The Sword of Revenge Read Free Page A

those who lined the streets, and that continued as they descended from the Palatine Hill, their route taking them along the Sacred Way to the Porta Querquetulana. Outside that gate in the Servian Walls a sarcophagus had been erected which marked, in sculpted marble bas-relief and written text, the deeds of the great Macedonicus – only fitting as that was the gate that a triumphant general would use, having been given permission to lead his victorious legions into the city. Behind Quintus two priests from the Temple of Apollo carried a second death-mask and a small casket on a cushion.
    The mask was the same as that above the altar, a very good likeness taken from one of the many statues that had been sculpted of the hero. The casket should have contained Aulus’s ashes, but they had been trampled into the dust at Thralaxas, as the victorious legions led by Vegetius Flaminushad chased the remnants of the rebel forces south through that same defile after the defeat of their main army. Instead it held earth from that place, brought back by Cholon, which would be placed in the sarcophagus, for somewhere in that would be a particle of the crushed bones of Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, mixed in with the ash from the wooden palisade which he had set on fire just before he died, as well as traces of the men he had led.
    Beside that sarcophagus lay a smaller, square memorial, topped by a pointed column, which listed the names of the legionaries who had died with him. Commissioned and paid for by Claudia, it was, she knew, something of which her late husband would have approved; he was a man who was fond of pointing out that however competent he was as a commander, he was only as good as the men he led into battle. Titus and Cholon stopped by that to read the names of the men listed, each of whose families would find, when the will was read, that the general who had led them to their deaths had not forgotten their dependants.
    The mourners gathered by the sarcophagus, a rectangle topped by a heavy flat stone, with a panel on each side denoting some facet of Aulus’s life, set on the roadside between the city walls and the Via Tusculana, so that every traveller passing in and out of Rome could marvel at his deeds. His service as aconsul and magistrate was shown on one of the smaller panels, the extent of his wealth, represented by abundant corn and toiling slaves, on the opposite. The two larger panels were reserved for his martial deeds, with that facing the Via Tusculana given over to his greatest accomplishment, the defeat of Perseus, the Macedonian king. It showed that monarch being led in chains behind the chariot of the victorious Aulus, as well as the huge amount of spoils that had come with the triumph, the last part of the panel with Perseus on his knees, Aulus behind him pulling hard on the rope with which he strangled his royal captive.
    Lucius Falerius Nerva stood slightly aloof at the beginning, again watching not the ceremony but those attending: Cholon, the Greek body slave, with his smooth skin, carefully tended hair and effeminate looks; Quintus, all gravitas and pomposity, a coming man that Lucius knew he would now have to cultivate; Titus, so physically and morally like his father, which might prove a blessing or a problem; that he would have to wait and see. Then there was the Lady Claudia, now a widow in her late twenties, still strikingly beautiful. If Aulus had been a fool to wed her, Lucius suspected he would not be the last, for the added years and her position had given her presence as well as looks. He smiled, though not at Claudia butat the knowledge he had about her and her late husband.
    Years before, as boys, he and Aulus Cornelius had sworn a blood oath which bound each to attend upon the other in time of need and to aid each other in pursuit of their careers, but Aulus had failed to support Lucius at a time when he should have been present, that being the birth of Lucius’s son Marcellus, on the night