Triumph

Right... uh, no Kaiser stuff, this one just came rather suddenly to me on Wednesday. Yes, yet another conversation, but one that ends everything rather well... well, for me, anyway. Needs more work, might re-order a few bits.

Here you go:

Triumph

 
Quietly, I stepped into the atrium, wearing only a simple tunic and well worn sandals. The Master of the Ceremony raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders as he made the final confirmations that all was well. Walking up behind the chariot, I tapped on the shoulder of the slave that stood at Publius’ back. He looked at me, startled, and I gestured him away. Recovering his composure well, he nodded respectfully to me and walked to the Master of the Ceremony who hurriedly dismissed the slave.

Stepping onto the chariot, I stood, not uttering a word. Publius was concentrating on what was in front of him, viewing our plunder and wealth gathered from Carthage and North Africa, as well as the few exotic creatures that we had brought back with us, roughly handled by men who knew no better. But he, too, kept his silence, though I knew that he was aware of my presence. Looking down as the Master of the Ceremony charged past on his over-groomed and over-decorated horse to the head of the column, Publius grasped his hands and was still for several moments, even as the trumpets called and the procession the length of our battle line at Ilipa trundled forward. A hulking mass, unwieldy and unrelenting, like Rome herself.

“What are you about today, Gaius, brother mine?” he whispered as he stood straight again.

“I am but a man, as I remind myself each day as I rise and each evening as I retire. And so are you, as the gods demand I remind you.”

No-one saw, but as the chariot emerged to the thunderous adulation of the Roman masses, I reminded my brother that he was only a mortal man of this earth, doomed to a worldly demise, that he was flawed beyond the heavens’ ability to remake as a god and that he was a servant of Rome not a master of Her. And as I did so, he smiled and waved to the adoring crowds, but I could feel that behind this facade of merriment, a man stood, ill and melancholy. But of all men to receive such treatment, elevated above his fellow citizens, Publius needed such words of censure least of all. For he was quickest of all to elevate his fellows above him, but his was a wisdom that should they be raised, it would only be from worthy action or for worthy cause. But still I continued to fulfil the obligation to do so, never uttering the same fault more than once, until the chariot slowed to a stop in front of the dais at which the grandees of the Senate stood, waiting and expectant of their new hero of Rome.

I stepped down from the chariot to make way for him and as he alighted after me, he looked at me with a smile that belonged not on his features, but that of a man twice his age and more.

“It has been too long since we spoke properly to each other,” he said as his hand left the frame of the chariot.

“I fear that we never will, for you are so above the gaze of men, while I am below. A nameless soldier am I, forever a sword at my side and orders to obey.”

“And if they were my orders?”

“Need you ask?”

“Then what is to become of us?”

“I cannot answer, for it is not to me to answer. But neither can you. We are nothing but two men within the belly of a beast.”

“And she must be fed. Think you I may ever reach her ears that I may whisper and be heard?”

“Yes, but pray that you never reach her eyes, for to look through them is to see a world to be taken.”

“I do not think I would wish to belong there. Rome will hate me as easily as she hated Carthage, the Samnites before them and the Epirotes before them. No, I am not so desirous to be master over such an entity as Rome.”

“And that is why you should be. The people have finished with the cautious folly of Fabius. They cry for a new figure to follow, a hero to whom they can aspire. Who better than he that vanquished Hannibal, the great nemesis.”

“But I am not such a man.”

“Yes, I know, but you will be made such a man. I would not be surprised if you were offered the consulship in perpetuity or the dictatorship. Perhaps both. You would be in such a position to make Rome a nation to defeat all others and be mistress of the world if you so wish.”

Publius shook his head sadly.

“What are you, Gaius, that you make a mere man of me, but now as we here speak, you seduce me with words of grand ambition.”

“Do I? You are not easily seduced, even by one such as I. Too different are we, brother. You are the strategist, I am the tactician, you are the schemer, I am the watcher, you on foot, me atop a horse’s back, you with sword and shield, and me with lance or spear. No, you are not seduced. From the moment I spoke my first word, you knew your final resolve.”

“And you knew it too.” It was not a question.

“Of course, a poor brother I would make, otherwise, no? But what fear have you of such power to make Rome the greatest city, the greatest nation whose name would be spoken with fear, awe and reverence in a thousand years time?”

“That I would learn to love it. Power is the poorest mistress man may ever have, for she will threaten to leave you every day you have her, and you must do all you can keep her by your side, while she need not do anything except radiate her charms, few as they are.”

“That is enough for many men.”

“But I am not many men.”

“No, indeed, but you cannot deny that you have a certain power over these people about us.”

“No, I cannot, but I would not wish to have it when my days draw to an end.”

“That you have it without your volition means that you would still use it.”

“Of course, I would be a fool not to.”

“So then what must go through our minds is to what end you would wield this power.”

Publius was silent for a few moments, pondering.

“For my family,” he said.

I did not need to ask if that included me, or his other friends. So instead, “And what of Rome?”

“If I wished for it, I could make Rome a place to be remembered for all time, and for the right reasons. But we are men, so capricious and changing. My ways will not be the ways of Romans in a hundred years time, I’m sure. And I cannot be certain that good men will follow me, either when I live or when I die. Even were to be certain of this, I am not enough to change Rome. We are not enough.”

“Indeed we are not. No one man will ever be enough.”

“Why are you so sure of that, mine brother?” he asked sadly.

“You are a soldier unequalled in Roman history, and I would predict that you will be such in Roman future. You have lead armies to victory for the first time away from the Roman hinterlands, creating the seeds of a legend of Roman military strength. From you have been born the ideals of the Roman legion, its discipline, its versatility, its power, and while men may come and change the legion, the ideals will not change so easily, but one day that legend will break when we are long dead and returned to the earth, for every strength withers away with the years, and so will this Roman strength. No man who follows us will even pause to consider that her strength wanes with each passing day, only what they consider for themselves. None but you, though you will not have the power to prevent it.”

“Because Rome would as readily discard us as it would any other man.”

“Thus She is doomed to fall.”

“And when would you think this likely?”

“When Rome ceases to be a republic. When Rome ceases to be the sum of the will of its people, then She, like Sparta will fall faster than she rose.”

“And more is the pity that I know that you speak truly. Were I a man so steeped in the optimism of the good things that may happen tomorrow, I would safeguard all the power that I may be given. You, Lucius, and we few still alive, in whom I would invest to make Rome the greatest of all. But change must come even to those who desire it not, and even to that which is good, whether it is willed or not.”

“The nations of the world would look to Roman prosperity with greedy eyes and ravenous bellies. There would be naught but upheaval and rebirth. That is beyond the power of one man to prophecy, prevent or control.”

“So what is to become of us, Gaius?”

“Would you follow me wherever I go?”

“As freely as you would follow me.”

“To obscurity, then.”

“Ah, but I know you, brother, you would not let me follow you there. Too high a respect and regard you have of me that you would not forgive yourself if you allowed me to be forgotten.”

“But I will be forgotten, though I wish it, for I am but a man.”

As we spoke, his forlorn smile was replaced by that grim and determined gaze that I knew too well.

“Yes, my brother, I am only a man as well, but a man not great enough and too great, both.”

“Then for the good of the world we will leave behind us, let our names be lost to their ears.”

And for the first time that day, he smiled, genuinely, as we grasped each other’s arms.

“For now, though, you must become Imperator,” I said as he loosened his grip.

“So I will.”

And he turned, ascending the steps as the cheers grew more and more deafening.

“You are too great a man for a city so small as Rome. Too great a man for a people so prone to stagnation.”

“And that is why you are here, to remind me I am but one man.”