  When the vessel eased in to dock just below the Sublicious Bridge, almost at the spot from which the “Palmyra” had started its voyage, Longinus went ashore. Quickly he engaged a loitering freed slave to help with his luggage. He had brought little from Phoenicia, only his clothing and a few small presents for his mother, principally some choice pieces of glass, and the package he was delivering to Sejanus. “I’ll carry this,” he said to the fellow; “it’s glass and fragile.” He picked up the bundle, heavily wrapped. “And I’ll take this spare toga, too. You can carry the remainder. I don’t want any sedan chair; I’d rather walk. I want to get my land legs back.” The toga had been wrapped about the money packet, which Longinus had kept securely under his arm as he descended from the ship. But it was an innocent looking bundle and only its weight would have excited a bearer’s suspicion. Longinus had determined not to let it get out of his possession until he had locked it in his father’s safe to await its delivery to the Prefect. They walked from the pier along the way that went eastward from the bridge into the dense, traffic-jammed heart of the city. At the foot of Palatine Hill they turned left and walked northward past the western front of the Imperial Palace. Glancing over his shoulder as they reached the northwest corner of the sprawling great structure, Longinus had a glimpse of the wing that had been Claudia’s apartment; once again he picked out the bedroom window through which that morning he had heard the rising bugle at Castra Praetoria. “I wonder....” “Sir, did you say something?” His helper, trudging behind, paused. “No.” Longinus turned to face him. “I was just thinking, talking to myself.” All the way from the dock area Longinus had been retracing the route he had come with his century from Castra Praetoria the day they sailed for Palestine. But a hundred paces farther on, instead of continuing past the Forum of Augustus on their left, he turned abruptly westward. “I want to walk through the Forum Romanum,” he explained. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. I’ve lost touch with Rome. What’s been happening lately?” “Very little, sir, as far as I’ve seen.” The fellow shook his head resignedly. “No triumphs, as I recall, no big ones anyway, and precious few games.” “Why haven’t there been more?” “Oh, I don’t know, sir. They say the Emperor gets no enjoyment out of such things, and he’s not here in Rome most of the time anyway, and I hear it told that the Prefect doesn’t want to spend the money....” “They do say that?” “Now, sir, I have heard such talk. Understand, I don’t know anything about it; I don’t know anything about them, the Emperor and the Prefect. Not a thing. I don’t even know whether I’d recognize either one of them if he came right up to us now.” The fellow’s fear that he had spoken too boldly was obvious. “All I ever get done, sir, is work; I have to struggle hard to make a living. Seems that it’s just like it’s always been in Rome, the way I see it, which is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” He grinned good-naturedly. “I’m meaning no offense to you, Centurion; likely you’re one of the rich ones.” “I understand, and I suspect it’s a sound observation, that the rich do get richer and the poor get poorer, I mean. But it’s not true of Rome alone; it’s that way everywhere, isn’t it, throughout the world?” “I couldn’t say as to that, sir. Rome’s pretty much my world.” Rome was his world, too, Longinus told himself a moment later as the two were propelled suddenly from the shaded cavern of the cobblestoned narrow street into the widened stir and commotion of a veritable forest of marbled columns and statuary. The centurion’s heart lifted as he strode once more into the Forum Romanum, that busy, marble-crowded flat between the Tiber’s westward bend and the mansion-crowned hills. He took a deep breath, and his chest swelled. ... This is the veritable beating, pulsing heart of Rome, and Rome is the world. Here is reality. Here are solidity, strength, planning made real, dreams hewn in enduring stone. Here are wealth, accomplishment, power, might. Not twenty paces across there is the Millenarium Aureum, the resplendent bronze column set up to mark the center of the Roman world, the point from which miles are counted along the highways and their joining sea lanes stretching to the ends of the known earth to bind Rome into one colossal, unconquerable, enduring Empire!... They paused to catch their breath. Longinus set down the glass, but he continued to clutch the toga-wrapped packet under his arm. In another moment they would push once more into the jostling, shoving multitude milling through the Forum’s crossways. Suddenly the centurion remembered Cornelius and their discussion that afternoon as the two men had sat in the wrecked rowboat near the glassworks. He smiled grimly. ... But this is Rome. This is reality. This is accomplishment, creation. I can reach out and run my hand over the stone and feel these marbled creations of men; a thousand years from now, were I to live so long, I could rub my hands across their imperishable cold faces. These are tangible things, and Rome is tangible, her power, her strength, her wealth, her dominance over the world. Cornelius may prate of his old tutor’s preachments about the imperishability of the intangibles and the reality of things unseen. But these statues, these temples, this Millenarium Aureum, are tangible. Rome is carved statuary and fluted marble magnificence; Rome is spacious mansions and marching great armies flaunting their ensigns. Rome is poverty, too, and injustice and ugliness at times and in places, but Rome is no pale intangibles, no vaporous conjurations of an eastern philosopher. Rome is not even her gods. This is Rome, this marbled splendor of the Forum; Rome is here and now and touchable and real, and Rome, by all the gods or no gods, will endure. ... Rome is something else. Rome is strength and power and substance, but Rome is also grace and beauty. Examine these graceful columns, these elegant pediments. Rome is feminine, a beautiful woman. Rome, by the great Jove, is Claudia. Indeed! What is more Rome than Claudia; what is more Claudia than Rome? Rome is beauty and pleasure, tangible, real, to be experienced, enjoyed. ... And Rome will endure. That carpenter of Galilee, wandering up and down the seacoast with his little band of poor working people, talking of intangibles to illiterate fisherfolk and the dwellers in Jerusalem’s festering Ophel, that fellow to overcome Rome! Even under the silvery softness of a full moon beside the sea in Galilee, it was a preposterous notion. But here in the middle of the Forum, with confirmation of Rome’s might everywhere around.... “By all the gods, Cornelius. Can’t you see?” The man carrying Longinus’ belongings whirled suddenly around. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he asked, “did you command anything of me?” Longinus laughed. “No,” he answered. “I was just thinking aloud again. I must be growing old.” He reached down and picked up the glassware package. “But let’s be moving on. I’m anxious to get to my father’s house.” He pointed the directions. “Out that way and on through the Forum of Augustus to Via Longa. The house is on Quirinal Hill.” |
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