The Tribune's curse

2

"Dinner at Fausta’s!” Julia said, still delighted with the prospect. “You haven’t wasted your day entirely if you’ve arranged that!” She sat at her vanity table while her handmaid, a sly, devious girl named Cypria, applied her cosmetics.

“We were invited by Milo,” I reminded her, nettled as always that she barely tolerated my old friend, who had been a humble galley rower, while Fausta was a patrician of the Cornelians, the equal of the Julians. “And he’s the most important man in Rome.” The consuls that year were busy with their other projects, leaving the praetor urbanus the man with the real power.

“For this year only,” she said, reminding me that a magistracy is for a year, while noble birth is forever.

“You’re being uncommonly snobbish today,” I said.

She swiveled on her stool, and Cypria began arranging her hair. “Only because I think this friendship between you and Milo will lead to disaster. He may be a successful politician, but he is a criminal and a thug no better than Clodius, and he will get you killed, disgraced, or exiled someday.”

“He has saved my life many times,” I protested.

“After putting it in danger most of those times. He’s a jumped-up nobody and a danger to everyone who has anything to do with him, and I don’t know why Fausta ever married him. I admit he’s handsome, and he can be charming enough when he has a use for you, but that is purely in service of his ambitions.”

“As opposed to your glorious uncle, who has nearly got me killed at least twenty times in the last two years alone?”

She admired herself in her silver mirror. “The dangers of war are honorable, and Caesar wars on behalf of Rome.” Like everybody else, she had taken to calling him by his cognomen alone, as if he were a god or something.

“We’ll discuss this later,” I said, stalking out. I loved Julia dearly, but she worshiped her uncle and wouldn’t recognize his self-seeking, dictatorial ambitions. Also, like most patricians, she talked in front of her slaves as if they weren’t there.

Cato and Cassandra, my own aged slaves, stood in the atrium clucking. I went to investigate. They weren’t much use anymore, but I’d known them all my life. They stood in the door looking out into the street, shaking their heads.

“What is it?” I asked them.

“Look what she’s hired,” Cassandra said.

I peered out over their shoulders and grunted as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Just outside the gate was a litter draped in pale green silk covered with Scythian embroidery done in gold thread. Squatting by its polished ebony poles were four black Nubians, a matched set, wearing Egyptian kilts and headdresses.

“Have they arrived?” Julia said from behind me.

“They have,” I said, not wanting my slaves to hear me upbraiding her, although they knew perfectly well what was going through my head. “You look lovely, my dear.”

And indeed she did. Julia had great natural beauty, and she knew how to enhance it. Besides that, she had the patrician bearing that makes its possessor seem taller and more stately, and her gown was made of the infamous Coan cloth, although it was multilayered to avoid the transparency that outraged the Censors.

We went outside and climbed into the litter, which was furnished with plump cushions stuffed with goose down and fragrant herbs. The bearers lifted the poles to their brawny shoulders and bore us off so smoothly that it was like floating. Hermes and Cypria walked behind us. Once in a while I could hear them trading barbed remarks in the slang used by slaves. They didn’t get along well.

“Julia,” I said, “with the expenses of the aedileship facing us, why did you hire this pretentious conveyance? It must cost more than our regular household expenses for a week.”

“That is a vulgar consideration, Decius,” she said. “I hired it because we are calling on Fausta.” She shot me a sidelong glance. “And on the praetor urbanus, of course. We would be doing our distinguished hosts little credit if we were to arrive in some rickety old litter covered with patched linen and carried by spavined, mismatched slaves. You must live up to the dignity of the office you seek, my dear.”

“As you say, my love,” I said, conceding defeat. With Julia, winning an argument was usually far more painful than losing.

The Nubians deposited us in the narrow street before the massive door of Milo’s house. The moment I stepped from the litter, I saw the effect of Fausta’s renovations. The entire block of apartments facing that side of the house was gone. Instead, the other side of the street featured a beautifully landscaped park, complete with fountains and pools in which swans paddled contentedly.

“What happened here?” I said, gasping. “Was there a fire?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Julia informed me. “Fausta thought this dingy neighborhood was too cramped, so she had some of the tenements demolished. Milo already owned them, anyway. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It’s pretty enough,” I admitted. “But his whole point in putting the main door on this side was that the street was too narrow for his enemies to use a battering ram against it. They could build a siege tower in that park.”

“It’s worth putting up with a little danger to live with proper dignity. Come along, the guests are gathering.”

We went inside, and a whole horde of pretty young slaves of both sexes swarmed around us, draping our necks with wreaths of flowers, placing chaplets around our brows, anointing our hands with perfume, and scattering rose petals before us. This was another change. I’d never seen anyone but strong-arm men in Milo’s house before. His lictors had been dismissed for the evening, but the six fasces were ranged on stands by the door in token of his imperium.

The atrium was changed as well. Fausta had knocked three or four rooms into one huge one, and had raised the ceiling as well and added a window of many small panes above the door to admit the sunlight that was now available owing to the demolition of the buildings across the street. The walls were painted with wonderful frescoes depicting mythological subjects, and the floor was covered with picture mosaics of outdoor scenes. Picture mosaics were a new fashion, introduced by the Egyptian ambassador. Around the periphery of the room were statues of ancestors. Her ancestors, not his.

“Have you ever seen such an improvement?” Julia asked me.

“It’s-different,” I admitted.

“Fausta brought me here when she began the renovations.” She shook her head. “As if Milo really expected her to live in that dark old fortress! I came to visit often while the work was going on. It gave me no end of ideas.”

I felt the first, small ticklings of trepidation. Fausta was a Cornelian, and Julia was a Julian, and Julia would have to go Fausta one better. At the very thought I began to tremble.

“Ah, my dear, you realize that it may be quite some time before we can expect to live on such a scale-”

She giggled, covering her mouth with a palm fan to do so. “Oh, Decius, of course I know that! These things take time. But sooner or later you must inherit from your father, and of course Caesar will favor you after your service with him, and you’ll have a praetorian province before long.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “I know that it will be four, maybe five years before we can have a place like this. Come on, let’s see the rest!” Going shaky in the knees, I followed her.

We were headed for the impluvium when Fausta found us. She and Julia went through the customary embrace and exchange of compliments while I dawdled, wishing Milo would show up. Fausta was as golden blond as a German princess, one of the few Roman women who came by the look naturally. Her gown was likewise of Coan cloth, and it was of a single, transparent layer, but Fausta had the bearing to get away with it. She carried herself so regally that she could walk through a room naked and only after she was gone would anyone realize it.

“Come along,” Fausta said. “I’ve finally got the impluvium stocked. You must see it.” We followed her beneath an archway and into a vast area open to the sky. She had gutted the whole four-story structure and remodeled it. Where before there had been a vertical air shaft faced with windows of upper rooms, she had stepped each floor back from the one below so that now there were three balconies like theater seats built for gods. From each balcony were draped huge garlands, and upon them stood giant vases from which sprang colorful flowers and even small trees. Along the railings roosted pigeons and even peacocks, and incense burned in dozens of bronze braziers.

A change as great had been wrought on the floor. Before, there had been a modest catch-basin for rainwater. Now there was a veritable lake, and its pungent scent astonished me.

“Is this seawater?” I asked. “Exactly,” Fausta affirmed. “It’s so tiresome having sea fish brought all the way up from Ostia on barges, and it’s never really fresh when it arrives. I have the water brought up in casks. It has to be renewed frequently, but it’s worth the effort. I get so tired of river fish.”

I could see a variety of marine life disporting beneath the surface: mullets, tunny fish, eels, even squid. The water wasn’t perfectly clear, but I could see that the bottom was another mosaic, this one a colossal figure of Neptune in his shell chariot drawn by hippocampi. His hair and beard were the traditional blue, the trappings of his chariot and the head of his trident gilded with pure gold leaf. I saw a wading slave armed with a similar, but more prosaic, trident. The weapon darted out, and he pulled it back with a wriggling tunny fish impaled on the tines. The onlookers applauded as if he’d speared a lion in the Circus. Around the periphery, other slaves plied the water with eel forks.

“Can’t ask for anything fresher than that,” I said, my stomach rumbling with anticipation. I knew that Julia would have to have a pond just like it, only bigger, but I was willing to worry about it later. I could see that Milo’s previously Spartan concept of dining had gone the way of everything else.

“Decius,” Julia said, “Fausta is going to show me her new wardrobe. Do try to stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble? What sort of trouble could I get into in a place like this?” Julia rolled her eyes in exasperation and went off arm in arm with Fausta. Sometimes I had the feeling that my wife didn’t trust me.

The place was thronged with guests and their attendants, and I was delighted to see that Fausta hadn’t chosen the entire guest list. I saw Lisas, the seemingly perpetual ambassador from Egypt who had been in Rome as long as I could remember. He had a slave supporting him on either side, not because he was drunk but because he was so obese. His outrageous practices and unique perversions had been the subject of gossip for a couple of generations, but he was one of the most jovial and gregarious men I ever knew, which is just what you want in an ambassador.

Young Antonius arrived, already slightly tipsy, and began flirting with all women present, slave or free. I knew him slightly, and he waved to me with his wine cup. He was one of those ridiculously handsome, personable young men who never fear to do or say anything that comes into their heads, because they know they are universally adored and will always be forgiven.

I grabbed a cup from a passing server and began looking for Milo. I found his assembly room, which was filled with his thugs, all of them decently attired for a change, eating and playing games at long tables. Hermes was among them, playing knucklebones and probably losing. The walls were decorated with chariot races and animal hunts and gladiator fights, subjects dear to the hearts of Milo’s men but undoubtedly not chosen by the lady of the house. The grand families happily sponsored the Games, but they considered them far too vulgar to be fit subjects for domestic ornament.

These men all knew me, and I was the recipient of much backslapping and congratulation and well-wishing. Should Milo and I ever fall out, they would cut my throat with equal enthusiasm, but until then they were my boon companions. Plus, they knew that someday I might be judging them in court, and it is always wise to be on good terms with a man who could send you to the mines or the lions or set you free at his whim.

“Decius! Welcome!” I turned and at last saw Milo coming through a side door. He clapped me on the shoulder, and, as always, I braced myself for a shock. He used no force, naturally, but the reaction was instinctive to one who knew how powerful he was. He had the strongest hands I ever encountered on a human being and could break a man’s jaw with an open-hand slap. I had seen him, on a bet, tie a horseshoe into a knot with the fingers of one hand.

“The changes here have been-remarkable, Titus,” I said.

“Has Fausta been showing you how she’s ruining me?” His grin was rueful.

“Only a part, and it frightens me to see the look it puts in Julia’s eye. How are you going to curb her extravagance when you go to govern your province?” We still had a rule that a promagistrate’s wife had to stay in Rome while he was abroad.

He grimaced. “I don’t plan to go. I’m like you, Decius: I don’t want to leave Rome. I’ll follow Pompey’s example and send my legate to run the place and send me the money. It’s the only way I’ll ever keep up with her. Come along, let’s eat. I’m famished!”

I went with him into the triclinium, which had been remodeled on a scale with the rest of the house. It was large enough for full-sized banquets, and for that evening it had been laid out with places for at least eighteen guests instead of the usual nine, apparently on the chance that each guest would bring along a friend, which was permitted under the newly loosened rules of etiquette.

Another departure from tradition was that the women reclined at the table along with the men, instead of sitting on chairs. I almost wished Cato could be there so that I could enjoy the shocked look on his face.

Julia came up to me, trailed by her maidservant. “Aren’t these paintings wonderful?”

I studied them for a few moments. They depicted the banquets of the gods, with Jupiter taking his cup from Ganymede, Venus winking across the table at a sour-faced Mars, Vulcan enchanting his mechanical servitors, and all the rest of the company having a high old time while the Graces danced for them.

“Well,” I said, “if Fausta gets tired of the guests, she can just look at the walls and feel she’s among equals.”

Julia swatted me with her fan, laughing. “You’re incorrigible. She’s put me next to that fat Egyptian. I hope he doesn’t try anything disgusting.”

“Just put up with him,” I advised. “He can only dream. He’s long past carrying out any of his intentions. Besides, he’s one of my favorite people in Rome. And he’s incredibly useful and a veritable mine of gossip. If Lisas hasn’t heard about it, either it didn’t happen, or it isn’t going to.”

“I’ll see what I can get out of him.”

She wandered off, and I was led to my place. I flopped down, and Hermes took my sandals and settled himself to wait on me, a duty he hated. I saw that there were seventeen places occupied, the place traditionally called the “consul’s place” being left vacant, as it always was in a praetor’s house, just in case a consul should decide to show up.

I was delighted to see that the man on my right was none other than Publilius Syrus, who was quickly winning a place for himself as Rome’s most famous actor, playwright, and impresario. On my other side was Caius Messius, a plebeian aedile that year who had celebrated an uncommonly fine Floralia.

“This is extraordinarily lucky,” I said to Syrus. “I’ve been meaning to look you up, since I’ll be aedile next year.”

“Spoken like a true Metellus,” said Messius. “Already planning your ludi, and you haven’t even been elected yet. Well, you can’t pick a better man to arrange your theatricals than Syrus. The plays he put on for me went over wonderfully. My election to the praetorship is assured.”

“I have two new dramas in the works,” Syrus told me. “And six short comedies.”

“Nothing about Troy, I hope. That war’s been done to death.” Even worse, Caesar had been secretly hiring poets and playwrights to write about Aeneas, on the pretext that Caesar’s family, the gens Julia, were descended from Julus, son of Aeneas. And the grandmother of Julus was none other than the goddess Venus herself. We had all been blissfully unaware of the divine ancestry of Caesar until he decided to tell us about it.

“One of the dramas concerns the death of Hannibal, the other the deeds of Mucius Scaevola.”

“Those sound like safe, patriotic themes,” I said. “Right now, anything about a foreign war looks like a reference to Caesar or Gabinius or Crassus. What about the comedies? I don’t suppose you have anything that would poke fun at Clodius, do you?”

His smile was a bit strained. “I have to live in this city too, you know.”

“Oh, well, forget it. I suppose the usual satyrs, nymphs, cowardly soldiers, conniving slaves, and cuckolded husbands will do well enough.”

“I have a good one about King Ptolemy of Egypt,” he said. “You know he came here last year, begging for money and support?”

“So I heard. I’ll never understand how the king of the world’s richest nation is always a pauper. But Gabinius put him back on his throne. It’s not about him, is it?” The last thing I wanted to do was spend my money to help out someone else’s reputation. Or even worse, risk making an enemy of a powerful man.

“No, this is about his coming here to beg before the Senate. Only I have him going about from door to door in the poorest parts of town, dressed in rags with a bowl in his hand, followed by a troop of slaves to carry his wine sacks. I’ve contrived a device that lets him drain the wine sacks one after another, right on stage.”

I laughed heartily at the thought. I knew Ptolemy and his feats of wine-drinking were little short of what the actor described. “That sounds good. Go ahead with it. Egyptians are always good for laughs.” Of course, we thought all foreigners were funny, but I didn’t say that to Publilius, who, as his name attests, came from Syria.

“I recommend the new Aemilian Theater,” Syrus said. “Have you seen it?”

“Not yet,” I admitted. This was built the year before by the same Aemilius Scaurus whose baths I had enjoyed that afternoon. “Is it on the same scale as his new baths?”

“It’s larger than Pompey’s Theater,” Syrus said. “Made of wood, but the decoration is unbelievably lavish, and it hasn’t had time to deteriorate. Besides, Pompey’s was damaged during his triumphal Games. The elephants stampeded and broke a lot of the stonework, and when he had a town burned on stage, the proscenium caught fire. The damage is still visible.”

“Besides,” Messius said, “Pompey’s Theater will remind everyone of Pompey, and it’s topped by a temple to Venus Genetrix, and that’ll remind people of Caesar. Go with the Aemilian, and then all you’ll have to worry about is a fire breaking out and cooking half the voters. It’ll hold eighty thousand people.”

“Plus,” Syrus added, “most people won’t have to walk as far. Pompey’s is out on the Campus Martius, while the Aemilian’s right on the river by the Sublician Bridge.”

“I’m sold,” I said. “The Aemilian it is.” About that time the first course arrived, and we applied ourselves to it, and to those that followed. I was forced to admit that perfectly fresh sea fish was a rare treat in Rome, where the catch was usually at least a day old by the time it reached the City. These fish and eels were practically still gasping.

We were tearing into the dessert when there was a commotion in the atrium. A moment later a small knot of men came into the triclinium. One of them was none other than Marcus Licinius Crassus. Milo sprang to his feet.

“Consul, welcome! You do my house honor!” He rushed to the old man’s side and led him to the place of honor with his own hand.

“Nonsense, Praetor Urbanus,” Crassus said, apparently in high good humor. “I’m just making a few calls after dinner with the Pontifical College. We’ve been meeting all day, and I’m bored out of my mind. I can only stay a short while.”

“Stay until you depart for the East. My house is yours,” Milo said, magnanimously. He clapped his hands, and the consul’s place was immediately loaded with sweetmeats and iced wine. If Milo was being more than correct in receiving a consul, Fausta was not. She looked on with a coolness bordering contempt.

For my own part, I was shocked. This was the first close look I’d had of Crassus since returning to Rome, and the deterioration since I had last beheld him was marked. His color was high, but only in the cheeks and nose, and that only from the wine. Otherwise, his complexion was gray and deeply lined. His white hair was falling out in patches, and the cords of his neck stood out beneath his chin wattles like lyre strings. The neck itself was scrawny, and upon it his head wobbled like a ball floating upon agitated water.

“Won’t be long now,” Crassus said. “My legions will drive King Orodes of Parthea and his cowardly, savage horsemen to ground, and we’ll bag the lot! Takes more than arrows to frighten Roman soldiers, eh?”

“Of course, you have our heartiest wishes for a swift victory, Consul,” Milo said warmly, managing to keep his smile intact. Most of us shouted traditional congratulations. Even I managed a weak cheer.

Crassus contrived a lopsided, fatuous smile, as if he’d already won. “I’ll bring Orodes home in golden chains and give Rome such a triumph as will make everyone forget Pompey and Lucullus and all the rest!” He raised his cup, slopping wine over his beringed hand. “Death to the Parthians!”

We returned the toast as if we meant it, covering our embarrassment with a lot of old battle slogans. Crassus seemed satisfied with this and nodded away as a slave dried off his hand.

“Jupiter protect us!” I whispered. “Is this really what we are going to send to command an army?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Messius in a voice as low. “At least, he will if he ever leaves the City.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard that a number of influential men have sworn to prevent him from going to join his army when he steps down from office. They say they’ll restrain him by force if need be.”

“I won’t say it’s a bad idea,” I told him, “but I don’t see how they can do that lawfully.”

“People who fear a catastrophe don’t worry much about fine points of law. They may whip up the Plebeian Assembly to stop him by mob action.”

He was speaking of the tribunes, of course. They were the ones who had the greatest influence with that body, and of all the year’s officials, Gallus and Ateius were the most venomously opposed to the Parthian war. This could mean blood on the streets again.

“What about that other one who got the law passed giving Crassus the command? Was it Trebonius?” I asked.

Messius nodded. “He was the only one among the tribunes who was really for the war, but with Crassus’s money and Pompey’s prestige behind him, one was enough. He managed to line up all the other tribunes except the two who’re in the Forum every day. All the rest are a pack of timeservers who’ve spent the year dawdling over the minutiae of Caesar’s agrarian laws and the doings of the land commissioners.” He was referring to one of the burning issues of the day: a series of proposed reforms that were unendingly controversial at the time but are incredibly boring even to think about now.

Crassus chatted with Milo, and the rest of us returned to our small talk. When the dinner was concluded, we strolled about the renovated house, socializing and gossiping. I soon found fat old Lisas by the salt pool, talking with a sturdy-looking young man of soldierly bearing. The genial old pervert greeted me with a welcoming smile.

“Decius Caecilius, my old friend! I’ve just spent the most enjoyable evening speaking with your lovely and most noble wife. Have you met young Caius Cassius?”

“I don’t believe so.” I took the young man’s hand. His direct blue eyes were set in a blocky face of hard planes, burned dark by exposure. He had the thick neck common to wrestlers and to those who train seriously for warfare, developed by wearing a helmet every day from boyhood on.

“The martial young gentleman accompanies Crassus to Parthia,” Lisas said. “I have been telling him what I know of the place and the people.”

“The honorable ambassador warns me not to underestimate the Parthians,” Cassius said. “He says that they are more warlike than we imagine and treacherous in their dealings.” He spoke with an earnestness rare in Romans of his generation. It went well with his soldierly bearing.

“For a people recently settled down from a nomadic existence, they are sophisticated,” Lisas said. “They are cunning in the art of horseback archery, and one should always beware their invitations to parley.”

“I don’t expect that they’ll have any cause to parley except when they surrender,” Cassius said. “The bow hasn’t been made that can send a shaft through a Roman shield, and they can ride around all they like. Sooner or later, they’ll have to come to close quarters to decide the issue, and that’s when we’ll finish them.”

“This is what we all hope,” Lisas said, none too confidently.

“What will be your capacity?” I asked Cassius.

“Military tribune. I was sponsored by Lucullus and confirmed by the Senate.”

Military tribune in those days was a most ambiguous position, a sort of trying-out stage for a young man embarking upon a public career. He might spend the campaign running errands at headquarters. But if he proved promising and capable, he could be granted an important command. All was at the discretion of the general.

“You have my heartiest wishes for a successful and glorious campaign,” I said, with some sincerity. It wasn’t his fault that he was to be commanded by one of the men I most despised.

“I thank you. And now, if you will give me leave, I must go pay my respects to the consul.” He departed, and as he went, I felt cheered to know that we still produced dutiful young men. Because of his later notoriety Cassius’s part in the Parthian war came into question, but as far as I was concerned, any officer who brought himself and his men out of that fiasco alive had my admiration, and I never really lost respect for him.

“An excellent young nobleman,” Lisas said. “One could wish that he had a worthier commander.”

“Don’t tell me you’re against the Parthian war, too,” I said, snagging a full cup from a passing tray.

He shrugged his fat shoulders, and his slaves stood by, alert lest he should topple. “Elimination of Parthia would mean one less threat to Egypt. Were the Roman forces to be commanded by General Pompey, or Gabinius, or even Caesar, busy as that gentleman is, I would have no objection.”

“Surely you don’t object because Crassus is in his dotage?” I said. Ptolemy Auletes remained in power through Roman support, but I suspected that a slightly weaker Rome would be to his liking.

“You are unaware, perhaps, of the consul’s activities when my sovereign master, the most glorious King Ptolemy, was here in Rome almost from the time you departed until last year?”

I had some vague memory of letters mentioning something at the time, but I had been so diverted by terror for my own life that scandals in the capital interested me very little. “I’m afraid not. Will you tell me?”

“Gladly. When King Ptolemy came almost three years ago to petition the Senate for the restoration of his throne, that august body was at first more than sympathetic in hearing his suit.”

“Support for the House of Ptolemy has been a cornerstone of Roman policy for generations,” I said, pouring on the oil.

“And our esteem for Rome acknowledges few boundaries. Alas, Marcus Licinius Crassus proved to be less than wholehearted in his enthusiasm. Before the Senate, he questioned whether, with so many other military projects already undertaken, Rome should shoulder the burden of a campaign to replace Ptolemy upon the throne.”

“The question was reasonable,” I said. “We are stretched rather thin, militarily speaking.”

“With this I am in full concurrence,” he said smoothly. “However, I fear that Crassus resorted to unscrupulous means to reinforce his argument.”

“Unscrupulous?” Roman politicians of the day were accustomed to employ means to gain their ends that would have shocked Greeks. And that was when they were dealing with their fellow Romans. When foreigners were concerned, few limits were observed.

“In his capacity as augur and pontifex, he demanded that the Sibylline Books be consulted.”

This was a droll development even to my jaded sensibilities. “He consulted the old books? That’s only done in national emergencies, or when the gods seem to be dangerously displeased with us-lightning striking a great temple or something like that. I never heard of them being consulted on a foreign-policy decision.”

“Just so. Yet he did exactly that. He claimed to have discovered a passage warning against giving aid to the king of Egypt.”

“A moment,” I said, holding up a forestalling hand. “You say he claimed to have discovered it? I am not an expert on sacerdotal matters, but it is my impression that the keeping and interpretation of the books are entrusted to a college of fifteen priests, the quinquidecemviri.”

“And so they are.” He looked morosely down into the depths of his cup. “It seems that Crassus has means to get what he wants.” A polite way of saying that he bribed the priests.

“Oh, well,” I said, “Ptolemy is firmly back on the throne again, thanks to Gabinius.”

“An excellent man. But now Rome is going to have an army in the East commanded by a man who is no friend of the royal house of Egypt.” Meaning that, should Crassus have to call upon Ptolemy for aid, it would be very slow in coming. It was a diplomatic nugget of potential value, and it meant that Lisas was cultivating me in what I hoped was a friendly fashion. I thanked him and went to look for Milo.

I was not as shocked as I should have been. I never regarded the Sibylline Books with any great awe except for their antiquity. They were a foreign import dating from the days of the kings, in extremely antiquated language and couched in the customary obscure double-talk employed by sibyls and seers everywhere. On top of that, the original books had burned in a temple fire many years before, and they had been pieced together by consulting sibyls all over the world, and I had some doubts as to their similarity to the originals. The priesthood was not among the most prestigious.

I was skeptical of the value of sibyls and oracles generally, although most people believed in them implicitly. If you have something to say, why speak in riddles? Still, it was uncommonly brazen effrontery to falsify a sibylline consultation. But who was more brazen than Crassus? Even as I thought these things, the man himself appeared before me.

“Decius Caecilius! Allow me to be first to congratulate you on your election!” He grasped my hand and clapped me warmly on the shoulder, a sure sign that he wanted something from me. I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

“You are being a bit precipitate, but thank you anyway.”

“Nonsense. We both know you’re going to win, Metellus that you are, eh?” He grinned, a ghastly sight that exposed teeth as long as my fingers.

“Ah, so rumor has it.” I had always disliked and feared Crassus, but this senile attempt at geniality was doubly unsettling. The Senate was full of dotty old men, but we didn’t entrust the fate of legions to them.

“Exactly, exactly. Not a cheap office, aedile. Games, upkeep of the streets, walls, and gates-they’re in shocking disrepair, you know. Next year is going to be a bad one on the aediles. Several of them have already come to me to help them with the burden.”

“And I am sure that you received them with your famed generosity.” He was as well-known for miserliness as for wealth, and he never turned a sestertius loose without expecting a fat return. Naturally, the irony sailed right past him.

“As always, as always, my boy. And I could do as much for you.”

This was getting to be the theme of the day. The prospect was not made less tempting through repetition. I longed to grasp at it, but the repulsion Crassus always inspired in me made me draw back.

“But then you would expect my support in the Senate for your war, Marcus Licinius.”

He nodded. “Naturally.”

“But I oppose it. At least the Gauls and the Germans gave Caesar some slight excuse to make war on them. The Parthians have done nothing.”

He looked honestly puzzled. “What of that? They’re rich.” Always a good-enough reason for Crassus and his like.

“Call me old-fashioned, Consul, but I think Rome was a better state when we only made war to protect ourselves and our allies, and to honor treaty obligations. We’ve filled the City with other people’s wealth and ruined our farmers with a flood of cheap, foreign slaves. I would like to see an end to this.”

He leered hideously. “You are living in the past, Decius. I am far older than you, and I remember no such Rome. My own grandfather did not serve such a Rome. The wars with Carthage taught us that the biggest wolf with the sharpest teeth rules the pack. If we cease warring long enough for a single generation to grow up in peace, our teeth will grow dull and a younger, fiercer wolf will eat us.” His voice steadied, and his eyes cleared, and, for a moment, I saw the young Marcus Licinius Crassus who had clawed his way to the top of the Roman heap during the City’s bloodiest and most savage period, the civil wars of Marius and Sulla.

“The subjugation of Gaul will provide us with insurrections to put down for many years to come,” I said. “Caesar is even talking about an expedition to Britannia.”

“Caesar is still young enough to be thinking about such things. There is still one war to be fought in the East, and I intend to win it and come back to Rome and celebrate my triumph. Other members of your family have not been so delicate in their feelings for foreign kings. I strongly suggest that you consult with the greater men among them before making any unwise decisions. Good evening to you, Metellus!” He snapped out this last in a vicious whisper; then he whirled and stalked off.

I maintained my insouciant pose, but I was all but trembling in my toga. Yes, we still wore togas to dinner parties back then. It was Caesar who introduced the far more comfortable synthesis as acceptable evening wear, and that was only after his stay at Cleopatra’s court. Milo found me standing like that, and he wasn’t fooled. He knew me far better than anyone else, except, perhaps, Julia.

“You look like a man with a viper crawling under his tunic. What did the old man say to you?”

I told him succinctly. I had few secrets from Milo, and we cooperated on most political matters.

“Personally,” he said, “I don’t know why you don’t take him up on it. It really costs you nothing, and he’s sure to die before he makes it back home, no matter how the war goes. His deterioration these last two years has been shocking.”

“Clodius said almost the same thing to me earlier today.”

“Even that little weasel is capable of wisdom from time to time.”

“I’d rather not be known as another of Crassus’s toadies, even if some of the other Caecilians have given in.” My family, although still powerful in the Assemblies, had produced no men of great distinction recently. Metellus Pius was dead and his war against Sertorius all but forgotten. The conquest of Crete by Metellus Creticus really hadn’t amounted to much. The Big Three understood that only recent glory counted for anything.

“It’s a chancy time just now,” he admitted. “It’s hard to know exactly how to maneuver and how to vote. I find it all truly enjoyable, but a few years from now things are going to get vicious. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus will all be heading for Rome and trying for the Dictatorship.”

“They wouldn’t dare!” I protested, with no great conviction.

He smiled indulgently. “Marius dared. Sulla dared. They’ll dare. It’s the main reason I support Cicero so strongly. He’s a strict constitutionalist. If Caesar becomes Dictator, he’ll get rid of me and make Clodius his Master of Horse.” This ancient title meant the Dictator’s number-two man and enforcer.

“And if it’s Crassus or Pompey?”

“Then it’s exile or execution for Clodius and me both. As long as they’re engaged in foreign lands, they need men like us to control the City for them. With the Dictatorship they have it all, and they don’t need us.”

“You’re talking about the death of the Republic,” I said, shivering.

“It’s been dying for a long time, Decius. Now come along. Cast off this gloom. Let’s go talk to my men. Twenty of my best have agreed to fight in your funeral munera for Metellus Celer at a minimum charge, as a favor to me.”

This cheered me, and I tried to shake off my mood of foreboding. Milo had some great retired champions working for him, men who were accustomed to getting huge fees to come out of retirement to fight in special Games. I grabbed another cup as we walked back toward his meeting hall.

“You drank too much again,” Julia informed me as we crawled into our detestably expensive litter.

“Do you think I don’t know that, my dear? It’s been an unsettling evening.”

“You thought so? I had a wonderful time. Fausta has given me so many ideas.”

“I feared that,” I said, pinching the bridge of my long, Metellan nose.

“And Lisas is such an amusing dinner companion. You really must get us an invitation to the next reception at the Egyptian Embassy. I hear it is the most astonishing place.”

“Such an invitation will be forthcoming. Lisas is now cultivating me, even though an aedile has nothing to do with foreign affairs.”

“He knows you’re on your way up,” she said, patting my knee complacently. “So what soured your evening?”

“A little interview with our esteemed consul.” I described our ominous conversation.

“That loathsome creature!”

“Oh, I don’t know, someday I’ll be old and decrepit, too, if the gods grant me a long life.”

“That is not what I mean, and you know it!” she said, swatting me with her fan. “I knew him when I was a little girl, and he was still only middle-aged and relatively handsome. He was loathsome even then, the money-grubbing miser!”

“We can’t all be patricians. As it occurs, I fully agree with your assessment of his character. Years ago, Clodia told me that Roman politics was a game in which all contended against all and there must eventually be one winner.”

“She is an odious woman.”

“But politically astute. It seems to be the general consensus that Crassus is soon to be removed from the playing board. All the rest have died or dropped out except for Caesar and Pompey. I fear civil war in the offing.”

“Nonsense. Pompey is a political dolt, and he has separated himself from his veterans for too long. If Uncle Caius is forced to assume the Dictatorship-which is, I remind you, a constitutional office-I am sure that he will take only whatever measures are necessary to restore the Republic. He will then dismiss his lictors and hand his extraordinary powers back to the Senate, like all our great Dictators of the past.”

So spoke the doting patrician niece. Her pessimistic, plebeian husband was far less confident. But he had many other things on his mind just then.