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XXXIV. CROSSING THE TIBER; PALLAS AND PETASUS
Marcellus is eager to see some evidence of the founding of Rome itself, by Romulus and Remus. It’s the famous event of April 22, 753 B.C. when Romulus drew a plan for the city wall using a plow, and Remus ridiculed him by jumping over it, leading Romulus to kill him in a fit of rage. Darwin takes you aside, during a rest stop by a murmuring brook in a reed grove, and cautions: "It’s an ugly story, just quirky enough that it might be true."
You say: "I’m a little bit afraid about going there. Isn’t it possible we might threaten some of those threads that bind history together, and something bad could happen to us? Like we cease to exist?"
Darwin shrugs. "The traditional date given is the spring or vernal equinox, which sounds very much like a mythical date made up later by some college of priests with too much time on their hands and not enough info. I wouldn’t worry much about it."
You find no major settlements, just small clusters of farms as you approach the site that will eventually be Rome. You are coming from the direction of an ancient settlement, possibly called Ustia, which will one day become Ostia, Rome’s earliest port serving the Tiber and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Ironically, it’s the same path you took in 284 upon your arrival from C.21. The hills and marshes in the mouth of the Tiber valley cover an area of about 100 square miles, which is an appreciable space when there are no roads and you have to walk. As in the Middle Ages, most people never go more than ten or twenty miles from where they were born. The biggest excitement is going to the local market town maybe once a week or every two weeks, depending on what you have to offer, or what you need to bring back. Almost all trade is by barter. What coins circulate are either of distant origin, an abstraction, be they Carthaginian or Etruscan or Greek or from more obscure city-states in Asia Minor (your Turkey, the area of Homer’s Troy). You might find an occasional locally minted iron coin with some small king’s, almost chieftain’s, crude image on one side and some local symbol on the obverse, or a god or goddess’ image. You piece all this together from what you see here, and occasional conversations with locals, and what you remember from your study of history. Except for the utter absence of Christianity, which hasn’t been invented yet, your experience reminds you of what it must be like to travel through Europe in the Dark Ages (the period after the western Roman Empire ends in the 5th Century A.D. and the civilization of the High Middle Ages starts (after about 1100, when the beneficial influences of the Crusades, in terms of knowledge brought back from mainly Byzantine and Arab sources, begin to spread through European society).
Along the way, you meet occasional strangers, and with difficulty you make yourselves understood. Most of them wear similar garb: a tunic of some kind; footgear sometimes in the form of boots, more often in the form of sandals with wool or leather leggins stuffed with straw or cloth for warmth; a cloak; headgear usually in the form of a cloth cap or straw hat; and perhaps a tall walking staff that can double as a weapon. The poor man may carry a haversack, maybe a bow and arrows for hunting a rabbit or some quail to put in his sack. He might carry in his sack some basic supplies for setting traps; his most essential pieces of equipment, as they are for early man on any landmass from North America to the Polar Circle to Ötzi’s Alps to Shaka’s southern African temperate forests or what have you, are: some flint and tinder for making fire; a knife; a small sack of grains to chew on, or even some hardtack; and amulets for good luck. He may carry among his amulets a keepsake of his loved ones, like some special beads made by a lover. He most likely won’t carry some sort of small bladder with water, because it’s heavy, unwieldy, and unnecessary in wet country like this.
Most of the men (almost no women) you meet are local farmers or shepherds, going about surprisingly modern and universal tasks like leading their animals to or from pasture. You come to the sometimes painful conclusion, particularly when one mysteriously grinning fellow carries on about how you may be gods and turns out to have stolen a bracelet from Polybius’ arm, so that you have a merry half-mile chase down a country road with farmers in the nearby fields laughing and cheering the whole charade on. The corollary to your conclusion is that nothing ever changes about human nature. Living long ago doesn’t make these people somehow dumb or dull. They seem grounded in the locale, excited to meet strangers, afraid to be robbed or taken advantage of, eager to ask questions about the larger world. They are not dull people, and they have heard of faraway places with odd names that you assume mean things like Egypt and Carthage. They have been taken by hucksters, thieves, liars, brigands, and all sorts of unscrupulous persons, and have developed a healthy skepticism and suspicion about persons such as yourselves who appear on the landscape. They come in a variety of personalities and intelligence levels, and the brightest among them are leaders in the primitive democracy of their settlements; all have heard of distant kings and great armies, and of cities where the streets are paved with gold; some are inclined to prefer stern authoritarianism (the guys who won the culture war in early Rome, you suspect) while others prefer giving rights to all men, and others think it’s best to do unto others as they should do unto them, and everyone should leave each other alone. It’s the complete spectrum of modern politics, and you are surprised and a bit humbled, since it becomes apparent some very wise fellows are wandering along these beaten dirt paths.
The only thing you want to be really careful of is not to give in to their tendency to confabulate myths on the spot, like how you must be gods because your shadow is thinner at noon than most mortals’, or a hundred other spurious lines of reasoning that can only lead to a big buildup of expectations and then a cataclysmic crash of disappointment in which you may be lucky to escape with your lives. You don’t want another comedic chase like the one after the fellow who stole the bracelet, because if you’re the ones being chased, and the accusation is that you are witches or demons, your fate and some tree may coincide, as an example to others of your ilk. In a way, though maddening, it’s comforting to at least know that nothing ever seems to change.
The men you meet speak ancient dialects—Oscan, Umbrian, Sabellian, Faliscan, and dozens of others, some no more than a village argot, others the lingo of some valley or hilltop—that will eventually be absorbed into the language known as Latin, later Italian and the Romance languages. Some of the travelers you meet are Etruscan traders from the north, or Greeks from the south, who have either come by the long coastal road. Even at this early time, occasionally a small ship may beach at Ustia, bringing amphorae and goods to trade with men from the inland Apennine settlements, upland, who carry the goods throughout the Tiber valley or into the Sabine towns in the eastern hills, or the Alban hill settlements south of Rome. Most of the travelers go in a group as you are, and armed because there are brigands about. You even see small escort groups consisting of mixed footmen and horsemen accompanying a small mule train of goods that would be fair game.
On the urging of Marcellus, you approach that bend in the Tiber that you recognize by its main feature, the boat-shaped island known even in modern times simply as Tiber Island. The island, and the future Capitoline hill with its steep cliff, the Tarpeian Rock, from which criminals are thrown, rises slowly in the mist as you draw nearer. All of you are tense and excited, but Marcellus vocalizes: "My Hercules! Look! No bridge, nothing; a few huts near the shore, and a little smoke drifting from a small house on the sacred mount."
Darwin says: "That is probably the earliest little temple of Dius Pater up there, soon to be Juppiter, the Etruscan’s Tinia or the Greeks’ Zeus but with none of the fancy frills added by legions of later state poets."
"Then we may be just in time to see Romulus and Remus found the city," Marcellus says excitedly, and even Polybius looks speechless with awe and reverence.
You come to the spot where later a wooden bridge will ford the river. At the moment, you find only a few men mending small nets. They sit around wooden dugouts beached on shore. The largest boat is a broad-beamed single-masted sailing boat, about a 22-footer assembled from hewn planks caulked with pitch. Seeing you, the elder of the men rises from his netting and ambles over. He is accompanied by four brawny fishermen, at least one of whom sports a hefty bronze sword. The old man is a grizzled, toothless fisherman with white hair, and he reeks of salt fish and wine. Speaking in a high-pitched, almost singsong voice, he delivers his price list as he probably does several times a day when travelers come to cross the Tiber. The river, he says, is swollen with melted snow from distant mountains. A glance at the turbulent muddy yellow water, with its whitecaps as it makes a rushing sound, is enough to confirm that. The power of the river is evident, particularly in its wild form, untamed by later stone banks of massive blocks. You grow a bit faint at the sight of trees twirling in the powerful onrush that swings past, but the captain seems amused at your doubts. He seems quite sure of himself. He leads you toward a fire, on which fish are being smoked, and offers you a gift of food and wine. All four of you eagerly and respectfully take him up on his offer. Then the haggling begins, and he eyes your possessions with experienced cunning. You appear to be polished and worthy gentlemen, and this is after all a business matter. He notices your swords, your clothing, your amulets and bracelets. He wonders if you have money bags under your cloaks. His pale, sun-blinded eyes radiate curiosity about what you may be doing abroad without the obvious pack mule or other trade materials. Perhaps you are priests of some city, making a pilgrimage. Ultimately, he could care less. He controls the ferry business here, and he has the protection of a small local league of basically tough guys who run the show. You mess with them, it’s that comedic chase down the road again—only you notice the tough guys, sitting on a log by a wooden hut a few hundred yards away, have horses. That would make your run a short and not very funny one, ending not on a tree but in a beating and then a rather bumpy swim without a boat down the Tiber toward the open sea. Perhaps your bones might be unearthed centuries later as the Imperial Romans dredge the riverbed to open up traffic to larger ships at the new Portus of Hadrian. Or perhaps your skulls might be found as work begins on Fiumicino International Airport. Luckily, he sees you’re on the level and this is a conversation you need not have.
An hour later, you emerge on the opposite shore. You thank him, and he waves from his sailboat. On the opposite shore, you have new problems. A group of men there amble down to converse with you, and you intuitively know it’s a shakedown they are contemplating. Darwin says as much, adding: "What puzzles me is that they would want commerce to pass through here. They wouldn’t want to scare people off by getting the reputation of being road agents, robbers, or worse."
The men are darker-skinned than those on the other side. Their leader is a crafty, grinning man with very dark skin and laughing eyes that have a cruel, cunning streak. It’s a new sort of face you’ve hardly ever had time to see, until you figure out they are probably escaped slaves, criminals, or even renegade warriors, almost like leaderless Japanese samurai. They surround you, and you and your companions stand with your hands on the hilts of your swords. You won’t stand much of a chance here, having been raised in a world of guns, but you aim to go down fighting. The issue that comes up is something entirely different, however. They want to offer protection, if you need it; and they have horses and weapons if you need those. Darwin visibly sighs with relief, and you follow suit.
The men’s leader is Larth Apluniuns. He is a huge Etruscan with deceptively rounded baby features, and scarred arms from many fights. He wears a white woolen garment that exposes much of his lithe, cinnamon-colored body in the Greek manner. His shins are crisscrossed with fight scars from knives, swords, and slammed shield edges. He seems to fear nothing, and is very much in control of himself and his situation. Sensing your unease, and gentle breeding, he adopts an amicable air. After initial greetings, his proffer is the timeless and universal offer to be of service, which goes roughly like this: "Hi, I’m Larth and I’ll be your brigand today. How can I help you folks this morning? Can I start you out with a few uppercuts, or maybe a kick to the groin? Just kidding. Seriously, we are strong, reliable men with time on our hands, and we could use a few denarii or maybe a good meal."
To which you all start babbling your varied wishes and desires. Marcellus wants to meet Romulus and Remus, Darwin wants to know about Alba Longa, you are wondering if they have horses so you don’t have to walk anymore, and Polybius asks if there is a chief in the area, preferably one with a librarian in residence so he can exchange book tips (for now, you think this is a joke, but wait until later). You sense that Larth and his boys have an arrangement with the old man of the sea on the other side. Larth and company don’t look like fishermen, nor do they look like they can sail a boat, so they rely on the fishermen on the far side and share a profit. A significant look of some sort passes between Larth and the old fisher captain. It seems like a form of e.s.p., and Larth looks after the receding boat for a full minute, finally raises his face in some unspoken understanding, and nods. Your best guess is that normally the old captain would toss Larth a coin for his share of the deal, perhaps for guarding the other side and keeping the trade route open. This time there wasn’t a coin—you didn’t bring the right coinage from the future—but the old man has promised Larth something. What is it? Maybe he can take one of your swords. You’ll find out in a few minutes whether they’ll let you live or die, and that seems to be the daily or hourly dose of excitement around here. You really start to miss home right about now.
Larth and his men spread out on the sand, drawing their swords. Their eyes glitter with evil intentions. One or two are licking their lips in anticipation, and Larth’s baby face has a deceptive sweetness that is about as appealing as mordant flesh. You look back in panic at the boat, which is halfway across the water now, tacking under full sail while the river swirls powerfully around it and the wind luffs in its dirty brown sail. The two men handling it are busy, but the old man stares across the water the way a cat watches a mouse before pouncing. It’s clear to you now: you have been sold down the river, literally and figuratively.
At that moment, a woman’s voice rings out, a single word of challenge: Cura! ‘Care!’ that snaps like a whip through the still air, above the murmur of angry Tiber. The Etruscan and his motley companions fall back a step or two. All delight vanishes from their faces, replaced by sudden fear. They look like someone who has stepped on a poisonous snake, or a scorpion, while treading through the neighbor’s yard to steal fruit from his tree.
Standing on the beach with a shield on her left arm, and a spear in her right hand, and a helmet draped back over her head in the Homeric style, is Amalthea. She looks about ten feet tall, and her face looks cold and beautiful as she regards the brigands with grave eyes. Ludetis cum animas vobis, she says in a voice that booms over the water and echoes from the cliffs under the Tarpeian Rock. ‘You are playing with your lives,’ she tells them, sounding like the announcer at a rock concert. She stands on the beach with her long, Greek-style chiton rippling in the wind. She resembles Pallas, the Homeric war goddess, daughter of Zeus, who was born springing to earth from her father’s forehead fully armored and lusting to fight. It’s more than Larth and his shiftless crew can take. They sheath their swords and slink away, looking back once or twice before running as fast as they can.
Amalthea tilts her face back, transfigured and silver, and emits a piercing whistling noise that echoes among the cliffs like the steam whistle of a locomotive. It’s as if the mythologies of Casey Jones and Achaean Homer collide in a shower of sparks. The strength of that cry ripples ripple through the air with the same clarity as the morning sun breaking through the endless marine layer that mingles with Vulcan’s smoke and steam. You throw all credulity aside and are glad to see the brigands run, now small figures still sprinting on the sand and growing smaller. You hear the clatter of horses’ hooves, as terrified and snorting steeds charge from a grove above the riverbank and do 360s on the blowing sand before stopping to bow their sweat-flecked heads.
At the same moment you see, standing high up on the cliff, a familiar yet unreadable figure: the dark shadow of Petasus, swathed in his shadowy hat and cloak, with his feet firmly planted apart and his oak staff in his right hand. He is looking directly down, watching the events on the beach, but as always does not intervene.
"Get on and let’s take a hike!" Amalthea says running forward. You notice that her voice and tone have changed, so that she speaks antique Latin tinged with the strange tongues of ghostly Latin tribes whom Rome will banish to Avernus by the growing strength of her powerful arms. The horses stand waiting and eager to receive riders. You, Amalthea, the two librarians, and Darwin are soon riding beside her.
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