They both came and sat on my bed. They were holding hands. I had rarely seen them together before, let alone like this. ‘What are they?’ I asked, pointing to the boxes.
‘Presents, Publius, presents,’ my father said with a smile.
‘What kind of presents?’
‘How should we know?’
‘Aren’t they from you?’
‘No,’ my mother replied. ‘They come from Saturnus, a god. Today is his birthday. He brought you, and all other good children, these presents in the night.’
‘But if it’s his birthday, shouldn’t we be giving him presents?’
My father slapped his knee at this. ‘Maybe, Pomponia, we have bred a son for the courts and not the field!’ Then, turning to me, ‘We shall give him presents, Publius, you’ll see. But come on, open what Saturnus has given you.’
I opened the biggest box first. In it were dolls, two of cloth and two of clay. I put them carefully on the table, in a row.
‘These are symbols from Saturnus of your childhood, Publius,’ my father said.
‘Oh, I see’ – not that I did, well, not really. In the next box were little jars, one containing water, the other earth, and a dagger. I looked at them, perplexed.
‘These symbolise what Saturnus gives us, Italy and Rome. These are our right, Publius, but they are also our responsibility. That is why he gives you this as well.’
I unwrapped it slowly from its calfskin, bound with a thong. It glinted in the light. A dagger, steel shining, its heft of some blackwood inlaid with precious stones. I looked up at my father enquiringly.
‘Saturnus gives you this for a purpose,’ he said. ‘Never use it in anger, but never sheathe it when what you have been given is under threat.’
I was as puzzled by the earnestness of my father’s voice as I was by the strange gifts. Well, strange then. Not now. When I was a soldier, the dagger of my first Saturnalia was unsheathed for many years.
‘Don’t look so serious, Publius,’ my father said in a lighter voice, getting up. ‘Ouch, your bed is hard,’ he went on, rubbing his bottom. ‘We must get him a softer one, Pomponia.’
‘All right, I’ll tell Festo,’ she replied with a smile.
‘Now, we must be quick or we’ll keep the servants waiting. Open the last two boxes,’ my father told me, kneeling down beside me, his arm round me. His soft beard brushed my face.
I gasped when I opened the first of the two left. It was full of gold coins. ‘Goodness, I am rich!’
‘No, not quite, Publius. These are for you to give away, as Saturnus gives to us.’
‘To g-give away?’ I stammered.
‘Yes. You’ll see. And now the last.’
The first layers were of the softest wool. Under them, I found a ring. I held it out on my palm to the light. The red stone glanced and glowed. ‘It is, it is … alive. Alive with light,’ I whispered.
My father held out his right hand. He slipped a ring from his little finger and, as he put it in my hand beside the other one, he said, ‘This was my grandfather’s. That one is yours. Wear it, in time, with pride and with the blessing of Saturnus.’
‘And in the meantime,’ my mother said, coming over to us, ‘wear it with this.’
She held out a simple leather thong. My father took it, looped it through the ring. I knew. I bent my head. He passed it over my neck. Still kneeling, he hugged me, then stood up. ‘Now, quickly, Publius, get dressed.’ I was in my nightshirt. ‘We’ll wait for you in the atrium.’
Blisters. Well, one, to be exact. A tiny stone must have slipped into my left boot. By the time I noticed, it was too late. I felt the swelling only when I stopped to eat my lunch. I remember the grove of oaks where I did that, softly whispering in the breeze. I relieved myself under one of them, adding my steaming urine to the must. But I remember those oaks not because they were fine oaks, which they were, but because of my left foot.
Of course I felt relief when I saw the road. It would take me where I wanted to go. But more than that, I felt a sense of awe. I had crossed the Via Appia with Hannibal. Then there had been much else on my mind. But from where I stood this time, in the rolling hills above a town I took to be Venusia, I stood and looked and saw and was amazed. Straight as a ruler, a vast Roman highway stretched on, far out of my sight.
I have seen nothing like these Roman roads. They are the product of refined, meticulous engineering, of course. But more than that, they are the product of the Roman mind. Ten Hannibals with twenty armies might, in time, destroy the Via Appia. But, as Hannibal found out, you cannot destroy the Roman mind.
The sheer thoroughness of it. The short stretch I could see crossed some marshes, then a river. Most people would have avoided the first and used ferries for the second. Not the Romans. They had built a causeway, then a bridge. Even on the bridge, I saw, the road kept its drainage channels, its kerbstones. This road, I thought, is the product of a people devoid of self-doubt. How did they come to be so? The Via Appia makes you feel that it, and those who made it, will never end.
And for a blistered foot it meant easier going. Men have died for want of less.
It is the noise, the colours and the smells that I remember: overwhelming. Cymbals and drums, tympana and flutes, lutes and whistles in a cacophony of sound. All the buildings were decked in bunting, garlands of flowers round doors and windows. Bright flags rippled in the breeze. Dancers in fantastic costumes of vermilion and ochre, brightest blue and crimson, indigo and violet, performed their cartwheels and undulations, oblivious of all around. And then the singing, the talk of many voices, the calls of stall-holders selling hot chestnuts, figs, sweetcakes and cordials, wine. Jesters and buffoons cavorted. Laughter was loud; I still love it, though I hear it less often now. I think we should all laugh, even when we have considered all the facts. Laughter is immense. It is immeasurable.
The Forum was packed. I did not know there could be so many people, Celts and Celtiberians, Ligurians, Lusitanians, Aecians, Hernicians, Cantabrians, Samnites, Bruttians, Volscians, Baliarideans, Dorians, people come from many miles around. Women with masks of flowers wandered at their will, offering kisses for a penny and singing soaring songs that mixed and mingled in the noise.
There were black people, brown, yellow, olive, some as tall and thin as eucalyptus trees, others short and round as melons, babbling in as many dialects and tongues. Preceded by their walkers, as were we to clear a way, rich merchants strolled along in gold and purple, dark-eyed women by their sides, their bosoms bare and heaving and their perfumes languid in the air. Dressed in black and beating heavy drums, priests’ officers pushed their way through the throng, and behind them came the augurs, mincing, nosegays pressed to their nostrils, as beggars pressed their stumps at passing burghers. The world was mad and wonderful, alive.
‘Look, Mother, look!’ I shouted. ‘Father, look at this!’
My parents were talking to some friends. A tumbler was about to cross in front of us. In pants of crimson and a shirt of gold, he was walking on his hands, and on each of his feet there was a red ball. They rolled a little as he moved, but did not slip off his feet. I watched, fascinated, as he passed beyond us into the crowd. Did the balls, I wondered for days afterwards, ever fall, or did they stay on his feet for ever?
It was my first Saturnalia. It gave me a love of festivals I have never lost. And I gave away my gold, but not to the priests of the temples, whose collectors pressed on us