Roma - Saylor Steven - Страница 110
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Tiberius proceeded to the vestibule. He paused to gaze at the images of his ancestors. He touched the brow of the great Africanus, then nodded to the slave to open the door.
Outside, in the street, a throng of supporters awaited him. Many had spent the night in front of the house, taking turns sleeping and guarding the door. In the final days of the campaign, the rhetoric on both sides had grown so heated, and the street scuffles between the factions so violent, that many feared for Tiberius’s safety. There was a rumor that his enemies were conspiring to murder him before the election; his opponents claimed that Tiberius himself had started the rumor, to whip up his supporters. Whatever the truth, a great crowd awaited him in the street, and when they saw him, they erupted into cheering.
Smiling broadly, Tiberius stepped forward. He stumbled on the threshold and lost his balance. Staggering forward, he stubbed the big toe of his left foot against a paving stone with such force that he thought he heard a bone crack. At the very least, the nail of the toe had been broken. Blood seeped through the front of his shoe and darkened the leather. He felt faint and nauseated. He reached for support, found Blossius’s arm, and gripped it tightly.
“You’ve hurt yourself!” whispered Blossius.
“Did they see?” Tiberius kept his face down and spoke through clenched teeth.
Blossius scanned the cheering crowd. “No one seems to have noticed.”
“Good. Then we shall go ahead as if it never happened.”
“But can you walk?”
“If I hold fast to your arm. But first I’ll say a few words. These men have been here all night, waiting for this moment.”
Tiberius looked at the crowd and managed to smile. He raised his hands for silence.
“Loyal supporters, dear friends, fellow Romans: The long night has passed, and, whatever mischief our enemies might have been planning, we are all still alive!”
This was met with a great deal of cheering and laughter.
“You watched over me all through the night. For that, I thank you. And in return, in the second year of my tribunate, I promise to do my very best to watch over all of you—to restore to you the lands that are rightfully yours, to protect you from the greedy land-grabbers and their vicious gangs, and to make the Roma of your children a fairer, richer, better place for all hardworking citizens.
“To do all that, I must win today’s election. And to win the election, first and foremost, I must stay alive. The threat from our enemies is very real. At any place and at any time, I might be assaulted. I don’t fear a fight; I’ve done my share of fighting! I was the first to scale the walls of Carthage, and was awarded the mural crown. I also fought in Spain, alongside many of you brave men. But here in Roma, I am no longer a soldier, but a private citizen. I carry no weapons. You must be my guardians. Without your protection, I am defenseless.”
“We’ll defend you!” cried a man in the front of the crowd. “If we have to, we’ll die for you, Tiberius Gracchus!” He was joined by many others.
“It will never come to that, I pray to Jupiter. But if I should perceive an immediate threat, and require a ring of brave men around me, I may not be able to cry out to you. My voice is hoarse, and the din may be too great. So, this will be my signal.” Tiberius raised both arms skyward, then bent his elbows so that he pointed at his head with both hands. The sign was unmistakable: rally to the head.
The crowd began to clap and chant his name. Tiberius gripped Blossius’s arm with one hand and waved with the other. He walked forward, trying not to wince at the pain. “Perhaps it’s a good thing, that I stumbled,” he whispered to Blossius. “The auspices indicated a bad start. Now the bad start is behind me!”
Limping slightly despite Blossius’s support, Tiberius set out for the Capitoline, where the voting would take place. As he descended the Palatine, more supporters joined his retinue. Many more were waiting in the Forum. They opened a path for him, cheering and reaching out to touch him as he passed by, then joined the throng that followed behind him.
On the steps leading up to the Capitoline, Tiberius paused before the Arch of Scipio Africanus. The monument was decorated with images of his grandfather’s triumphs in both Africa and Asia. Scipio had survived the battle of Cannae and shamed his fellow officers by his fortitude, had lost the father whose life he had saved in battle, and had matched wits with Hannibal and beaten him. Tiberius laughed aloud at the absurdity that a stubbed toe should give him a moment’s pause. He made a silent vow to ascend to the voting place without limping or leaning on Blossius, and to show no sign of pain.
He had passed under the arch and proceeded a short distance when he heard a noise from above. Screeching and beating their wings, two ravens were fighting on the roof of a building next to the pathway, to his left. Their altercation dislodged a roof tile. The tile fell directly in front of Tiberius and shattered with a loud noise. Tiberius flinched.
“The augury, the stumble…and now this!” he whispered. “One bad omen after another—”
“Nonsense!” said Blossius in his ear. “Chickens behave like chickens. People stub their toes every day. Ravens squabble. Tiberius, if you start to see omens in every accident and happenstance, you will indeed be putting on the airs of a king; only a tyrant imagines the universe revolves around himself. A raven dislodged a loose bit of tile—nothing more!”
Tiberius nodded, straightened his toga, and continued the ascent.
The large open space before the Temple of Jupiter was already crowded when Tiberius arrived with his retinue. Only plebeians could vote for the tribunes, and they did so by first gathering into voting blocks called tribes. Even on the most peaceful of election days, the polling officials were hard-pressed to maintain order; for their own protection and to hold back the unruly crowd they were allowed to carry spear-shafts without metal points. News of Tiberius’s arrival was met with a tremendous uproar of mingled acclamation and jeering. Jostled this way and that, some in the crowd retaliated by shoving back. Fistfights broke out. The election officials scrambled to maintain order by brandishing their shafts.
Over the centuries, the assembly area had become so congested with shrines and statues, and the number of voters had so increased, that the simple procedure of assembling into tribes had become a logistical challenge. Elections could be won or lost depending on whether a candidate’s supporters were able to assemble when called on. Tiberius’s supporters had arrived early and in great numbers to claim the best spots for addressing the crowd and to maintain open pathways. If the supporters of opposition candidates could be kept at the periphery of the voting area or excluded altogether, Tiberius’s chances would be increased.
With Blossius at his side and surrounded by a cadre of his most ardent supporters, Tiberius was ushered through the crowd and escorted onto the steps of the Temple of Jupiter. At the sight of him, more cheering erupted from the center of the crowd and catcalls from the edges.
He had hoped to address the crowd, but the unceasing din made doing so impossible. He had never seen such a raucous election assembly. The participants seemed to be in continuous motion, shouting and gesturing. Scattered here and there, especially around the periphery or in the tight spots where a statue or shrine made movement difficult, skirmishes appeared to be taking place. It was not unlike watching a battlefield.
Some of the election officials, growing exasperated, were banging their shafts against the ground, calling for order and demanding that the gathering of the tribes begin. The voters were either unwilling to cooperate, or unable to hear them. The scene was chaotic.
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