A few in the crowd were taken aback at this breach of decorum. Below him, Titus heard Publius Pinarius let out a gasp and mutter, “By Hercules, did you ever see anything so audacious?” But a far greater number of spectators were roused to cheering and even moved to tears, especially when Cominius warmly embraced Gnaeus, then placed Gnaeus’s hand upon the scepter next to his own and raised it high.
“People of Roma, I give you Gnaeus Marcius, the hero of Corioli! All hail Coriolanus!”
“Coriolanus!” the people chanted. The name reverberated around the Forum like rolling thunder.
From the step above, Appius Claudius leaned over and spoke into Titus’s ear. “I always knew that friend of yours would make a name for himself. Today he has, and everyone in Roma is shouting it.” Claudius stood upright, cupped his hands to his mouth, and joined the others: “Coriolanus! All hail Coriolanus!”
“The temple will be dedicated very soon, then?” said Gnaeus Marcius.
Titus laughed. “Yes, very soon. It’s polite of you to inquire, Gnaeus—or should I call you Coriolanus now? But we both know you have very little interest in temples, and even less in architecture for its own sake. We see each other so seldom nowadays, it seems to me that we should speak of matters that interest us both.”
They were dining, alone, in the garden of the house on the Palatine where Gnaeus lived with his mother and wife. The previous day, various citizens had organized private feasts to follow the triumph. The food had been so sumptuous, and Titus had eaten so much, that he had thought he would never be hungry again. Yet, a day later, his stomach was empty again and he found himself craving a simple meal. Even more, he craved the company of his old friend Gnaeus, just the two of them alone, away from the swarms of strangers and well-wishers who had surrounded Gnaeus the previous day with their incessant cries of “Hail Coriolanus!” And so, when Gnaeus invited him to a private dinner to enjoy his mother’s chickpea and millet porridge, Titus had eagerly accepted.
“It’s true that our lives have taken different paths in recent years,” said Gnaeus. “But that may be about to change.”
“How so? Am I to leave the Senate, and the construction projects they’ve entrusted to me, and join you in battle? I was never very good at it. I suppose I could be your spearbearer, or hold open the gate of an enemy city while you rush inside.”
“I mean quite the opposite. I shall be invading your domain.”
“My construction projects?”
“No! I mean the Senate.”
“What are you saying?”
Gnaeus smiled. “Cominius promised me as much, yesterday, after he invited me onto his chariot. As we passed all those cheering people, he whispered in my ear, ‘See how they love you, my boy! Amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it! A man like you belongs in the Senate, where you can do even more good for Roma than you did at Corioli. I shall make a special appointment, and for that alone, men will say my year as consul was well spent.’”
“But Gnaeus, this is wonderful! Except that now I truly have no idea what I should call you. Senator? Coriolanus? Senator Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus—that’s a mouthful!”
“Then stuff your mouth with chickpeas and millet instead,” said Gnaeus. He laughed, but a moment later Titus saw that Gnaeus’s lips were silently mouthing his impressive new title, and that it pleased him.
“How the gods must love you! You always said you’d become Roma’s greatest warrior, and so you have. Now you can become Roma’s most beloved politician. Cominius is no fool. He wouldn’t appoint you to the Senate if he didn’t see great potential in you. Appius Claudius sees it, too. Mark my words, in due course, you shall be elected consul.”
“Perhaps. In the meantime, I shall need someone to teach me the ins and outs of the Senate. You’re the man for that, Titus.”
“I hardly think so! Appius Claudius is your man. He took me under his wing when I entered the Senate. It was thanks to his influence that I was put in charge of building the Temple of Ceres. He’ll do the same for you, insofar as such a capable fellow needs to be taken under anyone’s wing.”
“Claudius is a good man to know. But nothing takes the place of a boyhood friend. When the odds are against me, it’s to you I’ll turn, Titus.” Gnaeus put his hand on Titus’s shoulder.
Titus nodded. “Coriolanus honors me.”
Gnaeus leaned back and smiled. “So—how goes the work on the Temple of Ceres?”
“A subject in which you have no interest!”
“No interest as a soldier, perhaps. But as a senator, I may have a great deal of interest in the project.”
“Then tomorrow you shall come and see for yourself. It’s a prominent location, quite spectacular—a spur of the Aventine that looms above the starting gates of the Circus Maximus. It’s in the Etruscan araeostyle, just like the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. Not as large, but it will be quite grandly decorated. Vulca is no longer with us, alas, but we’ve employed the very best Etruscan sculptors for the terra-cotta statue of Ceres. To execute the frescoes and reliefs on the walls, we’ve brought in two Greek artists, Gorgasus and Damophilus. They’re almost done, and their work is amazing! And…” Titus realized that Gnaeus was not paying attention. He was staring into the middle distance with a distracted look.
Gnaeus noticed that Titus had stopped speaking, and flashed a wry smile. “You’re right, Titus. I care nothing about the temple’s architecture or its adornments. But I do care about the politics behind it.”
“Famine,” said Titus bluntly. “It was the famine three years ago that inspired the building of the temple. So many men were called to war that there was no one to sow the crops that year, and the fields that were sown were devastated by more warfare. Roma had insufficient stores in reserve, and people starved—the poorer people, anyway. My father also died that year—not directly from the famine, because our sort never went hungry, but from a fever; disease goes hand in hand with famine, and from a fever no man is safe. The Sibylline Books were consulted. It was decreed that a temple should be dedicated to Ceres. To prevent another famine, we would appeal to the goddess of the harvest. Sometimes the advice of the Sibylline verses actually makes sense!”
“Or was there another agenda?” said Gnaeus. His tone was suddenly grave. “Ceres is a favorite deity of the plebeians. Is it not true that the annual festival to commemorate her temple will be organized exclusively by plebeians, just as the annual festival to commemorate the Temple of Jupiter is organized by patricians?”
“Yes. Thus we’ll have a new plebeian festival to match the old patrician festival. What’s wrong with that?” asked Titus, with a sigh. He knew where Gnaeus’s argument was leading, for he had heard it before, from Appius Claudius; it was really quite amazing, how closely Gnaeus’s attitudes matched those of Titus’s father-in-law. Both men were endlessly suspicious of anything that might advance the political power of the plebeians. Claudius had maneuvered to have Titus oversee construction of the Temple of Ceres not because he approved of the project, but for reasons quite the opposite: “If it must be done, then better we put you in charge of the project, my boy, rather than some sycophant who wishes only to curry favor with the mob!”
Titus himself was largely apathetic about politics; if anything, he was sympathetic to the struggles of the plebs. His chief priorities were to determine the best design for any given project, to employ the best artists and artisans at the best prices, and to see the building progress from imagination to splendid reality.
Gnaeus shook his head. “If the plebeians continue to have their way, Titus, one morning you may wake up in a world you no longer recognize, where the lowest have usurped the highest, and the age-old prestige of a name like Potitius counts for nothing. Can you not see that the new plebeian festival indicates a dangerous shift in the balance of power? Since the birth of the republic, by this means and that, in small ways and large, the plebeian masses have ceaselessly conspired to wrest power from the patricians, always to the detriment of Roma’s security and prosperity.”
“Some would say they’ve merely been trying to wriggle out from under the patrician heel,” said Titus.
“They’ve refused to pay their debts, which is robbery! Some have refused military service, which is treason! And last year, they pulled the most outrageous stunt of all, their so-called ‘secession’ from the city. Thousands of them—men, women, and children—packed their things and left Roma altogether. They brought the city to a standstill, and refused to come back until their demands were met.”
“Were their demands unreasonable?”
“Of course they were! Appius Claudius fought like a lion to stop his fellow senators from capitulating, but they did. The plebs were granted their demands and that ended the secession. Now they’re allowed to elect their own magistrates. And what will these so-called aediles of the plebs do?”
“Their primary function is sacred—to guard the new Temple of Ceres.”
“And what will be kept in the temple? An archive of the Senate’s decrees. That was another of the plebs’ demands, that all the decrees of the Senate should be written down, so anyone who wishes may search them for discrepancies and scrutinize them for unfair treatment of the plebs.”
“Is it a bad thing, Gnaeus, that laws and proclamations should be written down? The kings ruled by spoken words. They could make promises with one breath and take them back with another. They could ruin a man’s life on a whim, then disclaim all responsibility. My grandfather, may Hercules bless him, taught me to respect the written word. That the laws should be duly and precisely recorded is not a bad thing.”
Gnaeus was unswayed. “Even worse than the aediles—much worse—are these other officers whom the plebeians can now elect, the so-called tribunes. From ancient times the people have been divided into tribes, so they call these representatives their tribunes—but I call them bullies and upstarts! Under the pretext of protecting common citizens from the alleged abuses of magistrates and senators, these tribunes of the plebs can summarily confiscate the property of anyone—anyone!—who they deem has threatened the physical well-being of a citizen. And where will the confiscated goods be deposited? In the Temple of Ceres, under guard of the aediles! And if any man should dare to threaten or in any way interfere with a tribune, that man can be exiled or even put to death!”
Titus sighed. “There have been abuses against the plebs. Once, in the year of the famine, I saw an old veteran being hounded by the hired ruffians of a senator. The veteran was crippled and in rags. He may have owed the senator money, but he clearly had no means to repay the debt, nor was he fit to work it off, no matter how much the ruffians shoved him about. The old man begged them for mercy. He finally tore off his tunic to show his battle scars—the wounds he had received fighting for Roma. If the tribunes had existed then, they could have put a stop to that shameful spectacle! And if the Temple of Ceres had existed, the veteran could have gone there for protection, because, among its other functions, it will serve as an asylum for the plebs.”
Gnaeus snorted. “I’ve heard that tired story about the abused veteran a hundred times before, and I’ve never believed it. No man worthy to be called a Roman veteran would show off his scars to escape paying a debt.”
Titus shook his head. “The temple will also house a center for distributing food to the poor. Does that offend you?”
“Indeed it does! How will the aediles purchase that food? With the confiscated wealth of patricians who’ve dared to offend the tribunes!” Gnaeus raised an eyebrow, then leaned back and crossed his arms. He exhaled a long breath. “Titus, dear Titus. I think I liked it better when I was a warrior and you were a builder, and we had no interests in common.”
“Membership in the Senate does not necessarily draw men together,” said Titus wryly. “But if my father-in-law and I can get along, despite our differences, then so can we, Gnaeus. You’ll find that I have few fixed opinions; in matter of politics, I follow the consensus. The only thing I truly care about is my passion for building.”
The conversation was joined by a feminine voice. “Did I hear you say something about distributing my food to the poor, Titus Potitius? Is my chickpea and millet porridge too common for your taste?”
Titus stood to acknowledge the appearance of Gnaeus’s mother in the garden. One needed to look no further than the graceful Veturia to see the model which had inspired her son’s erect posture and haughty demeanor. “Veturia! You misheard my comments. For your porridge, I have only the highest praise!”
“Good! I made it myself. No slave’s cooking will do for my son, on the rare occasion that finds him home from fighting Roma’s enemies!” From behind, she leaned over to embrace Gnaeus, who remained seated and reached up to grasp her hands and give her a kiss. The widow Veturia was still a very handsome woman, and Gnaeus unabashedly adored her. If only to make my mother proud of me, Gnaeus had once said, declaring his boyhood ambition to become Roma’s greatest warrior. At that moment, the mother of Coriolanus looked very proud indeed.