John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“You are welcome to try your hand at it,” I said, sure that, like the scribblings of most amateur historians, his would not outlast his own lifetime.

“These are such lively times,” he mused, apparently determined to cheat me of my nap. “Caesar’s war in Gaul, Gabinius campaigning in Syria and Egypt, Crassus’s upcoming war against the Parthians-it seems almost a shame to stay here in Rome with all that going on.”

“You can have it all,” I told him. “Barbarians and Eastern despots hold no interest for me. If it were up to me, I would stay right here for the rest of my days and putter around in the government offices and doze off during Senate debates.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Metellus to me,” he said. “Your family is famed for its devotion to high office, not to mention the high-handed wielding of power.” His tone was chaffing, but I detected a griping undertone of envy. It was not the first time I’d heard it. This was another nobody from an undistinguished family who begrudged my family connections and the all-but-unquestioned access they gave me to the pursuit of higher office.

“I don’t claim to be a typical member of the gens . I have no desire to conquer foreigners or give Rome more desert and forest to garrison.”

“I can understand that it’s a daunting tradition to live up to. Why, within the memory of living Romans the gens Caecilia has added Numidia and Crete to the Empire.”

“Wonderful. The Numidians are rebellious savages, and the Cretans are the most notoriously shiftless pack of lying, conniving pseudo-Greeks the world has to offer.” I wasn’t truly so contemptuous of my family’s accomplishments, but something in me wanted to contradict everything the man said.

“Do you think we shouldn’t add Parthia to the lot?”

Everybody wants to talk about Crassus today , I thought. Well, nobody was talking about much else that year.

“Everybody has had a try at taking that part of the world,” I said. “Nobody’s had much satisfaction out of it. It’s mostly plains and grassland, a natural land for horsemen, not foot-slogging legionaries. You know as well as I that we Romans are wretched cavalry.”

“I hear that Caesar is giving Crassus several wings of Gallic cavalry he does not need at the moment.”

I groaned. This was the first I’d heard of it. I thought of the splendid young Gallic horsemen I’d commanded in the Northern war, their lives to be expended foolishly in some unspeakable Asiatic desert so that Marcus Licinius Crassus could have glory to match Pompey’s.

“Is something wrong?” Sallustius asked.

“Nothing,” I said, sitting up. “They’re just more barbarians.” I walked toward the frigidarium , feeling the need of cold water to wake me up and clear my head. Then I turned back. “But no army ever knew anything but disaster when a foolish old man was in charge. Good day to you.”

I left him there and plunged into the cold pool, a jolting torment that I usually dread but that came as a relief after talking with Sallustius Crispus. When I climbed out, Hermes helped me dry off and dress. The cold water had cleared the wine fumes and sleepiness from my head. Thinking clearly, I wondered whether I might not have made a serious mistake in calling Crassus a foolish old man in front of that hairy little weasel.

"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.