Steven Saylor - The Venus Throw

"Wouldn't you love to know what he saw?"

"Wouldn't every man, Eco? But it was Clodius's bad fortune to be spotted by another serving girl, who saw his hesitant manner and innocently asked him who he was looking for. He told her he was looking for Pompeia's serving girl, but he was unable to disguise his deep voice. The girl let out a shriek. Clodius managed to hide in a storage room, but the women lit torches and searched the house until they rooted him out and drove him into the street."

"Well," said Eco wryly, "if nothing else, Clodius disproved the old superstition we all learned as boys, that any man who witnesses the secret ceremonies of the Good Goddess will be instantly struck blind."

"Clodius could still see, granted, but he might have wished to be struck deaf, so as not to hear the clamor he set off. The women went home and told their husbands, and you know how men are with gossip. By the next morning, the scandal was the talk of every tavern and street comer in Rome. The pious were outraged, the impious were amused, and I have no doubt that some from both camps were more than a little envious. The matter was much talked about for a season and then put aside for months, until some of Clodius's enemies decided to bring him to trial for sacrilege.

"At the trial, Clodius claimed that he was innocent and that the women were mistaken, because during the festival of the Good Goddess he had been fifty miles from Rome. Clodius and Cicero were still on friendly terms back then, and when the prosecution called Cicero to testify, Clodius expected him to back up his alibi. Instead, Cicero dutifully affirmed that he had seen Clodius in Rome on the day in question. Clodius was infuriated. That was the beginning of the bad blood between them."

"But Clodius was acquitted nonetheless," said Eco.

"Yes, by a slim majority of the fifty-odd jurors. Some say there was outright bribery by both sides; others say that the jurors simply voted along political lines. At any rate, Clodius was vindicated and emerged stronger than ever. He became bolder about using the street gangs he had been organizing to swell his retinue and intimidate his enemies. As for Caesar, the cuckolded husband, his only response was to divorce Pompeia, even though he publicly insisted that nothing untoward had occurred between her and Clodius. When the paradox was pointed out to him-why divorce Pompeia if she had been faithful? — he said, 'I have no doubt whatsoever about her fidelity, but Caesar's wife cannot be tainted even by suspicion!' Well, Caesar can't have been too offended by Clodius. The two of them have turned out to be close allies."

"As demonstrated by the way Caesar helped Clodius get his tribunate."

"Exactly. Clodius wanted to be elected tribune, but was barred from doing so, since it's a strictly plebeian office, off-limits to patricians. What was Clodius's solution? With Caesar pushing the paperwork, he managed to get himself adopted by a plebeian almost young enough to be his son, and so got himself officially enrolled as a plebeian-which outraged his fellow patricians and delighted the mob, who elected him tribune. At last Clodius was a commoner in fact as well as in name."

"I see a pattern," said Eco. "If a man can't witness the rites of the Good Goddess, Clodius will make himself a woman. If a patrician can't run for tribune, then Clodius, who has the most patrician pedigree in Rome, will make himself a plebeian."

"Not a man to let himself be stymied by technicalities," I agreed. "During his year as tribune he managed to get a lot done-introducing a grain dole to please the mob, arranging for the Roman takeover of Egyptian Cyprus to pay for the dole, and passing a law to send Cicero into exile."

Eco nodded. "But now Cicero is back in Rome, and Clodius's ally Caesar is off conquering Gaul. The big political issue of the moment is the Egyptian crisis, which brings us up to Dio's ill-fated mission. If we believe Clodia, Clodius made himself a friend of poor Dio before he was killed-and now they want you to find evidence against Clodia's lover Marcus Caelius to convict him of the murder."

"An admirable summing up," I said. "I think we've managed to sort out a few truths from the slanders and come up with a few conclusions about Clodius's character, though I'm not sure where it all leaves us. I haven't changed my mind. In the past I've worked for men whose means and morals were at least as questionable as his. I see no point in refusing a commission from Clodius if it leads me to the truth of Dio's murder."

"What about Clodia, then?"

"What about her? All right, let's take a look at Clodia. The same rules: truth only, except for gossip identified as gossip-though I think the rule will be even harder to observe with Clodia than with Clodius. I think we've probably heard more about her and know less. But I'll begin. She was the first child of Appius Claudius, raised by a stepmother among younger half siblings-did this circumstance make her stronger, more responsible, more independent? Mere speculation. We do know that she married young, before her father died and left the family in financial straits, so she managed to bring a good dowry to her marriage with a cousin, Quintus Metellus Celer-which may help to explain her independence when it came to butting heads with her husband over family squabbles and political differences. In any dispute, even with Celer, she appears always to have sided with her siblings."

"The Clodii against the world?" said Eco.

"It sounds admirably Roman when you put it like that. Could all those rumors of incest merely reflect the jealousy of less beautiful, less beloved outsiders? Why not give Clodia the benefit of the doubt, and put down the rumors of her adulteries and incest to malicious tongues?"

"You're the one who spent the afternoon at her horti, Papa, watching her ogle naked men."

"Yes, well, it's true that she doesn't do much to stamp out the lies about her, if they are lies. And there's no doubt that her marriage to

Celer was stormy. There are plenty of witnesses to that, including Cicero, who used to be their frequent houseguest back when he was on friendly terms with the Clodii. But it should count for something that despite their troubles, Clodia and Celer did stay married for twenty years-"

"Until Celer mysteriously died three years ago."

"Yes, well, we've already talked about the rumor that she poisoned him. It's worth noting that no one ever brought charges against her, as someone in Celer's family might well have done, had there been any evidence. Any time anybody notable in Rome dies of anything but an accident, there's someone who'll say it was poison. Just as there are those who will always whisper that any exceptionally beautiful woman-or man, for that matter-is a whore. While we've both heard plenty of rumors, when it comes down to it, we don't really know very much at all about Clodia, do we?"

Eco leaned back and pressed his fingers together. "I think, Papa, that you are letting the transparent yellow gown cloud your better judgment.

"Nonsense!"

"It covers your eyes like a veil." "Eco!"

"I'm serious, Papa. You told me to be honest with you, so I will be. I think that Clodia is probably a very dangerous woman, and I don't like it that you're working for her. If you must do so, for Dio's sake, then I hope you'll see as little of her as possible."

"I've already seen quite a bit of her."

"I mean what I say, Papa." There was no levity in his voice. "I don't like it."

"Nor do I. But some paths a man must walk, taking whatever ways are opened to him by the gods."

"Well," said Eco with an edge in his voice, "I suppose a religious argument can put an end to any discussion."

And if it didn't, then what happened next did, for at that moment two tiny human missiles came hurtling through the room like fireballs hurled from a catapult. One chased the other at such a speed that I couldn't tell which was the pursuer and which the pursued; I often found it hard to tell the twins apart even when they were standing still. At the age of four there was not much to distinguish them. Gordiana (whom Meto had called Titania from birth, because she was so big) was perhaps slightly larger than her brother Titus, but the two of them were dressed for bed in identical, long-sleeved tunics that went down to their ankles, and they had the same long, golden locks-a legacy from their mother's side of the family, which was perhaps why Menenia had so far refused to clip a single curl.