Steven Saylor - The Triumph Of Caesar

"Very well. By all the Gordianii who came before me, I swear that I have no intention either to harm or to help Vercingetorix."

"Good enough. And don't get yourself killed! I wouldn't be able to explain that either."

"Killed? Isn't the prisoner chained?"

The warder lowered his voice. "Druid magic! They say he can cast the evil eye. I never look him in the face. I put a bag over his head whenever I have to go down there and slosh his feces down the drain hole."

With that pleasant image in my mind, I sat on a wooden plank attached to a thick, padded rope; it was like a crudely made swing that a boy might hang from a tree branch. The warder handed me a small bronze lamp with a single wick, and then, using a winch, he slowly lowered me though a hole in the floor. This was the only entrance to the Tullianum.

As my head passed below the rim of the hole, I descended into a world that was darker, danker, and even more foul smelling than the room above. An odor of mold, sweat, and urine filled my nostrils. The dim lamplight faded to darkness before it could reach the surrounding walls. Below me, as I slowly descended, I heard the scurrying of rats. I looked down. I couldn't see the floor. For a moment I almost panicked; then I caught a glimmer of reflected lamplight on the glistening wet stone floor that drew nearer and nearer until my feet made contact.

"All steady?" the warder called down from above. "No, don't look up at the hole! You'll get vertigo. Besides, the light will blind you. Close your eyes for a bit. Let them adjust."

Closing my eyes was the last thing I intended to do in that place. I stepped away from the rope, holding it to steady myself, and raised the lamp so as to illuminate the chamber without dazzling my eyes. Slowly I began to perceive the dimensions of the place. It seemed larger than the chamber above, but perhaps that was an illusion of the darkness.

Huddled against a wall, I saw a human figure. The lamplight reflected dully off the chains binding his wrists and ankles. He wore a filthy, ragged tunic. His hair and beard were long and tangled. When he turned his face toward me, the lamplight flashed in his eyes.

So this was Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, the man who had accomplished the almost impossible task of unifying the fiercely independent tribes under a single command. He had very nearly succeeded in throwing off the Roman yoke, but Caesar's tactical genius and sheer good luck defeated him in the end. Caesar's utter ruthlessness had also played a part in his victory. Even my son Meto, who loved Caesar, was haunted by the cruelties inflicted on the Gauls-villages burned, women and children raped and enslaved, old men hacked to death. During the revolt of Vercingetorix, Caesar laid siege to the city of Avaricum and took no prisoners; the entire population-forty thousand men, women, and children-were massacred. Caesar boasted of this atrocity in his memoirs.

The last stand of the Gauls had been at the fortress of Alesia. Vercingetorix believed he could hold the position until reinforcements arrived, then destroy the Roman legions with the combined armies of the Gauls. But the reinforcements were insufficient, and the Roman choke hold on the fortress proved impenetrable; the starving survivors were ultimately forced to surrender. A Roman commander would have killed himself, but Vercingetorix rode out from Alesia and surrendered to Caesar. If he thought that Caesar would treat him with honor and respect, he had been mistaken.

Vercingetorix must still be a young man-Meto told me the Gaul was only a teenager when he began his campaign to unify his people-but I would never have guessed it from the broken figure huddled against the wall, the gaunt face sharply shadowed by the lamplight, or the haunted eyes that flashed like shards of obsidian.

"Is this the day?" he whispered hoarsely. His Latin had a strong Gallic accent.

"No. Not yet," I said.

He pressed himself against the wall, as if he wished to disappear into the stone.

"I'm not here to harm you," I said.

"Liar! Why else are you here?"

If he could see my face, I thought, he might be reassured. I held the lamp before me. The light shone into my eyes. He could see me, but I could no longer see him in the darkness.

His breathing quickened. The chains rattled. When I flinched and stepped back, he barked out a noise that must have been a laugh.

"You fear me, Roman? That's rich! After all the beatings you've given me…"

"I'm not here to beat you. I only want to talk."

"Talk about what?"

"I'm a friend of a man who came to visit you not too long ago."

"A visitor? No one visits me."

"He was a Massilian. His name was Hieronymus."

"Ah!" I heard him breathe in the darkness. There was a rattle in his throat, as if phlegm had settled in his lungs. "The Scapegoat, you mean. I wasn't sure if he existed or not. I thought perhaps I only dreamed about him."

"Hieronymus was real. He was my friend."

"Excuse my poor Latin, Roman, but I think you're speaking in a past tense."

"Yes. Hieronymus is dead."

More breathing in the darkness. More rattling from his throat. Then an explosion of laughter. He muttered something in his native tongue.

I shook my head. "What are you saying?"

"The man who was famous for cheating death is dead. And I, Vercingetorix, am still alive. At least I think I am. For all I know, this is the Roman underworld. And yet I don't remember dying…"

Unable to see his expression or gauge the tone of the words cloaked by his thick accent, I couldn't tell whether he was serious or not. I felt an urge to see his face, but I kept the lamp before me, illuminating myself. As long as he could see me and look into my eyes, he might keep speaking.

"I think I like that idea-that I'm already dead," he said. "That means the ordeal is over. The thing I dreaded so much, for so long-it's behind me now. Yes, that's good. And for all I know, you're the Roman god of the dead, here to welcome me. Pluto is the name, I think. Isn't that right?"

The darkness grew thick around me. The dank air chilled my lungs. "Yes," I whispered. "Pluto… is the name."

"So, Hieronymus the Scapegoat arrived in Hades ahead of me. Too bad for him! He seemed to be having such a good time, being alive in the world. When he visited, I made him tell me all about the parties he went to. He described the houses of the rich and powerful, the sweet-smelling gardens, the banquets with food of every sort piled high. Oh, yes, the food!" In the darkness, I heard his stomach grumble.

"Can this be right?" he whispered. "Does a dead man's empty belly groan in Hades?"

I couldn't tell if he was joking, mad, or simply spinning a fantasy, as men do in unbearable circumstances. I only knew that he was speaking freely, which was what I wanted.

"Yes, Hieronymus loved life," I said.

"How did he die?"

"He was stabbed."

"Ha! By a jealous husband? Or some great warrior he insulted?"

"I honestly don't know. You say he was your only visitor?"

"Yes."

"No one else has come to see you?"

"No one except the warders."

"But you weren't always kept in the Tullianum, were you?" Usually the prison was only for those awaiting imminent judgment or execution.

"No. For a long time-months and months, years and years-I was kept here and there, in cages and boxes and holes in the ground. Moved from one of Caesar's estates to another, I presume, to keep my followers from knowing my whereabouts."

The siege of Alesia had ended more than six years ago. With that victory, Rome's conquest of Gaul was complete. Normally, Caesar would have returned to Rome to celebrate his triumph over the Gauls as soon as events allowed, certainly within a year or two; but his quarrel with the Senate and the eventual civil war had intervened. Vercingetorix should have been executed years ago. Instead he had been kept in captivity all this time, living a nonlife while awaiting a terrible death. No wonder he seemed more a ghost than a man.