Steven Saylor: Roman blood

Tiro said nothing. The narrow street wound to the left and right, making it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Occasionally we passed a doorway or a window, slightly recessed in the wall, always shut. We could hardly have been more alone.

'Of course Sulla is a dictator’ I said. 'That chafes the Roman spirit: We are all free men — at least those of us who aren't slaves. But after all, a dictator isn't a king; so the lawmakers tell us. A dictatorship is perfectly legal, so long as the Senate approves. For emergencies only, of course. And only for a set period of time. If Sulla has kept his powers for almost three years now instead of the legally prescribed one — well, then, perhaps that's what offends your master. The untidiness of it.'

'Please,' Tiro said in a strained whisper. 'You shouldn't go on about it. You never know who might be listening.'

'Ah, the walls themselves have ears — another bit of wisdom from Master Chick-pea's cautious lips?'

That finally stirred him up. 'No! Cicero always speaks his mind — he's as unafraid to say what he thinks as you are. And he knows a great deal more about politics than you seem to think. But he's not foolhardy. Cicero says: Unless a man is well versed in the arts of rhetoric, then the words he utters in a public place will quickly fly out of his control, like leaves on the wind. An innocent truth can be twisted in a fatal lie. That's why he forbids me to speak of politics outside his household. Or with untrustworthy strangers.'

That put me in my place. Tiro's silence and anger both were justified; I had deliberately baited him. But I didn't apologize, not even in the roundabout and stuffy manner that free men sometimes use to apologize to slaves. Anything that might give me a clearer picture of Cicero before I met him was worth the trifling expense of offending his slave. Besides, one should know a slave very well before letting him know that his insolence pleases you.

We walked on. The Narrows widened just enough to let. two walk abreast. Tiro caught up with me a bit, but not enough to walk side by side with me, keeping a formal distance behind and to my left. We reentered the Subura Way near the Forum. Tiro indicated that it would be quicker to walk directly through the Forum rather than around it. We passed through the heart of the city, the Rome that visitors think of, with its magnificent courts and fountains, temples and squares, where the law is made and the greatest gods are worshipped in their finest houses.

We passed by the Rostra itself, the high pedestal decorated with the beaks of captured ships, from which orators and advocates plead the greatest cases in Roman law. Nothing more was said of the dictator Sulla, yet I could not help but wonder if Tiro was thinking, as I was, of the scene at this very spot only a year before, when the heads of Sulla's enemies lined the Forum, hundreds every day, stricken from their bodies and mounted on stakes. The blood of his victims still showed as rusty stains against the otherwise white, unblemished stone.

As Tiro had said, Cicero's house was considerably smaller than my own. Its exterior was almost self-consciously modest and sedate, a single-storey structure without a single ornament. The face it presented to the street was utterly blank, nothing more than a wall of saffron stucco pierced by a narrow wooden door.

The apparent modesty of Cicero's home signified little. We were, of course, in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Rome, where size gives little indication of wealth. Even the smallest house here might be worth the price of a block of villas in the Subura. Besides that, the wealthier classes of Rome have traditionally shunned any display of ostentation in their homes, at least as regards the exterior. They claim this is a matter of good taste. I suspect it has more to do with their fear that a vulgar show of wealth might kindle jealousy among the mob. Consider also that a costly decoration on the outside of a house is far easier to carry off than the same decoration safely displayed somewhere inside.

Such austerity and restraint have never ceased to be regarded as ideal. Even so, in my own lifetime I have seen a definite veering towards public opulence. This is notably true among the young and ambitious, especially those whose fortunes flowered in the wake of the civil war and Sulla's triumph. They add a second storey; they build porticoes upon their roofs. They install statuary imported from Greece.

Nothing of the sort appeared on the street where Cicero lived. Decorum reigned. The houses turned their backs upon the street, facing inward, having nothing to say to any stranger who might wander by, reserving their secret life for those privileged to enter within.

The street was short and quiet. There were no markets at either end, and wandering vendors apparently knew better than to disturb the silence. Grey paving stones underfoot, pale blue sky above, faded stucco stained by rain and cracked by heat on either side; no other colours were allowed, least of all green — not a single unruly weed could be seen sprouting through the cobbles or springing up beside a wall, much less a flower or a tree. The very air, rising odourless and hot from the paving stones, breathed the sterile purity of Roman virtue.

Even in the midst of such restraint, the house of Cicero was particularly austere. In an ironic way it was so unassuming that it actually drew attention to itself — there, one might say, there is the ideal dwelling for a wealthy Roman of the most rarefied Roman virtue. The little house looked so modest and so narrow that one might have assumed it to be the home of a once-wealthy Roman matron, now widowed and in reduced circumstances; or perhaps the town house of a rich country farmer who came to the city only for occasional business, never to entertain or enjoy a holiday; or perhaps (and so it was, in fact) such an austere house on such an unassuming street might belong to a young bachelor of substantial means and old-fashioned values, a citified son of country parents poised to seek his fortune among Rome's higher circles, a young man of stern Roman virtue so sure of himself that even youth and ambition could not lure him into the vulgar missteps of fashion.

Tiro rapped upon the door.

A few moments later a grey-bearded slave opened it. Afflicted by some palsy, the old man's head was in constant motion, nodding up and down and tilting from side to side. He took his time in recognizing Tiro, peering and squinting and extending his head on its slender neck in turtle fashion. The nodding never ceased. Finally he smiled a toothless smile and stepped aside, pulling the door wide open.

The foyer was in the shape of a semicircle with its straight wall to our backs. The curving wall before us was pierced by three doorways, each flanked by slender columns and capped with a pediment. The corridors beyond were concealed by curtains of rich red fabric, embroidered along the bottom with an acanthus motif in yellow. Standing Grecian lamps at either corner and a floor mosaic of no great distinction (Diana in pursuit of a boar) completed the decoration. It was as I had expected. The vestibule was adequately restrained and tasteful so as not to contradict the sternness of the stucco facade, yet so expensively appointed as to belie any impression of poverty.

The old doorkeeper indicated with a gesture that we should wait. Silent and smiling, he withdrew through the curtained doorway to our left, his wizened head bobbing above his narrow shoulders like a cork on gentle waves.

'An old family retainer?' I asked. I waited until he had passed from sight, and kept my voice low. Obviously the old man's ears were sharper than his eyes, for he had heard well enough to answer the door; and it would have been rude to talk about him in his presence, as if he were a slave, for he was not. I had noticed the ring of manumission upon his finger, marking him a freedman and citizen.