Scipio. Ross Leckie

thought again, Rome’s greatness comes. She is the sum of many parts, lives lost, hearts broken, pains borne.

      There were, I saw, no fires burning. Even the dogs were still. Sosius passed his hut, then went on past mine up to the end of the village where the abandoned huts were, roofless and forlorn.

      He stopped outside one of them. He didn’t look at me, just said, ‘In there, Teacher, in there.’

      I went in. Sulcipia’s body was still swinging, very slightly, on the rope across the beam from which she had hanged herself. Her head lolled forward, her limbs were slack. She seemed a puppet, or a doll.

      I have seen many, many dead. None has moved me like Sulcipia, whom I hardly knew. Aristotle says of Oedipus that his tragedy is so powerful because first you fear for Oedipus, and then you fear for yourself. This old woman, who had nothing, had, it seemed, her pride. To any passing soldier, pedlar, merchant, Sulcipia’s would seem a life not worth living. But she had her heart, I thought. Simple, no doubt, ignorant, uncomplicated, but still hers, still free somewhere beyond the drudgery of her days. Those men who came had broken it. Since it was all she had, that she could not bear.

      She was a small woman. Her belly swung almost level with my shoulders. I took the knife from my belt. I put my left arm round her thighs and, reaching up, I cut her down.

      I blinked as I came from the darkness of the hut to the blinding light, dead Sulcipia in my arms. Sosius was standing where I had left him. He still did not look up.

       ‘Will you …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Will you bury her for me?’

       ‘Of course, but …’

      ‘We cannot bury a’ – he could not manage the word ‘suicide’ – ‘those who have taken their own life.’

       ‘I understand.’

      Sosius looked up. ‘Now I am truly alone.’ He was crying, I saw, silently. ‘It was the shame, the shame. She could not bear the shame.’ He turned, and walked away.

      I was the rest of the day burying her. I chose a place high above Secunium, a shelf on the hillside. The ground was hard and stony, yet I had to dig deep to keep her from the dogs.

      As I dug, I thought what I might do to mark her passing, what I might want for mine. When I stood up to rest my aching back, I saw the vultures, already wheeling high overhead. How do they do it? I wondered. Does death so soon have such a smell, or is death a sense? Perhaps it is just sight. They say that vultures can see clearly over many miles. Could one chance-passing seeker after carrion have seen Sulcipia’s body lying beside me on the ground? There are many things man does not understand.

      When I had finished, I climbed further up the hill. There was a glade there of birches, and the little spring that fed them made the grass green all around. I saw a sapling that was straight and healthy. I dug it up with care, carried it down and planted it in the stony earth above Sulcipia. Then I went up and back several times to refill my water-gourd and soaked the birch’s roots. They would have good feeding in time.

      I left Secunium the next morning, at first light. I remember well what I had with me: those things with which I had come. The clothes I stood in, boots, black cotton trousers under my leather leggings, a simple cotton shirt and over that my light summer cloak. In my satchel were my winter cloak, a pair of sandals, four maps of Italy, two unused wax tablets and three styluses. Hanging from my belt were my knife and water-gourd. The only things I left with that I had not brought were calluses and an even heavier heart.

      I walked north, up and through the ruined fields where Sosius had first taken me. Did I know where I was going? Not entirely. Away. Secunium’s life was not mine. I have seen so many men in trouble for living a life that was not theirs, for never living their own – though it seems much easier so. When people realise their mistake, it is usually too late to change. Sometimes, as when I left Secunium, let alone left Hannibal, I did so because I had to find my own way.

      ‘The wettest thing is water,’ says Xenophanes, ‘the brightest thing is light, the hottest thing is fire, the softest is air. But the hardest is to know yourself.’ As I think does Scipio, I grow old learning something of that every day.

      I was about to pass an olive tree, old and big but wizened, burnt. I stopped to look at it. Olives are strong. This one was already sprouting new shoots and leaves from its blackened bark. It seemed to me a symbol of hope for Secunium, a symbol, too, of the strength of Rome. You can burn an olive, and destroy a year’s crop, even three, but it will fruit again. The vine is the same, with the vigour of a weed. Olive and vine must be uprooted to be killed. Hannibal thought that by burning he would do enough. As this tree and many showed, he was wrong.

      Sosius stepped into my path from behind the tree. I stopped again. He looked at me openly this time. ‘Go well, Teacher. Perhaps you don’t know it, but you have taught while you’ve been here.’

      ‘Taught, Sosius? I don’t know about that. But I do know I have learnt.’

      ‘Here, take this,’ he said, pressing a bag against my chest. ‘I don’t need it now. Vale. Farewell.’

      I watched him until he disappeared over the brow of the hill back into his village of, or so it seemed, the damned. Perhaps they would know peace again, and thrive and farm.

      When he had gone, I thought it would be easier to carry one bag, not two. So I opened Sosius’. There were four barley cakes in it, two cheeses, and a little leather pouch, shut with a thong.

      I squatted down, tugged the thong of the pouch and tipped it up. Gold fell to the ground, gold pieces. I picked one up. It had clay on it. So Sosius had had gold buried underground. Where? The shrine, probably. No one would think or want to look there. I scraped off the clay. ‘Senatus populusque Romanus,’ I made out. Roman gold. I laughed out loud as I remembered. Hannibal had paid me each month, as he paid everyone who served him – when he could – although most served for love, not gold. But I had never taken the money, just asked him to keep it for me. It never occurred to me to ask for it when I stayed behind. Hannibal had paid me in a different kind.

      * * *

      My childhood. That is what made me, and I have made Rome, so I must give a true account. And be consistent. Chronology, then, Bostar. I shall use the order of time, and not totter about like a new-born colt. Though I am hardly that. An old warhorse, perhaps, now put out to grass. But I shall chew my grazing carefully, and dream.

      He seemed immensely tall, a fair giant, my first teacher, Rufustinus. He was also very thin. My nanny, Quinta, was the opposite, dark and small and round. We were all astonished to learn, years later in Celtiberia, that they were to marry – no, Bostar, I shall not forget that I am to be Thucydidean, or try to.

      Rufustinus was my litterator, employed to teach me to read and write when I was four. We Romans have a clear and tested system of education. A litterator teaches letters to an abecedarius, someone learning a-b-c, and that then was me. In lesser families, the father acts as litterator, but my father did not have the time and did, presumably, have the money to pay someone else to do it. I had a class with Rufustinus each morning for two hours in a room at the far end of the courtyard.

      He came from near Verona in the north. His mother was a Celt, and that explained his fair hair and blue eyes. Of course, Rufustinus didn’t tell me this. I would never have dared ask him. He kept strictly to work. I learnt what little I knew from Festo, who used to help me dress. Yes, I know, Bostar. I’ve already