Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗

Well, my dear friends, ‘the play’ is far from over. It’s just beginning! But already, the gods have found a way ‘for what no man expected.’ Nine years ago, when my brother Tiberius died, who among us could possibly have foreseen this day?”

Gaius paused to allow these words to sink in. Silently, he counted to ten. The deliberate, well-timed pause was an orator’s technique that Tiberius had taught him: You go too fast, little brother. Stop now and then, especially after you’ve said something clever or thoughtful. Catch a breath-count to ten-allow your listeners to think and feel for a moment…

Gaius was not in the Forum, haranguing a motley crowd of citizens, but in the lamplit garden of his mother’s house on the Palatine, addressing an intimate gathering of his most ardent supporters. This was a victory celebration. Gaius Gracchus, who had sworn off politics forever after his brother’s death, had just been elected tribune of the plebs, following in Tiberius’s footsteps.

“Well, maybe my mother could have foreseen it.” Gaius nodded to Cornelia, who reclined on a couch nearby. “Not a day of my childhood passed when I was not exhorted to live up to the example of my grandfather. And yet, it’s my mother’s example that most inspires me, that sets the greatest challenge for me. Was there ever a mortal of either sex who possessed such fortitude and courage? All of you, join me in saluting her-Cornelia, daughter of Africanus, wife of Tiberius Gracchus who was twice consul and whose statue stands in the Forum, mother of Tiberius the people’s martyr!”

Cornelia smiled, so graciously that an observer might have thought she had never heard such words before. In fact, she had appeared alongside Gaius countless times during the campaign, all over Roma and up and down the countryside, playing the proud mother and beaming recipient of her son’s extravagant tributes. Gaius’s supporters adored Cornelia; they adored Gaius for adoring her.

In the final days of the campaign, the crowds who came to hear Gaius had increased beyond all expectations. Even Tiberius at the peak of his popularity had never mustered such multitudes. When election day arrived, such a throng poured into Roma to vote that the inns could not accommodate them. Men slept in trees, by the roadside, and on rooftops.

One result of the Gracchan massacre had been a relocation of the voting area. Elections were no longer held atop the cramped Capitoline, but on the Field of Mars outside the city walls, where there was plenty of room for the tribes to assemble. Structures resembling sheepfolds were built so that voters could pass through, one at a time, to cast their votes. But even these new accommodations proved inadequate for the number of voters who turned out to support Gaius. More than once, the crush had threatened to erupt in a riot, but in the end the voting was concluded without bloodshed. Gaius had emerged a clear victor with a mandate to carry out a platform of reforms even more radical than those of his brother.

After saluting Cornelia, Gaius turned his gaze to another who sat nearby. “And let us not forget my dear friend Lucius Pinarius. Not even he foresaw my return to politics. Yet, when I decided to run for tribune, this man devoted himself and his considerable fortune completely to my campaign. Lucius represents a powerful new force in this city: the class of men we call Equestrians, after our forefather’s tradition of rewarding their finest warriors with a charger at public expense. These days, men are admitted to the Equestrian ranks by the censor, and their distinction is not horsemanship or valor, but the accumulation of wealth; they are men of means who have chosen to forgo the Course of Honor, and so they form an elite class distinct from the Senate. So fine a businessman is Lucius Pinarius that I swear commerce must be in his blood, just as politics is in mine. The Equestrians of Roma, who work hard and risk their fortunes to make this a more prosperous city, are the future. The idle senators who consume more wealth than they create-and who look down their noses at the rest of us-represent the dead past.

“Lucius is a builder, responsible for construction projects throughout the city. He has a devoted wife and a young son, and all the worldly success a man could wish for. We’ve been business partners for many years, Lucius and I. We know each other so well that we-”

“Finish each other’s sentences?” quipped Lucius.

“Indeed! And yet, when I decided to make the run for tribune, no one was more surprised than Lucius. And no one was more surprised than I when Lucius took the headlong plunge into politics right beside me-or behind me, I should say, since he prefers to play the role of mover and shaker behind the scenes. Salute him with me, all of you-Lucius Pinarius, distinguished Equestrian, friend, financial supporter, trusted confidante!”

Unlike Cornelia, Lucius was unused to being praised in public. He was now over forty, but he blushed like a boy.

All the world knew Gaius’s story: the trauma of Tiberius’s murder, the withdrawal from the public arena, the eventual-now triumphant-return to politics. But no one knew Lucius’s story except Lucius himself. He alone knew the tangled emotions that had led him to this night. The shame of his inaction before and after Tiberius’s murder had never ceased to gnaw at him. His career had provided a lucrative distraction; family life had brought many rewards; his status as an Equestrian had given him great satisfaction. But all these accomplishments had done nothing to assuage his sense of failure. He had found redemption only by following Gaius’s lead, throwing caution to the wind, and thumbing his nose at the reactionary forces that had destroyed his mother’s happiness and his own sense of self-worth.

“Beside Lucius sits his mother, the virtuous Menenia. Beside her is my lovely wife, Licinia,” said Gaius. “I thank both of you for sitting up with my mother on all those nights when I was late getting home after buying a round of wine for the voters.”

His wife coyly cocked her head. “But Gaius, beloved, did you have to buy a round every night, for every voter, in every tavern in Roma?”

This elicited genial laughter from the guests, and calls for more wine.

“My friends, I could spend the whole night publicly acknowledging each one of you, and thanking every voter by name, but this is a victory party, and you are going to hear a victory speech! You’ve heard all my pledges already, I know, but here’s the difference: Before, you heard them from a mere candidate; now you’re hearing them from a newly elected tribune of the plebs!”

Gaius waited for the thunderous ovation to die down. “First, regarding the military, I propose that the state pay to clothe its soldiers, instead of requiring them to do so at their own expense. I further propose that no one under the age of seventeen should be required to serve. Most important, new colonies must be established to provide fresh homesteads for our veterans. Brave men aimlessly wander the streets, men who gave years of service and risked life and limb for the promise of a better life. That promise must be fulfilled!

“For the common good, I propose that the state should set the price of grain. I’m not saying that people should be given free grain, as my opponents assert, but grain at a reasonable price, stabilized by subsidies from the treasury and the building of granaries in the city to stockpile a surplus. If the state cannot make food affordable for a working citizen and his family, then what is the state good for?

“I propose a massive program of road-building, overseen by qualified Equestrians and employing able-bodied citizens, not slaves. The treasury is bloated from foreign conquests; why let that money sit idle when we can put it in the hands of the workers and get new, better roads in return?