Colleen McCullough - 1. First Man in Rome

Thus Sulla drove off to Rome in a hired gig leaving Clitumna faithfully hugging her secret, and trying assiduously to present a picture of acute depression. Even Bithy, with whom Clitumna had taken to sleeping, believed her mistress desolate. Upon reaching Rome, Sulla summoned the steward of Clitumna's house on the Palatine; he was one staff member not relocated to Circei, as the villa there had its own steward, who acted as caretaker in his mistress's absence and cheated her very cleverly. So did the steward of her Palatine house. "How many servants did the mistress leave here, Iamus?" asked Sulla, sitting at his desk in the study; he was evidently making out some kind of list, for it lay beneath his hand. "Just myself, two house boys, two house girls, a market boy, and the undercook, Lucius Cornelius," said the steward. "Well, you're going to have to hire some extra help, because four days from now, Iamus, I am going to throw a party." Sulla flapped his list at the astonished steward, who didn't know whether to protest that the lady Clitumna had given him no word of a party in her absence, or to go along with the idea and pray there were no ructions later, when the bills came in. Then Sulla relieved his mind. "It's my show, so I'm paying for it," said Sulla, "and there'll be a big bonus in it for you on two conditions one, that you co-operate fully in helping me put on the party, and two, that you make no mention of it to the lady Clitumna after she returns home, whenever that may be. Is that clear?" "Fully, Lucius Cornelius," said Iamus, bowing deeply; largesse was a subject every slave risen high enough to be a steward understood almost as well as he understood how to doctor the household account books. Off went Sulla to hire dancers, musicians, tumblers, singers, magicians, clowns, and other acts. For this was going to be the party to end all parties, one he intended would be heard far and wide across the Palatine. His last stop was the flat of Scylax the comedic actor. "I want to borrow Metrobius," he said, erupting into the room Scylax had preferred to set up as a sitting room rather than as a study. It was the apartment of a voluptuary, redolent with incense and cassia wood, tapestried to death, overfurnished with couches and pouffes all stuffed with the finest wool. Scylax sat up indignantly at the same moment Sulla was sinking into one of the sybaritically cushioned couches. "Honestly, Scylax, you're as soft as custard-pudding and as decadent as a Syrian potentate!" said Sulla. "Why don't you get a bit of ordinary horsehair furniture? This stuff makes a man feel as if he's sinking into the arms of a gigantic whore! Ugh!" "I piss on your taste," lisped Scylax. "As long as you hand over Metrobius, you can piss on anything you like." "Why should I, you you savage?" Scylax ran his hands through his carefully arranged, dyed golden locks; he fluttered his long lashes, darkened with stibium, and rolled his eyes between them. "Because the boy's not yours body and mind," said Sulla, testing a pouffe with his foot to see if it was less yielding. "He is mine body and mind! And he hasn't been the same since you stole him from me and took him all over Italy with you, Lucius Cornelius! I don't know what you did to him, but you certainly spoiled him for me!" Sulla grinned. "Made a man out of him, did I? Doesn't like eating your shit anymore, eh? Aaaaaaaah!" With which sound of disgust, Sulla lifted his head and roared, "Metrobius!" The lad came flying through the door and launched himself straight at Sulla, covering his face with kisses. Over the black head Sulla opened one pale eye at Scylax, and wiggled one ginger brow. "Give up, Scylax, your bum-boy just likes me better," he said, and demonstrated the truth of this by lifting the boy's skirt to display his erection. Scylax burst into tears, streaking his face with stibium. "Come on, Metrobius," said Sulla, struggling to his feet. At the door he turned back to flip a folded paper at the blubbering Scylax. "Party at Clitumna's house in four days," he said. "It's going to be the best one ever, so swallow your spleen and come. You can have Metrobius back if you do."

Everyone was invited, including Hercules Atlas, who was billed as the world's strongest man, and hired himself out to fairs and fetes and festivals from one end of Italy to the other. Never seen outside his door unless wearing a moth-eaten lion skin and toting an enormous club, Hercules Atlas was a bit of an institution. However, he was rarely asked as a guest to the parties where he entertained with his strongman act, for when the wine flowed down his throat like water down the Aqua Marcia, Hercules Atlas became very aggressive and bad-tempered. "You're touched in the head, to ask that bull!" said Metrobius, playing with Sulla's brilliant curls as he leaned over Sulla's shoulder to peer at yet another list. The real change in Metrobius that had occurred while he was away with Sulla was his literacy; Sulla had taught the lad to read and write. Willing to teach him every art he knew from acting to sodomy, Scylax had yet been too crafty to endow him with something as emancipating as letters. "Hercules Atlas is a friend of mine," said Sulla, kissing the lad's fingers one by one with a great deal more pleasure than ever he felt kissing Clitumna's. "But he's a madman when he's drunk!" Metrobius protested. "He'll tear this house apart, and very likely two or three of the guests as well! Hire his act by all means, but don't have him present as a guest!" "I can't do that," said Sulla, seeming unworried. He reached up and pulled Metrobius down across his shoulder, settling the boy in his lap. And Metrobius wound his arms about Sulla's neck and lifted his face: Sulla kissed his eyelids very slowly, very tenderly. "Lucius Cornelius, why won't you keep me?" Metrobius asked, settling against Sulla's arm with a sigh of utter content. The kisses ceased. Sulla frowned. "You're far better off with Scylax," he said abruptly. Metrobius opened huge dark eyes, swimming with love. "But I'm not, truly I'm not! The gifts and the acting training and the money don't matter to me, Lucius Cornelius! I'd much rather be with you, no matter how poor we were!" "A tempting offer, and one I'd take you up on in a trice if I intended to remain poor," said Sulla, holding the boy as if he cherished him. "But I am not going to remain poor. I have Nicopolis's money behind me now, and I'm busy speculating with it. One day I'll have enough to qualify for admission to the Senate." Metrobius sat up. "The Senate!" Twisting, he stared into Sulla's face. "But you can't, Lucius Cornelius! Your ancestors were slaves like me!" "No, they weren't," said Sulla, staring back. "I am a patrician Cornelius. The Senate is where I belong." "I don't believe it!" "It's the truth," said Sulla soberly. "That's why I can't avail myself of your offer, alluring though it is. When I do qualify for the Senate, I'm going to have to become a model of decorum no actors, no mimes and no pretty-boys." He clapped Metrobius on the back, and hugged him. "Now pay attention to the list, lad and stop wriggling! It's not good for my concentration. Hercules Atlas is coming as a guest as well as performing, and that's final." In fact, Hercules Atlas was among the first guests to arrive. Word of the revels to come had got out all up and down the street, of course, and the neighbors had steeled themselves to endure a night of howls, shrieks, loud music, and unimaginable crashes. As usual, it was a costume affair. Sulla had tricked himself out as the absent Clitumna, complete with fringed shawls, rings, and hennaed wig convoluted with sausagelike curls, and he constantly emitted uncanny imitations of her titters, her giggles, her loud whinnies of laughter. Since the guests knew her well, his performance was deeply appreciated. Metrobius was equipped with wings again, but this night he was Icarus rather than Cupid, and had cleverly melted his large feathered fans along their outer edges, so that they drooped, and looked half-finished. Scylax came as Minerva, and contrived to make that stern, tomboyish goddess look like an old and over-made-up whore. When he saw how Metrobius hung all over Sulla, he proceeded to get drunk, and soon forgot how to manage his shield, his distaff, his stuffed owl, and his spear, and eventually tripped over them into a corner, where he wept himself to sleep. Thus Scylax failed to see the endless succession of party turns, the singers who commenced with glorious melodies and stunning trills, and ended in warbling ditties like