Wayward Son (44 page)

CHAPTER 58

Rome: AD 12–29

CAIN COULD EASILY SEE the Circus Maximus from his estate on the Palatine Hill. More than that, he could hear the roar of the crowds rising up in chorus from the arena, so he determined to attend a chariot race to see what the excitement was all about.

He was instantly glad he’d decided to visit.

For pageantry and spine-tingling competition, the chariot races held in this Roman version of a hippodrome topped the Olympic Games in Greece. The dimensions of the track were unparalleled: two thousand feet long and nearly four hundred feet wide, with three tiers of spectator seats. From dawn to dusk for over one hundred days a year, up to a quarter of a million spectators from every rung on the social ladder in Rome cheered wildly for their favorite teams. These belonged to four different leagues called “factions”: the Reds, the Whites, the Blues, and the Greens.

Immersed as he was in his mining, manufacturing, and building projects, Cain knew he could not compete in person as a chariot driver. Vicarious participation, however, was a viable option. Because he had recently signed a contract to sell his Spanish mines to the Roman state for the lump sum of two billion sesterces, Cain knew that he could comfortably hire and maintain a racing team, even as he completed his compound at Herculaneum in the style he envisioned.

So it was that Cain bought a stake in the Greens, a faction which had fallen on hard times. Its winning percentage had dropped precipitously, along with the value of the franchise. Cain sent for two dozen of his fittest mining slaves with an eye toward retraining them as chariot racers and turning around the fortunes of the Greens.

***

One afternoon, he persuaded Metellus to accompany him to the races. Naturally, the broker also declared himself a partisan of the Greens. As they sat in their shaded box, Cain looked out at the
spina
, the elongated structure in the middle of the track. Situated near the spina’s center was the obelisk Augustus had pilfered from Egypt—the same obelisk, Cain noted to himself with a dash of pride, that he had quarried and transported down the Nile some twelve hundred years before.

In short order, Cain and Metellus were greeted by a tremendous roar from the stands, as two of the three Green chariots in the fourteenth race of the day converged on the
meta
, or turning post, for the seventh and final lap. In a split second, their plunging horses and rumbling wheels forced a Blue chariot driver, who enjoyed a slight lead, to edge too close to the large gilded column. His chariot overturned, and a third Green driver shot out to the finish. The Blue charioteer fortunately succeeded, at the very last second, in cutting the leather reins twisted around his waist, and he scurried across the track to safety, narrowly avoiding being run over.

“Splendid teamwork!” shouted Metellus, as a wave of sixty thousand green-clad spectators flailed their arms and roared in triumph at the rare victory for their faction.

Cain was hooked. Two weeks later, he upped his stake in the Greens to a majority share. He also held a conversation with
Scorpus
, one of the mining slaves Cain had brought with him to Rome. An especially brave lad of perhaps eighteen, he had played a key role in rescuing some of his comrades during a cave-in a few years earlier. The youth had singlehandedly descended over a hundred feet, tethered to a narrow lifeline, and tunneled through the rubble with his bare hands to reach his fellow workers in time before they suffocated.

“If you will train to become my main driver, Scorpus, I will promise you your freedom one day. You are strong, brave, and you have excellent reflexes. I believe you can do it.”

The young man’s eyes shone.

“It would be an honor, master!”

“Then I will hire you a first-rate trainer,” said Cain. “On your thousandth win, you will be a free man. With up to thirty races a day, and with your skill and perseverance, that happy occasion may come soon.”

Far from being a passive owner of the Greens, Cain invested heavily in the franchise. He bought a stable of Arabian racehorses, had several dozen lightweight four-horse chariots made, and arranged for the use of a practice track on the outskirts of Rome. He knew it would take time to turn the fortunes of the Greens, but the foundation for future success had now been laid.

His most important project, however, remained the development of his seaside villa. Having reviewed the finished blueprints many times over, Cain had estimated that the villa and repository would require fifteen years to build. By AD 19, the project was halfway done. Two thousand slaves had leveled the twenty-acre property, and hundreds of skilled craftsmen worked the cement, brick, and marble used in construction. The villa would provide fifteen thousand square feet of living space, while the repository would account for an additional eleven thousand.

As the buildings took shape, Cain gave careful consideration to the furnishings. In the villa, he decided for reasons of social assimilation that he would install the conventional Roman appointments: brightly colored frescoes on mythological themes, marble statuary of Greco-Roman deities, fountains, mosaic floors, and ornamental glassware. But the repository, as a more private retreat, would be different. Pagan religious themes would be absent there, and the décor would emphasize science, philosophy, literature, and the arts, just as at the Great Library of Alexandria.

Special security measures would be devised to safeguard the museum’s contents. A custom-made bronze door with a unique locking mechanism would be installed. A concrete dome of revolutionary design would be constructed to cap the rotunda-shaped space, with metal bars embedded in the concrete to maximize its strength and durability. In the dome there would be an oculus, or roof opening, that could open and shut, allowing Cain’s telescope a view of the heavens. The entire structure would rest on a huge foundation of salt crystals and other drying agents, thus ensuring excess humidity would not damage the treasures within. In the event that an unexpected rainstorm occurred with the oculus open, Cain designed a large drainage tunnel in the floor that emptied into a seaside culvert.

While Cain knew that nothing lasted forever—with the possible exception of his own life—he was determined that his repository would withstand the ravages of time.

***

Monthly inspection trips to Herculaneum kept Cain occupied, but he tried to schedule them so they would not displace too much time from his other passion, the races. By now, he had become acquainted with many of the principal backers of the factions, who regularly invited him to their sumptuous banquets.

Cain had no time for romance in the midst of his frantic building and racing projects, yet nonetheless love found him. One evening in AD 20, at a party held to celebrate the advent of the midwinter Lupercalia festival, one of the major backers of the Greens introduced Cain to a young woman named Julia. The daughter of a distinguished aristocratic senator, she impressed Cain with her wide-ranging knowledge of history and architecture. Cain asked Julia if she would accompany him to the races the next day, and she gladly accepted the invitation. Julia’s passion for racing nearly equaled his own, although he had to get over the fact that she was a die-hard fan of the Blue faction.

They were married three months later. Julia’s rather snobbish father seemed lukewarm about the match, since he suspected that Cain was secretly active in commerce, but the young man’s ability to provide for his daughter and his social connections, both in Rome and Herculaneum, were beyond question.

In AD 21, to the aging senator’s delight, the couple’s union was blessed by a son. Cain chose the name Quintus, defying the Roman custom for naming the firstborn after the father. He did not want his son to bear the name Marcus, which after all was one of his myriad deceptions.

However, the parents’ joy swiftly turned to concern when it became apparent that the infant was sickly. At first the doctors had no diagnosis, but by the time Quintus was three years old they identified his ailment as some form of lung disease. Cain thought sadly of the deaths of Jacuna and Nefran back in Egypt. Would another son soon be taken from him before his time?

Yet Quintus was a fighter. Although he became increasingly frail as he grew older, his spirit remained strong and determined. Cain could see, by the time Quintus was six, that the child was phenomenally intelligent. That year, father started taking son to the races. The crowd’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Quintus jumped up and down with excitement at every race won by the Greens. The boy was a special fan of Scorpus, who had begun a consistent streak of wins several years before.

***

In AD 27, while Cain was away on business, he received a message that Julia had fallen gravely ill from an infection due to an abscessed tooth. He cut his trading mission short to come to his wife’s side, but by the time he returned to Rome she had passed away. Himself no stranger to grief, Cain knew that Quintus would be shattered by the loss, so he suspended all his trading activities and remained at the house on the Palatine for most of the next two years. He limited himself to only brief inspection trips to Herculaneum, where his villa was nearing completion.

Father and son became inseparable companions. Cain taught Quintus the game of senet, and in seemingly no time he found himself on the losing side, and no longer deliberately. Quintus enjoyed their sailing trips to Herculaneum, but he was always glad to return to Rome and the Circus.

By the time Quintus was almost eight years old, the boy’s health had not appreciably improved, but his spirits had recuperated from the blow of his mother’s premature death. Although Cain wondered periodically how long the boy could hold out in the long term, he felt he could leave Quintus in Rome for an abbreviated business trip.

Cain had twin objectives. The first was to inspect his sprawling glass factory in Carthage, Rome’s erstwhile enemy. The sea journey to North Africa could be accomplished in about three days’ sailing. His second goal was exploratory. He wanted to see the beautiful new harbor built by King Herod the Great at Caesarea Maritima on the coast of Judaea. Constructed of concrete, it was supposedly the largest artificial harbor in the Mediterranean. Cain had heard of it when he was in Antioch, but he had never seen it. The new port at Caesarea had turned Judaea, previously a Roman backwater, into an important trading post. Cain expected to sell a load of his fine glassware there, and perhaps also to purchase additional Silk Road goods as finishing touches for the estate in Herculaneum.

Bidding Quintus an affectionate farewell, he set sail early in the spring, promising his son that he would return by midsummer. He would have taken the boy with him, but the child’s poor health precluded a journey over the open sea.

“Keep track of the horses for me, Quintus,” Cain told him on the dock as the launch that would bear him down the Tiber prepared to depart.

“Don’t worry, Father,” the boy replied. “The Greens always win when I’m at the Circus!”

He gave his son a farewell hug, and then gazed steadily, waving his right arm, as the boy on the dock grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

CHAPTER 59

Judaea: AD 29

“PERFECT SAILING CONDITIONS, SIR,” declared Captain Felix with satisfaction. “We should be sighting land later this afternoon.”

As a moderate southwesterly filled the sails of Cain’s newly outfitted cargo vessel, the captain exclaimed further, “And the navigational instrument is outstanding! If you market that device, it will revolutionize travel in the Mediterranean.”

The truth of Felix’s words became clear soon after the lookout sighted the Judaean coast. Recognizing the lighthouse that marked the harbor of Sebastos, as well as the huge promontory palace built by
Herod
, Felix said, “
Caesarea
is dead ahead, sir.”

Cain nodded and went below to change into fresh clothes. He was looking forward to seeing the harbor—indeed, it was one of the major reasons that Caesarea was on their itinerary. Business had gone well in Carthage, with progress at his glass factory exceeding expectations. Now, his vessel was laden with a shipment of fancy glassware—bottles, beakers, bowls, even ornamental candlesticks and chandeliers—which he would have no difficulty in selling to the traders who thronged Caesarea.

The harbor did not disappoint him. Captain Felix, whom Cain had hired largely because of his extensive experience in the eastern Mediterranean, explained how King Herod had built it over forty years ago.

“The secret was pozzolana, apparently—a special sort of soil,” said Felix. “He imported tons of it from Pozzuoli in Italy.” Cain knew the Italian port well, since it was close to Naples and was a major trading post for glass products.

“When the water and the fine, lightweight dirt mix with lime, it produces a durable mortar that actually solidifies under water,” Felix continued. “Herod was finally able to devise a method for laying the wooden forms for the concrete, allowing him to build the two enormous breakwaters you see here, sir. The southern mole is almost one-third of a mile long. The harbor can hold as many as three hundred ships at a time.”

Cain whistled his acknowledgment. He had designed and contributed to many audacious building schemes himself, but even he was impressed, especially with Herod’s residence. A master of self-aggrandizement, Herod had ensured that his palace here was one of the largest in the western world. At the same time, he was careful to construct a magnificent temple dedicated to his Roman patron, the emperor Augustus, for whose title of “Caesar” the city was named.

While his commercial team busied themselves with eliciting bids for the glassware shipment, Cain and Felix, accompanied by half a dozen porters, went from shop to shop to evaluate buying opportunities. In addition to large quantities of top-quality silk, Cain purchased a variety of decorative items, including a stunning collection of agate tableware and several dozen decorative rock crystals, as well as a lampstand of free-blown glass.