John Roberts: The Seven Hills

"Nothing like it has ever happened before," Zeno said. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the smell of fertile land. That was Italy over there, long a Carthaginian tributary and now-now it was something else.

"Nothing like what?" Izates wanted to know.

Zeno smiled. His friend was a Cynic and practiced contrariness for its own sake. "You know very well. Never before has a nation vanished, only to reappear more than a hundred years later." The tubby merchantman heeled slightly to a shift in the wind, and Zeno took hold of a stay without noticing the change. He was a great traveler and as used to the motions of a ship as any sailor.

"These Romans never vanished," Izates said. "They just relocated. Now they have come back. There is nothing new in it. My own ancestors were sent into captivity by the Babylonians, then were returned to their homeland by Cyrus the Persian." He had been born a Jew, but had fallen in love with Greek philosophy as a boy and now could almost pass for a native Hellene.

"This is different," Zeno insisted. "The Romans were banished by Hannibal the Great, but they have returned on their own, at the bidding of their gods. Their legions poured into Italy and took the whole peninsula like the thunderbolt of Zeus. The whole nation has followed and even now the capital is being restored."

Izates made a rude noise with his lips. "What of it? Italy has been so tame for so long that there were scarcely any Carthaginian troops anywhere on the peninsula and all the nearest garrisons had been stripped for Hamilcar's war with Egypt. A few hundred Cretan bowmen could have taken Italy. Holding it may prove to be another matter entirely."

"You will see. This is something unprecedented. This is history in the making and I must be there as it unfolds."

"You would be the Herodotus of the new Rome?" He shook his shaggy, ill-kempt head. "No, Herodotus took the whole of history for his theme. You will be the new Thucydides. He was wise enough to confine his work to a single, narrow subject. I fear that your book will be a very short one."

"Is there no end to your sourness?" Still holding the stay, Zeno jumped onto a handrail as if to urge the ship shoreward with his own body.

Izates pondered the question. "If so, I've never found it."

Zeno was from Athens and he had the classic look common to the wellborn men of that fabled city. His features were cameo-cut, his physique slender but athletic. In contrast to his scruffy companion, his tawny hair and short beard were neatly trimmed, his simple clothing immaculate. He yearned to be a historian of stature, but had thought that all the worthy themes had already been exhausted. Who needed yet another account of the wars of Athens and Sparta, or the career of Alexander? Of barbarian lands, the only ones worth study were Persia and Egypt and those, too, had been done to death.

He sensed in the return of Rome to the great stage of history a subject worthy of a great work, and he was determined to be first to record their deeds.

"What are these Romans, anyhow?" Izates groused. "The city was founded by a pack of bandits, by all accounts. They became farmers and dominated this obscure peninsula for a while and then lost a war to Carthage. What is so great about that?"

Zeno shaded his eyes and gazed northward along the coast. The skipper had said they would raise Brundisium by midday. "What were Odysseus and Achilles and the rest but a pack of bandits and pirates? Nobody's ancestry is very savory if you look back far enough. The Romans were distinguished above all by their republican form of government and their extraordinary concept of military duty. From what I've been able to learn, they retained these things during their exile in the north and may even have strengthened them."

It had not been easy learning about the land called Roma Noricum, where the exiles had carved an empire from a savage wilderness, subduing its Celtic and Germanic inhabitants and expanding their territory with every year. For generations, a few Greek merchant families had monopolized trade with the Romans and had kept most of their knowledge secret to protect their commerce from competition. Most Greeks were not even aware that the Romans still existed. Yet when they had poured into Italy a few months before, it had been in such numbers that they must have prospered mightily during their exile. Surely, Zeno thought, these must be the most remarkable people in the world. And he, Zeno of Athens, would be their chronicler.

That afternoon they rounded the mole and entered the harbor of Brundisium. In the ancient Messapian dialect the name meant "stag's head," and was supposed to refer to the shape of the harbor. Zeno could detect no such resemblance and surmised that silting had altered the form of the little bay. In any case he was far more interested in the men who occupied the broad plaza adjoining the docks. He saw the glitter of arms among them and knew that these must be Romans.

"These are the legionaries?" Izates said as the merchantman worked its way up to a stone wharf. "They don't look like much."

Indeed they were a disappointment at first sight. Their equipment had none of the dash and beauty so esteemed by Greek soldiers. Most wore shirts of mail: a form of armor invented by the Gauls, consisting of thousands of interlinked iron rings. It was tough and as flexible as cloth, but made a baggy, almost shapeless garment utterly lacking in grace. Their helmets were simple pots of iron or bronze with wide neck guards and pendant cheek plates, and plain crests distinguishing the officers. Their large, oval shields were painted with simple devices. Each man wore a short sword belted at his waist and carried a heavy javelin no taller than the man himself.

Two men strode down the wharf to meet the ship, and these were clearly higher ranking than the others. One wore an old-fashioned bronze cuirass embossed with stylized muscles, the other a shirt of shimmering scales overlaid with a harness of colorful leather straps studded with silver medallions. Both wore short swords in ornate scabbards. Neither bore shield or helmet. The man in the scale shirt carried a large wooden tablet and had a bronze stylus tucked behind his ear. The skipper stepped ashore to meet them.

"What ship?" asked the man in bronze.

"Calypso, out of Dyrrhachium with a cargo of copper ingots. I am Leander of Corcyra, shipmaster."

"You'll find a market here, Leander," said the bronze man as the scaled one scratched notes with his stylus on the tablet's wax-lined inner surface. "The bronze foundries of Italy are busy as never before."

"So I heard," said the shipmaster. "Everyone with metal to sell is headed this way."

"You're the first to reach Brundisium, so you'll get the best price." The man spoke passable Greek, but the dialect was so antiquated Zeno guessed that the Romans learned their Greek from the works of Homer and other ancient authors.

"I have two passengers," Leander informed the two. "Zeno, from Athens, and Izates, from Alexandria."

The Romans glanced at them. "Are you selling anything?" the bronze one asked.

Izates laughed and Zeno bristled. "We aren't merchants!" Zeno told them.

"On official business?"

"We are philosophers," said Zeno. "We want to see Rome."

The scaled one closed his tablet, replaced the stylus behind his ear and jerked a thumb backward, over his shoulder. "Take the wide avenue to the city gate and you'll find two pillars. They mark the southern end of the Via Appia. Start walking and it'll take you to Rome in a few days." His Greek was more strongly accented than the other's. "Now," he said to the skipper, "let's have a look at that cargo and we'll clear you to start unloading."