Saturnalia

6

The house of the late Metellus Celer was located low on the slope of the Esquiline, in a district that had somehow escaped the worst of the fires that periodically swept the city. It was a relatively modest structure. It had been in the family for several generations and so was on the scale common to the days before the Punic Wars, when even the greatest families were little more than wealthy farmers.

Hermes accompanied me in a mixed state of alarm and anticipation. Clodia frightened him as she frightened everybody. But she also belonged to that new generation of Romans who affected to love things of beauty for their own sake, rather than for their value as loot. To this end she surrounded herself with beautiful things, including slaves. Clodia was a familiar sight in the slave markets, always shopping for new beauties as she discarded those past their peak of comeliness.

This was another of her many scandalous traits. Most well-bred people, including my own family, pretended that they never bought slaves but used only those born within the household. When they wanted slaves from the market, they discreetly sent stewards to do the buying. Not Clodia. She liked to look over the livestock herself, examining teeth with her own eyes, punching for wind and squeezing for muscle tone with her own hands.

“Try not to get caught doing anything improper with the girls,” I cautioned Hermes.

“Of course not, Master,” he said with patent insincerity. “But you do want me to pump them for information, don’t you?”

“Quit drooling. Yes, I want to know if they have any knowledge of Celer’s death or if Clodia had any strange visitors. Well, I know she has all sorts of strange visitors, but what we’re looking for are witch women, mountebanks, the sort of people who are likely to be peddling poisons.”

This was a pretty far-fetched hope. Clodia had traveled widely for a woman, and she might have picked up exotic poisons almost anywhere. It was the sort of thing she would shop for. But there was a chance that she had acquired her poison openly, right here in Rome. Aristocratic felons like Clodia often took few precautions to conceal evidence of their crimes. They considered themselves above suspicion, or at least above prosecution.

I knew I was in for an interesting evening the moment the door opened. In the past, Clodia had been allowed to exercise her taste only within her own quarters. The rest of the house was a typically drab, stuffy Metellan establishment. That rule had gone up with the smoke of Celer’s funeral pyre.

The janitor who opened the door to us looked like one of those Greek statues of ephebic athletes, all flowing muscles and perfect skin, and dense, curly locks. Except for his scalp he had been fully depilated, a common affectation of highborn women but rarely encountered in men except for Egyptian slaves, and this boy was clearly not Egyptian. The only concession to modesty Clodia had allowed him was a gauzy pouch that bagged his genitals, supported by a thin string about his hips. His only other covering was a gilded and jeweled neck ring by which he was chained to the doorpost.

“Welcome, Senator,” the boy said, smiling to show perfect, white teeth. “My Lady and her guests are in the triclinium.”

We passed through the atrium with its flanking rooms and its niche for ancestral death masks and on into the peristyle. It was usually open to the sky, but an elaborate awning, decorated with golden stars, had been drawn across it to keep out the cold breeze. Beneath the awning the pool now featured a graceful sculpture of a dancing faun, and fat, ornamental carp disported themselves in the water below. Between the pillars bronze chains supported beautifully wrought Campanian lamps.

Everywhere I looked I saw splendid works of art and craftsmanship. I also noticed that Clodia hadn’t bothered to inlay the floors with mosaic in the new fashion. Not much point in it, since she wouldn’t be staying. All of her treasures were portable and would go with her.

“Decius!” Clodia came for me, her gown floating around her body like colored air. She was still one of the most beautiful women in Rome and about thirty-three years old that year, her body unmarked by childbearing, hence the near-transparent Coan gowns she favored. The sheer stuff was woven on the island of Cos and the censors always tried to ban it from the City, or at least keep respectable women from wearing it. Clodia’s respect for public morals laws was minimal. Her face was youthful, marred only by a certain hardness about the mouth and eyes. She used cosmetics sparingly, unlike so many women.

“How good to see you,” she cried, taking my hands in both of hers. “It’s been far too long since I’ve seen you. Fausta told me all about that exciting business in Alexandria. The court there sounds wonderful.” Clodia and Fausta were best friends, even though Fausta was soon to marry Milo, the deadliest enemy of Clodius. Politics.

“I am sure Princess Berenice will receive you like a queen should you choose to visit,” I assured her. Berenice was even loonier than most Egyptian royalty.

“Come along and meet my other guests. You know some of them.”

“Lead on,” I said. “But sometime this evening I must speak with you privately.”

“I know,” she whispered conspiratorially. Conspiracy was something she enjoyed. “But you mustn’t bring up the subject at dinner. Oh, Decius, I am so glad that you and my brother have made up your silly quarrel!” She was laying it on a little thick, even for Clodia. But then she practiced moderation in nothing, not even insincerity. “Now come with me.” She looped an arm through mine and we went into the triclinium, which opened off the roofed portion of the peristyle.

Here some changes had been made. Clodia did not favor the cozy intimacy of the common dining room, so she had knocked down a couple of interior walls and made one room out of three. As I recalled the layout of the house, she had sacrificed Celer’s bedroom and study to expand her triclinium. The couches and cushions were as lavish as any I had seen in Rome, even in the house of Lucullus.

“Well, Clodia,” I said, “it isn’t quite as princely as Ptolemy’s palace, but it’s close.”

She smiled, accepting it as a true compliment. “Isn’t it splendid? There’s hardly a furnishing in the room that hasn’t been forbidden by the censors at one time or another.”

“Sumptuary laws never work,” I said. “The people who pass the laws are the only ones who can afford to break them.” This wasn’t strictly true, because rich freedmen, barred from higher office, were becoming more and more a fixture in the City.

Some of the guests were admiring the wall paintings. These, at least, were not forbiddingly expensive and had been applied to smooth out the effect of knocking three different rooms into one. They were of a style just coming into fashion: a black background with ornamental pillars painted on at intervals. The pillars were strangely spindly and elongated, as if they had been stretched. Here and there along their length were little platforms holding potted plants and bowls of fruit, similarly elongated. Atop the pillars were fanciful terminals consisting of stacked globes or drooping cones. I suppose they were intended to be whimsical, but I found the style dreamlike and faintly disorienting, as if you were seeing something you half-remembered and couldn’t quite place.

“Decius, have you met the tribune Publius Vatinius?” She took me to a tall, soldierly man. He looked like the sort who loves to carry out his superior’s most atrocious orders.

“I am always happy to meet another Caecilius Metellus,” he said. The ubiquity of my family was a byword in Rome.

“Tribune Vatinius was responsible for securing Caesar’s extraordinary commission in Gaul,” Clodia gushed. If there was anything she loved more than luxury it was power politics.

“A most unusual expedient to deal with the Gallic situation,” I said.

“It’s a reform long overdue,” Vatinius asserted.

“Reform? Do you mean this is something we can look forward to seeing again?”

“Of course. We have to stop pretending we live in the days of our ancestors. We have a vast empire all over the world, and we try to govern it as if Rome were still a little Italian city-state. The way we change offices every year is absurd! A man no sooner learns his task or the territory he is to govern when he is out of office.”

“Who would want to hold an office like the quaestorship or the aedileship for more than a year?” I objected.

He chuckled. “Very true. No, I spoke of the offices that hold imperium: praetor and consul. Most specifically, propraetor and proconsul. A one-year stint governing a province was one thing when our holdings were just a few days’ march from Rome, but it’s utterly obsolete now. You can take weeks if not months just getting to your province. Just about the time you’ve learned your way around, it’s time to go home.”

“You can usually get a command prorogued for another year or two,” I said.

“But you never know!” he said with some heat. “And if you want to stand for office again, you have to drop everything and hurry back to Rome, even if you’re in the middle of a war. This new way is better. Caesar goes to Gaul knowing he has five years to sort out that situation and bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Plus, he has imperium over both Gauls plus Illyricum; so if he has the barbarians on the run, they can’t just duck across the border where he’ll have to coordinate with another proconsul.” It was one of the rules that a promagistrate wielded imperium only within the borders of his assigned province. If he tried to use it outside them he risked being charged with treason.

“It is a well thoughtout policy,” I admitted.

“Believe me, it is the only policy from here on,” he insisted. “And we need further legislation to allow a serving promagistrate to stand for office in absentia. If a legate can run a province or an army in the magistrate’s absence, why not one to conduct an election campaign back home?”

There was considerable justice in his reasoning. The truth was that our ancient system of republican government was dreadfully awkward and unwieldy. It was aimed at thwarting the dangerous practice of concentrating too much power in the hands of one man. Sensible as his solution was (and I had no doubt that it was Caesar’s solution, not his), I still hated the idea of giving anyone that much power for that long a time. After five years, especially if he was victorious in battle, all the legions in Gaul would belong solely to Caesar and to no other. Not that this was anything new. Pompey’s legions were Pompey’s, not Rome’s.

“Oh, and you must know the aedile Calpurnius Bestia,” Clodia said.

“We spoke just this morning,” Bestia said. “Did you find your fortune-teller, Decius?” His beefy, intelligent face creased into a smile as he took my hand.

“Fortune-teller?” said Clodia, lifting an eyebrow in my direction. “Decius, you’ve changed. What happened to your renowned scepticism?”

“Egypt does that to you,” I said. “It puts you in touch with otherworldly things.”

“Come along, Decius,” she said, tugging at my arm. “If you’re going to lie to me, you might as well get drunk and do it convincingly.” She took me to a table that was covered with goblets and picked one up and handed it to me. “Now, who haven’t you met?” As she scanned the room I set the goblet down and picked up another. She gestured and a tiny, stunningly voluptuous young woman came to us.

“Decius, have you met Fulvia? She and my brother are to marry.”

“Yes, I met her here about two years ago. You are more beautiful than ever, if that is possible, Fulvia. But I expected you to be married by now.” She truly was stunning, with white-blonde hair piled atop her head in the latest style, held in place by tortoise shell combs and silver skewers.

“Clodius intends to celebrate our nuptials after he takes office.” I remembered that furry, palpitation-inducing voice. “He plans to throw a vast celebration for the whole populace, with games and a free distribution of food and oil and everyone’s attendance at the baths paid for for the whole month.”

“Sounds like a wonderful party,” I said, trying to figure out what such a thing would cost.

“He’s hired more than a hundred gladiators from Capua to come up to Rome to fight another troupe from the Statilian school,” Fulvia said with unmaidenly relish.

“Munera at a wedding?” I said, aghast.

“Oh, technically the munera will be in honor of our late father, to keep everything legal,” Clodia explained, “and they’ll be on a day set aside solely for that purpose, but everyone will know that it’s part of the wedding celebration.”

“And it will win Clodius no end of popularity, I’m sure,” I said. Oh, well, I thought, so what if the old boy died almost twenty years ago. It’s never too late for funeral games.

“He’s already the most popular man in Rome,” Clodia purred. “This, plus his enactions in office, will make him the next thing to king of Rome.”

This was just the sort of thing I liked to hear. Yes, next year would definitely be a good one to stay as far from Rome as possible. If, of course, I survived this year. I was about to make some ill-considered remark about the annually sacrificed King of Fools when I was saved by the arrival of another guest, none other than Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives, third of the Big Three after Caesar and Pompey and richer than the other two and the rest of the world put together. I exaggerate, but he was awfully rich. Clodia dragged him over.

“When did you get back, Marcus?” Clodia crowed. Another returnee. “When I sent my invitation to your house I really didn’t expect you’d be there. How lucky for me you were!” She didn’t bother with introductions. Everyone knew who Crassus was, and if he didn’t know you, you probably weren’t worth knowing.

“My dear, you know I’d have run all the way from Campania to attend one of your gatherings,” he said, grinning and showing some new, deep lines in his face. In fact, he looked tired all over. “I got back to the City last night, and I’ve given my slaves orders to tie me up if I ever talk about leaving again.”

“Is that where you’ve been, Marcus Licinius?” I asked.

“Got away from Rhodes, eh, Decius Caecilius? Lucky you. Yes, I’ve been most of the year organizing the new Capuan colony and a duller, more onerous job I’ve never had. The Senate formed a judicial board to oversee the settlement of Pompey’s veterans and Caesar’s paupers on the new lands under the new agrarian law, and they named me to head the board. When Caius Cosconius died last summer the Senate asked Cicero to replace him, but he had the brains to refuse.”

“Oh, but such important work, Marcus,” Clodia said. “It’s the biggest and most important task to face the government since the wars with Carthage. No wonder the Senate wanted you and no other to be in charge.” I had never rated such flattery from Clodia.

Crassus shrugged. “A clerk’s job, but it had to be done.” His words were blunt and commonsense, but I could see the self-satisfaction oozing all over him with her words. Clodia dashed off to deal with a new guest, Fulvia in tow, leaving me temporarily with Crassus.

“It may have been a strenuous task,” I told him, “but I’m relieved to hear that it’s settled. The business dragged on far too long.”

“Largely because of our hostess’s late husband,” Crassus grumbled, taking a goblet from the table, “though I shouldn’t say so under his own roof.”

“He was an obstinate man,” I admitted. “But he wasn’t obstructing Pompey single-handed.”

“He nearly was, last year.”

“Was it that bad?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear? But I suppose most of the information you got was from your family. They probably spared you the embarrassing details. First, he got in trouble with the moneylenders by continuing to uphold Lucullus’s remission of the Asian tax debt. He fought tooth and nail against Clodius’s transfer to the plebs. The infighting got extremely nasty and personal, especially since they were in-laws. Then, to cap it off, he attacked the tribune Flavius over yet another agrarian law to provide land for Pompey’s troops. It got so openly violent that Flavius charged him with violation of tribunician immunity and had him haled to prison!”

“Prison! A serving consul!” This was bizarre even for our sort of politics.

“Well, it was only for an hour or two. There was a lot of argument whether the sacrosanctity of the the tribuneship overrode the constitutional immunity of the consulship. Caesar was called in to rule on it as pontifex maximus.”

“Incredible,” I mumbled into my wine. “They must’ve been lining up to poison him.”

“Eh? What’s that you say, Decius?”

But we were interrupted by Clodia hauling in her latest prize. He was a splendid-looking young man who seemed vaguely familiar to me. He was somewhat flushed with wine, and he had a smile as dazzling as Milo’s.

“Sometimes,” Clodia announced, “I invite someone just for being wellborn and handsome. This is Marcus Antonius, the son of Antonius Creticus and nephew of Hibrida.”

“My greetings to you all,” the boy said, gesturing like a trained actor and amazingly assured for one so young. Now I thought I remembered him.

“Didn’t we meet at the time of Lucullus’s triumph?” I asked.

“Did we? Then I am doubly honored to meet you again, Senator.”

“Decius Metellus,” Clodia told him.

“Ah, the famous Decius Metellus!” I could see that he had no idea who I was, but he was one of those rare people who could make you like them even when they were being rude.

“Got a military tribuneship for next year didn’t you, Antonius?” Crassus said.

“Yes, and I’ll be joining the staff of Balbus in Asia. I wish I could have gotten attached to Caesar in Gaul, but all the other candidates were senior to me and they were all clamoring for Gaul.”

“You’ll have your chance,” Crassus assured him. “That’s going to be a long war in Gaul.”

Dinner was announced and we took our places on the couches. Hermes took my toga and sandals and hurried upstairs, where all the slaves not attending in the triclinium or the kitchen were banished for the duration. There were the usual nine at dinner, although Clodia never felt bound to honor the old custom. It was probably just coincidence. I have named six others besides myself, and I no longer remember who the other two were. Parasites, I suppose, probably poets. Clodia had a fondness for poets.

I was on the right-hand couch, with Clodia to my left and Vatinius to my right. As highest in rank, Crassus had the honorary “consul’s place” on the right of the central couch, with Bestia and one of the poets. The other couch held Antonius, Fulvia, and the other poet. Clodia and Fulvia flopped right down on the couches alongside the men, flouting yet another convention. This time, I approved. I would always rather share a couch with a beautiful woman than an ugly man. Or a handsome one, for that matter.

The food was wonderful. Clodia had better taste than most, and while her spread was lavish and included rare viands and spices, she never indulged in the vulgar extravagance flouted by the newly rich. Her wines were the best and nobody seemed to be keeling over from the effects of poison.

The serving slaves were another matter. Like the janitor they were exceptional beauties, and like him, they were minimally clad, only ornamented here and there with jewelery and sporting Clodia’s specialty: the jeweled neck ring. As a further exotic refinement, they were all of differing races. The wine server was an Arab boy with enormous brown eyes. Towels were passed by a tawny-skinned Asian girl. The carver was a muscular Gaul, who wielded a pair of curved knives with incredible dexterity. The main courses were borne in on platters by southerners who came in gradations of ever darker skin: the eggs were brought in by a pale-brown Mauritanian, the fish by a slightly darker Numidian, the meats by a deep-brown Nubian, and the sweets by a soot-black Ethiopian.

The music, on the other hand, was provided by a small ensemble of albinos, their extraordinary skin like polished, blue-veined marble and their cascading hair like sea foam. Unlike the others these wore gauzy blindfolds that allowed them some vision. I presumed the reason for this oddity was that Clodia disliked their reddish eyes.

In such a company the talk, naturally, was of politics and war and foreign affairs. This was not one of Clodia’s artistic gatherings, so the two parasites kept quiet, grateful for a free meal and the radiance of their distinguished betters. The conversation stayed light while we stuffed ourselves, but with the after-dinner wine we got back to the one thing everyone really cared about. The legislations of the year that was ending were discussed, especially the amazing number of new laws rammed through by Caesar (most of them excellent and long-needed, although it pains me to admit it).

Crassus, to whom all deferred, reeled them off, counting ostentatiously on his fingers like a a fishwife totting up the price of a basket of mullets. Crassus had an excellent memory and a politician’s grasp of the relative importance of everything.

“First and most important, he passed his Agrarian Law, using public money to buy up the state lands in Campania and distribute them among twenty thousand of Pompey’s veterans and a few thousand of the urban poor, to ease the overcrowding of the city. The Senate balked at that one. Decius, you should have heard Cato bray!”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “We’ve called it ‘public land,’ but the senatorial families have been leasing them at almost no cost for generations.”

“Including yours, Decius,” Clodia said.

“Including mine,” I acknowledged.

“Well,” Crassus continued, “there was Cato, railing and foaming at the mouth for almost an entire day, until Caesar threatened him with arrest.”

“Cato is a tiresome man,” Antonius said. Fulvia had moved closer to him than would have been deemed decent in any other household.

“That he is,” Crassus agreed. “Anyway, by next day the crowd was so big the assembly had to be held in front of the Temple of Castor, with Caesar reading off his new law from the steps. Pompey and I were there backing him, naturally, neither of us serving in any capacity but adding a little much-needed weight to Caesar’s side of the balance.

“Then Bibulus threw in his tame tribunes: Ancharius, Fannius, and Domitius Calvinus, to interpose their veto. The crowd grabbed the fasces away from Bibulus’s lictors, broke the rods, and used them to beat the tribunes. How can tribunes claim to represent the people when the people themselves rebel against them? Anyway, that was when Bibulus stormed off to his house and said he was watching for omens. He even said he was going to sanctify the whole rest of the year, so no official business could be transacted!” This raised a general laugh.

“What archaic nonsense!” Vatinius commented.

“Besides,” Bestia put in, “Caesar’s pontifex maximus and has the last word on any matter touching religion. I suppose Bibulus had to try though. It was the only weapon he had.”

“The result was,” Crassus continued, “Caesar not only got his law passed by the Popular Assembly, meeting in extraordianry session, he made the entire Senate confirm it and swear an oath to uphold it.”

The sheer gall of it was breathtaking. This was far more radical than the peevish reports I had received overseas.

“Except for Celer, I take it?” I said.

“Celer, Favonius, and the ever-reliable Cato held out the longest,” Vatinius said. “But in the end they swore to it along with the rest of us.”

“Who’s Favonius?” I asked.

“We call him ‘Cato’s Ape,’ “Bestia said. “That’s because he’s as loyal as a dog but not as dignified.” Another general laugh. I suddenly realized that Antonius and Fulvia had arranged their clothing, cushions, and coverlets so that their hands could not be seen. The boy’s face was redder than ever, and his mind did not seem to be on politics.

“That was the last significant resistance to Caesar,” Crassus said. The fingers began to go down in quick succession. “He remitted a part of the Asian taxes to help out the tax farmers, and he confirmed Pompey’s arrangements for the government of Asia. That took care of the three biggest issues.”

More fingers went down. “There was a reaffirmation of the absolute inviolability of a magistrate while in office-that one will cause Cicero trouble-a law for the punishment of adultery …”

“A marvelous piece of legal impartiality, coming from Caesar,” Clodia said. More laughs.

“… a law to protect the individual citizen from public or private violence; a law forbidding anyone who lays hands on a citizen illegally from holding office; a law to deal with judges who accept bribes; several laws to deal with tax dodgers; laws against debasing the coin; laws against sacrilege; laws against corrupt state contracts; laws against election bribery; and, finally, a law to regulate the accounting each promagistrate renders to the Senate concerning his period of governance abroad, one account to be filed in Rome, the other in the province, and any discrepancy to be made up from the governor’s own estate.”

“Don’t forget the Acta Diurna,” Clodia said. “He decreed that a daily record be kept of all the Senate’s debates and activities and published the next morning.”

“And,” Crassus said with satisfaction, “he rammed every bit of that legislation through over the heads of the Senate, addressing the Popular Assemblies in a group, directly.”

It was a staggering circumvention of custom. “From what you say,” I put in, “it sounds as if Caesar is not acting as consul at all; he’s behaving like a sort of supertribune!”

“That is very much the case,” Vatinius said. “And it was necessary. Most of those laws have been bandied around in the Senate for years, and they never got anywhere because the Senate has become an intransigent body of self-seeking little men who will always ignore the best interests of the state in favor of their own.”

I found it profoundly depressing. An arrogant, ambitious demagogue like Julius Caesar passed a huge, just, and enlightened body of laws, while my own class behaved like pigheaded Oriental lordlings.

“How did Cicero stand in all this?” I asked.

“With the aristocrats, as usual,” Crassus said. “He’s getting into deeper and deeper trouble, but he won’t face it. We’ve given him every opportunity to work with us, then he’d have nothing to fear, but he won’t believe he’s in any danger. He thinks the people love him! Pompey and I can put up with him and Caesar actually admires Cicero, but he’s become totally self-deluded and thinks he doesn’t need us.”

“What a waste of fine talent,” Clodia said. “Years ago I thought Cicero was the coming man in Roman politics. The most brilliant mind I’d ever encountered; and coming from outside as he did, without all the baggage of a family history in Rome and a lot of useless political ties …” She paused and sighed. “He could have had the world, and in the end all he wants is to be accepted as some sort of pseudoaristocrat.”

The talk got looser and more frivolous as the wine flowed and I took little part in it. During it all I brooded on one inescapable fact: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer had been a man with enemies.

After a while we rose, groaning and full-bellied, from our couches. Some went out to the peristyle to walk off their dinner, for the house had no formal garden. Antonius and Fulvia slipped away somewhere. The two parasites made fulsome thanks and left. Such men, if they are skillful at both cadging and timing, can work in two free dinners a night.

I now realized that Rome, along with myself, was now suspended in a brief breathing space between the upheavals of Caesar’s consulship and the one to come. This frequently happened at the end of a year, when the outgoing consuls were getting ready to proceed to their provinces and the newcomers were arranging their staffs and, often as not, collecting bribes prior to taking office. It was at this time that the whole populace was celebrating Saturnalia, giving gifts, settling debts, and sloughing off the old year for the new. After that, it would be shield up and sword out, and the fighting would start all over.

And the year to come would surely be worse than the last.

Clodia came to me when most of the guests were gone. I hadn’t seen Antonius take his leave.

“Now I think we can talk, Decius. I have a sitting room just off my bedroom. It’s very comfortable. Come along.” I followed her into a small, neat room furnished with two lounge chairs with a small table between them. Much of one wall had been turned into a large window overlooking a small, delightfully picturesque gully carpeted with myrtle, from which rose the sounds of night insects. Thirty yards away, on the other side of the little gorge, was a circular temple of Venus in one of her many aspects.

“I had no idea this house commanded such a prospect,” I said, leaning out the window and hearing the sound of a spring running over the gravel below.

“Isn’t it lovely? Celer never would have noticed, since this is the rear of the house. This was a storeroom until I took it over and had the window made. My maids make me up here in the mornings. It catches the early light.” She clapped her hands and a pair of slave girls brought in a pitcher of wine and goblets. They were typical of Clodia’s purchases. They were twins, barely nubile, and quite beautiful, except for the barbaric designs tattooed over their faces and bodies.

“Scythians,” said, noticing my interest. “Only the children of the nobility are tattooed like this.” She stroked the tawny hair of one. “The pirates wanted a fortune for them. They claimed they’d lost a number of men kidnapping them, but I doubt it. Even nobles can fall on hard times. They probably sold these two rather than have to feed them.”

“Lovely creatures,” I said, wondering how I would fare as a slave among foreigners. “However, it’s getting late and we must talk of serious matters. Speaking of which, you should keep a tighter rein on Fulvia. She and Antonius were behaving shamelessly tonight.”

“Decius, you are such a prude.” She smiled as she poured wine for us.

“I don’t care if they dance naked on the rostra, but Clodius is apt to take offense.”

“Why should he? They aren’t married yet.”

“Why, indeed?” They were a strange family. “Anyway, Clodia, I must inquire into the death of your husband.” I took a seat on one of the lounge chairs and she took the other. The lamps cast a bronzy glow over us and the room. The air was sweet from the nearby countryside. Luckily, the breeze blew from the northeast. If it had come from the southeast, it would have passed over the notorious lime pits where the bodies of slaves and the unclaimed indigent were disposed of. We were far from the fetid heart of the city.

“And why are you doing this?”

That took me aback. “Why? Just this afternoon, Clodius all but ambushed me at the baths and …”

“Yes, yes, he told me.” She waved it aside with elegantly painted nails. “He thinks you can put an end to the suspicion that I killed Celer. But I am equally certain that Celer’s relatives want you to prove just the opposite. Is that why you are back in Rome?” Her eyes were direct, clear, and steady, even though she had done more than justice by the evening’s liquid refreshments and was even then putting away more.

“You know what my family wants and what Clodius wants. Why don’t you ask me what I want?”

“All right. What do you want, Decius?”

“I want the truth.”

She laughed. “Oh, you’re such an honest drudge, Decius. I don’t know how you manage to lead such an interesting life. You have Cato’s rectitude, although you aren’t as boring.” She laughed again and then stopped and glared at me with dagger-point eyes. “You think I did it, don’t you?”

“I am witholding judgment until I have evidence,” I said. “Why do you think I judge you guilty?”

“Because you haven’t touched your wine, and I know you have a thirst like Sisyphus. And you don’t get to drink wine of this quality every day, either.”

I knew my face was flaming as bright as Antonius’s had earlier that evening. Ostentatiously, I took a large gulp from my cup. It was a wonderful Massic, as smooth as Clodia’s complexion. She leaned forward and studied my face solemnly.

“I do wish we had better light,” she said. “I’m trying out a new one, and I’d like to observe the effects.”

“You bitch!” I said, pouring myself another cupful. As she had said, it might be a long time before I had a chance to taste such a fine vintage again. “Now tell me how it happened.”

She sat back, smiling. “That’s better. You aren’t too objectionable when you’re not pretending to be Romulus. Where shall I begin?”

I thought about what Asklepiodes had said. “Was Celer’s death sudden, or did it come after a lengthy illness?”

“It was unexpected. He was always a powerful, vigorous man, and anger didn’t weary him as it does most men. He was like my brother in that.”

“Anger?” I asked.

“Weren’t you listening at dinner?” she said impatiently. “His whole term as consul was one battle after another, and it didn’t stop when he stepped down. He was being prosecuted continually for his actions in office so that he had to keep putting off leaving for his proconsular province.”

“Which province was he to have?”

“Transalpine Gaul. Afranius, his colleague, was to have Cisalpine. But that tribune, Flavius, was after Celer like a Mollossian hound. Finally, he got Celer’s appointment revoked.”

I made a mental note to visit this firebrand. “Men have been known to drop dead from such provocation. Might his anger have brought on a seizure?”

She shook her head. “No, he never got carried away. His anger was of the cold, deliberate sort. He was a Metellus, after all.”

Meaning that my family was famed for moderation, unlike the Claudians to whom she belonged, who had a streak of criminal insanity.

“He was going to take Flavius to court again,” Clodia went on. “The year had gotten so far advanced that it would have been useless to go to Gaul even if he could have gotten his appointment back, but he planned to sue for another appointment for the next year.” This was not unheard of. Pompey had once had a delay of three or four years between sitting as consul and being assigned a proconsular province.

“But he died before he could take Flavius to court?”

“He rose that morning to go to the Forum. He was the old-fashioned sort, like most of you Metelli. He just threw on his tunic and toga and went out to receive his clients.”

“Did he take breakfast?”

“Never. While he went through his greeting round, he always had a cup of hot pulsum. That was all.” She made a face and I sympathized. The old soldier’s drink of vinegar and water had never agreed with me either. “Since he was going to court, they were all supposed to follow him there. As he was going out the door, he collapsed, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. The slaves carried him back to his bedroom, and someone went running for a physician.”

“Did you see any of this?”

“No. We maintained separate bedrooms on opposite sides of the house, and I rarely rise before noon. The steward came and summoned me when he collapsed.”

“And you went to see him immediately?”

“Of course not!” she said testily. “Do you think I am going to go out among important people with my hair tangled and my face in disarray?”

“There is precedent,” I said. “It is even customary, along with breast-beating and lamentation.”

“He wasn’t dead yet. For all I knew he wasn’t even in serious danger.”

“Who was the physician?”

“Ariston of something or other. He wasn’t much use.”

“Ariston of Lycia. I know of him. My family retains his services.” Under a common arrangement, the Metelli gave this physician a fat present each Saturnalia and he attended us at need. By law, physicians in Rome, like lawyers, could not charge fees for their services.

“He’d arrived by the time I got to Celer. My husband was having great difficulty breathing and his face was turning blue, as if he were choking, but that was not the case. He felt Celer’s belly and said something about paralysis of the diaphragm and tried to sound very wise, but I could see that he had no idea what to do.”

Ariston. Another man to see. Before this was over I was going to have to talk to everyone who had been in Rome that day. I might have to make a tour of the provinces, to find those who had left. This was getting more complicated, and it had started out complicated enough.

“When did Celer die?” I asked her.

“Just before nightfall. His breath grew more and more labored, until he stopped breathing entirely just after the sun set.”

So much for spectacular symptoms. “If he had been a bit older,” I said, “or in less than perfect health, there would be little suspicion of poisoning.”

“Of course there would be!” she said, revealing for the first time the strain under which she lay. “Because I am his wife! When a prominent man dies and it is not because of age, violence, or a recognizable disease, poisoning and witchcraft are always suspected. As it happens, his wife was a scandalous woman. Everybody knows how he and Clodius hated each other, and that I have always supported my brother. Hence, I must be the poisoner.”

“I won’t be hypocritical and pretend I think you incapable of such a crime,” I said. “Nor that I think you wouldn’t do it without a qualm if you thought you had sufficient reason. It’s just that there are so many candidates that you are not even at the top of the list. Clodius, Flavius, and Pompey had plenty of motive, and they are just the three most prominent.”

“Yes, but they are men!” Clodia said. “Everyone thinks they would have murdered him in an open and respectable manner, with swords or daggers or clubs. Poison is supposed to be the weapon of women or contemptible foreigners.” She was beginning to get wrought up. “And I am a scandalous woman! I speak my mind in public, no matter who is listening. I keep company with poets and charioteers and actors. I indulge in religious practices not countenanced by the state. I pick my slaves personally, right in the public market, and I wear gowns forbidden by the censors. Of course I must have poisoned my husband!”

“You forgot to mention incest with your brother,” I pointed out.

“That is just one of the rumors. I was speaking of the things I actually do. The truth is, it doesn’t take much to be a scandalous woman in Rome; and if you are guilty of one impropriety, then you must be capable of anything.”

I shook my head. “Clodia, what you say is true enough of Sempronia and the elder Fulvia and a few others. They are just unconventional and have a taste for low company and are public about it. I happen to know from personal experience that you are capable of murder.”

She held my gaze for a few seconds, then lowered her eyes. “I had no reason to poison Celer. He wasn’t a bad husband, as such things go. He didn’t pretend that our marriage was anything more than a political arrangement, and he allowed me to do as I pleased. After the third year, when he was satisfied that I was not going to bear him any children, he no longer objected to any men I cared to see.”

“He was a model of toleration.”

“We would have reached an amicable divorce soon anyway. He was looking for a suitable woman. I wouldn’t have killed him for his property. He left me nothing, nor did I expect him to. I had no reason to kill him, Decius.”

“At least now you’re not pretending that you don’t care whether I believe you.”

“It isn’t that I prize your good opinion. Do you know the punishment for venificium?”

“No, but I’m sure it’s something awful.”

”Deportatio in insula,” she said, her face bleak. “The poisoner is taken to an island and left there, with no means of escape. The island chosen is always exceedingly small, without population or cultivated plants, and with little or no freshwater. I made inquiries. Most last only days. There is a report of one wretch who lasted several years by licking the dew from the rocks in the morning and prying shellfish up with her bare fingers and eating them raw. She was sighted by passing ships for a long time, howling and raving at them from the waterline. She was quite a horrid sight toward the end, when her snaky white hair almost completely covered her.” She was quiet for a few moments, sipping at her Massic.

“Of course,” she added, “that was just some peasant herb woman. I would not wait to be carried off. I am a patrician, after all.”

I stood. “I will see what I can do, Clodia. If someone poisoned Celer, I will find out who it was. If I find that it was you, that is how I will report it to the praetor.”

She managed a very small, tight smile. “Ah, I can see that I’ve snared you with my feminine wiles again.”

I shrugged. “I’m not an utter fool, Clodia. When I was a child, like most children, I burned myself on a hot stove. That taught me to be wary of hot stoves. But while I was young I still burned myself through incaution. Now I am careful of approaching even a cold stove.”

She got up laughing. Then she took my arm and led me from the room. “Decius, you are not as adept at striking down your enemies as a hero should be. But you may just outlive them all.”

Hermes met me at the door and an aged janitor let us out. Apparently the beautiful youth was just for show. This one wore a plain bronze neck ring and wasn’t even chained to the doorpost. As usual I refused a torch, and we stood outside for a few minutes, allowing our eyes to adjust. In a sense, Clodia’s words have proven to be prophetic. I have outlived all of my enemies but one. The problem is, I outlived all my friends but one as well.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked Hermes as we made our way back toward the Subura.

“There’s hardly a slave in the place who was there when Celer died. Clodia didn’t like his slaves because they weren’t pretty enough, and she sent them off to his country estates. Most of them she bought since he died. Some of her personal slaves were there at the time, but it was like the two of them lived in different houses and their staffs didn’t mix much.”

“Well, you can’t expect slaves to speak readily about a murder in the house.”

“Can you blame them?” Hermes asked. “I think they’re happy that Clodia is the suspect, because if she weren’t, it might be one of them. Then every slave in the house might be crucified.”

Rome has some truly barbarous laws, and that is one of them.

The moonlight was tolerable and the route was familiar. We would simply work our way downhill to the Suburan Street and thence continue downhill into the valley between the Esquiline and the Viminal, where my house lay. I was steady enough, having moderated my intake of wine for a change. In such a place and in such company I knew better than to incapacitate myself. I wasn’t truly worried about being poisoned, not much.

It was not terribly late. Here and there people wended their way home from late parties, their torches winking like lost spirits among the narrow alleys and tall apartment buildings. A fat man passed by us, weaving, supported on each side by a slave boy. An ivy wreath sat askew on his bald head, and he sang an old Sabine drinking song. I envied someone who could carouse so carelessly these days.

An odd religious procession passed by, with much wailing and clashing of cymbals and tootling of flutes. It might have been a wedding or a funeral or a premature celebration of the coming solstice. Rome is full of foreign religions and strange little cults.

Everywhere people were working late into the night decorating their houses and public squares for Saturnalia, hanging wreaths, painting over the malediction graffiti on the walls, and replacing them with good-wish slogans, heaping small offerings before neighborhood shrines, even washing down the streets.

“That’s a marvel worth traveling all the way from Rhodes to see,” I commented.

“The decorations?” Hermes asked.

“No. Clean streets in Rome. I …” That was when I noticed we had followers.

“Well, it’s only for one day.” Back then, Saturnalia was celebrated for only a single day, not for three, as recently decreed by the First Citizen. “I’m looking forward to … what’s wrong?”

“Eyes front, keep on walking as you were,” I ordered him. “We’ve acquired some admirers.” My hand went inside my tunic and gripped my dagger. I chided myself for not carrying my caestus as well. A metal-reinforced punch is a great help in a street fight, and it is always unexpected.

The question was: What did these men want? I knew there were at least two. Did they want to rob me? Kill me? Or were they just out for some fun? All three were reasonable expectations. Any well-dressed man was a target for thieves, especially after dark. I was engaged in a rather murky investigation involving a number of people who seldom hesitated to kill anyone they found inconvenient. And there were always those amusement seekers who found the sight of blood and teeth on the street infinitely pleasing. Ordinarily, thieves and bullies were easily discouraged by the prospect of armed resistance. Hired killers might take more persuading.

“I see two,” I remarked. “Do you see any more?”

Furtively, Hermes glanced around. “Not much light. It’s the two behind us, isn’t it? The ones pretending to be drunk?”

“That’s right.” Somehow, sober men can seldom imitate drunks convincingly, unless they are trained mimes.

“No, I don’t see any others.”

“Good.” We were nearing my home. “When we get to the shrine of Ops on the corner, I want you to dash ahead and get the gate open. Be ready to shut and bar it behind me when I come through.”

“Right,” he said, relieved that I wasn’t asking him to stand and fight.

As we neared my house the two “drunks” behind us began to walk more quickly, losing their wobbly gait in the process. The moment we passed the corner shrine, Hermes broke into a sprint and I hurried after him, considerably hampered by my toga. I would have cast it aside, but a good toga is ruinously expensive. Besides, the cumbersome garment is not without its uses in a brawl. I almost made it to my gate before they caught up to me. When I sensed they were within arm’s reach, I whirled, unwilling to risk a knife in my back as I went through the gate.

My move was unexpected and they checked their pursuit, almost skidding on the cobbles. Even so, the one on the right barely escaped impaling himself on the dagger I held out at full extension. Both men had knives in their hands, short sicas curved like the tusk of a boar. While the two stood disconcerted, I whipped off my toga and whirled it, wrapping my left forearm with a thick pad and leaving a couple of feet of it dangling below.

“What will it be, citizens?” I asked. “Shall we play or would you rather walk away in one piece?” As usual, frustration and puzzlement had put me in just the right mood for a brawl. Sometimes I am amazed that I survived those days.

They hadn’t been expecting this, which meant they didn’t know my reputation. Both men wore short tunics, the exomis that leaves one shoulder and half the chest bare. Both had identical scrubby beards and pointed, brimmed felt caps. In a word: peasants.

“Leave off this snooping, Metellus,” said the one on the right, waving his blade at me.

“Get out of Rome and leave be,” said the other. They had an accent I had heard before but could not quite place. But then, every village in Latium, even those within a few miles of Rome, spoke its own distinctly accented brand of Latin.

“Who sent you?” I asked. The one on the left tried to slide in, but I snapped a corner of my toga at his eyes and took advantage of the distraction to cut the other one, nicking him lightly on the hand. The left-hand peasant got over his surprise and took a cut at me. He was creditably skillful but not quite fast enough. I blocked with my impromptu shield and punched him in the nose with my wool-wrapped fist. The other slashed toward my flank, but I jumped back and evaded the stroke. They weren’t as unskilled as their appearance suggested. If they got their attack coordinated, I knew, they would get to me soon.

“Back off, you louts!” The cry came from behind me and a second later Hermes was beside me, my army gladius in his right hand, the moonlight gleaming along its lethal edges. “You two may be terrors in your home village, but you’re in the big city now!” He grinned and twirled the sword in his hand, an excellent act, considering he had no slightest knowledge of swordplay. But he loved to hang around Milo’s thugs, and he knew their moves.

Now thoroughly disconcerted, the two backed away. “Stop poking into things as don’t concern you, Metellus,” said one of the rustic gemini. “If you don’t, there’ll be more of us back soon. Leave Rome now, if you want to live.” With that, the two backed to the end of the block, then turned and darted around the corner and were gone.

“That was well done, Hermes,” I said, as we walked the few steps to my gate. “I really must get you enrolled in the ludus. I think you’ll do well.”

“When I saw it was just a couple of bumpkins that had ridden into town on a turnip wagon, I ran to get your sword,” Hermes said. “What was that all about?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I told him. “Clodius would have sent trained killers. Clodia would have poisoned me. All my enemies have competent murderers for their dirty work. Who sends hayseed bullies from the hills?”

We went inside and barred the gate. Cato and Cassandra stood there, blinking, wakened by the commotion from a sound sleep. “What is it, Master?” Cato asked shakily.

“A couple of cutthroats,” I told him, holding my toga out to Cassandra. “There may be some cuts in need of reweaving.”

She took it, yawning. “I hope there aren’t any bloodstains this time. That’s always the hard part, getting the blood out.”

“None of mine,” I assured her. “But I punched one of them in the nose and he may have bled on it.”

“Who cares whose blood it is?” she grumbled. “Blood’s blood.”

Yes, my tearful welcome home was definitely a thing of the past.