Free Of Merchants & Heros by Paul Waters Page A

‘Truly that is a hard thing to bear. It would have been an honour to meet such a man. And, now I think of it, Caecilius did not have your look at all.’
    He smiled, and I knew he was trying to put me at my ease.
    ‘You know, Marcus, there is something about you that sets you apart from the common run of men. I can see it in your eyes, like fire.’
    At this I blushed and looked down. The memory of Epeiros had stirred my anger, and it is a strange thing when a man can see your private thoughts in your face.
    ‘But now I am embarrassing you,’ he said with a pleasant laugh.
    ‘Come on, let’s walk some more.’
    He stood, and pausing met my eye. ‘One thing though. Don’t let anyone quench that fire. It is the forge of your soul.’
    We left the library gardens and walked on, down past the theatre, pausing for a while at the sanctuary of Persephone, with its porch of tall columns, and its row of painted terracotta statues on the roof.
    He told me how, before he had come to Tarentum, he had served as a tribune under the consul Claudius Marcellus. He had fought, he said, against Hannibal in Italy, and had been nearby on the day that Marcellus was ambushed and killed by Hannibal’s cavalry.
    ‘That was a dark day,’ he said. ‘It is easy to forget how it felt, now Scipio has driven them out of Italy.’
    He paused and shook his head.
    ‘Too many have died – at Cannae, and Baecula, and Metaurus; a whole generation lost, and we must not let any nation do this to us again. Soon Scipio will have chased them all the way back to Carthage – if the gods are willing, and his enemies in the Senate do not thwart him first. The world is only safe for those who make it so.
    There are men always and everywhere who will enslave the weak and the unwary. A man must make himself strong: without that there can be no other freedom.’
    I gazed up at the temple with its sculpted pediment, but in my mind I saw the rocky crags of Epeiros, and my anger stirred within me. ‘But who are these traitors,’ I said, ‘who work against Scipio even as he fights for our safety?’
    He smiled. ‘You are not the only one who is frustrated by them.
    But they are not traitors. They are leading men in Rome – senators, even ex-consuls some of them. But they are wrong. They suppose that if only we remove the Carthaginians from Italy, we will be left in peace. “Let us stay secure within our own borders as before!” That is what they say. They are old men, and they yearn for the past, when things were simpler – or seemed so. But there is no going back.
    Twice Carthage has made war on us. That is enough. There must not be a next time.’
    Before we parted he took my hand and said, ‘Well, Marcus, I am glad to see you healed – and don’t worry about that limp’ (he had spotted my frustration with it as I walked), ‘it is nothing, it will be gone in a few days.’ He paused, considering, then went on, ‘But listen, I am holding a small dinner-party – just a few friends – why don’t you come? I’m sure your stepfather is too busy to do much entertaining. I will show you a side to Tarentum you have not seen.’
    Caecilius was waiting with a host of questions when I returned. Had I seen the praetor? Had I been to the residence? What had we talked about? My answers did not satisfy him.
    ‘Always think, boy,’ he said, ‘in everything you do, what there is to be gained. A conversation with important people is never a conversation merely.’ He tapped his temple with his little finger.
    ‘Gain, gain, gain. Always look for gain.’
    Two days later, I returned from the harbour, where I had seen off a cargo of Tarentine pots and ironware, and was passing through the entrance hall, when old Telamon beckoned me aside with a quick worried wave of his hand.
    ‘Oh, Marcus sir,’ he said, keeping his voice down, ‘while you were out a note came from the praetor’s residence, and a box with it. Your name was written on it. Really, it could