by Antonio Napoli
It astonishes me deeply how the form of a word can endure through the centuries, arriving intact to us despite the unfolding of dramatic changes—even the fall or decline of kingdoms once glorious and opulent.
That the appearance and sound of a word like òikos can resist the passage of time is, to me, the clearest sign that the old saying still holds true: where there is family, there is home. And in some homes, it happens that, unknowingly, the seed of an empire is sown.
When he noticed our presence, the old man widened his eyes in bewilderment; then he regained control of himself and, like someone searching for a natural reaction to the unexpected, said:
“Sit down and eat.”
We did so with the ease that comes from hunger and thirst.
The meal, nearly silent, was drawing to a close; only the fruit was missing from the table—a table that had been the triumph of Timeo’s ravenous silence and the embarrassed defeat of our frugal host.
At a certain point, the grandfather turned to his grandson with a look that already knew the answer, and said, almost in a whisper:
“Go fetch some fruit. Please: choose the best you can find.”
The boy stood up and walked away, vanishing beyond the doorway with his brisk gait.
It was then that I spoke, locking eyes with the old man, who had avoided my gaze until that moment:
“Lies require memory. But truth… only takes courage.”
The old man released his discomfort and torment with a long sigh, lowering and hiding his arms beneath the table.
“It’s time to be freed from a weight I’ve carried on my chest for far too long,” he said, more to himself than to us.
And he began to explain everything, anticipating the answers to questions that didn’t even need to be asked, since every thought was already tied to the past of the one that had come before it.
Perhaps he, too, by reading that book, had acquired some power to read our hearts.
He spoke like someone who, at last, no longer fears being judged.
He said he had denounced us out of fear. Not out of hatred, not for money, but from terror that the truth about his grandson might come to light.
He explained that the boy was not of his own blood: two years after the child’s birth, he had been entrusted to his daughter—sterile and widowed. Together, they had raised him in secret, protected him with blind tenacity, loved him as flesh of their flesh. And now that his daughter had been kidnapped, the old man trembled: he feared for her fate and for the boy’s. He feared that she was not the real target, but that he was—the adopted grandson, the child of mystery: one who carried in his blood a truth that someone perhaps wanted to erase forever, or else exploit to their advantage.
“Who is the boy’s real mother?” Timeo asked. But perhaps he was the only one among us still stumbling in the dark. Speusippus and I were dumbfounded.
The old man was about to answer, when the fruit arrived—along with a black cat that circled around the guests, letting itself be petted and purring with joy. It brought an unexpected cheer to the table.
I have always thought of cats as a form of intelligence clothed in grace and affection. And that one, with its glossy fur and intense eyes, gave me new reasons to believe it.
The old man, moreover, explained to us—according to his usual habit—that this cat chased away stray dogs. The last one, he said, had left behind a scroll, lured by a bone the old man had discarded shortly before. He pointed it out to us with a thumb gesture behind his back. I stood to retrieve it.
Meanwhile, the grandfather could no longer resume his story while the boy remained in the room; we needed a pretext to send him away. So Speusippus stood up, took Jabir by the hand, and led him into the garden, promising to tell him the animal fables of one of his ancient fellow citizens: a stuttering, hunchbacked man who had once lived in the land of Egypt.
Now the story could resume, and Timeo could learn truths that already echoed in my memory.
More than a decade ago, during the winter quarters, one night, a Roman commander—counted among the small circle of men said to be in contact with the gods—and a woman from Carthage, educated in the temples of Tanit and Baal Hammon, met near the Roman camp. Driven as if by mutual premonition, though unaware of each other’s identities, they spent a night of passion together.
The next day, the woman vanished, leaving only a silver ring on the rumpled bed, bearing the symbols of Tanit and Mars.
After the defeat at Zama, it was Hanno—not Hannibal—who negotiated peace with the victor, Scipio. And among that delegation was Elissa, Hannibal’s younger sister, despite the tense relations between Hanno and the family of Hamilcar Barca. That was when the Roman general recognized the woman. He was struck by the connection and returned her ring; she accepted it with even greater astonishment.
It is surprising that, after such a decisive victory, Scipio chose not to eliminate Hannibal—or at least to deliver him in chains to the Senate. On the contrary, to the man who, as a child, had sworn eternal hatred for Rome, he not only spared his life but allowed him to remain as leader of the Phoenician city. Was it out of clemency? Out of admiration for the military genius of his enemy?
Or was there something more secret, something impossible: love for Elissa?
A daughter of one of Carthage’s noblest families, Elissa had always lived in the shadow of war, watching helplessly as her people suffered. Her older brother had kindled hope of overwhelming the enemy in the Italian campaign, but she had long known that Rome’s supremacy was now inevitable—especially after the defeat at Zama.
Elissa had never imagined uniting Rome and Carthage in her womb… and yet that’s exactly what had happened, in that fateful, magical night of passion. A child born of a great Roman and a direct descendant of the Barcas might one day serve as a mediator between two worlds, two cultures, two dreams of glory. That was Elissa’s early hope: the hope for a new dynasty that would bring peace to the Mediterranean.
But with Hannibal’s exile and the resentment flaring across the sea, Elissa had come to understand that the child would never be accepted—neither in Rome, nor in Carthage. So she entrusted him to her dearest friend, Ishara, daughter of the old man who now prepared to conclude his tale.
“My daughter Ishara’s husband died at Zama—a battle that brought to Carthage not only endless mourning, but also two severe clauses in a humiliating peace treaty: the prohibition of declaring war on any neighboring state without Rome’s consent… and the authorization granted to Masinissa—the king of the Numidians, whose help was decisive for Scipio—the authorization, I say, to reclaim the lands of his ancestors.”
“Ah!” burst out Timeo. “I know that Masinissa! He threw me out of his house… A plucked rooster wears its crest with more grace than he wears his royal crown!”
The old man nodded bitterly, while I thought with equal bitterness that this philosopher without a family would never find a home anywhere.
“My son-in-law’s brother,” the old man continued, “betrayed his own Carthaginian blood and became a spy in service of Masinissa. What disgrace! And I say: isn’t it more often Masinissa’s men who send thieves around, rather than poverty or some inborn villainy? He’s cunning, that Roman ally. He was the one who wanted that humiliating clause: the Numidians are nomads… and who can dispute that their ancestors didn’t set foot everywhere? So, using that crafty clause, Masinissa claims lands within our own home, saps the spirit of us Carthaginians, and wants to drag us back into war.”
“A war that neither Scipio nor Hannibal wants anymore…” I said.
“I was present, you know, at their meeting in foreign land. And I heard this exchange between the two great commanders. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general in history. Hannibal replied without hesitation: Alexander the Great. When asked who came next, he said: Pyrrhus. Finally, on the third question, he said: Myself… but had I won at Zama,” he added, without false modesty, “then I would have placed myself first.”
“Scipio smiled. A smile I will never forget. The same one I now see on the face of my grandson Jabir, whom his mother—the real mother—wished to name… Hasdrubal.”