The Queen of Sparta (24 page)

CHAPTER 31

ROME

The Fields of Fidenae

Roman-Etruscan border

Italy

Summer, 477
BC

Sherzada sat by the side of the hill with his sword arm covered up to his elbow in blood, surveying the carnage before him. He had left Greece to escape conflict, only to find a worse one in Italy. All around him were bodies of men strewn as far as the eye could see – a testament to the cruelty of man against man.

He was still not sure how he ended up fighting in this war, and against the Etruscans too – the very people he had originally come here to live among.

Who would have thought that the mighty Etruscans would meet their match in a relatively unknown city-state called Rome? Now the tide would begin to turn decisively in Rome’s favour. Rome would no longer be a bounded, embattled and threatened little republic. This victory could well mark the beginning of Rome’s martial greatness. Yet the truth was that this great victory was in reality a defeat, so narrowly averted.

The Etruscans had been an enigma to him; the Romans even more so. The strangest thing about Rome was that it was an artificial state. The majority of its population was not native. In addition to the Latins who claimed to be its founders, the people of Rome originated from all over Italy, some even from Greece. Rome was a state created out of nothing – supposedly by two brothers, one of whom killed the other – not a good omen as founding myths go, felt Sherzada. And yet the idea of a Roman nation was not a myth at all. Its citizens were willing to make sacrifices to defend and preserve it. It was not a city, nor a state; it was a country – what the Romans call
Patria
. And for the Romans, the notion of freedom –
Libertas –
was as sacred as
Eleutheria
was to the Greeks.

Yet the Romans had borrowed much from the Greeks. Like the Athenians, they divided themselves into tribes for political and military purposes, and their officials were also elected. But in some other aspects, the Romans were more similar to the Spartans. Like the Spartans, they had two rulers, called Consuls. But they were not kings. In fact, power was divided among the Consuls so that they neither of them could be kings. The Romans had expelled their kings and no longer trusted the concentration of power in a single individual. Thus the Consuls were elected to rule for a year only. Like the Spartans, the Romans took pride in calling themselves true warriors. But they also took pride in other professions like farming, craftsmanship, trade and even the law. Being warriors, though, was what truly defined Romans – just like the Spartans. And also like the Spartans, the Romans tended to expose their weak babies to the elements after birth. Only the strongest children could survive to be a defender of Rome – yet another example of outright savagery, thought Sherzada.

However, what really differentiated the Romans from the Spartans was pragmatism. Romans were nothing if not practical. They liked new ideas. The fact that their population comprised of so many communities invited innovation. The Romans were always likely to try out new things. The Romans’ tendency to adapt to changing circumstances had been one of the causes of their success thus far.

The other was their army. The area under Rome’s control was not very large, and it was surrounded by hostile expansionist powers. Romans realized very early on that relying on a small standing army would be disastrous, especially if they had to fight on multiple fronts. So they decided to expand the pool from which soldiers could be recruited, extending it to the poorest citizens. In return for serving in the army the poorer classes – called the Plebs – were given rights and prospects for economic, though not social, advancement. These even included the right to vote, although not on par with the upper classes. The elections had always been skewed in favour of the latter. Still, it meant that even the poorest of the Romans had some sort of say in the government, as well as access to wealth. This also gave them an incentive to protect Rome – even to fight and die for it. They had a stake in the state’s survival just as the rich did.

The Romans extended the same formula beyond their borders. When they fought and defeated neighbouring communities, rather than destroying or enslaving them, they made them their partners. In return for certain privileges, Rome’s new allies fought to defend Rome and themselves against common enemies – which more often than not meant Rome’s enemies.

Sherzada knew that the Romans had the best trained army in all of Italy; though not always the best led. Fond of military innovation, they were constantly changing their style of warfare. If one technique did not work, they would try another. Still, the Romans might lose more battles than they would win, and yet somehow they would invariably end up winning the war. Defeat was a concept alien to the Roman mind. If they lost one battle, they prepared to fight another and they continued to raise more and more armies and fight more and more battles until they finally won, even if it took years, or even decades, to do it. Sherzada had not met a more stubborn and determined people than the Romans, except perhaps the Spartans.

However, the Roman system was not without flaws. The poorer citizens were not completely satisfied with the rights they had been given. They constantly demanded more. At the same time, the ruling class was jealous of its powers and privileges and reluctant to share more of them with the poor. The Roman classes spent as much time fighting each other in the assemblies and the courts as they did fighting their external enemies on the battlefield. And there were occasions when one type of conflict spilled over into the arena of the other. It was not unheard of for the Plebs to refuse to fight during a military campaign until their demands were met. And likewise, there were persistent cases of Roman Patricians who preferred to defect to the enemy rather than compromise on sharing power with their own Plebs.

Not long before Sherzada arrived, a Patrician called Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, a brilliant military commander, defected to one of Rome’s enemies, the Volsci, rather than give in to the democratic demands of the Plebs. In his new identity as a Volscian commander, Coriolanus did great damage to Rome. It was only the pleas of his wife and mother that made him stop his onslaught against his former homeland. The Volscians later killed him for what they saw as his betrayal.

The Romans indeed had the making of a great nation, but only if they could solve their internal problems first. If they could not, no matter how many wars they won, no matter how innovative they were, they would never become what they aspired to be. Instead, the Roman state would become a prize for any ambitious general who could manipulate its politics and seize it by force. And then Rome would become just another ruthless empire seeking to enslave others. For while the Romans were good at absorbing great ideas, they are equally good at adopting the worst. This was Sherzada’s biggest concern about Rome’s future.

Sherzada had not come to Italy to take sides, let alone to fight. He had come here to observe and study. In spite of the beauty of Tuscany and the mysterious culture of the Etruscans, he was disappointed with them and their mercurial warlords; their cruelty, and their avarice. The Etruscans, like the Romans, could have aspired to greatness, but the only quality their leaders really worshipped was power.

In Rome, Sherzada was warmly welcomed by Patrician and Plebian alike. They admired the Greeks and the fact that he had spent some time in Sparta impressed them even more. He did not tell them about his time with the Persians; their love of everything Greek easily translated itself into scorn for anything Persian. But Rome and its openness to foreign ideas fascinated him. After all, most Romans themselves had alien roots. It was a refreshing change from the close-mindedness of the Etruscans, as well as the Spartans.

Still, Sherzada missed Gorgo. He had left Velathri just before it fell to the armies of neighbouring warlords, having escorted his aging hostess and what was left of her family to safety, just as winter was setting in. At the time, he wanted to return to Sparta, but it was around then he finally received the message. It was the first time he had actually received one from her. But it was not what he expected.

So Sherzada went to Rome. And every week or so, he would sit by the banks of Rome’s Tiber river and write a letter to Gorgo. He used the trusted Ambassador, Timaeus in Taras, to pass these letters on, and Sherzada always got confirmation from Sparta that his letters were delivered.

One pleasant spring evening, Sherzada was invited to dine with the leaders of the Fabian clan and other Roman aristocrats at their farmland estates at Cremera, a little distance north of Rome close to the Etruscan border. It was while they were dining that night, that a large band of Etruscan raiders from the nearby town of Veii decided to attack Cremera. Their assault was ferocious. They left no human or animal alive in their path. Being a guest of the Romans, Sherzada knew he would not have been spared. However, Sherzada had no intention of fighting until he saw the Etruscans attack women and children. It was then that he took out Rán’s long-sword and went to work. He fought off the Etruscans while the Roman women escaped with their children. Soon, the Fabii men, including his host Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, came to his aid. The Etruscans were driven out after a fierce fight. One of the guests, a Patrician called Lucius Quinctius, nicknamed
Cincinnatus
or ‘curly’, told Sherzada that by drawing his sword, he had chosen Rome over the Etruscans.

Sherzada later found out that Cincinnatus’ own family had made the very same choice not very long ago. The uncomfortable truth about the Roman aristocracy was that nearly all of them had some form of ties with the Etruscans; indeed, many of them were of Etruscan blood, including both Cinncinatus and Fabius.

Still, Sherzada tried to remain impartial. He told a group of Senators the following day, when he returned to Rome, that he wanted to help end the dispute with the Etruscans. During the attack on the estates at Cremera, the Veii raiders had carried off some men and women to be sold as slaves. Sherzada offered to go and ransom them and to use his visit to mediate peace between the Romans and the Etruscans.

Though his Roman friends thought it was an exercise in futility, Sherzada remained adamant. So he got the Senate’s permission to negotiate the release of the hostages on behalf of Rome. He immediately set off for Veii and sought an audience with Aranth Telumnas, the self-styled King of Veii. Sherzada had met him earlier in his travels and thought he might be able to reason with him.

On arriving at Telumnas’ palace in Veii, Sherzada found him at court playing dice with some companions. Telumnas asked him what he wanted.

“
Laukhme mi
,” said Sherzada greeting the King in the Etruscan tongue, “I have come to ask for the freedom of the people whom your men recently captured at Cremera.”

Telumnas listened as Sherzada made an impassioned speech, pleading with him to release them because they were only civilians. And if he had any grievances with the Romans, Sherzada could try to help him resolve them.

Telumnas looked at him and smiled. “So you want to deprive us of our hard-won slaves?”

“I just want you to release them, my King,” he said, “as a gesture of goodwill to Rome.”

“Is Rome in need of goodwill?” he asked as he ordered the prisoners to be brought up from the dungeons. There were at least forty of them – their clothing tattered, their skin betraying marks of beatings and whippings. Sherzada was greatly moved by their plight.

When the prisoners were assembled before him, Telumnas turned to Sherzada and said, “I gave you leave to have your say, now it is for the gods to have theirs.” He rolled the dice and smiled at its outcome. Then he raised his fist in the air and shouted, “The gods have spoken!” He inverted his clenched fist and brought it down with his thumb sticking out, pointing to the ground.

In a single movement, the Etruscan guards slit the throats of their prisoners. Sherzada watched in horror as dozens of men and women fell lifeless to the ground and their blood flooded across the shiny marble floor. Sherzada shuddered at the horrible sight.

“Scythian, go tell the Romans, I do not want their gold; I want their blood.”

A couple of months later, Telumnas managed to rouse most of the other Etruscan cities against Rome. A large army began to gather outside Veii. Rather than wait for them to attack Rome, the Romans decided to meet them head on, at the border town of Fidenae.

Sherzada had just been given his Roman citizenship, even though he had made it clear to the Senate that his stay in Rome was only temporary. It was difficult for him to refuse to serve in their army, especially when the city was threatened by an enemy like Telumnas. Sherzada was elected military tribune and he accompanied Marcus Fabius, now a Consul, to confront the Etruscans. But the circumstances were not the most auspicious. That entire month had seen great social conflict in Rome. The Plebs had been agitating for their rights even more vociferously than usual, and the Patricians resisting their demands with equal determination. So when the news of the Etruscan war preparations reached Rome, the Patricians were certain that the Plebs would use this crisis to extract more concessions from them.