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

Much blood was spilled in Roma that day-but not the blood of Appius Claudius. Only his death could have satisfied the angry mob; only the sight of his corpse next to that of Verginia could have calmed the riot. The chair of state was smashed and the tribunal was torn down; Appius Claudius was not amid the wreckage. Men pushed past the lictors, broke into the meeting hall and ran through every room; the Decemvir was nowhere to be found. His inexplicable escape was like a spiteful trick played upon the mob, a deliberate insult to their righteous fury.

Almost forgotten amid the chaos, Verginius lowered the body of his daughter to the ground and knelt over her, joined by Lucius. Father and lover wept uncontrollably, adding their tears to the blood that stained Verginia’s breast.

449 B.C.

By the time Icilia’s pregnancy began to show, many things had changed in Roma.

The change that most intimately affected her was the death of her father. Walking through the Forum one day, Icilius had clutched his chest and fallen. By the time he arrived home, carried on a litter, his heart had stopped beating.

Upon their father’s death, Icilia’s brother Lucius became paterfamilias. It was Lucius who would decide Icilia’s fate, and the fate of her unborn child.

Great changes had also taken place in the city.

The tragic end of Verginia had shaken Roma to its foundations. Had Appius Claudius possessed any idea of the forces his mad scheme would unleash? It was hard to imagine how any man, however blinded by lust or arrogance, could have proceeded on such a reckless course. For generations to come, his name would be a synonym for that which the Greeks called hubris-a pride so overbearing that the gods themselves are compelled to annihilate the offender.

Did Appius Claudius anticipate Verginius’s intention to kill his daughter? Did he deliberately allow it to happen, having cold-bloodedly determined that this was his best course of action? In the aftermath of the upheaval, some put forth this opinion. They argued that Appius Claudius had already had his way with the girl, and thus had no further use for her. She had become a liability to him; her death would relieve him of the responsibility to determine her identity, and what better solution than to goad her father into committing the act? Appius Claudius thought he had found a way to take what he wanted without paying a price. If a man had power, and was clever, and was brazen enough to follow through on a ruthless scheme, then even for the most terrible crime he might hope to avoid punishment.

Others said that even Appius Claudius could not be that cold and calculating. Having desired Verginia so desperately that he would carry out such a dangerous plot, surely a single night and day had not exhausted his appetite for her. The fact that his face showed no reaction to her death was because he was utterly stunned by what Verginius had done.

Whatever his intentions, the Decemvir’s desire for Verginia had nothing to do with politics, yet the girl’s father and betrothed managed to convince their fellow plebeians otherwise. A merciless patrician had despoiled a plebeian virgin, beaten and humiliated her outraged plebeian suitor, and driven her distraught plebeian father to an act of uttermost shame and desperation.

All the discontent sewn by the Decemvirs’ tyranny came to a head over the outrage committed against Verginia. For the first time in a generation, the plebeians staged a secession, such as the one which had won them the right to elect tribunes. Plebeian city-dwellers withdrew from the city; plebeian farmers put aside their plows; plebeian soldiers refused to fight. Their demand was the end of the Decemvirs, and in particular, the arrest, trial, and punishment of Appius Claudius.

In the end, after much bombast and negotiation, all ten Decemvirs resigned. Some managed to escape trial. Others were charged with misconduct and forbidden to leave the city, including Appius Claudius, who barricaded himself in his well-guarded house and refused to come out. His abuses were the most egregious of the Decemvirs, yet he seemed to be the least repentant.

Bitter and unwavering to the end, Appius Claudius hanged himself rather than face the judgment of the court.

Marcus Claudius, the accomplice of the Decemvir, was too cowardly to follow his master’s example; he was brought to trial and condemned. Verginius himself requested that the villain be spared the penalty of death, and Marcus was allowed to flee into exile. It was said that on the day he left Roma, the ghost of Verginia, which for months had wandered from house to house across the Seven Hills, weeping and moaning in the night, terrifying children and rending the hearts of their parents, at last found peace and ceased to haunt the city.

The Senate reassembled. New magistrates were elected. Among the new tribunes of the plebs were Verginius and young Lucius Icilius.

The bitterness felt toward the Decemvirs as men and as tyrants was almost universal, but their labor as lawmakers was widely respected. The Twelve Tables were accepted by a consensus of both patricians and plebeians, and became the law of the land.

The new laws were cast in tablets of bronze, which were posted in the Forum, where any citizen could read them, or have them read aloud to him. No longer would Roman law be a matter of oral tradition-an accretion of moldering precedents, momentary whims, hazy surmises, and recondite deductions-known only to experienced senators and jurists; instead, the Twelve Tables were there for all to see. Virtually every citizen had a quibble or two with some provision of the new laws, but these objections were swept aside by the overwhelming value of the Twelve Tables as a whole. Once the spoken word of kings had been the highest authority, then that of the elected consuls; now the written word was king, to which each citizen had access.

On the day the bronze tablets were posted, Icilia dressed in the plain tunica of one of her slave girls and slipped away from her house. She waited in the secluded place near the market where her child had been conceived. Titus was to meet her there. He did not yet know of the child’s existence.

Titus arrived late. As he slipped past the dense foliage of the cypress tree, he managed to smile. He kissed her. When he drew back, the smile had vanished. The grimness on his face mirrored her own.

“I came from the Forum,” he said. “They’ve posted the Twelve Tables.”

“You’ve read them?”

“Not all. But I read the part about marriage.” He lowered his eyes. “It’s just as we feared. There can be no marriage between a patrician and a plebeian.”

Icilia drew a sharp breath. She had been hoping against hope that, somehow, a marriage to Titus might still be possible. She had clung desperately to this fantasy for as long as she could; now it was gone. She felt frightened and utterly alone, despite the arms that encircled her.

“Titus, there’s something I must tell you.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, and felt warm tears on this fingertips. “What must you tell me, Icilia? Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what I’ve just told you.”

“Titus, there’s a child growing inside me. Your child.”

His arms stiffened. After a moment, he hugged her fiercely, and then, just as abruptly, drew back, as if afraid he might harm her. On his face was an expression she had never seen on anyone before, joyful and despairing at the same time.

“Your brother?”

“Lucius doesn’t know yet. No one knows-except you. I’ve hidden it from everyone. But I can’t hide it much longer.”

“When? How soon?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know about such things…and there’s no one I can ask!” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Icilia, Icilia! What are we to do? You’ll have to tell Lucius. The two of you have always been close. Perhaps-”