The Seven Hills(8)

"There!" Zeno said, gesturing toward the unassuming facade. "Does that satisfy you? This is where the Romans have held their most important, most solemn debates. This is where their consuls have been entrusted with the powers of war, where policies of diplomacy and foreign relations have been fashioned, yet it is as plain as a Spartan barracks."

"Not what one would have expected," Izates admitted. "Let's take a closer look."

They walked toward the Curia and as they did Zeno declaimed, "A visitor once described the Roman Senate as an 'assembly of kings.' Their dignity and assurance was famed the world over. It is the quality the Romans called gravitas, meaning a great and profound seriousness. I will—" As they drew nearer, his words tapered off.

"That's more like it," Izates said, grinning at the sounds coming from within the Curia. They carried no impression of the solemn debate of an assembly of kings.

It sounded like there was a street brawl going on inside.





CHAPTER TWO


"Scipio is a traitor!" shouted a red-faced senator. "He directed the defense of Alexandria when a Roman force was a part of the army besieging the city! He must be recalled and tried for treason!"

Another senator rushed over and shook a fist in the man's face. "That besieging army was led by the king of Carthage! Is a Roman a traitor for fighting Carthage? That alliance was never anything but a sham, anyway! It was done only to get intelligence of Hamilcar s army and tactics."

"Scipio was never given permission to open relations with Egypt, much less to frolic with the Egyptian queen and take charge of her army!" yelled a senator whose blond hair proclaimed his northern ancestry. "He wants to be a king in his own right!"

The uproar threatened to break into open violence until the presiding consul ordered the lictors to separate all the belligerents and restore order. When matters had settled a bit, he stood. The consul was a soldierly, fierce-faced man named Quintus Cornelius Scipio and the person being charged with treason was his son.

"Conscript fathers," he began, "this bickering is unseemly and advances our cause not at all. I remind you that my son was given a far-ranging commission with wide powers of discretion. If his methods have been unorthodox, does any man here deny that the reports he has sent to us have been invaluable? Has he not given us the city of Carthage as if we had built it ourselves?" He gestured toward the detailed model of the city that occupied a corner of the curia, constructed according to the reports and drawings of the expedition young Scipio had led. "Furthermore," here he glared around him at the assembled senators, "does any man here dare say that a Scipio has ever betrayed Rome? if so, I stand ready to lay down my imperium and meet that man, or those men, on the Field of Mars, on horseback or afoot, with sword, spear and dagger."

Amid the uneasy silence an older man stood. He was Publius Gabinius, the princeps senatus, empowered to speak first on all matters. "Gentlemen," he said calmly, "are we primitive tribesmen, to resort to arms over matters of personal honor? The gods forbid it! We are the Senate of Rome and we have raised ourselves to mastery over other nations because we prize reasoned debate, intelligent planning, compromise and discipline above brute ferocity. Rome is now embarked upon a campaign of unprecedented magnitude. Now is not the time for such unseemliness. Moderate your tone or I may be forced to expel some of you." He gazed around him, waiting for the proper moment. "And let me remind you that the Princess Selene is not queen of Egypt but merely the sister of the boy-king Ptolemy. Egypt is a nation with which Rome has no cause for hostility. In fact, as the implacable enemy of Carthage, we should seek alliance with that country."

Another senator stood. "Nonetheless, Honored Princeps, the fact remains that four of our legions are now lost somewhere in Egypt, and we can ill afford such a loss at this time."

"They are not lost, just missing," Gabinius said, hiding his own misgivings. "That force is led by the son of our other consul. Let us hear his thoughts on this matter."

"I yield the floor to my colleague," the Consul Scipio said, resuming his seat on his curule chair.

The Consul Titus Norbanus, elder of that name, stood. "That my son is in command of the missing expedition is of no consequence. A Roman soldier serves his country, without regard to parentage or family affiliation, and the highest officer is no more sacred than the commonest legionary."

There were many shouts of approval for this patriotic sentiment, and the Princeps Gabinius smiled and nodded cynically, thinking: He neatly sidesteps the fact that his boy got the command without ever having held a higher office, as the constitution requires.