SHADOWS OF THE CAESARS

(Quirinal Hill, Rome, on the tenth day after the ides of the month of September, in the 690^th year after the officially dated foundation of the city [23^rd September 63 BC])

Gaius Antonius and Marcus Tullius Cicero were consuls when a rather sickly baby boy, also given the first name, or ‘praenomen’, of Gaius was born. The family’s third child, but first son, came into the world in the rich house, or ‘domus’, of a new patrician on Rome’s Quirinal Hill, which was mainly inhabited by the wealthy.

The baby’s father was the first of his respectable but relatively humble lineage to become a Senator, thereby elevating himself from the rank of equestrian to patrician. The boy’s mother was Atia, relative to some past consuls.

(Farm of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, near the small town of Velitrae on the southern edge of the Alban Hills, south of Rome, over 9 years later, summer 53 BC)

Gaius was technically the proprietor of the farm once owned by his deceased great grandfather, Marcus Atius Balbus, who had actually been a prosperous equestrian banker, after whose family the main street of Velitrae had been named. The child had been left the modest estate in the will of his late father, who had sadly died when he was only 4 years of age half a decade previously. Now 9, he watched the approaching ox-drawn wagon from within the shadows inside an upper opening of a hayloft. As the pretty but delicate boy did so, he felt a strange mix of fear and excitement.

The fear came from his inherent shyness. The excitement emanated from having a new playmate for the summer, a freeborn plebeian, which made a change from having to cavort with the uneducated offspring of slaves.

As the wagon eventually entered through the open gate of the tall protective walls, which surrounded the main central complex of farm buildings, Gaius summoned up all his courage to go to greet the new arrival. Whilst a slave helped the wagon driver to unload the child’s luggage from the cart, the boy introduced himself to his similarly aged guest.

"It’s nice to meet you," replied the pretty and smiling 9 year-old plebeian boy, with short brown hair and similarly coloured eyes, who appeared to be very confident. Gaius never afterwards knew precisely why but he immediately thought to himself that the new arrival appeared to have a natural air of integrity and strength about him, thereby permanently registering in his mind that he was meeting someone he could really trust and rely upon.

"My name’s Marcus," the 9 year-old continued, echoing fair-haired blue-eyed Gaius’ attempt through his introduction to be very amicable and informal from the start by referring only to his praenomen, which was generally solely used by close family and friends. However, the informality seemed appropriate given that, although the two boys had never met previously, their families had been close ever since the day of their great grandfathers.

Gaius had already proudly advised his guest that, in the absence of his stepfather, the Pompeiian, Lucius Marcius Philippus, who had married his widowed mother and was still in Rome, he was master of the estate, although Marcus quietly appreciated that the real power would rest with the farm manager. The boy host now requested and informed "Come with me, friend, as I’ve arranged some refreshments for us in the house!"

So started the long and fateful summer holidays for two children on a small farm on the southern edge of the Alban Hills. However, the boys did not need to fight each other, like two of their great uncles had done, to become the closest of friends, despite the social disparity between them.

The relationship between the two boys was also to be another that would change the history of both Rome and the world, leading to repercussions that have permeated through time to this modern day.

(Necropolis, outside Rome, about 2½ years later, late 51 BC)

As internment of the dead was not permitted within Rome’s boundaries, the laying to rest of the urns containing the ashes of the deceased was performed in necropolises located outside the city. These cemeteries were usually located beside main roads, not only for ease of access for family members to visit but also to enable the rich to show off the magnificence of their family mausoleums.

Many of these mausoleums were externally ornately decorated to impress passers-by and could take many exotic shapes, such as a small gateway or pyramid. However, the most common was the ‘columbarium’, whose main feature was a richly decorated barrel-vaulted chamber, with moulded plasterwork and niches in the walls on which the urns of the dead would rest in several rows. In front of the tomb, there was often a large open area, enclosed by a low wall, where the final funeral rites, including the banquet, took place and where later family gatherings occurred.

On this occasion, Gaius was delivering the funeral oration for his beloved grandmother, Julia, to whom he had actually been closer than to his own mother. Despite being a mere 12 year-old, still delicate in health, unused to public speaking and currently surrounded by Senators and other Roman dignitaries, the boy spoke exceedingly well.

The boy’s new confidence in himself had largely emanated from his close companionship with the particular Marcus whom he had met 2½ years before, whose own spiritual strength had also begun to infuse his delicate best friend. They had been virtually inseparable ever since, sharing tutors and leisure time, just as another Gaius and a certain Lucius had once begun to do to fateful effect four decades previously.

The bereaved young patrician’s mother, Atia, along with several other prominent people who had been impressed with the funeral oration, subsequently wrote to the boy’s great uncle, yet another Gaius. The latter, now childless, was with his legions in distant Gaul but he had already fatefully taken considerable interest in his great nephew’s development.

(Farm of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, near the small town of Velitrae on the southern edge of the Alban Hills, south of Rome, about 1½ years later, April 49 BC)

Golden-haired Gaius already spent much of his time on the farm near Velitrae, as the air was considered better for his delicate health. The nevertheless beautiful boy’s best friend, the equally attractive Marcus, invariably went with him, along with their Greek tutor, the former slave and now freedman, Apollodorus of Pergamum.

On this occasion, Gaius’ stepfather should also have been present, as the Senate recessed throughout April until the middle of May. However, serious developing events in Rome had detained the rest of the family in the city.

The sons of patricians generally received private home tuition, sometimes with friends, rather than attend school. Their tutors taught them the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic before moving on to advanced subjects, such as the Greek language, history, literature, philosophy, the law and rhetoric. Much learning was by rote.

Meanwhile, patrician fathers were supposedly responsible for instructing their sons in more physical pursuits, such as gymnastics and athletics, although these were not taken seriously as pure sports like the Greeks did. Activities like running, javelin throwing and boxing were instead considered useful mainly as a pre-requisite for the most important aspect of parental responsibility, namely military training.

Military training necessitated instruction in not only in weapons but also swimming, horse-riding and endurance. The latter often entailed the ability to survive hunger and thirst, extremes of temperature, long runs and marches, occasionally heavily equipped, and swims through torrents and whirlpools, sometimes fully dressed. However, the responsibility of rich fathers for such activities was, perhaps fortunately, frequently delegated to experts, who were often slaves.

Unlike Marcus, who had already mastered all of these rigorous activities, Gaius was excused involvement because of concerns for his delicate health. The boy had therefore come to believe that, if he was to prosper as an adult patrician, as he hoped to do, he had to compensate for his lack of physical prowess by using his brain to particularly good effect. He also consoled himself with the fact that his much more robust but less intellectual best friend should be able to compensate for his failings, and vice-versa, if they remained close companions throughout life, as he additionally intended.

Gaius and Marcus were today delighted to be receiving in private an important man, after spending the morning efficiently discussing battle tactics with their tutor through reference to some real past conflicts. The visitor had raced from Gaul to Rome on urgent furtive business and, having concluded his mission, was eager to return whence he came. However, the 51 year-old had still ventured south of the Imperial capital in order briefly to see the two pleasant boys.

"Hello Great Uncle," Marcus had first said to the visitor, whom he was always pleased to meet and of whom he was very proud. The boy had received a kiss on his rosy cheeks in response, although he would have much preferred the usual physical symbol of greeting between two soldiers, whereby they each grasped and shook the wrists of the other.

After also politely greeting the visitor, Gaius asked him whether he would be staying, as the boy would therefore arrange appropriate accommodation. The man declined, advising, whilst peering into the boy’s clear bright blue eyes, which appeared to shine with a sort of divine radiance, "You know that I hate being absent from the side of your own great uncle. Having already concluded my business in Rome, I propose to begin my journey back to Gaul as soon as our meeting is finished."

Gaius was indeed aware of the visitor’s reputation for always being at the side of his own great uncle. The habit had even earned the man a certain nickname.

The boy host therefore thanked the visitor for honouring him and Marcus by sparing the time to come to see them. "I couldn’t come all this way to Italia from Gaul without meeting you both again and checking on your welfare," the man replied, "and, anyway, Gaius, your own great uncle wouldn’t let me. He’s eager to learn how you are and how you are progressing. After all, for both of us, as we have no sons, you could be considered our rightful heirs!"

Neither Gaius nor Marcus had ever considered this matter previously, regarding themselves only as the heirs of their respective direct paternal and maternal lineages. They were nevertheless both honoured by the thought. The young patrician in particular also experienced a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension that he might someday inherit his great uncle’s legacy.

Conversation then varied between the visitor asking about the welfare and educational progress of Gaius and Marcus and the boys eagerly enquiring about military and political developments in Rome and Gaul. However, as the talk proceeded, the very perceptive man correctly judged that there was a degree of unease between the two young close pubescent friends.

The visitor took a while, as the conversation continued, to work out what was wrong. However, he eventually reached the right conclusion when he recalled aspects of his own boyhood, which had been experienced at the same age.

When time had been less pressing during previous visits, which had alas become very rare in recent years, the visitor had often delighted Gaius and Marcus with interesting anecdotes about his own childhood. The man now did so again, despite having learnt as much as he needed about the welfare and progress of his great nephew and the boy’s young patrician friend, and the urgency with which he wished to return to Gaul.

"Did I ever tell you, Gaius and Marcus," the visitor rhetorically asked to begin the conclusion of their conversation, "about the first time that I enjoyed sex with someone else?" The boys were naturally initially shocked about the theme of the man’s obviously proposed finishing anecdote. However, they were also intrigued, by why he wanted to confess about his loss of innocence, as well as by the exciting subject.

"Well, I’m going to tell you," the visitor next advised, without waiting for an answer to his original question, "because I can clearly see that you’re now old enough to learn about such matters and my confession might also help your own development and friendship." Gaius and Marcus both immediately wondered how the man’s imminent disclosure could be of such assistance to them.

Nevertheless, both boys listened patiently to their visitor’s anecdote in order to try to discover the answer.

(Farm of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, near the small town of Velitrae on the southern edge of the Alban Hills, south of Rome, 2 hours later)

Having said their farewells to their visitor, Gaius and Lucius were currently lying otherwise alone and barefoot on a quiet and secluded grassy bank of a narrow but fast-running stream that ran off the Alban Hills and through the farm, eventually to merge with a local river. Their elderly tutor was still enjoying an afternoon siesta in the distant farmhouse.

Whilst peering into the blue cloudless sky above on this warm spring day, Marcus, still the boldest and most forthright of the two boys, and encouraged to ask by the needs infused by his increasingly virile pubescent hormones, enquired of Gaius "Do you ever think about girls and their bodies?" In order to answer this surprise question, the young patrician, who had also been staring into the heavens, turned onto his side to fix his gaze on his friend’s beautiful face.

Gaius could have lied in response to Marcus’ question but he had never been false to his friend. He also knew that the other 13 year-old would not ridicule any answer he gave. He therefore truthfully replied "Not yet!"

Gaius then asked his own question. "Does that make me strange?" he enquired.

Marcus now adopted a similar position to that of Gaius, on his side and looking into his friend’s blue eyes. "No," the young plebeian then responded, "because I’m the same."

"What do you think about then?" Gaius next asked, whilst clearly, without specifying, referring to sexual attraction, and as excitement began to build within his lovely mind and body, evidenced by a slight bulge appearing at the front of his light summer tunic in the area of his groin. The boy had often wondered whether his friend shared the strange feelings that had increasingly begun to permeate his young pubescent form.

Gaius received his longed-for answer when Marcus, with a slight blush guiltily reddening his gorgeous face and whilst nervously fluttering his long delightful brown eyelashes, declared "You!"

Soon afterwards, two discarded light summer tunics, plus the same number of shed loincloth undergarments, rested on the grass, whilst nearby on the bank of the stream a pair of naked boys writhed together in a tight all-entangling embrace, full of passionate kisses and unprecedented ecstasy.

The spot the pair had chosen was the same as the one at which another pubescent Gaius and his best friend, Lucius, had selected over thirty-seven years previously to indulge, in similar circumstances, in the same boyhood rite of passage. However, such a re-enactment was not strange, when consideration is given to the fact that both had just been confidentially acquainted about the earlier incident by one of the participants.

Marcus, whose developing virile adolescent libido desperately wanted his companion to be a partner in sex as well as friendship, had deliberately asked his original question in the same way that another Gaius had enquired of Lucius all those years previously. He was obviously hoping that his fellow 13 year-old would react by replaying the scenario about which they had just learnt.

The present Gaius, who shared Marcus’ previously hidden desires, had then been more than happy to re-enact the conversation and subsequent activities of over thirty-seven years previously.

(Farm of Marcus Atius Balbus, near the small town of Velitrae on the southern flank of the Alban Hills, south of Rome, over 37 years previously, summer 87 BC)

Gaius and Lucius were again looking up at the blue cloudless sky above on this hot summer day on a quiet and secluded grassy bank of a narrow but fast-running stream. However, unlike previously, they were naked and each had an arm under the other.

Unlike his later namesake, this Gaius was physically very capable, as was Lucius. Hard training on Rome’s ‘Field of Mars’, or ‘Campus Martius’, and in the adjacent River Tiber had toughened them and equipped them with practical skills useful for the era, as would be demonstrated when some of these attributes actually often in future helped to save their lives. For example, the current new ability of the two boys to ride a horse at a fast trot whilst their arms were held behind their backs would prove useful when needing their hands free whilst mounted and fighting a battle.

Like his later namesake and despite his family’s relative impecuniousness, this Gaius was also fortunately supplied with a highly capable tutor, who was shared by Lucius and was particularly highly adept at imparting military theories, using practical examples. The teacher even possessed small wooden blocks, of different shapes and colours to differentiate various army units, in order to discuss old battles, which proved to be the favourite lessons of his young charges. However, the boys were not only enraptured by the subject but also showed great talent for strategy and tactics during the relevant sessions. Nevertheless, on this particular summer day, past and present conflicts were initially far from their bright minds.

Gaius and Lucius, after much eager mutual kissing and fondling, had eventually caused themselves to orgasm virtually simultaneously without the need for any other actions. In fact, their future frequent sexual activities together would always be confined to achieving delectable climax through similar activity and mutual masturbation. As proud Romans, the boys, despite the temptations caused by their rapidly developing and needy adolescent virility, considered that performing fellatio or being subject to sodomy were inappropriate for either of them. Such dishonourable degradations were the preserve only of the basest citizens, prostitutes, slaves or foreigners.

After enjoying their first exquisite passionate taste of mutual sex and having recovered from their intense orgasms, Gaius and Lucius had frolicked in the adjacent stream for a while, both in play and to clean themselves of accumulated sweat and spilt sperm. However, as they now lay, damp, sated and tired, next to each other under the hot sun in order to dry and rest their beautiful bodies, the two best friends began to talk about the tribulations that were currently inflicting Rome. Such troubles could someday seriously impinge on the welfare of their families and themselves.

The relevant conversation between Gaius and Lucius began when their bright brains eventually returned to the subject of military and political affairs, which was never far from their minds. The spark had been the young patrician asking a question of his plebeian friend, namely "What do you think of the latest news from Rome?"

At this time, various problems affected the recently expanded Empire, in which it was usual to appoint consuls and other political leaders to the highest military commands. Peoples from Germania had recently seriously threatened to descend on Rome until successfully deterred by Gaius’ uncle, Marius. Other Italian tribes, such as the Lucani and Samnites, had also proved restless and rebellious, and significant Roman forces were currently assigned to quell such uprisings, including besieging some insurgent cities.

The worst problem resulted from the attack by King Mithridates of the nominally independent Pontus, which was a small realm in Asia Minor on the southern shore of the ‘Pontus Euxinus’, or ‘Black Sea’, on the neighbouring Roman province. The similarly Greek indigenous provincial population greeted him as a liberator, and, in a rekindled display of national virility, helped him to massacre thousands of their Latin overlords. This had happened in the year before the current conversation between young Gaius and Lucius.

Mithridates subsequently crossed the Hellespont into Thrace on the European mainland, with the clear intention of establishing a new Greek empire. However, the issue, of whom Rome should give the great honour of sending to deal with the king, was then complicated by internal Roman politics.

The Senate originally chose one of that year’s consuls, 50 year-old Lucius Cornelius Sulla, head of the optimates faction and someone who had previously commanded armies successfully. However, political manoeuvring eventually managed to overturn this decision in favour of his rival politician and similarly previously victorious general, Gaius’ uncle, Marius, leader of the populares.

Sulla, who still had the support of most Senators, would not accept this changed decision. Consequently, after some factional violence in the streets, he fled Rome for Nola in Campania, one of the insurgent cities that happened to be under siege by a legion which he had previously commanded.

Sulla advised the legion, in which almost all of the ordinary soldiers were more loyal to him than to Rome, of his dismissal. He also told them that Marius was, with undoubted bias, going to select and lead his own favoured units in the war in Greece, which was expected to be gloriously successful and to render much lucrative booty for the Roman participants.

The ordinary legionnaires were incensed at missing out on such glory and riches because of their association with Marius’ rival and called upon Sulla to lead them to Rome to have the command appointment changed once more. In an unprecedented move, for no Roman army had ever previously marched on the Imperial capital, he happily complied with the soldiers’ demands.

Asked why he was marching on the city of his fathers with a hostile army, Sulla declared, in respect of an act that would create a dangerous precedent, "To free it from tyrants!" However, all but one legionary officer, a quaestor, disagreed and refused to participate, although Rome’s second consul agreed to take part.

Sulla’s army marched past the Alban Hills on the way to Rome but thankfully the farm of Marcus Atius Balbus, near the small town of Velitrae, was passed by without harm. The two consuls were conscious of the need not to annoy the rural population. Consequently, they were constantly on the move on their horses to ensure that military discipline was maintained, with any looting being severely punished.

Rome had little military protection and so the result of Sulla’s unprecedented act was the flight or killing of many of his main political enemies in Rome. Marius escaped to Africa, where many of the loyal legionary veterans he had once commanded had settled.

Marius had once campaigned successfully in Africa. Sulla had then been one of his principal subordinate officers but their subsequent political rivalry was exacerbated by the fact that he became aggrieved that he did not receive full acknowledgement for the role that he had played in bringing the war to a victorious conclusion.

Despite the flight of the likes of Marius, some of Sulla’s less important and more discreet political opponents stayed in Rome. They correctly believed that the victorious general would not take retribution against them but would prefer to establish quick peaceful control without further bloodshed before embarking on the military expedition against Mithridates, to which he had naturally now been re-appointed. One of these survivors of the victor’s wrath was Lucius Cornelius Cinna.

After a later political reaction to the march on Rome, and a resultant desire to try to restrain Sulla’s powers, Cinna was then actually awarded one of the two consulships for the following year. The general initially resisted the appointment. However, he was eventually forced to depart for Greece with his armies, having reached a compromise as to how the city and empire would be ruled in his absence, which, of course, was immediately repudiated by his enemies once he had left with his legions.

More political manoeuvring eventually led to further violent street fighting, after which the Senate, most of whom were still aristocratic supporters of the absent Sulla, stripped the fleeing Cinna of both his consulship and citizenship. However, they did not pursue the fugitive and so he escaped to emulate the departed general.

Cinna recruited to his cause the unhappy legion that Sulla had sent to continue the siege of Nola. He was also supported by the ageing Marius. The latter returned from Africa, raised an army in Tuscany, which included slaves to whom he had promised emancipation in return for service, captured the port of Ostia, thereby stopping seaborne supplies from reaching Rome, and then marched on to take the capital.

Marius’ fury then descended on his enemies in the capital. There was a bloodbath of his opponents, who included one of the new consuls, with the other committing suicide. Sulla, now campaigning with his legions on behalf of Rome in Greece, was also declared a public enemy. His house was destroyed and his country estates were laid waste.

The bloodbath only came to an end when Cinna ordered the murder, whilst they slept, of the recently recruited personal bodyguard of his ally, Marius. They consisted of runaway slaves, who had enthusiastically carried out their master’s orders to eliminate his enemies but had gone out of control.

As they lay on the banks of the stream, Gaius and Lucius discussed the latest news of these momentous events. The boys also reflected on how fortunate they and their families had been to escape harm during the various upheavals, and expressed the hope that their luck would continue, as surely someday Sulla would return with his legions from Greece to seek revenge for the deaths of his supporters.

Gaius worried in particular that his family connection with his uncle, Marius, might then prove rather unfortunate.

(Subura Quarter, Rome, about ½ year later, January 86 BC)

Gaius had just returned with his father, mother and sister, Julia, to his home in Rome’s Subura Quarter from a funeral. As customary, Lucius was in his friend’s company and, as usual, it was he who was allowed to oversee the recovery of the boy after he had suddenly collapsed onto the floor of the domus.

Gaius’ eyes had first rolled but did not close, and he had then collapsed writhing to the floor, where some foam emerged from his rosy lips. Fortunately, also as usual, Lucius, who was always on the lookout for the relevant signs, especially at times like now when his friend was suffering some emotional pain, managed to cushion the boy’s fall.

Gaius’ father had not minded allowing a plebeian to be the constant companion of his patrician son for three reasons. Firstly, the parent welcomed the development of such boyhood camaraderie, as he himself had gained much from a similar relationship. Secondly, he was not such a snob that he was averse to one of the members of the lowest class of free citizen being his young heir’s best friend, especially as the boy concerned was the elder offspring of one of his most amicable clients. Thirdly, Lucius had acquired the knack of efficiently and effectively assisting at times like this.

Gaius was suffering one of his rare epileptic fits, which tended to happen when he was mentally distressed. However, Lucius had learnt over the past few years, ever since he had witnessed the first such event, how to help his best friend.

Lucius did so by attempting to recognise when Gaius might be anguished and so liable to experience a fit. He would subsequently try to tempt his best friend into a safe and secluded place, where he was then on constant alert for the actual possible event in order to prevent the boy from hurting himself when falling. He also knew how best to aid his companion’s usually quick recovery.

The most valuable service, however, that, in Gaius’ own view, Lucius performed for his proud best friend was trying discreetly to hide the spectacle from the view of others or otherwise disguise the happening as something other than an epileptic fit. Anyone who suffered from epilepsy was regarded with suspicion and even disdain by many unenlightened people in ancient Rome, and so the young patrician and his family did not want his ailment to be public knowledge.

On this occasion, the distressing event that had triggered Gaius’ latest fit was having to attend the funeral of his septuagenarian uncle, Marius, who had again been appointed as one of the consuls for the forthcoming year but had not lived to serve his full term in office. The boy’s upset was not just at losing someone whom he greatly respected and had often met, when the leader of the populares had always been very pleasant with him.

Gaius also worried about what might happen to him and his family, as well as to other relatives and supporters of Marius, without the protection of the deceased man if Sulla ever successfully returned to Rome to secure his vengeance.

(Temple of Iupiter Optimus Maximus, Capitoline Hill, Rome, 14 months later, 16^th March 85 BC)

Today was an occasion when Lucius could not be in Gaius’ company, as the young patrician and his father and other closest adult male relatives ascended the 100 steep steps that led to the massive bronze doors of the temple of Iupiter Optimus Maximus. This imposing building was located on top of a rocky outcrop of Rome’s Capitoline Hill and the climb there was made more awkward for the now 14 year-old boy by having to drag a rightly reluctant goat with him.

The poor goat was correct to be frightened. The animal would have its throat cut aside the vast ornate temple’s external altar, which was situated in front of the impressive porticoed entrance, above which a huge bronze depiction of a four-horse chariot, or ‘quadriga’, adorned the roof.

The attendance of Gaius and the closest adult male members of his family, in order to make sacrifice at the temple of Iupiter Optimus Maximus, was associated with the garment the 14 year-old now wore. Despite his maintained beautiful boyish looks, he sported his new ‘toga virilis’, denoting virility and manhood.

All free citizens could wear togas but, because of their impracticability, they tended to be used only by the upper classes on formal occasions. The garments had no fastenings or stitching of any kind. They comprised just a single, long, elaborately folded, undyed and therefore off-white, semicircular piece of fine woven wool without pockets, draped over the shoulders and left arm, which had to be kept bent to prevent disaster. The donning of the robes was also a lengthy and complex process, and wearing them in hot weather could be very uncomfortable.

Being a Senator, the formal garment worn by Gaius’ father displayed purple edgings, plus stripes, or ‘clavi’, of the same colour descending from each shoulder. Meanwhile his son had just exchanged the purple-edged ‘toga praetexta’ of boyhood for the ‘toga virilis’ of manhood in a private ceremony inside their domus.

The ceremony generally took place on the sixteenth day of the month of March, which immediately followed the Ides, at the Bacchanalian festival of the ‘Liberalia’, so called after ‘Liber Pater’, or ‘Free Father’, which was another name for the god Bacchus. During this festival, priests and priestesses, adorned with garlands of ivy, carried wine, honey, cakes and sweet-meats through Rome, together with an ‘ansata ara’, which was a portable altar with handles. In the middle of the latter, there was a small fire-pan, or ‘foculus’, in which animal sacrifices were burnt. The event occurred simultaneous to the public games called the ‘Ludi Liberales’, as well as to alternative amusements and much other merriment, often of a licentious kind.

Roman youths usually took the ‘toga virilis’, the latter word actually meaning ‘opens in another window’, at the age of sixteen, but this was variable. In Gaius’ case, the ceremony had been brought forward because of the troubled times. Although Cinna remained in power in Rome and Sulla was still with his legions in Greece, no one knew how long this relatively stable state of affairs would last.

The domestic ceremony, in which the toga virilis was awarded, was generally supervised by a priest and was attended only by close adult members of the youth’s family, which explained Lucius’ current absence from his best friend’s side. During the ritual, the young celebrant was usually assailed with stern speeches, impressing on him the seriousness of the duties of citizenship. The event was followed in Rome by the sacrifice at the temple Iupiter Optimus Maximus and then a celebratory dinner.

From now on, Gaius had gained adult privileges and responsibilities. He could now conduct business in his own name, including buying and selling property. He could vote in the Assembly of the People, marry and in many other ways carry on as a full Roman citizen.

Nevertheless, Gaius continued to be subject to his father’s ‘pater potestas’, or supervisory power. This privilege allowed the parent, if he wanted, to beat, enslave or even kill his son, not that the loving man would ever consider either of the latter two options.

Gaius’ father would also not enjoy continued pater potestas over his son for much longer.

(Subura Quarter, Rome, a few months later, July 85 BC)

Gaius, who in this month of Quintilis had recently celebrated his 15^th birthday, had again just returned with his mother and sister, Julia, to his home in the Subura Quarter from a funeral. As customary, Lucius was in his friend’s company and, as usual, it was he who was allowed to oversee the recovery of the boy after he had once more suddenly collapsed onto the floor of the domus.

On this occasion, Gaius’ fit had been caused by his attendance at his own father’s funeral. The 15 year-old was now head of his family, which was one of many that Sulla would like to inflict terrible vengeance against if and when he successfully returned to Rome.

(To be continued in part III – ‘Societatis’ [‘Alliances’])