John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“You rarely hear about Cumae, except for the sibyl. Everybody knows about the Cumaean sibyl. Well, we already know Scaurus went easy on the accused citizens.”

“I’m sure he required hefty payments from them, though,” I said. “And that’s what bothers me. Here is a prestigious, but penurious, scholar, reduced to selling spells, living frugally in a humble house on what has to be absolutely the cheapest real estate in all of Roman territory. What did he bribe Scaurus with?”

This, finally, took her mind off her preparations. “That is a good question. Might it have been the bribe itself that impoverished him?”

“That’s a thought, but he spoke as if he’s lived there for longer than just the last three years. I’ll have to ask Cicero.”

“Do that,” she advised. “Do you think Cicero will be at the embassy tomorrow?”

"Do you think she got my hair right?” Julia asked.

“You look superb, my dear,” I assured her. In fact, she was better than superb as we rocked along in our hired litter to the admiration of all eyes. The sides were rolled up to give those eyes the best possible view. Julia, dressed in her half-silk gown and decked in her emeralds and pearls, her face made up by an expert and her hair dressed in a high-piled lattice of curls, could have modeled for one of the goddesses. I didn’t look so bad myself, with my bruises fading and wearing my best toga. The winter sun of late afternoon, low in the south but shedding a clear light, flattered us both. Behind us, as usual, walked Hermes and Cypria.

“I am so excited,” she said, fanning herself unnecessarily.

“I don’t see why. You’ve attended the festivities at Ptolemy’s own court. This won’t be nearly so lavish.”

“You know it’s not the same. In Alexandria, I could only stay for the first part of the evening. For the sake of my reputation, I had to leave before things got really scandalous. Besides, those were the revels of a barbarian court, full of half-mad Egyptian nobles and Persian degenerates and Macedonian brutes. Lisas’s entertainments are attended by the cream of Roman society.”

“I’ve seen the cream of Roman society behave like a shipload of drunken pirates plundering a coastal villa,” I told her. “Part of a diplomat’s art is getting people to loosen up, and Lisas really knows how to do it.”

“Then you will have to protect me,” she said.

The Egyptian Embassy was situated on the lower slope of the Janiculum, in the relatively new Trans-Tiber district. Free of the cramping walls of the City proper, the estates on the Janiculum sprawled amid generous grounds, and much of the property was the domain of wealthy foreigners. At the top of the hill was the pole, from which fluttered a long, red banner, which was taken down only if an enemy approached.

We were carried across the Sublician Bridge, pushing past the throngs of beggars who always haunt bridges, thence up along the line of the old wall built by Ancus Martius to connect the bridge and the Servian Wall to the little fort surrounding the flagpole. Both the wall and the fort were in ruins, despite occasional calls for their restoration.

At length we arrived at the embassy, where flocks of slaves doused us with flower petals, sprinkled us with perfume, and generally behaved as if we had just stepped down from Olympus to let mere mortals bask in our radiance. They even draped our slaves with wreaths.

The place was a marvelous jumble of architectural styles, decorated with the most extravagant paintings, frescoes, and picture mosaics, the buildings and grounds populated with Greek and Egyptian statuary and planted with ornamental shrubs and trees from all over the world.

Lisas himself came to greet us, swathed in a tremendous, gauzy robe dyed with genuine Tyrian purple, his face plastered with heavy cosmetics to disguise the ravages of his legendary degeneracies.

“Welcome, Senator Metellus! And this must be the niece of the great conqueror, the beauteous Julia of whose innumerable graces and accomplishments His Majesty and all the royal princesses have sung praises. King Ptolemy was devastated that you had to depart his court. Princess Berenice has been sunk in melancholy since your departure; young Princess Cleopatra asks daily for your return. Welcome, welcome, goddess-descended Julia!” He took her hands but, to my relief, did not kiss them.

“I am so charmed and flattered. I count your king and his princesses among my dearest friends, and I cannot express how highly my uncle, Caius Julius Caesar, esteems them.”

“I am enraptured by your words,” he said, seemingly about to faint from sheer ecstasy. Then he snapped out of it. “But the consul Pompey arrives! I must fly to him! Be free of my house and all it offers, however humble. Enjoy my esteem and affection forever, my friends!” And off he went, gauze flapping.

“You see now what makes a truly great diplomat?” I said.

“It’s breathtaking! I’ve never felt so much like royalty. I never saw Ptolemy sober enough to remember me the next day, and Berenice is a bubblehead, but Cleopatra was a sweet child, with more brains than the rest of the royal family combined. Give me the tour.”

So I conducted her through the labyrinth of rooms, all of them full of guests, entertainers, servants, and tables laden with delicacies. Lisas did not believe in formal dinners except when entertaining small, restricted groups like serving Roman magistrates and ambassadors from other countries. Instead, he let people wander as they pleased and made sure there was plenty to divert them wherever they happened to be. Naked nymphs disported themselves in the many pools. At least they looked like nymphs. Close enough for my eyes, anyway.

I showed Julia the infamous crocodile pool, full of the ugly, torpid reptiles and presided over by a marble statue of the crocodile-headed god, Sobek. No nymphs in that pool, naked or otherwise. Romans were always telling their slaves that, should they run away, they would be sold to Lisas to feed his crocodiles. I doubt that it ever happened, but I could not discount it entirely. He was a man of decidedly unusual tastes.

“What a monster!” Julia cried, pointing at a twelve-foot specimen that lounged sleepily on the bank of the pool. His back was laced with scars of many battles with the other crocs. “Does he have gold in his mouth?”

I leaned forward and saw that the brute had gold wire wrapped around the top of one of the fangs of his upper jaw. “Amazing. The Egyptians have marvelous dentists. I’ve known men who had false teeth laced to their own adjoining ones by Egyptians, using fine gold wire. I knew they mummified crocodiles after they died. I didn’t know they took such care of their dentition.” One more Ptolemaic extravagance.

We encountered a number of friends and started the inevitable round of socializing. Besides prominent Roman statesmen and their wives, Lisas had invited exotics like the ambassador of Arabia Felix and a wealthy merchant from India. Lisas had brought in some poets and playwrights, chosen for their wit and conversational skills, and some courtesans chosen for exceptional breeding and beauty. He knew how to create a well-balanced crowd, and throughout the evening he circulated, making sure that everyone met everyone else and that nobody got bored.

Pompey was there (Lisas had to invite the consul, naturally), and so were Milo and several of the other praetors, but not Clodius or Antistius or anyone else likely to start a flaming argument to mar the festivities. He neatly avoided inviting deadly enemies on the same evening. The man was the soul of diplomacy.

I endured many congratulations and backslaps for my feat in carrying the sacrificial litter. The congratulations were all right, but the backslaps were quite painful. We were in the main room of the villa (I am not sure what you would call such a room; it rather resembled Ptolemy’s throne room, but was smaller) when there was a disturbance. From the direction of the entrance came a pair of lictors, flanking a public slave wearing the brief tunic, high-strapped sandals, and cap of a messenger. He carried the white wand that opened all gates and doors and gave him the right to commandeer any horse or vehicle.