Evolution

When Honorius led him into the Forum, Athalaric tried not to be overwhelmed.

Gaunt old Honorius stumbled forward, his threadbare toga wrapped around him. "I had not expected the strength of this sun. The light must have molded my ancestors, filled them with vigor. Oh! How I have longed to see this place. This is the Sacred Way, of course. There is the Temple of Castor and Pollux, there the Temple of the Deified Caesar with the Arch of Augustus beside it." He made his way to the shade of a statue — a horseback hero done in bronze, whose plinth alone towered ten to twelve times Athalaric’s height — and he leaned against the marble, wheezing. "Augustus said he found Rome a city of brick and left it one of marble. The white marble, you see, comes from Luna, to the north, and the colored marbles from northern Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor — not so exotic destinations as they are today—"

Athalaric listened to his mentor, keeping his face expressionless.

This was the heart of Rome. It was here that the business of the city had been done even in Republican times. Since then, leaders and emperors as far back as Julius Caesar and Pompey had sought prestige by embellishing this ancient place, and the area had become a maze of temples, processional ways, triumphal arches, basilicas, council halls, rostra, and open spaces. The imperial residences on Palatine Hill still loomed over it all, a symbol of brooding power.

But now, of course, the emperors, like the Republicans before them, had gone.

Today Athalaric had chosen to wear his best metalwork, his belt buckle of bronze with fine lines of silver and gold hammered into its engraved pattern and the bow brooch of gold with silver filigree and garnets that held his cloak in place. His barbarian jewelry, so sneered at by the Romans, caught the light of the fierce Italian sun, even here in the ancient heart of their capital. And to remind himself of where he had come from, around his neck Athalaric wore the tag of beaten tin that had marked his father out as a slave.

He was proud of who he was, and who he might become. And yet, and yet…

And yet the sheer scale of it all, to eyes accustomed only to the small towns of Gaul, was astonishing.

Much of Rome was a city of mud brick, timber, and rubble-work; its predominant color was the bright red of the roofing tiles that covered so many of the residential buildings. The population had long overflowed the fortifications of the ancient city, and even the more extensive walls erected under the threat of barbarian invasion two centuries ago. It was said that at one time a million people had lived in this city, which had ruled an empire of a hundred million. Well, those days were gone — the burned-out and abandoned outer suburbs attested to that — but even in these straitened times, the sheer numbers of the place were stunning. There were two circuses, two amphitheaters, eleven public baths, thirty-six arches, nearly two thousand palaces, and a thousand pools and fountains fed with Tiber water by no less than nineteen aqueducts.

And at the heart of this sea of red tile and swarming people, here he was in an immense island of marble: marble used not just for columns and statues, but for the veneers of the walls, even for paving.

But, though the great spaces of the Forum were thronged with market stalls, Athalaric thought he sensed a great sadness here. Today the city was no longer even under Roman rule. Italy was now governed by a Scirian German called Odoacer, placed there by rebellious German troops, and Odoacer used Ravenna, a northern city lost in marshland, as his capital. Rome itself had been sacked twice.

Athalaric, motivated by a mild cruelty that puzzled him, began to point out evidence of damage. "See where the plinths are empty; the statues have been stolen. Those columns have tumbled, never to be repaired. Even some of the marble from the temples’ walls has been taken! Rome is decaying, Honorius."

"Of course it is decaying," Honorius snapped. He shifted to stay in the shade of the plinth. "Of course the city decays. I decay." He held up his liver-spotted hand. "As do you, young Athalaric, despite your arrogance. And yet I am still strong. I am here, am I not?"

"Yes, you are here," Athalaric said more kindly. "And so is Rome."

"Do you believe that nature is running down, Athalaric? That all life-forms are diminishing with successive generations?" Honorius shook his head. "Surely this mighty place could only have been constructed by men with the most tremendous hearts and minds, men one will not find in the present world of squabbling and fracture, men who have evidently, tragically, become extinct. And if so it behooves us to conduct ourselves as did those who came before — those who built this place, rather than those who would tear it down."