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XXXVII. ALBA LONGA
You’re glad to be back on the road in the morning. The Alban Road is often little more than a winding path among mountain peaks. The highest summit, that of the volcano Mons Cavus (Monte Cavo, about 3,000 ft. high), looms nearby. Generally the landscape is higher up and rockier than that in the lush, wet Tiber delta. There are moments when you almost want to abandon the horses, but Darwin talks you out of it. "They’ll be needed when we come in to the flatlands south of Albano," he counsels. He is clearly looking forward to pushing down to Cumae at the border of Magna Graecia (Great Greece, the complex of colonies owned by various Greek cities in southern Italy including Sicily). For now, however, the push is on to find the mythical city of Alba Longa. Historians say that the early Romans must have done such a thorough job of defeating them that no trace exists even during late Empire times. During the Empire, the Alban Hills are dotted with the villas of the wealthy, as well as tiny self-sufficient villages that will endure history long after empires come and go. The locals do speak of a place called Alba or Alba Longa, however, whose king is one Amliuns (Etruscan), or Amulius (Latin), depending on which passing shepherd or farmer you ask. Marcellus is beside himself with excitement, and Polybius too is radiant with thoughts of what he can write to put in his library. Though a slave, and in no hurry to give up the luxury in which he lives, in return for having the same spurious freedom as the lowest freeman in Subura (so he seems to feel), he has dreams of glory. "My greatest wish," he confides at night by the fire, "is to be honored in Greece and Egypt. The Romans see us all simply as intellectuals, people to be suspicious of, slaves and pedagogues. The Greeks will always have a finer appreciation of these things."
"And the Coptic Egyptians just as well," Marcellus adds in a fit of home-pride. There are moments, you can see, when these two are cut from the same cloth.
The sun is growing hot, and it is wearisome leading the heavily trudging horses up and down dangerous mountain trails. In places, it seems they might slip and injure themselves, needing to be euthanized, but so far you have been lucky and have all of Larth’s steeds intact. You keep them well watered, and they lack little to eat for all the fine mountain herbs and grasses. As long as you keep them walking at their own pace, and only ride on even ground where they cannot damage their hooves or twist a leg, all goes well. At this maddening pace, you finally see walls on the next ridge. You see smoke rising from chimneys and yards. You even see a stone road marker with a curious script similar to the Greek (everyone in Italy has learned the alphabet from the Greeks) with something like Alblun carved in worn letters that are difficult to read.
It’s not like driving a car and being there in five minutes. It takes another two hours, maybe two and a half, to reach the city. You climb a winding switchback trail down into a tree-shadowed valley in which the sun nevertheless shines through the leaves and sends down stifling heat (it’s drier and warmer than on the plains). You refresh the horses and yourselves at a forest stream, hunting and roasting a few squirrels and birds. Finally you emerge on a plateau of beaten earth before the city walls. The walls are nicely built of rectangular blocks well fitted together so that scarcely a weed grows from the cracks between them. The earth has been treated by the city gate so that it is filled with gravel. Even so, there are muddy puddles to either side, which convey a strong odor of cow and horse urine. In some corners, the walls too are streaked, with the outflow of latrines situated in turrets under the main parapets. As in medieval castles, there is a row of toilet openings off the main dining hall of the palace (which in the darkest middle ages would be the place where people sleep, mate, even die, to be near the heat of the main fireplace; and it is little different here, in these relatively chilly times). You surmise all that at a glance as you enter the city by its large double wooden gate, studded with iron nails and hinges. You notice the well-ordered guards in their hoplite (foot soldier) uniforms, which basically consist of hobnailed sandals, a loincloth, a short tunic sometimes ending in a sash tied around the abdomen, in most cases a bit of chain mail or a round armored disk strapped over the chest, and a Phrygian style pointed cloth cap (sometimes more of a cone-shaped felt hat reminiscent of Anatolian and Balkan headgear worn for thousands of years right into your own time).
A large fountain splashes gently in the town square. You find yourself getting yelled at from all sides when you let the horses get near this fountain, which is a large stone circle with a rock in the middle, from which water bubbles. You readily suspect it’s volcanic in origin. First, though, the horses--you apologize to the world at large as you lead the animals to a long stone trough set against a wall in the square. You tie them down and agree to take turns guarding them, with Polybius on first watch. He would have designated Marcellus, but the younger librarian is too excited for words at the thought of being able to verify at least one scrap of the mythology he has been taught about Rome’s origins.
So what do you do in a situation like this? Demand to see the king? Most likely you’d be treated as insane, perhaps thrown out of the city, or even detained at the main barracks which is an imposing stone structure hanging over the opposite edge of the plateau. The barracks overlooks a lake--Nemi, you suspect--of dark blue water whose surface is shallowly warmed by the sparkling sun. Dozens of small boats abound, including a few with square sails bleached to near-white by the Mediterranean sun. Since there are not yet any wealthy Romans to vacation here, as there will be a few centuries hence after the Punic nastiness is over and Romans can relax and stretch their legs in the countryside, the boats must belong to fishermen.
From a takeout stand, you order clay cups filled with passable dry red wine, and clay bowls containing beef jerky and scraps of fatty stuff that looks like soggy rice cooked in mutton tallow. Amused onlookers show you how to eat with two fingers of your right hand (never your left hand, which often doubles as toilet paper then as now in various countries not yet acquainted with the works of that semi-mythological Einstein of sanitation, Mr. Thomas Crapper, London, 1860s). People in this town of about 10,000 seem a bit jaded about foreigners, since there is an appreciable traffic of traders, messengers, and others passing through. Still, a knot of men gathers in no time. They are primarily the old and lame, who while the day away leaning on their canes, drinking watery wine, and telling stories of old time when everything was much better than today. You can barely understand their thick dialect, which appears to be a mix of Greek, Etruscan, and Samnite words wrapped around a core of archaic Latin. First there is the usual conversation one expects in such a situation ("Have you come far? Where do you go? What do you bring? Why are you here? What is going on in the outside world? Is there war again? Is there peace anywhere? Will men ever live in peace? Has there been plague? Did you hear about the two-headed snake someone saw a few hills away, which portends something awful?" and so on). You manage to sneak in a few questions yourselves, answered primarily by one or two speakers while the other men hang about nodding or murmuring.
"Does your king rule in the valley by the Tiber?" you ask.
"Oh yes," says the elder of the village, a man with long wisps of snow-white hair and skin so pale it is almost bluish-translucent. He is blind in one eye, but the other eye seems crafty enough for the thinking of any two or three men. At his side is a young man who it seems will one day be the village elder. They are the Gathurs clan, you learn, and they are sort of the NCO corps of the army as well as the authority on fishing, farming, and sheep-raising. "Oh yes, our king rules all of the mountain land this side, away from the Samnites."
"Do you have much trouble with the Samnites?" Polybius asks, and you quickly wish he hadn’t.
Everyone falls silent and stares at you, at the elder, at you again. Several men absently run their fingers over the swords they wear in worn sheaths at their belts.
"You do not speak with the accent of the Samnites," the crafty old man says. You understand his drift: if you are spies, you may well find yourselves tarred, feathered, and flung over the cliff to your deaths. The old man breaks the tension by laughing and giving a dismissive wave. "They do not come to bother us, and we do not bother them. The Greeks stay down in their cities where it is hotter, which suits them, and the Etruscans are busy in the foggy northland. The Samnites have enough land up in their mountains, and they laugh at our hills. That way, everyone has what he needs, and we avoid sacking each other’s towns."
"Hear, hear," everyone says, or the equivalent in Falisco-Osco-Umbrio-Sabellic.
Darwin says cautiously: "We were attacked at the crossing down near Rome. Have you heard of that place?"
The men all look at each other. "Rome?" they ask. "Rumo?"
The elder speaks with difficulty because he has only one or two teeth, and his tongue keeps getting caught on their long brown stumps. "We know the river, and the ferry place of which you speak--nothing but criminals and runaway slaves down there. Terrible place. But Roma? No idea."
The younger man says: "Rhome is a Greek word meaning strong. There is a legend of a long-ago queen from the eastern lands who came here after the great wars, during the golden age, when the gods walked among men, and men spoke with the gods as if it were you and we here sitting in this square."
"Just so?" Darwin asks, indicating amazement that gods and men could sit together like this without the men getting at least a little scorched or something.
You murmur to Marcellus: "Golden age? Where have we heard that before?"
Marcellus murmurs back: "I thought this was the golden age, but obviously we’d have to go back more, and back again, and back forever. Say, do you suppose there never was a golden age?"
You vent: "When at last you see the light--that’s the golden age of realization, bobo!"
"Men spoke with gods and goddesses sitting just like this," the young man says, and everyone murmurs in agreement. "She was part queen and part goddess, many centuries ago."
"He must mean the Bronze Age," Darwin tells you and Amalthea aside. "They think of it as their long-ago heroic age, as the librarians think of this as their golden age, and if you went back to Rhome’s time, she would probably tell you of an earlier time that was the real golden age."
Amalthea adds: "Do I sense a pattern here? It’s always ‘long ago’ or ‘many valleys to the east’ or ‘across the great sea.’"
"That’s how myth works," Darwin says.
"No, no!" Marcellus cries. "There must be a golden age sometime. Otherwise, things would never end. You could run backwards until time itself runs out and Chaos rules, and still men are looking backward to better times. That doesn’t make much sense."
"You are learned people," the village elder observes, spitting to one side. Everyone else politely does the same, then pushes dust over the ugly orb. Must be a ritual of some kind, you guess, like the evil eye or a hundred other customs for dealing with life’s little daily pandemonium (pan, ‘all’ + demonium, ‘of demons’). "You babble in a strange tongue. What is it you speak?"
"You don’t suppose they are gods?" someone says, blanching.
As superstition, fear, and urban lore can ripple across the crowd--you suddenly become acutely afraid there would then be either worship or a lynching, and you can do without either--Darwin blurts out angrily: "No, you lame-brain, we are no more gods than you are. We are tired travelers from a far place, and we came this way because people speak of how great your city is and how fine its people are. We were told you would feed us and offer water from a sweet spring."
The elder is not easily taken in by Darwin’s flattery. His crafty eye glows like the moon. "So, friends, where is it that you travel to, and why?"
"We have come to write books about all the lands we see," Marcellus says. He may be excitable and naïve, but he recognizes a touchy moment when he feels its hot breath on his neck.
"We go south," Darwin says unperturbed, though his skin looks a bit yellow and you can see he is in pain. "We wish to consult the Sibyl at Cumae about my illness."
"Oh, Kuma," everyone says as if to say, "why didn’t you say so in the first place?" Now everything makes sense and the tension is out of the air. Everyone has words of advice for Darwin, from walking backwards along the shore of Lake Nemi while reciting certain phrases in honor of the lake gods, to inhaling the salty vapors of a certain spot near the mountain (which you readily surmise is hot volcano-breath and of little medicinal value, though its placebo effect on the gullible must be prodigious). It turns out in fact that one of the town industries is to offer guide service to various sites with supernatural powers to cure, to heal, or places where you can throw curse-tablets into springs. That’s an ancient Roman custom practiced throughout their domain, whereby the individual makes a pact with some god so that, "if you strike Blandina with an endless crop of pimples that ooze and fester, and make her the laughing stock of town, so that I can capture Brutus from her, then I will throw a silver coin in your lake every New Year and recite verses in your honor, for the next five years…well, maybe seven years, if you feel that way about it, judging from your silence…" And so forth and so on--writings like this are found, often in ponds and lakes, usually on lead sheets since wood and paper would not survive the trip through time.
Now the conversation revolves around the royal family. Once again, the townspeople are tight-lipped and suspicious, but Marcellus manages to glean a few gems that cause him mixed feelings. "So you know of a queen named Rhea?"
They look at each other, consulting with their eyes and nods. "Yes, there was a woman from the hills by that name, years ago. She married into the Silvii clan, which are the people of King Numitor from over yonder in the forest. Then something happened and she was forced to go away."
"Go away?" Marcellus says. "Did she have children?"
They cautiously relate that she got pregnant, and it wasn’t quite clear whether that was by her husband or his brother. "They blamed it on Mars," the elder said. "That seemed like a safe thing to do at the time. They say it was a virgin birth, too, but then that is fairly common in such situations."
"Did they make her become a Vestal Virgin?"
"A what?"
Darwin nudged Marcellus to be quiet. "Obviously they aren’t familiar with Roman stories, since Rome doesn’t exist yet." Darwin told the elders: "Where we come from, it is the custom to dedicate virgins…er, sort of nuns…
"Whats?"
"Nuns…all people know this word, nana, a nurse…from a Sanskrit baby babble of eons ago." The man looked more confused than before, and Darwin continued: "…women dedicated to the Goddess of the Hearth and Home, more specifically to the sacred fire. You probably know the goddess as Vesta or something similar to that."
"Oh yes," they all chime in, "that is Menrva of the Etruscans."
In the jumble of classic mythology, you remember that this is Minerva of the Italians, a goddess of crafts and trade guilds, who becomes identified (as often happens) with more potent and dire deities from other places: Kybele or Cybele , the Great Mother or Magna Mater; mother of Zeus by Chronos.
"So what of Rhea Silvia?" Marcellus asks.
The elder says: "This situation dates back many years now, when good Numitor was ousted by his brother Amulius, with whom the ancient line of our kings ended. What interest do you have in these things?"
"We only ask about stories we have heard from people we met in our travels," you quickly say to avert any more suspicions.
It may be too late, however, because the city gate swings shut. This should only happen at dusk, so you sense there is something afoot. The elder rises, tucking his cloak about himself despite the heat of day. "You are to come with me. The king has demanded to see you."
All of you--including Polybius--march toward the central keep of this place, that fortification within fortifications that hangs over the shores of Nemi. The city itself is small by any standards you are used to. It seems little bigger than a large modern shopping mall, but is a warren of cobblestone alleys. Only two streets cross in its center, in the Roman manner, though it dates to Etruscan times and represents a sort of feng shui or augury about how to best lay out the town after astrological and augural observations. Your guess, in fact, is that the long ago founders of Alba Longa were of the same stock as those of the Etruscans, known only as Latins or Italics. Your guess is that these are a mix of primordial Stone Age settlers, overlaid by waves of refugees in the late Bronze Age coming around the northern Adria from the Balkans and from what in your day will be Turkey (Asia Minor, Anatolia). The longer of the two roads runs straight from the city gate about 500 feet to the main door of the inner keep, or palace. The shorter crosses it at a 90 degree angle and runs between the sacrificial center and the main temples. Your path, under guard (though nobody has yet said you are prisoners; you can well guess it from the fact that the Albans slammed the city gate shut), takes you through the forum or civic center. As you cross through this space, which has been beautifully laid out in perfectly flat but oddly angled blocks of granitic stone, some of which still show the marks of long-ago chisels and cracking under hot and cold water, you note the temples and tombs and monuments all around. In a sense, this is a model for what the Roman Forum will one day be. It is a model for civic centers throughout Mediterranean cities.
The smaller but heavier palace door opens. Armed men resembling Homeric warriors grimly welcome you into the inner sanctum of the aged Amulius, King of Alba Longa. You know enough about his history to fear him. He killed his brother, who was the rightful king, and maybe himself ruler. You can be sure numerous people died in this violent transfer of power. You are particularly curious about what might have happened to the tragic Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, because you know these things have a bearing on the history of Rome and thereby on the world. Alba Longa in your day may be a lost and long-forgotten antecessor of Rome, but Rome herself laid the foundation for a modern global society in your own time.
The audience chamber of Amulius resembles the all-purpose Great Hall of any self-respecting medieval castle. The difference, as always, is that instead of statues of saints and Madonnas, the wall niches contain statuettes from concurrent mythology. The hall is built on a rectangular floor of the same blocks you saw just outside, in the forum or city center of Alba. Several elderly women are kept busy refreshing a floor covering of fine rushes. Palace dogs and cats fight for scraps of food among the rushes; whatever they miss, the mice and rats will carry off, so that there is not enough to eat for more than a small column of ants. A large fireplace, which will blaze with light during cold winter nights, is currently dark. The high narrow windows are normally secured with thick wooden shutters, which now stand open to the fresh air and spectacular view. Strategically placed under one section of such windows is a stone bench with a dozen keyhole openings to sit on, which double as potties in peacetime and for pouring arrows or molten lead in war. Though nobody is sitting on them at the moment, you notice a collection of buckets to one side. Some buckets will contain dry grass to be used and thrown down the keyholes and thence the city walls in lieu of toilet paper. Other buckets, for the more fastidious, will contain fresh warm water for a truly sparkling keyster and for fragrant hands, when they return to the floor to rejoin the eating and perhaps seduction of their neighbor (usually more effective without a lingering foul aura).
Only a small coal fire flickers on its brick floor, and two slaves are busy turning a chicken on a wooden spit. It smells good in here, you decide--but why not, in the audience hall of a king? Apparently the nobility do not eat on tables here, but on three rows of stone steps along the walls of the hall. Scraps of rug are piled all around, though nobody is sitting on them at the moment. On high feast days, you imagine couches may be brought in for reclining, but generally the floor will be kept clear for entertainment--fights, games, foolery, plays, even spooky prophecies told for general chills and thrills much in the manner of a modern horror movie. It’s the Hollywood rule--provide the audience whatever they most want to buy. That’s what the emperors discovered in the Colosseum, and the Elizabethans with their bear and dog baiting blood sports, and the moderns with the sleaziest television programs and the goriest, bloodiest movies.
"Bring them here!" a voice booms, terminating any further ruminations about your surroundings. Reclining on one elbow on a wooden couch, amid cushions and blankets, is King Amulius. He eats from a tray sitting on a tripod before him, while several male advisors stand beside him. One or two matrons, heavily veiled for modesty, stand behind him silently waiting his call for their counsel. These are the priestesses of several local cults, and their advice will supplement the auguries and proclamations of the more important male priests and augurs. Not surprisingly, you notice at least one Etruscan haruspex among the men. He is a looker at entrails (from Latin spec-, root for ‘to look,’ as in ‘spectator;’ and the ancient Indo-European root gher-, ‘yarn’, ‘cord,’ ‘gut’).
"Why have you come to my city," Amulius booms. He is old, with long white hair bound in a leather headband, and wrinkled features, but his watery blue-gray eyes project a strong and ruthless aura. "Why do you ask questions best left to the gods?"
You all start to bow, but the chamberlain--an older man, in a white robe, with a whip made of a sapling--moves behind you and, with light, stinging blows, brings you to your knees.
"Who speaks for you?" the king asks, looking however at Darwin.
Darwin rises. The others defer to him--Polybius and Marcellus by natural instinct, being slaves, but also welcoming the opportunity not to have to stick their necks out. You defer to Darwin, while Amalthea as a woman doesn’t merit more than an brief, appraising glance from Amulius who turns away from her (to him) thin features and outlandish, mannish attire in revulsion. "I will speak for my traveling companions," Darwin says and quickly spins an innocent-sounding fable.
The interview is surprisingly brief. An advisor comes in and whispers in Amulius’ ear. The king’s eyebrows rise, and he dismisses the slaves with his lunch. The chamberlain ushers you into an adjoining room. Slaves close the door, shutting you off from the larger hall. You hear doors slamming, voices raised in anger, shields and staffs slammed on the floor for emphasis.
"The king will speak with you more tomorrow," the chamberlain tells you. "The rest of today you will be our guests."
Protests to the contrary, you prudently decide to follow the chamberlain and several armed guards down a colonnade overlooking a dizzying view of the lake far below, to another tower, which will be your place of confinement, although nobody seems to want to call it that. The bolting of doors behind you as you go suggests a more ominous situation, though the chamberlain, seeing your worried looks, snorts derisively and comfortingly says: "It is for your protection."
All of you are worried, but you are afraid to be overheard--spied on, more like it--and so you say little. There is no way out of your prison--certainly not up, where you see armed guards silently patrolling on a parapet a good 20 feet above your place. You have a small semicircular suite of cave-like rooms overlooking a flagstone patio with a spectacular view. Food comes, and passable wine. You sit on wooden benches and sate yourselves, while looking out over the magnificent panorama of green crater rim, dark blue lake, and distant mountains swimming in smoky bluish mist.
At one point, you hear the clatter of many horses’ hooves, and Darwin suddenly jumps up and runs to look around the edge of the tower.
"What is it?" you say as you rush to join him. Amalthea hangs back, looking as though she is either hatching some grand, dark plan, or is filled with some portentous knowledge that she broods over. Marcellus and Polybius look insular and silent, hanging back over their cups of wine, and it is clear they do not expect any of you to be alive by morning. They are particularly aware of Amalthea’s tearful prophecy that only one of you will return to the Imperial age alive, and they can only assume it will not be one of them.
"Our horses!" Darwin says, pointing. You catch a glimpse of men on horseback fleeting through a mass of tree crowns on the switchback path leading from the city down through the hills below.
"Larth!" you say through gritted teeth, recognizing the treachery that surrounds you, which has tightened like an invisible noose.
"Something is going on," Darwin says with thoughtfully, anxiously glittering eyes. "Think about it. The Etruscan and his brigands must have followed us."
"Of course," you say, "they wanted their horses back, and maybe a measure of revenge."
"Can you imagine what lies they told Amulius about us!" Darwin says, sitting down hard. He isn’t looking particularly strong, and his face is ravaged with worry. "I feel terrible, that I have gotten you into this."
"It was my own choice," you say with forced courage, though your teeth chatter, and your bones rattle on their rack.
Amalthea steps close. "I don’t have the gifts of my ancestors, but I sense that we did find our way to an important cardo (‘hinge,’ hence ‘cardinal’) in history, such as Marcellus hoped to see, or Polybius challenged us laughingly to find." She glances at Polybius. "You aren’t laughing now, philosopher."
Polybius is a dark mask of fear and dread. Marcellus steps closer. "You mean--we will see something important about the founding of Rome?"
"Perhaps," Amalthea says without joy or humor. "Pray that it doesn’t destroy your golden stories of the great past too much, and pray that tonight’s visions will not be the last you see."
Seconds after she speaks, the wooden door from the colonnade to the patio flies open with a crash, and in walk a dozen heavily armed in with helmets and cloaks. They brandish swords and carry small shields. Behind them, another dozen soldiers crowd the colonnade, carrying spears and large figure-eight shields.
"What are you doing?" Darwin demands, and he is seconded by Polybius and Amalthea.
"Shut up and come with us," says the captain of the guard. He is a large, bearded man with blond hair and businesslike brown eyes. "Make it easier on yourselves and cooperate, or we’ll cut your heads off and throw you over the rim there. Then you can argue with the carrion birds." Nobody laughs, and your group files in grim silence down the colonnade. You go down a dark, winding staircase. The rounded ceilings drip with water, and a dank, moldy smell rises to your nostrils. "Don’t worry," the captain says with a laugh, "you’ll have plenty of fresh air down below."
Soldiers with guttering torches lead the way, while more follow. The passageway fills with the smell of rancid, burning tallow. It is a dreadful smell you hope never to know again, but that will not be the case, as you will find out.
You pass through claustrophobic passages where you can only go single-file, and bowing down to avoid touching the slimy ceiling with your heads. You end up in a dungeon far below the ground, and the iron gate slams shut upon your fate. There is dim light, and a faint moist breeze tainted with the outflow of the castle, but mingling with fresh rainwater runoff from the hills--you hear the splash of a running brook someplace nearby.
"Oh my Hercules," Marcellus says, "what dismal end for our learned careers. I wish I had not been so filled with intellectual curiosity. I wish I had been content to read books and munch fruit in the comfort of our library. What fools we have been!"
Polybius sits heavily, with his head in his hands. You and Darwin sit on a boulder nearby, and Amalthea stands attentively nearby. You are in a natural cavern under the ground, roughly square, maybe thirty feet to a side. The floor is uneven. Parts are sandy, but there are patches of inky liquid that you are sure must be a sort of natural cesspool. The smell alone would poison you, if it were not for the breeze that blows the sewer gas away.
As your eyes become accustomed to the darkness, you probe with your hands along the walls. The stone is solid, if uneven, and you find no way out, either down here or in the high walls that recede into a sort of natural chimney wide enough for a mouse, and way up out of reach. The iron door is bolted from the outside, and so solid in its frame that it doesn’t even faintly rattle. It is high up, about six feet above the highest ground in this cavern, and you can be sure it is guarded well on the other side.
"What do you suppose Larth told them?" you say to Darwin.
Darwin shakes his head. "My guess is that they wanted their horses back, but that they are known as bandits here. So they couldn’t have just pleaded they were innocent fellows whose horses were stolen by a group of distinguished-looking travelers like us. That means two things, doesn’t it, Amalthea?"
His daughter steps close. "Yes. It means that our distinguished looks work against us, because they can make us out to be spies--probably of the Samnites, possibly of the Etruscans who will one day conquer all this territory. That’s one thing. The other thing is that Larth and his boys have an ear here with Amulius, which means some sort of arrangement exists."
"Yes, you’re right," Darwin says, "if there weren’t, they would not have been allowed near the city, not a scruffy looking bunch like them. They must act as spies down there for Amulius. As long as there is a source of salt, and maybe some traffic in stolen goods, Amulius is probably content to have his flank protected up here."
"I think you are onto it," Amalthea says. "Larth’s thugs are like an early warning system, an alarm for possible danger, and in return they receive a certain amount of protection and support from Amulius."
"Very primitive but effective use of diplomacy," you chime in. "I do have the feeling there is something just a little bit more to the game."
Marcellus rises and joins you. "I have my own theory." He waits a moment, then offers it. "Forgive me for being so bold, but I have been thinking. Since we have found that there actually was an Alba Longa, and Amulius was its king, then maybe at least some of the other stories are true."
Amalthea nods. "Yes, that is what I am thinking also."
Marcellus continues: "We have heard that Amulius really did overthrow Numitor, and we have heard no denial that some tragic fate befell Rhea Silvia, Numitor’s daughter. This raises more questions. What happened to Rhea Silvia? What happened to her twin boys?"
You are all filled with guesses, but nobody knows the answer, so silence follows Marcellus’ questions. You are all becoming hungry and thirsty.
Polybius rises and speaks. He has a tragic light about his features that suits his stoic demeanor. "It appears that Amulius either wants to starve you to death down here."
"Why?" Marcellus cries.
"Because he will await word from his spies or from the Samnites directly, regarding our fate. If we are spies or emissaries, then the Samnites or even the Etruscans will come asking about us. If nobody comes, then it will seem we were just innocent travelers as we said we are, and nobody will miss us when we become bleached bones down here."
"A terrible way to end our careers," you say in bitter imitation of Marcellus’ lament.
"Yes," Darwin says, "but if the game means waiting to see if anyone will inquire about us, and if we are meant to rot down here, then my guess is that they will at least give us some food and water."
"We’ll be better bargaining chips alive than dead," you add.
Now the waiting begins, amid dreadful uncertainty.
The light grows clearer as your eyes adapt to the darkness. In the tumid air, you grow drowsy and lie about. You begin to think you might even welcome death as a release from this torment of silent waiting and lack of knowing.
Suddenly, the water in the middle of the cave begins to splash and bubble.
"The gods of the underworld!" Marcellus gibbers, scrambling to hide behind Polybius. The older slave turns several shades paler but masks his terror with resigned courage. Nothing can hide the great whiteness of his terrified eyes, or the desperate pallor of his knuckles as they grip the hem of his cloak. Amalthea does not move from her stubborn and courageous stance. Darwin looks upon the bubbling water with resigned fortitude, while you feel fear bubbling at least as vibrantly in your stomach.
Suddenly there is a great splash, and a head bursts into the air. It hangs two or three feet above the brackish green water.
Larth!
For a moment, you expect him to begin speaking. Then you realize his eyes are downcast, while his open mouth drips with black blood and bile and his hair hangs down in a tangle of filth and waste. There is nothing below his chin.
A second later, a body bursts into the air. Marcellus and Polybius both cry out in terror and throw themselves backwards while clutching each other.
A black figure covered in muck rises up, holding the severed head of Larth in a powerful hand. "Be quiet," a disembodied voice says. "Be still if you value your lives."
"A god!" Marcellus cries, and Polybius, losing all his frigid composure, quavers in the trembling voice of a small child: "A god from the underworld!"
As the muck drips away, you recognize one of the men who threatened you on the Tiber beach. It is one of Larth’s brigands. "Never mind who I am," the man says. "Listen carefully if you wish to live."
He explains his instructions in quick whispers, and much as you are frightened, you all comply. There is an underwater passage that leads out of the dungeon of Alba Longa, and to the clean fresh waters of Lake Nemi that bubble up in a forest spring. One by one, taking a deep breath, you sink down into the muck. "Don’t worry," Darwin says, "it’s not sewage but rotten vegetation. It’s still a breeding ground of filth and disease, but we’ll wash it all off and hope for the best."
You remember again Amalthea’s promise that only one of you will return to the future alive. As you struggle blindly, fighting panic in the heavy pressure on all sides, in the cold water, as you feel the slime covered walls of the passage in which you find yourself, you wonder if this is the moment of your death. Your lungs ache, and your head wants to explode for lack of air. You are almost ready open your mouth and resign yourself to a quick death by suffocation and drowning in this black hell, when your desperate eyes fill with liquid light.
How precious is the blue sky, whose light fills your vitreous eyeballs! You emerge like a fish, gasping for air. You lie sobbing for breath on the cold, clean stones of a forest pond so clear its water is all but invisible. Pine needles form a soft fragrant bed all around. One by one, your companions all emerge unharmed. They clean themselves in the springwater, and wring out their wet clothing. You feel the bite of chill mountain air, but your wet skin dries quickly.
The spring water bubbles, and out comes a clean fellow wearing a loincloth. He scrambles to dress himself in a white tunic and a dark-red cloak lying amid some nearby trees, as well as his armor and weapons. "You are fortunate," he says, "because Amulius sentenced you to die. You are doubly in luck because a stranger has intervened to save your lives."
"Who are you?" asks a newly reverent and devout Polybius, on his knees, holding up his prayerfully wringing hands over his head.
Marcellus speaks up. "I’ll tell you who he is. Don’t you recognize him?"
The stranger stands haughtily erect, dressed almost like an archaic Danaean, the ancestors of Euander, or Evander, and Aeneas. Several tough-looking men in simple tunics step from the woods. They appear to be the survivors of Larth’s band.
Nobody replies, and Marcellus answers his own question: "This is Romulus, the founder of Rome."
"Marcellus is partly correct," Amalthea says. "I think I understand part of what is happening. Quirinus," she says turning to the first Roman, and addressing him by his real name, "when do you sack Amulius?"
The Roman’s face clouds with confusion. "Are you a goddess, that you are able to read minds and tell the future?"
"Not a goddess," Amalthea says, "and not a Sibyl, if that is what you think. But Sibyl blood runs in my veins, and I am no stranger to prophecy."
Darwin steps forth to seize the opportunity, when the partisans from down by the Tiber mouth are confused in their awe. "Quirinus, if that is your name, why have you rescued us? How can we help you? We are not gods, but we are favored by the gods."
"We mean no sacrilege," Polybius says dubiously at his verbal outrage. Marcellus too looks about as if expecting to be struck by lightning. You hope the two librarians will hold their tongues, so they don’t get you all killed by these roughnecks.
"My nursemaid overheard you speaking to the king," Quirinus says. "Hurry, we have no time to waste. Let’s get out of here, because my men and I have work to do tonight." He raises both hands and says coldly: "If it were up to me alone, I would slit your throats rather than risk having you tell my secrets. It is my nursemaid, old Lupa, who has urged that we save your lives."
On the way through the woods away from Alba Longa, you walk close by Darwin. The librarians follow behind, chattering in some argument about whether the gods always have human-like form or only when appearing to humans. Amalthea walks a step or two ahead of you, behind Quirinus-Romulus and his men. Lying on the carpeted forest floor by the sacred spring, which is guarded by spirits, are the headless bodies of Larth and several other Etruscans. Their heads the Romans have left in the cavern as a message to terrify Amulius and drive his on-hangers away from him.
"What is going on?" you ask Darwin.
"I’m not sure yet, but I think we see now the foundations of Rome. It’s part myth, part history, some of it wondrous, most of it mundane and violent. The various legends weave around each others like the threads of a complicated yarn. What they suggest, in their aggregate, is that Romulus (later also worshiped as the divine Quirinus) welcomed all sorts of runaway slaves, debtors, criminals, and other miscreants to his growing band. He offered them freedom and equality, the beginnings of democracy, a nation of their own." You continue discussing these theories, and soon arrive at a camp near the shore of Lake Nemi. There, several women come to greet the men. They were long, dark, ragged clothing of no particular art or shape. "These are our wives and sisters," Quirinus says proudly. "Soon they will dress like queens. Some were condemned by the Sabines and other tribes for crimes of love, for which they were to be put to death, but they ran away into the wilderness. Like my men, they were ready to join a new blood, a new way of thinking. It is like the way of the animals, who have no slaves, and do not kill for pleasure. We are like the wolf-pack, which hunts only to feed its members, and nothing more. He points to a totem by the entrance to a well-disguised shelter made of rushes and reeds. You see other totems of Rome, including the eagle.
One of the women is an elderly crone, whom you recognize as one of the rush-layers in the palace. She walks bent over, with a stick. She grins toothlessly, but with the wanton pleasure of a woman much younger. "So these are the messengers from the gods, eh?"
"You wanted us to save their lives before we take Amulius, so here they are," Quirinus says. He and his men join other men who bring provisions. "No fires, no cooking," you hear him say as he drifts off. "No singing, no drinking. Tonight will be war, and our future depends on it!"
The old woman looks worried. "I am Lupa," she says, offering a strong, hammy hand. "Come to my shelter and we can talk." Several young women bring urns of water and leaf-wrapped packets of smoked fish and meat, as well as stale bread that has seen days of forced marching. You sit around the earthen floor in Lupa’s simple shelter, waiting to speak with her. "We cannot light a fire," she says with regret, "though my old bones would welcome one." She utters another cackling laugh in the golden half-light of late afternoon. "Yes, my name means Prostitute. Yes, I gave myself to men along the gates of the cities, but only after the terrible deeds of Amulius reduced me from the queen’s lady in waiting to someone less than an animal. And to think people say the gods do not intervene in men’s lives!" She throws a pinch of salt over one shoulder. "I was a cousin of Rhea Silvia, by royal blood. The criminal Amulius murdered our lord Numitor, and set himself up as king. To end his brother’s bloodline, he did a terrible thing to Silvia. He couldn’t kill her outright, because his Etruscan devils warned him not to. So he did the next thing to prevent her from ever mating again."
Marcellus guessed: "He made her a Vestal Virgin?"
Lupa shook her head. "I’m not sure what that means."
Darwin explained: "The priestesses of the Hearth of Rome." Seeing Lupa’s continued obliviousness, he said: "Trust that the city of Romulus has great favor with the gods, and will rule the world forever."
"I believe that," Lupa says with cheerful innocence and fervor. Then she resumes her somber story. "My dear princess was pregnant when he immured her."
"Immured!" Polybius interrupts.
Marcellus ponders all this in the light of Roman law he is familiar with. "A Vestal who was defiled in any way by a man’s sexual attention must be put to death to protect the very existence of Rome. If she agreed to those attentions, she must be either buried alive, or immured, and left to starve and die of thirst. It was the fate of more than one unfortunate girl over the centuries."
"I will show you," Lupa says, "after you eat and refresh yourselves. You must leave here tonight, for your own safety, because Amulius’ men will be looking for anyone they can kill."
In the last light of day, Lupa brings you along winding forest paths, which look as if meant only for the feet of wood spirits, so fragrant are the flowers and hedges all around, and so golden is the late light, like air filled with the honey dust as bees labor over their wax screens. You come to a stone tower that sits alone near the shore, just in the shade of huge oak groves. "This was a watch tower in long-ago times," Lupa says. "Amulius had its doors walled up, but not before putting Rhea Silvia inside alone. You can image the horrible fate! They left one opening for food and drink to be given to her. Will your histories tell this horror?" She takes you climbing over thickets, over swampy ponds humming with insects and bubbling with contagion, until you see a tiny hole one stone wide, up so high that baskets must be passed up on a pole. You see the rotting piers where the wooden approach once stood, a passage hewn from logs, just wide enough for one person, but now just broken palings stained green and yawning their shattered teeth up to the sky. "Here Amulius had a woman come each day with a basket. They had killed most of the ladies, but I alone survived because I ran into the woods like a fawn and hid. That was long ago, and I was young and beautiful. I used to come here at night and speak with the queen, sing to her, and keep her company. You see, Amulius did not know she was pregnant, but I knew. So I waited until she passed the two boys out to me, and I took them to a shepherd’s hut where I raised them. When they grew older, they ran off to join the warriors in the valley, but they came back so I could instruct them in what they must eventually do."
Marcellus asks: "What became of Remus?"
Lupa gives him a strange look. "His brother killed him in a fit of anger. They were arguing about how best to serve the future, and regain their father’s throne."
"Were they plowing a field?" Marcellus asks.
"No, they had no patience for farming. They were working for a shepherd near Veii, taking his sheep down toward the Tiber each day, and this gave them time to talk a lot and make big plans the way young men will do." She whispers: "They were drinking wine, and it was hot. They came to words, and they struck each other. Romulus was the stronger and Remus never got up again. He has a terrible temper, my Romulus, and he can be very headstrong, but he is leader and these men follow him now that he has killed the Etruscan. He will make the Tiber his."
"You are right about that," Marcellus says wonderingly.
Amalthea says, or asks: "But you were offering yourself by the gates of the cities. What about that?"
"When the boys left, I had no purpose anymore. The queen went mad and died in her tower eventually. No amount of food or singing could console her. They always had guards by day, to prevent anyone from releasing her. Only at night, when the guards left in terror of the Lares or ghosts, did I venture out to speak with her. When her babbling became increasingly pitiful to hear, I sent her a good crock of wine blackened with hemlock and nepenthe. She thanked me, and never spoke again. Recently, we opened the tower and found her bones, which we will bury over in the cemetery under the Arx."
"She will be deified," Amalthea assures Lupa. Marcellus nodds and adds: "She is divine already, a personification of both Venus, mother of Aeneas, and of Vesta, whose sacred fire keeps alive the heartbeat of Rome."
"That is a lot of fancy talk I don’t understand," Lupa says, "but sounds about right. I am old now." Tears stream down her face, and she wipes them away with her wrist. "I will be gone after this, since my purpose is finished. The queen suffered much, and she will rest in peace, the last person to be buried in the place of the dead."
Polybius says rather tactlessly: "It is true that Rome was built around a cemetery, but Rome’s greatness consists of the courage to challenge the gods this way. The proof of Rome’s greatness lies in many things, but especially in the awesome virtus in daring the Fates by building a city of the living on top of a city of the dead, and then performing every correct ritual and obeisance to keep the gods favorably inclined, when any other tribe would have been eaten alive by worms of corruption and stricken by thunderbolts."
"I have a gift from Romulus for you," Lupa says. She offers a small sack of Greek and Roman silver coins with a few small golden ones among them. "Buy yourselves new horses when you are away from the kingdom of Amulius. The son of Rhea Silvia asks that you give these to the Sibyl at Cumae and ask earnestly for her prayers for the city of Romulus, and for the divine institutions that will rise from her."
"It’s time for you to leave," Lupa says rising. "I have been advised to help you by the oracle at Cumae, and now my job is done. Go safely."
Several men await you near the shore, including Romulus-Quirinus. "Good luck!" Romulus says, shaking your hands. He offers each of you knives and swords, which you gratefully accept.
Marcellus stops to speak with him, and time passes while the sun grows lower on the western sea. You are impatient, and a little bit curious, when you see Romulus nodding and shaking Marcellus’ hand. Marcellus turns to announce: "I won’t be going with you. I may not be a warrior, but I can teach them how to read and write. Polybius, he says you are welcome to stay also. He says they do not keep slaves, and I am now a free man."
Polybius seems touched, but shakes his head. "I thank you, but I look forward to returning to the comforts of my library and the good life. I would rather be a slave in luxury than a free man sleeping on the hard earth."
In your heart, you reflect that now there is one less of you who will return to the future, and you see the prophecy of Amalthea coming true. Now there are only four of you, You, Polybius, Darwin, and Amalthea, and only one will return alive.
A boat takes you from the shore of Nemi near Alba to the opposite shore. As night falls, you hear screams faraway, and when you turn to look you see the city devoured by flames on its hill.
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