Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

Bethesda, too, had been growing greyer, until she began to dye her hair with henna; the tint she had concocted was a deep, rich red, like the colour of a bloodstain. How beautiful her hair still was, thick and luxurious. As I had grown more careless with mine, she had grown more elaborate with hers. She never wore it down any more, except for bed. During the day she wrapped it into coils and pinned it atop her head, as haughty as any Roman matron — though her Egyptian accent would always give her away.

The thought made me laugh, and I realized that my headache was gone. I looked down on the valley and breathed in the smells of summer in the country: the odour of living beasts, of grass rustling in the dry breeze, of the earth itself dozing beneath the hot, baking sun. I studied the plan of the farm, like a picture laid before me: the red-tiled roof of the great house, hiding the bedrooms, kitchen, library, and dining room within; the higher roof that showed where the baths were installed; the formal courtyard just within the front door, with its fishpond and flowers; the second courtyard where the wine was fermented, with its kettles and vats; the third courtyard with its paved threshing floor open to the sky; the herb garden appended to the library, from which I had come. Close by the house were the sheds and pens and the well and the little house that held the olive press. The surrounding land was divided into various uses: fields for grains and other crops, vineyards, olive orchards. The boundary was marked on my left by a wooded stream, on my right by the road from Rome — the wide, paved Cassian Way — and in the far distance directly before me, beyond an expanse of cultivated fields, by a low stone wall that ran from the stream to the road. Stream to the left, road to the right, wall in the distance; and the fourth boundary was the ridge on which I sat. It was an idyllic setting, worthy of a poem or even of crusty old Cato's praise, I thought. It is the dream of every Roman, rich or poor, to have a firm in the countryside, to escape the turbulence and madness of the city. Against all expectations, I had done so at last. Why, then, was I not happy?

‘You don't belong here, Gordianus.'

I gave a start and swung around. 'Claudia! You startled me.'

'Good! Startled is better than bored and unhappy.'

'And how, from behind, could you tell that I'm bored and unhappy?'

My neighbour put her hands on her ample hips and looked at me askance. 'Feet and knees apart,' she observed. 'Elbows on knees, hands cupped together, chin on hands, head cocked to one side, shoulders slumped. If you were thirty years younger, Gordianus, I'd say you were miserably in love. In your case, it's what I've told you before: you simply don't belong in the countryside. Here, let me join you on this neighbouring stump and show you how someone who truly loves the country surveys such a magnificent scene.'

She sat down on the stump, which was apparently a bit lower than she thought so that she bumped it with her well-padded bottom and let out a good-natured laugh. She spread her legs, slapped her palms on her knees and beamed at the vista before her. Had we been sitting on the opposite slope of the ridge, looking down on her own, she could not have looked more pleased.

Claudia was the cousin of my late friend and benefactor Lucius Claudius, from whom I had inherited the farm. In appearance she was as much like him to have been his sister, and indeed in many ways seemed a female incarnation of Lucius, which predisposed me to like her from the first day she had come over the hill to introduce herself Like Lucius she was sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, and cherry-nosed. She had considerably more hair than Lucius, who had grown quite bald before his death, but like his, her hair was orange-red (faded with age and mixed with strands of silver) and of the same wispy, frazzled texture; she wore it atop her head in a careless clump from which stray tendrils escaped to waft about her friendly, round face. Unlike Lucius, she did not care for ornamentation, and the only jewellery I ever saw her wear was a simple gold chain around her neck. She disdained a woman's stola as impractical for farm life, and instead wore long woollen tunics in rustic colours, so that at a distance, given her general bulk and plain dress, she could be mistaken for a man, or even for a male slave, an ironic circumstance considering her high patrician blood.

Her farm was on the other side of the ridge; when I say that it was hers, I mean it quite literally, for she owned the property outright without recourse to father, brother, or husband Like Lucius, Claudia had never married, but had somehow contrived to live independently and on her own terms. This would have been a notable feat even for a wealthy patrician matron in the city, but for a woman in the tradition-bound countryside it was nothing less than remarkable, and bespoke a strength of character and resolve of which Claudia's soft, round features gave no indication.

How she had wrested her particular plot of land from the Claudian fortunes I did not know. Her farm was only a small part of the family's holdings in the region. Indeed, I found myself surrounded by Claudii on every side. Over the ridge from me to the south was Claudia's small farm, which was generally held to be one of the poorer tracts, given the rocky nature of the slope and the lowness of the valley, plagued in winter by those mists so dreaded by Cato. Across the wooded stream, to the west, were the holdings of her cousin Publius Claudius; from my high vantage I could just glimpse the roof of his massive villa above the treetops. Beyond the low wall to the north was the property of another cousin, Manius Claudius; because of the distance I could see little of his land and nothing of his house. Across the Cassian Way, to the east, the land became steep and rocky at the base of the mountain the locals called Mount Argentum, whose upper reaches were wreathed by a dark forest. This property was owned by Claudia's cousin, Gnaeus Claudius, and was said to be prime land for hunting boar and deer. There was also, drilled somewhere into the heart of the mountain, a deep silver mine. The mine, however, was said to have been exhausted long ago. I could clearly see the winding trail that led up the mountain's side and disappeared over a pine-studded shoulder; where once many slaves must have trekked in continuous labour, the way had become disused and overgrown and was now a path for goats.

Of all these properties, it was generally agreed that that of Lucius Claudius, my benefactor, was much the best, and Lucius, by his will, had left it to me. The Claudii, in the name of young Gnaeus and represented by a veritable legion of advocates, had contested the will, but to no avail. I had had my day in a Roman court, and the farm was mine. Why was it not enough?

'Truly, it's a beautiful place,' said Claudia, gazing down at the red tiled roof and the cultivated earth. 'When I was a girl, it was quite rundown; Cousin Lucius took no interest at all in the place, and let it run to ruin. Then, oh, about fifteen years ago — just after he met you and you had your first adventure together — he took a sudden interest in the place and began to come here quite often. He purchased Aratus and installed him as foreman, planted new vineyards and olive orchards, brought in new slaves, refurbished the house. He turned the farm into quite a lucrative enterprise, as well as a retreat from the city. We were all amazed at his success. And distressed at his sudden demise last year, alas,' she sighed.

'And disappointed in his choice of an heir,' I added quietly.

'Now, Gordianus, you must not bear a grudge. You can't blame my Cousin Gnaeus for bringing that suit against you; Lucius was his cousin, and we all expected Gnaeus to inherit, since his own property is good only for hunting, not for fanning, and the silver mine was long ago exhausted. Alas, Cicero put your case quite brilliantly, as usual — you're very lucky to have had access to the great man, and we all envy you. Swayed by Cicero's arguments, the court in Rome ruled that Lucius's will was valid, and that was that Lucius's fortune was not small; he had many other wonderful possessions, which he settled among his blood relations. I myself inherited his mother's jewellery and his town house on the Palatine Hill in the city. To you he gave his Etruscan farm. We have all reconciled ourselves to the fact'