The Tyrant's Tomb

Dirt and bubble gum
Lavinia brought enough
For the whole senate
HOW DO YOU TELL a dream from a nightmare?
If it involves a book burning, it’s probably a nightmare.
I found myself in the Roman senate room—not the grand, famous
chamber of the republic or the empire, but the old senate room of the Roman
kingdom. The mudbrick walls were painted slapdash white and red. Straw
covered the filthy floor. Fires from iron braziers billowed soot and smoke,
darkening the plaster ceiling.
No fine marble here. No exotic silk or imperial purple grandeur. This
was Rome in its oldest, rawest form: all hunger and viciousness. The royal
guards wore cured leather armor over sweaty tunics. Their black iron spears
were crudely hammered, their helmets stitched of wolf hide. Enslaved
women knelt at the foot of the throne, which was a rough-hewn slab of rock
covered with furs. Lining either side of the room were crude wooden
benches—the bleachers for the senators, who sat more like prisoners or
spectators than powerful politicians. In this era, senators had only one true
power: to vote for a new king when the old one died. Otherwise, they were
expected to applaud or shut up as required.
On the throne sat Lucius Tarquinius Superbus—seventh king of Rome,
murderer, schemer, slave-driver, and all-around swell guy. His face was like
wet porcelain cut with a steak knife—a wide glistening mouth pulled into a
lopsided scowl; cheekbones too pronounced; a nose broken and healed in an