
“Really? Did you see the triumphal procession?”
“Some of it. It went on too long for me to watch the whole thing.”
“All those captives, all that booty! The splendor of his chariot, the magnificence of his armor! All those people shouting his name…”
“I’m only glad he decided to include an afternoon of comedy among the festivities-though I must admit I was a bit surprised when he requested that we revive The Swaggering Soldier for the occasion.”
“Why not The Swaggering Soldier? It hearkens back to his very first elected office; people still talk about the Roman Games of that year. And it’s a clever way for him to show people that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The audience can see the play as an affectionate parody of Roma’s most beloved soldier, a man who’s earned the right to swagger, the invincible Scipio Africanus. Giving them a laugh at his own expense will only make them love him more.”
“While you, dear boss, could hardly love Scipio more than you already do.”
Kaeso made no reply. He was deep in thought, musing on Scipio’s spectacular success. His own life seemed hopelessly humdrum and shabby by comparison-a comfortable but loveless marriage, a daughter to whom he had never felt particularly close, an endless series of dalliances with actors and slave boys, and a merely adequate livelihood earned from his theater company and from his staff of scribes, who specialized in copying Greek books for sale to the literate upper classes.
Plautus slapped his shoulder. “Snap out of it, boss! You’ve been a shadow to Scipio all your life. You’ve admired him, desired him, idolized him, envied him-done everything, I suppose, except hate him.”
“That I could never do!”
“Ah, but there you differ from your fellow citizens. They adore him now-they worship him like a god-but they’ll turn on Scipio some day.”
