"The blood of the bulls on Jupiter’s hill gave them liberty—the words graven unto these Twelve Tables made them equal."
ROME, 462 BC. To save his family’s failing farm, sixteen-year-old Marcus Atilius is sold into debt servitude by his own father. Plunged into the city’s underbelly, Marcus must endure a world of cutthroat trading stalls and gritty warehouses, all while navigating a forbidden entanglement with a woman far above his station. Survival demands sharp guile and moral compromise.
As a bitter class struggle pushes Rome toward the brink of civil war, Marcus vows to beat the elites at their own ruthless game to win his freedom and a fortune worthy of the woman he loves.
Yet his rise brings a fateful choice. A historic demand sweeps the city for the Twelve Tables—a revolutionary legal code to protect plebeians from patrician tyranny. With a corrupt aristocrat holding the tether to his trading empire, will Marcus protect his hard-won power, or risk everything for the soul of Rome?
ENJOY AN EXCERPT:
The fire crackled. His father’s eyes roved over their faces. “He said I was too weak for bondage. That I was the reason for the debt.”
Quintus rose in protest. Fausta began to weep, and Lucia went to her, wrapping her arms around her.
“Is it so, Marcus?” Servius whispered. “Has father slowed that much?”
Marcus feigned doubt that Mettius had, but only out of respect. The weight loss, the gray in his beard—his father had aged. Strong as a bull one year, enfeebled the next.
Mettius drew a breath and went on. “He threatened to seize our land. Make vagrants of us. Beggars.”
If they lost their land, Marcus knew, they would live in crowded squalor in Rome, desperate for work. And why? Because it had always been that way. There was one set of laws for the privileged, another for everyone else.
His father stared over their heads at the wall. “I asked for another way. He wanted Quintus.” Mettius lowered his gaze. “I did not allow it. If I were to die with Quintus in bondage, the family would have no paterfamilias. The risk was too great.” His father’s voice had gone cold.
Quintus turned around. Marcus nodded to show he agreed. Better to lose their land than a son. It would be a hardship, but the family would stay together this way.
Marcus looked at his father. Their eyes met.
“I sold Marcus into mancipium with Gaius Licinius. A term of three years. He comes tomorrow to take him to Rome.”
GUEST POST
Lucretia and the Birth of the Roman Republic
In my historical novel The Twelve Tables, the young Roman Republic is still struggling to decide what the relationship between its citizens and their government will be. Less than fifty years before the events in my story, the Republic was born from one of the most enduring—and tragic—legends of the ancient world.
Is the tale of Lucretia mythical or historical? Probably a heady brew of each, like much of early Roman history. The Rape of Lucretia may even contain elements adapted from Greek stories about the fall of tyranny. But whether authentic or apocryphal in origin, Lucretia’s story would be immortalized in the paintings of Titian, Botticelli, and Rembrandt, and the literature of Ovid and Shakespeare. Helen may have launched a thousand ships, but Lucretia birthed the Roman Republic.
In 509 BC, during the reign of Tarquin the Proud, Lucretia was regarded as the most virtuous of Roman women. Sextus Tarquinius, the king’s son, became infatuated with her and sexually coveted her. One evening, with her husband Collatinus away, Sextus contrived a visit to Lucretia’s home, where he was received as an honored royal guest. After dining with his gracious hostess, he bid the household good night and retired to his chamber.
Until all was still.
Sextus crept with sword in hand to Lucretia’s bed and told her that unless she gratified his lust, he would kill her. But even with the tip of a sword at her throat, Lucretia refused to be unfaithful to Collatinus. The desperate Sextus then threatened to kill not only Lucretia, but a slave as well, and to lay their naked bodies side by side. “I will say I discovered your adultery and killed you both to defend the honor of your husband.”
Lucretia could not tolerate the shame her husband would suffer from such a slanderous act. She yielded to Sextus, who ravished her in their marital bed. He departed satisfied and confident that her fear of disgrace would prevent her from disclosing his crime.
But it did not.
She summoned her father, her husband, and Collatinus’s friend Brutus to her side. She told them that Sextus had taken advantage of her hospitality and defiled her. After recounting the details of his vile scheme, Lucretia made them promise to punish Sextus for what he had done. They vowed vengeance and assured her that her honor was intact, as she had not willingly given herself to him. But for Lucretia, such honor could only be reclaimed by the purification of death. She withdrew a blade hidden in her robes and plunged it into her heart, dying within moments.
Her father and husband stood frozen by shock and despair. Not so Brutus. He pulled the knife from her chest and swore he would drive Tarquin the Proud, his son Sextus, and their entire family from power. If this was what kingship begot, Rome would have no king again.
According to ancient historians, the revolt Brutus incited led to the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud. Two magistrates were elected to replace the king—Collatinus and his friend Brutus, the first consuls of Rome. From that beginning grew the republican institutions and ideals that Romans would spend centuries defending and redefining: shared political authority, citizenship, popular assemblies, and the rule of law.
That struggle forms the political backdrop of The Twelve Tables. By 462 BC, when the novel begins, Rome had expelled its kings but had not addressed the matters of civil rights and legal transparency. The struggle between patrician privilege and plebeian demands would eventually produce Rome’s first written law code—the Twelve Tables, the cornerstone of Roman civil law and a foundational text of Western civilization.
And the influence of Lucretia on all of this?
Timeless.
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