82 - 81 BCE - Winter, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo
Two days later, the morning rose surly and bitter, wrapping itself in a thick cloud blanket against the cold. Crassus had left early for the senate. From there he would ride to surprise his wife on the Via Laurentina as she returned to Rome from Lavinium with her two children, one of which Crassus had never set eyes upon. As the morning progressed, I quickly discovered that when the cat is off in search of other game, the mice in this house had better keep their mouths shut and their whiskers well hidden if they didn’t want them plucked out one by one.
I was owned by Crassus, but my quotidian fate rested with the Spaniard, Pío. He was the kind of man whose features are difficult to describe: the moment you set eyes on any one of them you are struck with the need to look quickly away. I do not make a practice of such thoughtless prejudice: just because he looked like an unwashed, overfed barbarian did not necessarily mean he wasn’t the sweetest of men. So to be clear as an Alpine lake, let me set your mind at rest: Pío was
not
the sweetest of men. Crassus had found him during the months he had been forced to flee the city. Publius, Crassus’ father, had been governor of Hispania Ulterior, and his fair and prosperous rule had gained him many friends. Vibius Piciacus was among them. When the disheveled son of his murdered comrade sought refuge, Piciacus did what he could to keep young Marcus safe from the spies of Cinna and Marius. There was a large cave by the sea on Piciacus’ estate, and there Crassus and his few retainers hid for the better part of a year. Piciacus, fearing reprisals should his generosity be discovered, would not visit his guest himself, but sent his manservant Pío there each day with food and anything else Crassus might require, including the company of two young women paid well for their silence and their service. When news of Cinna’s death reached Hispania, Crassus came out of hiding. As a reward for his constant and discrete care of his charges, Pío was given his freedom. He chose to return with Crassus to Rome; Piciacus must have been glad to see the last of him.
My first encounter with Pío occurred in the dining room. Appropriate, considering his capacity for consumption. He had stripped the meat off a roast leg of goat and was absentmindedly gnawing the bone to splinters. With his free hand he held a serviette beneath the machinery of his mouth to catch the falling detritus. From this visage of dainty gluttony my eyes fled to his feet, but the sight of those broad, hirsute plains sloping to the grimy boulders of his toes gave them no shelter. I know he wore a belt; I could see the leather escaping his sides to find sanctuary across the broad expanse of his back, but head-on there was no sign of it: the sagging lozenge of flesh had overwhelmed and smothered the sweat-stained band. Crassus had not employed the man as his
atriensis
- an archaic term for the manager of his household which Crassus still favored - for his good looks. Was it the Spaniard’s talent or my owner’s sense of obligation that had moved him? If talent, it was well-hidden.
The house was preparing a feast for the masters’ return that would double as the start of the seven days commemorating the Saturnalia, the most raucous of Roman holidays. I limped into the room on my own with Sabina by my side, who watched my progress closely. She had furnished me with a staff, but warned that I should use it as little as possible if I wanted to strengthen my wounded leg. I did indeed want that, but more immediately wanted not to lose my balance and fall crashing to the ground. I clasped the crutch like a lover.
Livia came in, carrying a small tripod table which she carefully set down near one of the couches. She waved at us, then ran back to the kitchen, skidding to avoid a servant heading the other way. A little bird chittered after Pío picking up verbal crumbs. Pío spit directions that were barely Latin at the bustling servants who were mostly Greek, and this little man translated. I didn’t recognize him at first for he was washed, shaved and healed of all his sores and bruises. But then another serving girl got in his way and he elbowed her aside to regain his position near his master. The familiar rudeness also jostled free a memory: a bedraggled chain whose links could barely be called men, trudging without will toward whatever unplanned future the auction block held in store. Here was my bilingual companion-in-misery, saved from a choiceless fate (almost at my expense) and thrust into one of his own making a lifetime ago. I hobbled to him with one arm outstretched, but to my surprise he backed away and Pío’s giant hand came down between us.
“This is Alexandros,” Sabina said. “He is the second translator for the house. You know Nestor?”
“So that is your name,” I said, peering over Pío’s flattened palm. Nestor gave me a look that would freeze the Kephisos in summer.
“Keep him away from me,” Nestor said with a mixture of pleading and revulsion. “He’s insane, Pío.”
I started to protest, but upon reflection could not argue; with what Little Nestor knew of me, even I was forced to credit his opinion. He was, after all, witness to my botched attempt at suicide before the great Sulla. Pío’s voice matched his countenance: its assault on the ears made one want to retreat a step; two would be better. Stalwart, I held my ground as he said, “You love your father?”
Now that was unexpected. “I beg your pardon?”
“You love your father,” Pío insisted. “I love
my
father. When he with my mother fifteen years, master Piciacus allow him bring carpenter to build fine cabinet to hold my mother’s clothes which he bought. Twelve years I had. Every day this man come to work on cabinet. My father work in fields. My mother spread her legs for this man. My father killed him. Slow. Then they killed my father. More quick. The carpenter’s name was Andros. I do not like this name. I do not like your name. Here you will be ... Alexander. Like the famous one. I think maybe you will not be so famous? This name I like - Alexander. Sabina, show him to kitchen and let him see that cook’s meanings are pure. No mistakes like last week. You, Nestor, you will speak for everything but kitchen? Good.”
With a word from that Hispanic grotesquerie another chip from my old life fell to the tiled floor. I am certain he had no idea how cruelly this arrow had hit the mark. At home in Greece, no human property was allowed to keep his or her own name – new ones were always assigned by their owner. It was purposefully dehumanizing, and completely sustainable, in my opinion. I never dreamed it would be happening to me, and not for any practical reason, but on a whim, because Pío didn’t like the sound of it! How absolutely rich! The sting of it burned as deeply as the wound in my leg. Well, that is an exaggeration, to be honest. But it did hurt; you need only imagine it happening to you. Sabina barely took notice, accepting the tyrant’s ruling without comment. “He is well enough to take quarters,” she said. “Where do you want him?”
“Who has empty bed? You, Nestor,” he said, pointing a fat finger, “you have empty bed. Translators share room.”
“No!” Nestor protested.
“I’ve an empty bed,” offered a servant wearing the tunic of the wine steward.
“No,” said Pío. I sensed he was the kind of man who believed thoughtful reconsideration to be a sign of weakness. “Translators together.”
Fuming impotently over the theft of my name, I wanted to lunge at Pío. I, however, am the kind of man who believes thoughtful reconsideration to be a sign of manliness and strength. In any case, before Sabina could lead me out of the
triclinium
, others had performed what pride and fear were about to suppress. Oh, I was scathingly articulate and brutally eloquent when complaining about someone to someone else, even if that meant talking to myself. Given the opportunity to actually vent directly to the object of my anger, I was as ferocious as a puppy, as outraged as an oyster.
A young, be-freckled woman with honey hair, tied in fraying braids intertwined with daisies marched into the dining room, her bare and muddied feet marking her determined passage. No one had dared remind her to don a pair of indoor sandals, six of which, in varying sizes, lined every entrance to the house. Her face, as flushed from the sun as her tunic and knees were begrimed by yard work, was set and grim. She walked straight up to Pío and knocked the napkin out of his hand, bits of goat and bone, so fastidiously gathered, now littering the floor. With her other hand she slapped him as hard as she could, and before he could make a grab for her was out the way she had come.
Medusa would have applauded the frozen and stony silence caused by this performance, and a second was just beginning. Keening rose from the direction of the baths, a flooding river of sound that crested with the arrival of another woman, her face streaked with tears. Pío spun to face her, comical with rage and discomfiture. She was upon him, spearing his eyes with a look that needed no translation. Looking up at him, she paused for the barest of moments, then spoke her terse jeremiad with hoarse and indignant fury: “How
could
you?”
Rhetoric at its finest, for it demands, nor permits reply. Pío, of course, did not know the rules.
She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wrist. “I owe you nothing,” he said, spoiling the purity of her lament. She yanked free of him. “Not even the explanation,” he called after her. The woman’s sobs grew, then receded till they became not-so-faint reverberations echoing from the chamber of the baths.
“Pío controls the slave larder,” Sabina said in response to my raised eyebrows. We spoke Greek as we walked to the kitchen through the atrium. The chill air swirling down from the open
compluvium
made us quicken our pace. “There’s enough for everyone, unless he wants something from you. Then you find less on your plate.”
“You must go to the master,” I cried. Take note how quick I was to say ‘you’ and not ‘we.’ Sabina cocked her head, taking her own turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh,” I said, chastised. “A foolish question. Pío is favored for an old debt. He cannot be touched. And even if the paterfamilias should have him punished, he would find ample opportunity to take his vengeance.” Sabina nodded. “But how then,” I asked, “could that first woman slap him with impunity?”
“Tessa? Oh, it’s just part of her little act. She likes to be the center of attention, and she’s a little carefree with her charms, if you take my meaning.” She paused. “And, besides, I think he likes it.”
We entered the crowded kitchen filled with the pungent smell of
garum
and baking acorn bread. Sabina introduced me to the Roman cook and his three Greek assistants. She turned to go but I stopped her in the doorway. “What about you? Are you safe?”
“Pío is a bully,” she said, dismissively. As if that answered the question.
82 - 81 BCE - Winter, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo
Later that day, the fourteenth before the
Kalends
of January, we were to stand outside the villa’s entrance, eleven of us plus two house guards, Betto and Malchus, shivering in the cold to greet the paterfamilias and his wife. Everyone who was not free wore the
pileus
, a brimless, conical felt cap traditionally presented to newly manumitted freedmen in a ceremony that included, for some nonsensical reason, head shaving. This was supposed to represent the freedom dangled before us during the Saturnalia season. A cruel joke. The little cap was optional for freedmen only; servants owned by Crassus were forced to wear it. Pío chose to wear his proudly, unaware how ridiculous it looked atop his rockpile of a head. The pate of Ludovicus the handyman was bare. We Greeks celebrated the autumn planting as well, but at least in my family’s house we had never made such fools of ourselves or such a mockery of those who served us. The hat was yet further proof that cultural distinction was sadly deficient in Romans; they stole everything from everyone: culture, gods, clothing. The
pilos
had been worn by Greek sailors for centuries. It is a marvel to me that a people so successful in subjugating all they encountered could at the same time be so vacant of any original idea that did not in some way assist in those conquests. Roads, bridges, engines of war, I grant them those.
But I digress. In any event, Sabina had told me that later in the week there would be gifts, games, a suspension of work, and general revelry. The household would even sit at a banquet served by our masters; the meal, however, would be prepared by us, the table cleared by us and the dishes cleaned by us.
As usual in those first days after my injury, I was late getting to where I was supposed to be. I limped through the vestibule, trying to get my
pileus
placed securely while struggling with the staff. It had been a bad day for my leg: I had already been on my feet too long. Pío was not about to let me shirk my duties, and I was not about to ask for any favor that might put me in his debt. I leaned up against the wall to catch my breath and peered out at the group huddled outside. My glance fell on Sabina standing behind the soldier Malchus, her hands lightly resting on Livia’s shoulders.
They were both wearing the
pileus
.
•••
Somehow, three-year old Marcus escaped the far side of the carriage even before it had stopped. With delighted screams he came racing around the back and right into the young senator’s entourage of six armed horsemen. Pío stepped forward with surprising speed. He placed his left hand on the snowy chest of our owner’s horse (the beast came to an immediate halt) and with his right arm whisked the kicking bundle of male energy into the air. Only when Crassus had leapt from his white stallion did the chief of staff put Marcus down. The little treasure turned and kicked his savior in the ankle as hard as he could before rushing past his father to get back to the carriage.
Children.
Crassus was even more intent on reaching Tertulla than his son. As the door opened, he scooped the boy up, hung him upside down by his own ankles (an apt punishment until I saw how hard it made little Marcus laugh) and dropped him, gently, back into Pío’s arms. Marcus began to struggle; Pío whispered something to him and the boy lay still. The senator grasped the big man’s shoulder in gratitude, then with a whoop, turned and leaned inside the open door. There sat Tertulla, young and elegant, a wide-eyed baby boy in her lap. Crassus reached underneath his wife with both hands, and accompanied by her shouts of delighted protestations, gathered both mother and son up in his arms. He spun twice round in the gravel, the two parents laughing so hard we who watched could not help but smile.
“Welcome Tertulla,” Crassus cried, “queen of this house, of our assembled
familia
, and most assuredly of me!” He set his wife down as we cheered, then reached for the baby. She whirled away from him, her ice blue eyes on fire. Realization dawned on the master and he apologized deeply, with only his enthusiasm to blame. She turned once again to face him, standing an arms-length apart, formally erect. All became terribly still as Tertulla bent and placed the baby at his feet. It squirmed uncomfortably, its swaddling picking up bits of gravel, but did not cry out.
If the paterfamilias walked away, the child would be taken to the outskirts of the city and abandoned. A father could legally do this if the babe were female, deformed, or if the idea of another screaming mouth in his house were just too tiresome to bear. The practice was the same in Athens.
No such thing would happen to this child. Crassus swept him up in his arms, lifting him high over his head. “I give you Publius Licinius Crassus!” he cried. “Io Saturnalia!”
“Io Saturnalia!” we all shouted in response, I less enthusiastically than most of the others. I mean, honestly, it was freezing. Truth to tell, Pío returned little Marcus to his mother’s arms with remarkable tenderness. I would be moved, if I cared a whit for these strangers. What were they to me?
I looked over at Sabina. She had removed her cap. We began to follow the family back into the house. I waited for Sabina to pass but when I tried to speak to her, with eyes averted she mumbled that she was needed by the master and hurried past.
•••
One son of Marcus Crassus would marry and grow old with little to remark his passing. There was, however, one disturbing exception: he became, for a time, quaestor to Julius Caesar. It was one of life’s small, ironic blessings that Crassus did not live to see his progeny in the service of his enemy.
The other child was doomed to die a hero’s pointless death.
•••
Before I could reenter the
domus
, I was waylaid by Ludovicus. He was five years younger than Sabina, a hard man with a soft center. I always liked him. Except on that day, when he threw an extra cloak over my shoulders and led me into town. Somehow he had come by the knowledge that when it came to women, I had none. He had taken it upon himself, in a festive, holiday mood, to rectify what was, in his opinion, a dreadful oversight. I don’t care how smart you are, he told me cryptically, you’ll never understand how little you really know till you’ve had a woman.
I do not wish to speak of the incident, only to tell you that it was a failure of less than spectacular proportions. By which I do not mean to employ a double negative, nor to imply that it was in any way a success. We arrived at a house with which Ludovicus was well-acquainted and his custom well-received and appreciated. My guide through these dark waters even supplied the coin to tip the ferryman. Which only made matters worse: is a man who does not pay for his whore less of a man? If he is twenty-three, terrified, and the cerebral sort who cannot help but take this simple, single string of reasoning and obsess about it till he has built a smoking Vesuvius, then yes, he is less of a man. And being thus diminished, by definition, therefore, he is less capable of performing this manliest of acts. Why couldn’t we just go home? I looked in vain for Ludovicus, but he had already paired and departed for the bounteous paradise of his favorite Ligurian, leaving me to my personal Hades.
The longer you keep your virginity, the harder it is to get rid of it. If you are male and past a certain age, the more concerned you become that nobody wants to relieve you of it. Which makes it more difficult to perform when given the opportunity. Which confirms your original supposition. Which makes you still more afraid that nobody wants it. And so on.
For a young boy who has not spilled his first seed, sex is a frightful and abhorrent thing to contemplate. As a young teen, it is the
only
thing worthy of prolonged consideration. A visit to the brothel or an early marriage quickly dissolves both tension and ignorance. But what if chance, lack of opportunity or becoming a spoil of war interrupt the natural progression into adulthood? Then, the difficulty of the mathematics of prolonged virginity rises exponentially with age. Until you solve this equation, it will remain a barrier between you and the rest of mankind.
The girl was sweet enough, the room relatively clean and quiet. She took my hands, guided me to her pallet and bade me sit. Standing before me, she slipped from her tunic, her oiled breasts and thighs bronzed by the lamplight. She began touching herself, hardening her nipples between thumb and forefinger and making little animal sounds, either of pain or appreciation. Her facial expressions indicated the former, but I could not be certain. Her hips moved in ways that no man could mimic. Was it arduous practice or some differential physiognomy that enabled such gyrations? Her movements and her hands began to converge about the darkness between her legs. What did she expect of me? Was I supposed to sit and watch or wait for an invitation to become an active participant? And what was I to do exactly? I had no idea and was too embarrassed to ask. I did not know where to look; my eyes darted about, dragonflies flitting over an exotic pond where no resting place promised a safe landing free of humiliation. My confusion was compounded when of a sudden her ankle bracelet began to jingle; she pivoted, dancing in a slow semi-circle till her glistening buttocks gyrated just inches from my face. The oiled dimples of her taut lower back were shining eyes, pleading with me to do I knew not what. Finally, since it was easier to find courage when direct eye contact was not a further dissuasion, I gathered what little I could salvage from my trembling core and in a small voice spoke to her undulating backside, admitting my lack of experience and need for guidance.
For answer, she turned round and smiled with a knowing coyness that gave me credit in an account that was pitifully empty. I was less than bankrupt, for bankruptcy connotes there is something of value to lose. Lying down on her back, she raised her arms behind her neck and interlaced her fingers amongst the tousled thickness of her hair. She raised her knees, planted her feet flat on the orange bedsheet and let her legs fall open. Her hips began a slow rise and return to the bed, over and over, requiring quite a good deal of abdominal strength. Now what? There was no doubt as to my objective: there it beckoned, a miniature cavern whose secret entrance the girl was even now unveiling with painted fingernails. What is it with these women? Do they think that such a log jam of disuse such as I, presented with a scented, lithe and willing female is enough to unleash a lusty and adept Priapus. Was I to touch it, massage it like a sore muscle, plumb its depths with the pitiful limp thing between my quaking legs? Gods awaken! Was I supposed to kiss that moistened, bearded mouth?!
She did not love me. Most likely she did not even like me. Why should she when we had met only moments before? This was all an act; there was no genuine feeling here. Even when she took me in her oiled hands to bring life to the dead, I could not stop thinking that the only reason my prick was in her hands was the coin Ludovicus had placed in it earlier. Then I began thinking about Ludovicus touching her hand, and her hand touching me, and the oaky lengths she was beginning to coax from my staff quickly began to shrivel. Yes, I understand there was far too much thinking going on in that tiny room, but that is my curse. I thanked her with another small coin and retreated to the lobby. There I sat waiting for the lusty Ludovicus to reappear, as comfortable as a failing student sent before his favorite teacher. I supposed I would just have to wait until I came across some understanding woman who found my obsessions a blessing. And that is all I wish to say about the matter.
•••
It was late by the time we returned, Ludovicus conciliatory, myself dejected and consigned to a still deeper pit of virginity out of which it seemed I would never climb. The feast was over and the last guest had departed, content and full by the look of the domestic disarray. Crassus and his wife had long ago retired. My wouldbe benefactor and I pitched in to help clean the house and restore its pristine opulence. An hour later we were about to retire to our respective quarters when there came a knock at the front entrance. The soldier Betto admitted a dark, bearded man wearing one gold earring and long robes striped blue and purple. He was followed by two of his own protectors. Rome was not a safe place to be out and about at night.
Livia, a small bag slung over her shoulder, came running up to her mother. Sabina hugged her daughter fiercely and would have remained till dawn in that embrace had not Livia gently broken free. “Good night, mother. Will I see you soon?”
Sabina’s chin trembled and her eyes widened in that trick we use to keep the tears from falling. “Soon,” she managed. Livia turned toward the strangers, but Sabina reached to trace her hand down the full length of her daughter’s outstretched arm. As Livia moved away Sabina let the fabric of her daughter’s tunic pass through her hand, then the softness of her child’s arm till at last only their hands touched, fingers intertwining. Finally, fingertips shared the last brief spark of connection. Livia giggled at this little game, then ran to the stranger.
“Can we not keep her,” Sabina asked, “at least till the end of the Saturnalia?”
“She is promised elsewhere,” the dark man said with a compassionate tilt of his head. His accent was strange. He smiled down at the girl and held out his hand. She took it. They stepped back out into the night. As the front door was being barred shut Livia began to whistle. In a few moments the sound receded into silence.