Scipio. Ross Leckie

we cantered, with me in the middle of the squadron, up the Via Appia. If I fell off, I knew, with my hands tied I had no way of breaking my fall. And I didn’t want to break my head on stone or on the hooves behind. I needed my head. I had plans for it.

      It was Quinta who explained that night, at bed-time. ‘Laelius’ father is a novus homo. A new man, of new money. He made it, they say, supplying corn to the army. His people are farmers in Bruttium. Anyway, your father’s fairly taken to him. Agreed to become his patron, and appointed him one of his tribunes.’

      ‘Tribunes?’ I asked. ‘What’s a tribune?’

      ‘You’ll find out soon enough, in the life you’ll lead, young master. But a tribune is a senior staff officer. Anyway, this Priscus Laelius, that’s his full name,’ she sniffed, ‘he hasn’t even got a cognomen, anyway, he and your father are off together in Illyria, and so we have young Laelius with us.’

      ‘But Quinta, if Laelius’ father is so rich, why doesn’t Laelius have his own litterator?’

      ‘Because, young master, that wouldn’t go down well. Too showy, when you’re still a mere publicanus. Why, Laelius’ father isn’t even an eques, a knight, yet. Though I dare say he might be if he does what’s expected of him in Illyria.’

      ‘And what’s that, Quinta?’

      ‘Well, win for a start. But that’s more your father’s problem than Laelius’, who’s acting as quartermaster.’

      ‘Quartermaster? What’s that?’

      ‘Oh there never was such a boy for questions. Last one, then lights out. The quartermaster sees to supplies and––’

      ‘You mean swords and shields?’

      ‘Yes, those, but war’s as much about a hot meal and a dry tent …’

      A hot meal and a dry tent. I never forgot that. In big ways and small, many contributed to what I was to become.

      So Laelius became part of my life. He was neither sullen nor sycophantic. We never fought, but we played; and for that I owe him my childhood. Before school and after school – as time went on he came earlier and left later – we played in the courtyard, hopscotch, marbles, hide and seek. In class, the pace quickened. He started with no Greek, and soon had more than I. He admitted to working each evening.

      ‘Why do you work so hard, Laelius?’ I asked him one day. We were sitting in the garden, after school, drinking lemon cordial.

      ‘Why? Because, because my father told me to.’

      So simple. Simplicity in life is, I think, the key. Knowing who and why and what you are. Good men admit the complex. Great men absorb it, and make of that something simple.

      The next day, Laelius was to be tested on some irregular verbs; I already knew them. Rufustinus had only given Laelius two days to prepare.

      He got them right, perfectly, and the lesson went on. I asked him afterwards how he’d done it. ‘It took me two weeks to learn those verbs,’ I said. ‘How can you memorise them so fast?’

      ‘How? I make them into pictures.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Well, take a verb like τίθημι. What does it look like to you?’

      ‘What does it look like? I don’t know. It doesn’t look like anything.’

      ‘It does to me. It looks like a sneeze.’

      ‘A sneeze? Are you serious?’

      ‘Yes! The sound my father makes when he sneezes is like τιθημι. So when I had to learn the principal parts, I just pictured my father sneezing! Like this.’

      He stood up and sneezed. ‘A-τίθημι,’ he went, ‘τιθέναι, ἔθηκα θείζ … and,' he said, tears of laughter running down his cheeks, ‘I just think of my father sneezing like that. I see him, hear him making a racket like a winter storm.’

      We laughed until our sides ached. But I had learnt a lesson. If you want to remember something, picture it. The more absurd the picture, the better you’ll remember. I’ve been complimented, for example, for remembering people’s names, even if I’ve met them only once or briefly. That’s easy. You merely think of an image when you meet them and associate that with the name.

      The Pannonian merchant Timpulus, for example, was amazed that I remembered his name when we met for the second time, after many years, shortly before I left Rome. When I first met him, he was just another merchant on the make, trying to win an army contract; there were hundreds like him. But his mouth. It was almost a perfect circle, small and full. I thought of a goldfish feeding and the sound I imagined, not that I’ve ever heard it, was something like ‘Timp’ as it sucked the morsel in. So I remembered goldfish-face Timpulus. Not that it did me any good.

      We were in class. The door opened. No knock. My mother walked in. No, she didn’t walk, she glided. ‘Good morning, Rufustinus.’ I hadn’t seen much of her since my father left. She kept to her rooms most of the time. I knew my sister had been difficult, weak and often sick.

      I was amazed how beautiful my mother was. First, the way she held herself. Composure. Grace. Her hair was still raven black, tied up as was proper in a bun. She wore a simple, white woollen shift with a belt of beaten gold on calfskin round her waist. No make-up. No perfume, or none of that horrible stuff whose smell overwhelms the air. I have thought since I was a very small child that strong perfumes, scents and body-oils should be banned. No, I am more temperate now. Not banned, discouraged.

      Her figure was perfect, but it was her ugliness that made her beautiful. Her nose was, there is no denying it, crooked. Her eyes were too far apart and her mouth too big. But she unified it all, imbued the imperfect with her peace. How does the perfect come from imperfection?

      ‘I must borrow the boys, Rufustinus. But they will be back.’ That was typical of her. Absolutely in command, but polite, regal. She turned to us; our desks were now side by side. ‘Publius, Laelius. The war is over. Your fathers are home. Go to the Campus Martius to greet them. Festo will take you. But first go and change. I want you both in the toga praetexta.’ That was formal dress for boys of Laelius’ station and above, a light-coloured toga whose purple border meant we were freeborn. My mother smiled, warmly yet almost imperceptibly, and left the room.

      ‘But mine’s at home,’ Laelius whispered in my ear.

      ‘Don’t worry. I’ll lend you one of mine.’

      I felt many things, all at once. A child does not yet know how to marshal them; nor do many men. My father’s return was exciting. But the Campus Martius was, I have to admit, a stronger draw, and abandoning Aeschylus a third. I have grown to love his plays. But does anyone understand them?

      Yes, Aristotle, that unparalleled, polymath Greek. Alexander the Great was fortunate to have him as a tutor. He understood everything. Aeschylus and, from what I read last night, memory. I found his treatise on the subject, De memoria et reminiscentia. Scipio’s is a fine library.

      I shall let myself digress again from my past to the present. I have, after all, as good an excuse as a man can have – Aristotle. ‘It is impossible even to think,’ he writes, ‘without a mental picture.’ Memory, he goes on to say, belongs to the same part of the soul as imagination. It is a collection of pictures in the mind that comes to us from the impressions of our senses.

      These mental pictures Aristotle likens to a painted portrait, ‘the lasting state of which we describe as memory’. He thinks of the forming of a mental image as a movement, like a signet ring making a seal on wax. ‘Some men have no memory owing to disease or age, just as if a seal were impressed on flowing water. The imprint makes no impression because it is worn down like old walls in buildings, or