Robert Fabbri: Tribune of Rome

‘A message from your brother arrived whilst you were away playing at being a farmer. He’s returning home; we expect him this evening.’

Her dismissive tone immediately soured his excellent mood. ‘So the preparations are not in honour of my return from three days in the field?’ he asked, unable to resist goading her.

She looked at him quizzically. ‘Don’t be impertinent; what makes you think that you would be honoured for doing menial tasks around the estate? Sabinus has been serving Rome; the day you decide to do the same rather than skulk up here in the hills fraternising with freedmen and mules is the day that you can expect some honour. Now go and get cleaned up. I expect you to behave civilly to your brother this evening, though I doubt that anything has changed in the way you feel about him in the years that he has been away. However, it would do you no harm to try and get along with him.’

‘I would do, Mother,’ Vespasian replied, running a hand through his sweaty, short-cropped, dark-brown hair, ‘if he liked me, but all he ever did was bully and humiliate me. Well, I’m four years older and stronger now so he had better watch himself, because I won’t stand for it like an eleven-year-old boy any more.’

Vespasia Polla peered at her son’s round, olive-skinned face and noticed a steely determination in his normally good-humoured, large brown eyes; she had never seen that before.

‘Well, I’ll speak to Sabinus when he arrives and ask him to do his part in keeping the peace, as I expect you to do yours. Remember, it may be four years since you last saw him, but it is eight for your father and me as we were already in Asia when he joined the legions. I don’t want your fighting to ruin our reunion.’

Giving him no chance to reply she disappeared off in the direction of the kitchen. No doubt to terrorise some lowly kitchen slave, Vespasian thought as he went to his room to change, his good humour now completely destroyed by the unwelcome news of his brother’s imminent return.

Vespasian had not missed Sabinus at all for the four years he had been serving as a military tribune, the most junior of the officer ranks, with the Legio VIIII Hispana in Pannonia and Africa. They had never got on. Vespasian didn’t understand or care why, it was just a fact: Sabinus hated him and he, in return, loathed Sabinus. However, they were brothers and nothing could change that, so they kept their dealings confined to frosty formality in public, and in private – well, Vespasian had learnt at a very young age to avoid being alone with his brother.

A bowl full of warm water had been set for him on the chest in his small bedroom. He pulled the curtain across the entrance, stripped and set about rinsing off the dust accumulated from three long days’ mule-wrangling. That achieved, he rubbed himself dry with a linen sheet and then pulled on and belted a clean white tunic with the thin purple stripe down the front that indicated his equestrian rank. Picking up a stylus and a new scroll he sat down at his desk that, apart from the bed, was the only other item of furniture in the small room, and began to record from notes on a wax tablet the number of mules that they had transferred. Strictly speaking this was the farm steward’s job, but Vespasian enjoyed record-keeping and stock-taking, and looked upon this task as good practice for the day that he inherited one of the family estates.

He had always thrived on estate work, although manual labour by someone of the equestrian class was frowned upon. His grandmother had encouraged his interest in farming in the five years that he and his brother had lived on her estate at Cosa whilst their parents had been in Asia. Throughout that time he had paid more attention to the doings of the freedmen and slaves working the fields than he had to his grammaticus or tutor. Consequently his rhetorical skills and knowledge of literature were sadly lacking, but what he didn’t know about mules, sheep or vines wasn’t worth knowing. The one area in which the grammaticus had been successful was arithmetic, but this was solely because Vespasian had recognised the importance of the subject for calculating profit and loss on the estate.

He had almost finished when his father came in without knocking. Vespasian stood up, bowed his head in greeting and waited to be spoken to.

‘Pallo tells me that we have lost sixteen of our stock in the last month, is this right?’

‘Yes, Father. I’m just finishing the numbers now but sixteen looks to be about right. The herdsmen say that they can’t stop the brigands from pinching the odd one now and again; there’s so much space to cover.’

‘This is going to have to stop. Those bastards will bleed us dry. With Sabinus back we’ll set a few traps for the vermin and hopefully nail some up. We’ll soon see which they prefer, nails through their feet and wrists or keeping their fucking hands off my fucking property.’

‘Yes, Father,’ Vespasian ventured to his father’s retreating back.

Titus paused in the doorway and looked back at his son. ‘You did well, Vespasian,’ he said in a calmer tone, ‘to move all that livestock with so few men.’

‘Thank you, Father. I enjoy it.’

Titus nodded briefly. ‘I know you do,’ he said with a regretful half-smile, then left.

Feeling buoyed by his father’s praise Vespasian finished his calculations, confirming that they had indeed lost sixteen, tidied up the desk and lay on his bed to rest until his brother arrived. When he did so, a half-hour later, it was quietly and Vespasian slept through it.

Vespasian woke with a start; it was dark. Fearful that he was late for dinner he leapt from the bed and stepped out into the torch-lit peristylium. He heard his mother’s voice coming from the atrium and headed in its direction.

‘We must use my brother Gaius’ influence to secure the boy a posting as a military tribune soon,’ his mother was saying. Vespasian slowed as he realised that she was talking about him. ‘He will be sixteen next month. If he is to go far, as the omens prophesied at his birth, he mustn’t be allowed to spend any more time on the estate shying away from his duty to the family and Rome.’

Vespasian edged closer, intrigued by the mention of a prophecy.

‘I understand your concern, Vespasia,’ his father replied. ‘But the boy’s spent too much of his youth putting his energies into the estate, not into learning what he needs to survive amid the politics of Rome, let alone in her armies.’

‘He will have the goddess Fortuna holding her hands over him to ensure that the prophecy is fulfilled.’

Vespasian struggled to contain himself; why was she being so vague?

‘What about Sabinus?’ Titus asked. ‘Shouldn’t we concentrate on him as the elder son?’

‘You spoke to him earlier, he’s a grown man now; ambitious and ruthless enough to make his own way, maybe even to progress beyond praetor, unlike my brother, which would be a great honour for the family. Of course we’ll support him in every way we can, but we only need to support him, not push him. Titus, don’t you see that Vespasian is this family’s route to renown? Now is our time. We’ve used the money that you made as a tax-gatherer in Asia well; you bought this land cheaply and you’ve developed it successfully. With that and what I brought as a dowry to our marriage, we were worth over two million sesterces at the last census. Two million sesterces, Titus. That and my brother’s influence is enough to guarantee our family two places in the Senate; but they must be earned, which they can’t be up here in the Sabine Hills.’

‘You’re right, I suppose. Vespasian should start out on his career; and I can see he’ll need to be pushed. But not just yet. I have something in mind first, for him and for Sabinus now that he’s back. There’s nothing to be done until the next year’s magistrates take up their positions in January.’