John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“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.