John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

We went through the long corridor that led from the entrance to the vast courtyard within. There were about a hundred long tables inside beneath a canopy worthy of the Circus where people feasted and watched the entertainment. I was recognized instantly, being a well-known public figure, of course. The madam, an immensely tall woman who emphasized her height by wearing an actor’s buskins and a towering wig, greeted me with a resounding kiss on the cheek.

“Senator Metellus!” she said in a voice that echoed off the walls, “you haven’t honored us with your presence in far too long!” Heads turned from all directions to gape at me. There was a good deal of laughter.

“Ah, yes. Well, as it occurs I’m here on official business. I need to consult with Felix the Wise. Is he here tonight?”

She hooted a great laugh. “Business! Oh, that’s a good one, Senator! Business! Well, all right, I’ll go along with it. Felix usually comes here later in the night. Come along, let’s find you a table and get you something to eat.” We followed her elaborately swaying bottom to a small table near one wall, beneath a fine plane-tree that was hung with colored lanterns made of parchment. Its centerpiece was a wonderfully obscene statuette depicting Ganymede and the eagle.

The madam clapped her hands and servants laid the table with a remarkably fine dinner and a pitcher of first-rate wine. “Senator, can’t you convince Caesar to pay us a visit? It would do me ever so much good with the patrons and it would convince the aediles to accept smaller bribes to leave me alone.”

“Doesn’t he ever come here?” I asked her.

“Never once. Nor to any other lupanar that I ever heard of. Not that I blame him for avoiding them, they’re pigsties. But the Labyrinth is the most illustrious lupanar in the world. Do you suppose those stories about him and old King Nicomedes are true? Well that’s no matter, I have boys of every race and age if that’s to his taste. Or does he just prefer that his whores have patrician pedigrees?” Once again she threw her head back and hooted out her great laugh. “Now Sulla was a proper dictator. Practically lived in the whorehouses and chummed around with actors and entertainers, so my grandmother told me. She was running the Palace of Delight across the river back then.” She sighed. “Those must have been great times.” Another Roman pining for the good old days.

“Perhaps the good times will come again,” I told her. “In the meantime, you’ll just have to be content with being the most stunningly successful madam in the history of Rome.”

“Oh, you’re too kind, Senator. Well, I must toddle off. I’ll send word when Felix gets here. Business, indeed!” She swayed off, laughing and snorting.

So with nothing better to do we set teeth to our dinner, which was better than most great houses could provide. Granted, it was a menu she reserved for her highest ranking guests, but even the ordinary fare was better than you could get at any tavern.

“Rack of venison in wine sauce,” Hermes marveled. “Roast duck stuffed with quail eggs, octopus cooked in ink, poached pears-we must come here more often.”

“She’s buying favor,” I told him. “In case I should be praetor again, or city prefect, or have any of the new titles Caesar is busy inventing. She wants to be safe.”

“What of it?” he said, stuffing his mouth. “We rarely get to eat like this. I don’t anyway. You sometimes get to eat at Caesar’s table.”

“And there I dine miserably,” I informed him. “Caesar cares nothing whatever about food or wine. I don’t think he can even taste them. I’ve seen him pour rancid oil over his eggs and never notice it.” I tore off a rib of venison and it was superb.

“He doesn’t care about food and his only use for women is their pedigrees,” he mused. “What’s wrong with Caesar?”

“Some men care only about power. That’s Caesar. He wants to accomplish things and he has to have power to do so, so he has pursued power with a single-mindedness such as I’ve never seen. It makes him uncomfortable to be around. I prefer a brute sensualist like Antonius. He wants power, but that’s just so he can accumulate more wealth and more women and wine and food and houses. Power to him means things he can taste and feel. To Caesar”-I shrugged-“to Caesar I don’t know what it means. I can’t fathom him.”

By the time we finished dinner the evening’s entertainment had begun: a troupe of actors who played Atellan farces with great energy. Then there were singers and Spanish dancers and tumblers and mimes. Wrestlers and pugilists from the nearby Statilian school put on an exhibition and while these were performing, the madam sent a dwarf to inform us that Felix had arrived. The dwarf was dressed in a stylized burlesque of a gladiator’s outfit, with the addition of a huge stuffed leather phallus protruding in front, painted scarlet and gold.

We rose a bit unsteadily and made our way to the alcove where Felix lorded it over his minions. In Rome proper he would have come to me, but this was his little kingdom so I called upon him. The alcove was lined with huge cushions on which Felix and the others sat with little Arabian tables in front of them.

Felix the Wise was Rome’s premier gambler, handicapper, and tout. Whether it was fights, athletic competitions, or races Felix would bet on it or advise you how to bet, for a percentage. He knew intimately every racehorse in every stable in Rome and for many miles around. He took a percentage from every gambling establishment and his strongarm boys acted as his collectors and enforcers. His gang prospered when all the others were crushed because unlike them he avoided politics as others avoid noxious disease. Gambling was his only interest and passion and it had served him well.

“Well, this is an honor, Senator. Have a seat.” Some men moved aside and Hermes and I sat. Felix was a small, white-haired old man with sharp features and he always carried a faint scent of the stables, since he spent the better part of every day in them. He poured us cups ceremoniously and waited until we had tasted the wine, then said, “What will it be, a tip on the upcoming races?”

“Perhaps later,” I told him, “but right now I’ve run into a puzzling operation and I’m wondering if you could enlighten me.”

“Anything to be of service to the Senate and People.” His bright old eyes glittered. I told him what I knew of the game Polasser had been playing.

“Have you ever run into anything like it?”

He nodded a while, stroking his chin. “I’ve never heard of an astrologer doing it, but it’s an old handicapper’s dodge.”

“How so?” I was surprised that he had recognized it so quickly.

“It works like this. You have four racing companies, right? The Reds, Greens, Blues, and Whites. Now everybody backs one faction or another and claims to bet only their own color, but there are plenty of people who prefer to bet on whoever they think will win. So you select, say one hundred men you know are gamblers. When the next big races come up, say the first race of the Plebeian Games, you tell twenty-five of them the Reds will win, twenty-five the Greens will win and so on. After the race, you eliminate the seventy-five you gave a bad tip to. The twenty-five you gave the good tip to, you do the same. Here’s why: You have to wait until you’ve got a few left that you’ve steered right in three straight races, then you start charging big money for your tips. In time you’ll have a fool who’s won at least four or five straight races and thinks you’re infallible. Then you take him for everything he has. With luck, he’ll steer some friends your way and you can make extra off of them. Of course, you can’t pull this one too often. It’s a good idea to keep traveling to towns that have big circuses.”