Masters of the Sea Trilogy: Ship of Rome, Captain of Rome, Master of Rome

The Aquila had sighted land at dusk the evening before and had turned its bow northwest along the ragged coastline of the Italian peninsula. During the night they had passed Naples on their right, its lights scattered over the shoreline of the crescent bay and on into the hills beyond, the individual lights in the dark a mirror of the heavens above. The offshore breeze blowing from the city had filled the air with the smell of wood smoke from countless cooking fires, and underneath the musky scent of humanity from the tightly packed confines of the hidden city.

After the multitudinous lights of the city, only solitary pockets of light around small fishing villages remained. The mainland became dark once more, its existence off the starboard rail of the galley marked by a brooding presence that all aboard could feel, an unnamable sensation that constantly drew the eyes of those on board towards the shadowy features of Italia.

As the night wore on, the Aquila found company in the water from other vessels travelling the same route to Rome, the number increasing until finally at dawn, with the galley still some ten miles from Ostia, the brightening vista exposed a multitude of craft in the surrounding sea, a host that was compressed in the mouth of the harbour where the Aquila now lay.

The smaller craft in the water gave way to the galley, her bronze ram a deterrent that forged a path through the throng of lesser vessels. Further in, Gaius wove the galley around the larger transport barges, the Aquila, a more nimble ship under oar, giving way to the less manoeuvrable sailing ships in the time-honoured courtesy observed by all capable sailors.

Ostia, at the mouth of the river Tiber, had been founded by Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, over three hundred years before, and its growth and prosperity was intimately tied to Rome, a symbiotic relationship that had seen the once-small fishing village become the trade gateway to the greatest city in the world. Now the Aquila carried one of the most valuable cargos that had ever entered the port, a vital message to the Senate borne by the leader of Rome itself, a message that held the fate of the forty thousand fighting men of the legions on Sicily.

Lucius stood on the aft-deck beside the helmsman setting his course into the harbour. Years before, as a boatswain, the second-in-command had been stationed in the waters surrounding this port, and he intimately knew its harbour and the layout of the docks. He was guiding the galley to the castrum, the military camp that also served as the docking port for the Roman military galleys that patrolled the nearby sea-lanes.

Atticus stood beside the two men, listening as Lucius pointed out the swarm of nationalities represented by the trading vessels surrounding the galley. The ships had come from the four corners of the Mediterranean, from Gaul and Iberia, from Illyricum on the shores of the Mare Superum across from the eastern shores of the Italian peninsula, and from Greece and Egyptus. These were the places that Atticus had dreamed of visiting when he was a boy, and now the very proximity of the people of these lands filled his imagination with wonder. As his eyes swept back and forward, from port to starboard, he suddenly noticed the consul approaching him across the aft-deck.

‘Captain Perennis,’ Scipio began, his expression cold, ‘once we dock, you and Centurion Capito will accompany me to the city. You will stay there until I personally give you leave to depart.’

‘Yes, Consul,’ Atticus replied, wondering why their presence was so necessary, knowing that he dare not ask the consul.

Scipio turned on his heel and proceeded to the main deck, where his guard and personal slave were waiting.

Septimus mounted the aft-deck from the other side and walked over to Atticus.

‘You’ve heard then,’ he said, indicating the consul’s departure with a nod of his head.

‘Yes, I have,’ Atticus replied, his mind still pondering the reason.

‘Why do you think he wants us in the city, Septimus?’

‘I’m not sure, Atticus. But this is certain. We’re now firmly in his grasp. You heard his order: we can’t leave until he personally gives us the order.’

‘I noticed that,’ Atticus said, realizing that the simple request to accompany the consul was in reality anything but simple. Atticus had only known the senior consul for three days and yet he already knew for certain that Scipio never took a step without knowing its consequences three steps down the line.

‘Never mind,’ Septimus said suddenly with a smile, picking up on Atticus’s preoccupation. ‘Now I’m guaranteed the opportunity to show you the sights of Rome.’

Atticus shrugged off his sense of unease and smiled, slapping Septimus on the shoulder.

‘You’d better be right about Rome,’ he said. ‘I’ve waited too long to see this city to be disappointed.’

‘Disappointed?’ Septimus said with false amazement. ‘Atticus, my friend, by the time we’re finished you’ll bless the day you met the consul.’

Atticus laughed at the centurion’s infectious anticipation. He had a feeling that the vision he had in his head of the city, a vision of magnificent temples and grand piazzas, was very different from the city that Septimus would show him.

The castrum was located at the extreme northern end of the busy harbour. It was home to the largest single detachment of Roman military vessels, six out of the entire fleet of twelve galleys of the Republic. These six ships constantly patrolled the sea-lanes surrounding Rome, ensuring an uninterrupted flow of trade that was so necessary for the city’s growth. More importantly they provided escorts for the large grain transports, as the enormous barges ferried the vital lifeblood of Rome from Campania, over two days’ sailing to the southeast.

As the Aquila approached, Atticus could see that all but two of Ostia’s galleys were at sea; the remaining triremes, the Libertas and the Tigris, were tied up neatly against the dock. The Aquila slowed under the expert hand of Gaius, and lines were thrown from fore and aft to the waiting slaves on land, who quickly tethered the ropes to the dock posts. The order was given to withdraw all oars, both port and starboard, and the sailors on deck began to haul in the ropes, hand over hand, until the Aquila moored precisely parallel to the dock. The gangway was lowered and Scipio and his retinue immediately disembarked, closely followed by Atticus and Septimus. The sight of the praetoriani arrested the movement of everyone on the dock, and they backed off to leave a path clear from the Aquila to the barracks, unsure of the unexpected visit of a senior member of the Senate aboard a never-before-seen Roman trireme that was not of the Ostia fleet.

As the group approached the two-storey barracks, the port commander emerged from the entrance archway leading to the courtyard within. He was followed by a contubernia of ten soldiers, and his determined stride to investigate the unannounced arrival of a galley at his port mirrored the approach of Scipio, whose equally confident pace closed the gap between the two groups in seconds. Scipio noticed that the port commander’s pace lessened slightly as he tried to recognize the figure coming towards him, the consul’s importance obvious from the black-cloaked guard that attended him. The commander called a halt to his contubernia ten paces short and ordered his men to stand to attention, knowing that, whoever it was, the man approaching at the head of a detachment of praetoriani outranked him. Scipio raised his hand in the air two paces short of the commander, and his own guard immediately came to a stop.

‘Commander, I am Senior Consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio. I need eight of your finest mounts immediately to bear us to Rome. My slave and our baggage are to be escorted in our wake.’

‘Yes, Consul,’ the port commander replied, his mind racing to understand the sudden presence of the most powerful man in Rome in the military camp of Ostia.

‘Now!’ Scipio shouted, the momentary pause of the commander fuelling his impatience to be in Rome.

The effect on the commander was immediate and he quickly turned and ordered his men to run to the stables to assemble and prepare the necessary mounts. He turned again to face the consul, but Scipio was already brushing past him, striding off in the direction of the entrance to the courtyard that would lead to the stables. The port commander was left standing in their wake before his wits returned once again and he took off in pursuit.

The barracks at Ostia were almost identical to those at Brolium on the northern coast of Sicily. Both, like all others in the Republic, were based on a standard design, a two-storey quadrangle with an archway in the centre of each side leading into the central courtyard. The stables were beyond the eastern archway and it was through this that the contubernia now led eight horses of the light cavalry. They were Maremmano, a breed of horse from the plains of Tuscany. The horses were unattractive beasts in comparison to other breeds and, although they were not fleet of foot, they were strong and hardworking, a perfect match for the harsh life of the legions.

Scipio, his four guards and guard commander, and the two men of the Aquila, mounted together and rode out through the southern archway, swinging left to travel east along the busy harbour road that led to the city. As they rode along by the water’s edge, Atticus’s senses were again overwhelmed by the sights and smells in the maelstrom of the busy port. The transport barges, recently arrived from all the ports of the known world, were disgorging their wares onto the dock, with the city traders standing ready to strike a deal with a returning regular or an inexperienced beginner. Gold quickly changed hands as bargains were struck and goods were hauled off by the army of slaves who stood poised behind every trader. Atticus had never seen such a wealth of goods, such a display of appetite, as the voracious city traders insatiably devoured each new barge-load of cargo. Within the space of the first quarter-mile of the dock, he had seen bolts of silk so numerous as could clothe an entire legion, exotic animals that clawed and snarled at the slaves who nimbly handled their cages, birds of every size and hue, the air filling with their song, and, everywhere in between, countless amphorae of wine and baskets of food. It seemed an impossibility that any one city could consume such an abundance, and yet Atticus got the impression that what he was witnessing occurred every day, that the city’s hunger would devour the cornucopia before him and then return tomorrow for more.

Atticus felt a tug on his arm and he dragged his attention away from the seemingly chaotic scene to answer the summons. Septimus nodded his head to the left, indicating the sudden change in course of the mounted party, and Atticus wheeled his horse to follow the others as they turned away from the docks and headed into the port town. Here, as before, the streets were crammed with all manner of goods, this time on the move inland towards the city over twelve miles away. The horsemen wove their way around the multitude of slaves and bearers, slowing their progress until they emerged beyond the confines of the town into the open countryside. Within half a dozen miles they reached Via Aurelia, the recently constructed road that ran northwards along the coastline from Rome. They turned south and within ten minutes were crossing the Tiber over the Pons Aemilius, a magnificent stone-pillared bridge with a wooden superstructure of five arches effortlessly spanning the one-hundred-yard-wide stretch of water. Atticus could only marvel at the engineering feat beneath him and he leaned out of his saddle to peer over the thirty-foot drop to the fast-flowing waters below.

‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ Septimus smiled as he noticed his friend’s eyes take in every detail of the bridge. Atticus looked up and Septimus nodded his head to the road before them, to the sight that was opening before them: Rome.

The horsemen entered the city through Porta Flumentana, one of twelve gates in the Servian Wall, which ran nearly seven miles around the entire city. Built by the sixth king of Rome, the wall was twelve feet thick and twenty high, a mammoth defensive barrier built as a reaction to the sacking of the city over one hundred and thirty years before by the seventy-thousand-strong Gaulish army of Brennus. As the group passed under the great arch of the gate, inscribed with the omnipresent SPQR denoting Senatus Populusque Romanus, ‘the Senate and the People of Rome’, Atticus’s eyes were drawn upwards to the height of the Palatine Hill, soaring two hundred feet above the level of the valley floor, upon which the foundation stones of Rome had been laid nearly five hundred years before by the demigod Romulus.

The group wound its way through the bustling streets, swinging north of the Palatine Hill into the valley formed with the Capitoline Hill, itself dominated by the Capitolium Temple dedicated to the three supreme deities, Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. Atticus had never seen such a multitude of people before. Having spent his whole adult life at sea, he had quickly become accustomed to living in close proximity with others, the limited space of a floating galley isolated at sea creating a claustrophobic and intrusive atmosphere on board. In comparison to the press of the streets and buildings surrounding him, however, the galley seemed capacious. The insulae, the apartment blocks on all sides of the narrow streets, rose five or more storeys high, with balconies reaching out to form a near roof that robbed the street of much of its daylight. Atticus felt an undeniable sensation of oppression in the enclosed corridor, and he inwardly sighed in relief as he noticed an end to the street ahead, a brighter, more open space beyond.

Atticus was the trailing member of the group and so was the last to breach the confines of the narrow street out into the Forum Magnum, the central plaza of the sprawling city. His heart soared as he gazed upon the imperial heart of the Republic. When Atticus was young, his grandfather had regaled him with stories of the great city of Athens, a city his ancestors had called home before the Milonius clan fled before Alexander of Macedon and settled in southern Italia. The tales told of soaring temples and godlike statues, of civilization’s birthplace and home, a city that only the Greeks in their power could create. As a child, Atticus had let his imagination fashion a city of incredible presence, a vision he had often dismissed in his adult years, the boasts of an old man longing for his homeland. Now, standing on the cusp of the magnificent Forum Magnum, Atticus was presented with the very visions of his youth transplanted to another city, a city that surely exceeded all others in splendour and power.

Septimus reined in his horse and brought himself back alongside his open-mouthed friend.

‘Well?’ Septimus asked. ‘What do you think?’ he added with a smile.

‘By the gods, Septimus, I never believed it would be so … so …’

‘Big?’ the marine offered.

‘I was going to say amazing,’ Atticus replied, instantly understanding how the city before him could be the focal point for the power it held over the whole peninsula.

‘My father’s father spat on the name of Rome when the legions came to Locri, believing them and the city that bore their citizenship to be inferior to any in Greece,’ Atticus continued, shaking his head in silent criticism of the belief his grandfather had held.

Septimus began to name the sights of the Forum as they passed through the expansive and busy commercial and governmental centre. To their left was the Temple of Vesta, a towering circular shrine dedicated to the virgin goddess of home and family. Within, Septimus explained, the untouchable Vestal Virgins tended the eternal flame of Vesta, a symbol of the very source of life, the flame connected through the eastern opening of the temple to the ultimate source, the sun. The Virgins, once the daughters of the king of Rome, were now the daughters of the most important Roman families, and their thirty-year vow of chastity and acceptance into the only order of priestesses in Roman religion brought them and their families great honour and prestige.

Standing next to the temple was the Regia. Originally it had served as the centre for the kings of Rome, but now, with power residing in the Senate, the building was home to a spiritually more impressive figure, the pontifex maximus, the high priest of the Republic. The imposing rectangular temple housed the shield and lance of the war god, Mars, and it was with these symbols that the high priest administered the divine laws of Rome and kept the ‘Peace of the Gods’. Atticus listened in silent awe as Septimus explained that the lance held within the walls of the temple would vibrate in perilous times, a warning sign to the populace from Mars himself that Rome was under threat.

The two men swung their mounts left in pursuit of the senior consul as the group passed diagonally across the Forum. They passed the Umbilicus Urbi, the official centre of the city from which all distances, both within the city and the entire Republic, were measured. It was an isolated, unassuming marble obelisk, six feet high and five in diameter, and yet Atticus sensed the very fact that it was so humble, in such exalted surroundings, merely added to its significance as the marker point of the centre of the known world.

Septimus pointed out their destination in the northwest corner of the Forum, the Curia Hostilia, the court where the Senate met and the centre of all political activity in the Republic. The building was elevated above the level of the surrounding buildings, its striking façade dominating the northern end of the Forum, a symbol of strength and order. Atticus took his eyes off the impressive sight to look at the senior consul leading them, expecting the order to halt and dismount to come at any moment before they took the final steps of their journey up to the columned entrance of the Curia.

Scipio surreptitiously eyed the steps of the Curia as they approached the Senate building. His own house was a mere half-mile beyond the Forum, around the northern side of the Capitoline Hill that rose up on their left, and it was this destination that the consul now steered towards. As senators on the steps of the Curia recognized him, many of the junior members ran down to question his sudden appearance, while others – men Scipio knew were allied to his enemies – ran up to the entrance to warn those adversaries of the senior consul’s presence. As his horse drew parallel to the foot of the steps, he was surrounded by half a dozen men, each wearing the standard woollen toga of the Senate, although all could afford much finer cloth.

‘Senior Consul,’ one began, ‘we were not expecting you for at least another week. What news?’

‘Patience, Fabius,’ Scipio said with a smile, ‘I have travelled far these past two days and I wish to bathe and change before speaking to the Senate on a matter of grave import. Please inform those available that I will return in the afternoon,’ he added, knowing that everyone would ensure they were available to hear any news first hand.

‘Yes, Senior Consul,’ Fabius replied, the junior senator, a recently elected magistrate, barely able to contain his curiosity.

Fabius and the others turned away from the senior consul and began to climb the steps of the Curia, Scipio noting with satisfaction that they were already in deep conversation as to the nature of the ‘matter of grave import’ that he had alluded to. He knew it was only a matter of time before the whole Senate would be discussing the yet-to-be-disclosed news, their curiosity fermenting within the confines of the Senate building. Scipio would delay his return to the Curia until the last possible moment, allowing the tension to mount to the tautness of a legionary’s bow. Only then would he announce the news of the Carthaginian blockade and the threat to the Sicilian campaign. The timing would be perfect for declaring his proposal, presenting the senators with the only possible solution, his solution, without affording his enemies the opportunity to determine a counterproposal. It would be yet another one of his triumphs.