Alyssa Ogi

Assignment #8: Conclusion         

Aulus watched without expression as the last embers of his father’s funeral pyre flickered in the night. His mother, overcome with grief at the loss of her eldest son and husband in the span of a few years, was taken back to their villa on the Palatine by her handmaids. Because he died in shame, his father didn’t even receive an oration or prayer as deserved by his rank. Julia watched Aulus with worried eyes, her hand barely brushing his arm. But after an hour, she too left him alone with his thoughts.

He considered the choices his father had made in his last months of life. His unswerving faith in the great Caesar had driven him mad with paranoia, to the point that he betrayed the senators he once considered his brothers. As a young quaestor, only 32 years old, he must have had so many dreams and expectations for the political career stretching ahead of him. He must have dreamt of becoming a tribune, then a praetor, and perhaps one day a consul. He must have considered his equally youthful wife Publia, and the family life they could have together once he earned enough denarii. His father had almost reached the pinnacle of happiness, but lost it all in his obsession for power.

Aulus wrapped his cloak tighter over his plain tunic to ward off the cold.  His family, cursed by the gods and cast out of favor, could no longer wear the fine woolen garments of their elite class. He would never wear a toga praetexta of high standing again. But none of this matter when he considered the true loss: the deep trust he once held in the Roman government, and the void left by the one man he respected above all else. As a Roman, honor and self-pride were invaluable; Aulus could only hope that his father’s reputation prior to his awful crimes would be enough to save him in the Underworld.

Now he had to consider the future. He was his father’s eldest son, now that Flavius was gone, and he had the responsibility to rebuild his family’s name. Standing up and taking one last look at the charred remains, Aulus thought to the next morning and the speech he would need to give in front of the curia to reaffirm his identity apart from his father’s. Nothing was impossible anymore, and there was nothing left to lose. He looked up to the sky, asked Jupiter for protection, and started the long walk up the Palatine.