He reached for a decanter and poured a cup of wine—a fine Falernian—and into the wine he stirred a powder. Holding the cup, he knelt before the shrine of Bacchus. He kissed the statue of the god, and waited.
It was not long before he heard a loud banging at the front door. A few moments later, Cletus came running into the study.
“Armed men, master. They’re demanding entrance.”
“Yes, I’ve been expecting them.”
“Master?” The color drained from Cletus’s face.
“Isn’t this the hour at which you told them to come? I overheard you talking to that fellow in the Forum yesterday, Cletus. Why did you betray me?”
There was the sound of a commotion from the vestibule. The lictors were no longer waiting at the door. Cletus looked away, unable to hide his guilt.
Quickly, Kaeso drank the poison. He would die with the taste of the god’s favorite vintage on his lips.
Cornelia laughed. “Dear Blossius, only a Stoic would dare to utter such a radical notion! A generation ago, you might have been exiled merely for proposing such an idea.”
“Perhaps,” said Blossius. “But a generation ago, it’s unlikely that two women would have been allowed to sit alone and unchaperoned in a garden discussing ideas with a philosopher.”
“Even nowadays, many an old-fashioned Roman would be appalled to overhear this conversation,” said Menenia. “Yet here we sit. The world changes.”
“The world is always changing,” agreed Blossius. “Sometimes for the worse.”
“Then it will be up to our children to change it for the better,” declared Cornelia.
Menenia smiled. “And which of your sons will do more to change the world?”
“Hard to say. They’re so different. Tiberius is so serious, so earnest for an eighteen-year-old, mature beyond his years. Now that he’s a soldier, off fighting those poor Carthaginians, or what’s left of them, I hope his outlook doesn’t become even more somber. Little Gaius is only nine, but what a different fellow he is! I fear he may be rather
“But very sure of himself,” said Blossius, “especially for a boy his age. As their tutor, I can say that both brothers are remarkably self-confident—a trait I attribute to their mother.”
“While I attribute it to their grandfather, though he was dead long before either was born. How I wish the boys could have known him, and that I could have known him longer than I did. Still, I’ve done all I can to instill in the boys a deep respect for their grandfather’s accomplishments. They bear the name Gracchus proudly, and rightly so, but they are also obliged to live up to the standards of Scipio Africanus.”
Menenia sighed. “Well, as for my Lucius, I only hope he comes back alive and unharmed from Cato’s war.” This was the name which many in Roma had given to the renewed campaign against Carthage. Cato himself had not lived to see the outbreak of the war, but he had never ceased to agitate for it. For years, no matter what the subject—road building, military commands, sewer repairs—he ended every speech in the Senate with the same phrase: “And in conclusion…Carthage must be destroyed!” Men laughed at his dogged obsession, but in the end, from beyond the grave, Cato had prevailed. It now seemed that his dream would be realized. According to the most recent dispatches from Africa, Roman forces were laying siege to Carthage, whose defenders could not hope to resist them for long.
Cornelia blinked and shaded her eyes. The garden had suddenly grown too hot and the sunlight too bright. The singing birds had fallen silent. “They say it’s no longer a question of
“Carthage shall be the second city in a matter of months to suffer such a fate at Roma’s hands.” The philosopher resided in Cornelia’s house, and the two saw each other almost daily; their thoughts often ran side by side, like horses hitched together. “When General Mummius captured Corinth, there was rejoicing in the streets of Roma.”