Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven - Страница 13

“You were late,” said Potitius, his good mood spoiled. “You’ll eat what the god left for you!”

Their squabbling grew louder and their words more belligerent. Relatives began to gather behind each man. It seemed that the first sacrifice to Hercules might turn into a brawl.

The argument was suddenly interrupted by a loud cry. It came from Potitia. Her labor had begun.

The delivery took place before the Altar of Hercules, for Potitia was in too much distress to be moved. The labor was short but intense, and there was something not right about it. The baby was too big to come out; the midwives were thrown into a panic. Along with her physical pain, Potitia was in an agony of suspense.

At last the baby emerged from her womb. It was a man-child. Potitia reached for him. The midwives placed him in her arms. He was big, very big, yes-but not a monster. All his limbs were intact, and his proportions were no different from any other baby’s. Still, Potitia was uncertain. She gazed into the baby’s eyes, as she had gazed into the eyes of Cacus, and also into the eyes of the ox-driver. She could not be sure! The eyes that now gazed back at her might be the eyes of either man.

Potitia did not care. Whoever his father might be, the child was precious to her, and precious to Fascinus. Weak and exhausted, but filled with joy, Potitia lifted the necklace bearing Fascinus over her neck and placed it around the neck of her newborn baby.

THE TWINS

757 B.C.

The day was an important one for Potitius-the most important day so far in his young life. From infancy, he had been a witness to the ritual. Later, he became a participant in the feast. Now, for the first time, at the age of fourteen, he was assisting his father in performing the annual rites of sacrifice at the Altar of Hercules.

While the assembled family members of the Potitii and the Pinarii watched, Potitius’s father stood before the altar and recited the tale of the god’s visit, telling how Hercules appeared in the peoples’ time of greatest need and killed the monster Cacus, then just as suddenly disappeared. Meanwhile, young Potitius slowly circled the altar and waved the sacred whisk, fashioned of an oxtail with a wooden handle, to drive away any flies that might come near. His distant cousin Pinarius, who was the same age and was also performing for the first time in the ritual, circled the altar in a wider orbit, walking in the opposite direction; his job was to drive away any dog that might come near.

Potitius’s father finished the story. He turned to the father of Pinarius, who stood beside him. For generations, the two families had jointly tended to the altar and performed the ceremony, trading duties from year to year. This year, it fell to the elder Pinarius to recite the prayer for Hercules’s protection.

An ox was slain and butchered. While it was being roasted, a portion of raw flesh was placed on the altar. The priests and their sons searched the sky. It was young Potitius, with a cry of excitement, who first saw the vulture fly overhead and begin to circle above them. The vulture was favored by Hercules; its appearance was a sign that the god was pleased by the offering and accepted it.

The priests and their families gathered to feast on the ox. In every other matter relating to the ceremony, the families shared precisely equal duties; but, following tradition, the eating of the entrails remained a privilege accorded solely to the Potitii. It had become a tradition as well for the various Pinarii to grumble good-naturedly about this-“Where is our portion? Why are we given no entrails?”-to which their cousins would give the traditional reply: “No entrails for you! You arrived late for the feast!”

Young Potitius took all his duties very seriously. He even attempted to banter with young Pinarius about the entrails, but received only a sullen look and a grunt in reply. The two boys had never been friends.

After the feast, his father took Potitius aside. “I’m proud of you, son. You did well.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Only one more ritual remains to complete the day.”

Potitius frowned. “I thought we were done, Father.”

“Not quite. I think you know, son, although we seldom talk about it-no need to make the Pinarii more jealous of us than they are already! — that our ancestry can be traced back directly to Hercules himself.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You also know that the ancestors of the Potitii include a god even more ancient than Hercules.” He reached up to touch the amulet of Fascinus which hung from a leather strap around his neck.

Potitius could count on his fingers the times he had seen the amulet. His father wore it only on very important occasions. He gazed at it, fascinated by the luster of the gold.

His father smiled. “When I was your age, I took part for the first time in the rites of the Altar of Hercules, doing just as you did today, whisking the flies away. When the feast was done, my father took me aside. He told me that I had done well. On that day, he said, I was no longer a boy, but had become a man. Do you know what he did then, son?”

Potitius gravely shook his head. “No, Father. What did he do?”

In answer, his father raised the leather strap over his head, then solemnly placed it around Potitius’s neck. He smiled and ran his hand over his son’s silky blond hair, a gesture of affection to seal the last moment of his boyhood.

“You are a man now, my son. I pass the amulet of Fascinus to you.”

Potitius might now be a man, but after the feast, when the day’s duties were done and he was at last free to do whatever he pleased, he reverted to behaving like a boy. There were many hours of midsummer sunlight remaining. He had promised to visit his two best friends after the feast, and he was eager to join them.

Since the days of Cacus, the little settlement by the Tiber had continued to prosper and grow. The market by the river saw a thriving traffic in salt, fish, and livestock; these three commodities arrived separately, but after being treated with salt, the preserved fish and meat could be transported great distances, or traded for other goods that flowed into the busy market. The oldest and most prosperous families, like the Potitii and the Pinarii, continued to live in the original settlement near the Spinon and the market grounds, in huts not very different from those of preceding generations, though the number of huts had increased greatly and they were now built much closer together. Numerous other, smaller settlements, some consisting of hardly more than a single family, had sprung up across the ruma, some in the valleys and some on the hilltops. Well-worn footpaths linked all the settlements together.

The word ruma itself, as a reference to the region of the Seven Hills, had changed subtly in pronunciation over the years and by repeated usage had acquired the status of a proper name, so that people now called the area “Roma.” The name had a quaintness and a coziness about it, conveying the sense of a hilly place that lovingly nurtured its inhabitants.

With more settlements and more people had come the tendency to formalize the names of various locales amid the Seven Hills, often naming places for the trees which lived there. Thus the hill of oak trees came to be called Querquetulanus-“Oak Hill”-while the hill of osiers was the Viminal, and the hill of beeches was the Fagutal.

Shepherds and swineherds now lived and tended their livestock atop the hill above the old cave of Cacus. That hill was called the Palatine, after the goddess whom the shepherds worshiped, Pales. Of gods, once unknown in Roma, there now were many. As the population of mortals had grown, so had the number of deities, and each of the little communities scattered across the Seven Hills acknowledged a local divinity to whom they paid homage. Some of these divinities retained the nameless, nebulous character of the ancient numina, but others had acquired names and well-defined attributes after the fashion of gods and goddesses. Among these deities, the primacy of Hercules was recognized by everyone in Roma, and thus his altar had come to be called the Ara Maxima, or Greatest of Altars. It was agreed that his father was the sky-god known locally by the name Jupiter. The role of the Potitii and the Pinarii in tending to the Ara Maxima gave them great status among the people of Roma.