Roma Eterna (42 page)

The road winds up into the hills. A cloud has drifted over the city and the early evening sunlight tumbles through it like golden rain. The surface of the bay is ablaze with light. Mysterious gray islands are visible in the distance.

The villa of Marcellus Domitianus Frontinus is set in a park so big it takes us fifteen minutes to reach the house once we are past the colossal iron gate. It is a light and graceful pavilion, the enormous size of which is carefully masked by the elegance of its design, set on the very edge of a lofty slope. There is a look of deceptive fragility about it, as though it would be sensitive to the slightest movements of the atmosphere. The view from its portico runs from Vesuvius in the east to some jutting cape far off down the other shore of the bay. All around it are marvelous
shrubs and trees in bloom, and the fragrance they exhale is the fragrance of unthinkable wealth. I begin to wonder how much those ten thousand cases of wine can matter to this man.

Yet Frontinus himself is earthy and amiable, a stocky balding man with an easy grin and an immediately congenial style.

He is there to greet me as I step down from the carriage. “I am Marcello Domiziano,” he tells me, speaking Roman, grinning broadly as he puts out his hand. “Welcome to my house, dear friend Cymbelin!”

Marcello Domiziano.
He uses the Roman, not the Latin, form of his name. In the provinces, of course, we pretentiously allow ourselves Latin names, mingling them to some degree with Britannic or Gallic or Teutonic localisms; but here in Italia the only people who have the privilege of going by names in the ancient Latin mode are members of the Senatorial and Imperial families and high military officers, and the rest must employ the modern Roman form. Frontinus rises above his own privilege of rank: I may call him Marcello, the way I would one of his field hands. And he will call me Cymbelin. Very swiftly we are dear friends, or so he wants me to feel, and I have barely arrived.

 

The gathering is under way already, on a breeze-swept open patio with a terrazzo floor, looking outward toward the city center far below. Fifteen, perhaps twenty people, handsome men, stunning women, everyone laughing and chattering like the people in the sidewalk cafés.

“My daughter, Adriana,” Frontinus says. “Her friend Lucilla, visiting from Roma.”

They are extraordinarily beautiful. The two of them surround me and I am dazzled. I remember once in Gallia, at a great villa somewhere near Nemausus, I was led by my host into the heart of a mirror maze that he had had built for his amusement, and instantly I felt myself top
pling dizzily forward, vanishing between the infinitely reduplicated images, and had to pull myself back with an effort, heart pounding, head spinning.

It is like that now, standing between these two girls. Their beauty dazes me, their perfume intoxicates me. Frontinus has moved away, leaving me unsure of which is the daughter and which is the friend; I look from one to the other, confused.

The girl to my left is full-bodied and robust, with sharp features, pale skin, and flaming red hair arrayed close to her skull in tight coils, an antique style that might have been copied from some ancient wall painting. The other, taller, is dark and slender, almost frail, with heavy rows of blue faience beads about her throat and shadowy rings painted beneath her eyes. For all her flimsiness she is very sleek, soft-skinned, with a glossy Aegyptian look about her. The red-haired one must be Frontinus's daughter, I decide, comparing her sturdy deep-chested frame to his; but no, no, she is the visitor from Roma, for the taller, darker one says, speaking not Roman but Latin, and in a voice smooth as Greek honey, “You do honor to our house, distinguished sir. My father says that you are of royal birth.”

I wonder if I am being mocked. But I see the way she is measuring me with her eyes, running over my length and breadth as though I am a statue in some museum's hall of kings. The other one is doing the same.

“I carry a royal name, at any rate,” I say. “Cymbelin—you may know him as Cunobelinus, in the history books. Whose son was the warrior king Caratacus, captured and pardoned by the first Emperor Claudius. My father has gone to great pains to have our genealogy traced to their line.”

I smile disarmingly; and I see that they take my meaning precisely. I am describing the foolish pretensions of a rich provincial merchant, nothing more.

“How long ago was that, actually?” asks the redhead, Lucilla.

“The genealogical study?”

“The capturing and pardoning of your great ancestor.”

“Why—” I hesitate. Haven't I just said that it was in the time of Claudius the First? But she flutters her eyes at me as though she is innocent of any historical information. “About eighteen centuries ago,” I tell her. “When the Empire was still new. Claudius the First was the fourth of the Caesars. The fifth, if you count Julius Caesar as an Emperor. Which I think is the proper thing to do.”

“How precise you are about such things,” Adriana Frontina says, laughing.

“About historical matters, yes. About very little else, I'm afraid.”

“Will you be traveling widely in Italia?” asks Lucilla.

“I'll want to see the area around Neapolis, of course. Pompeii and the other old ruins, and a few days on the isle of Capreae. Then up to Roma, certainly, and maybe farther north—Etruria, Venetia, even as far up as Mediolanum. Actually, I want to see it all.”

“Perhaps we can tour it together,” Lucilla says. Just like that, bluntly, baldly. And now there is no flutter of innocence whatever in her wide-set, intelligent eyes, only a look of unmistakable mischief.

Of course I have heard that the women of Roma are that way. I am startled, all the same, by her forwardness, and for the moment I can find no reply; and then all the others come flocking around me. Marcellus Frontinus bombards me with introductions, reciting name after name, spilling them forth so quickly that it's impossible for me to match name to face.

“Enrico Giunio, the Count of Pausylipon, and Countess Emilia. My son, Druso Tiberio, and his friend Ezio. Quintillo Fabio Puteolano. Vitellio di Portofino; his wife, Claudia; their daughter, Crispina. Traiano Gordiano Tertullo, of Capreae—Marco Ulpio Africano—Sabina Metella Arboria—” A blur of names. There is no end to them. One
alone out of all of them registers with real impact on me: “My brother, Cassio,” Frontinus says. A slender, olive-skinned man with eyes like bits of polished coal: the great war hero, this is, Cassius Lucius Frontinus! I begin to salute him, but Frontinus rattles out four more introductions before I can. People seem to be materializing out of thin air. To Adriana I whisper, “Has your father invited all of Neapolis here tonight?”

“Only the interesting ones,” she says. “It isn't every day that a British king visits us.” And giggles.

Swarms of servants—slaves?—move among us, bringing things to eat and drink. I am cautious in the first few rounds, reminding myself that this is only my first day here and that the fatigue of my journey may lead me into embarrassments, but then, to avoid seeming impolite, I select a goblet of wine and a small meat-cake, and hold them without tasting them, occasionally lifting them to my mouth and lowering them again untouched.

The high lords and ladies of Neapolitan society surround me in swirling clusters, peppering me with questions to which they don't really appear to be expecting answers. Some speak in Roman, some in Latin. How long will I be here? Will I spend my entire time in Neapolis? What has aroused my interest in visiting Italia? Is the economy of Britannia currently flourishing? Does everyone speak only Britannic there, or is Latin widely used also? Is there anything in Britannia that a traveler from Italia would find rewarding to see? How does British food compare with Italian food? Do I think that the current Treaty of Unity will hold? Have I been to Pompeii yet? To the Greek temples at Paestum? On and on. It is a bombardment. I make such replies as I can, but the questions overlap my answers in a highly exhausting way. I am grateful for my stout constitution. Even so, after a time I become so weary that I begin to have trouble understanding their quick, idiomatic Roman, and I revert entirely to
the older, purer Latin tongue, hoping it will encourage them to do the same. Some do, some don't.

Lucilla and Adriana remain close by my side throughout the ordeal, and I am grateful for that also.

These people think of me as a new toy, I realize. The novelty of the hour, to be examined in fascination for a little while and then discarded.

 

The wind off the bay has turned chilly with the coming of evening, and somehow, almost imperceptibly, the gathering has moved indoors and upstairs, to a huge room overlooking the atrium that will apparently be our banqueting hall.

“Come,” Adriana says. “You must meet Uncle Cassio.”

The famous general is far across the room, standing with arms folded, listening with no show of emotion while his brother and another man carry on what seems to be a fierce argument. He wears a tightly cut khaki uniform and his breast is bedecked with medals and ribbons. The other man, I remember after a moment, is the Count of Pausylipon, whom Frontinus had so casually referred to as “Enrico Giunio.” He is gaunt, tall—nearly as tall as I am—hawk-faced, animated: his expression seems close to apoplectic. Marcello Domiziano is just as excited, neck straining upward, face pushed close to the other's, arms pinwheeling in emphatic gesticulations. I get the sense that these two have been bitterly snarling and snapping at each other over some great political issue for years.

They are speaking, I gather, of nothing less than the destiny of Roma itself. The Count of Pausylipon appears to be arguing that it is of the highest importance that the Empire should continue to survive as a single political entity—something that I did not think anyone seriously doubted, now that Reunification had been accomplished. “There's a reason why Roma has lasted so long,” the Count was saying. “It's not just about power—the power of one city over an entire continent. It's about stability, co
herence, the supremacy of a system that values logic, efficiency, superb engineering, planning. The world is the better for our having ruled it so long. We have brought light where only the darkness of barbarism would have existed otherwise.”

These did not seem to me like controversial propositions. But I could see by the expression on the florid face of Marcello Domiziano and his obvious impatience to respond that there must be some area of strong disagreement between the two men, not in any way apparent to me. And Adriana, leaning close to me as she leads me across the room, whispers something that amidst all the noise I am unable clearly to make out, but which obscures what Marcello Domiziano has just said to the Count.

Despite all the furor going on at his elbow, it appears almost as though the famous general is asleep on his feet—a knack that must be useful during lulls in long battles—except that every few moments, in response, I suppose, to some provocative remark by one combatant or the other, his eyelids widen and a brilliant, baleful glare is emitted by those remarkable coal-bright eyes. I feel hesitant at joining this peculiar little group. But Adriana steers me over to them.

Frontinus cries, “Yes, yes, Cymbelin! Come meet my brother!” He has noticed my hesitation also. But perhaps he would welcome an interruption of the hostilities.

Which I provide. The dispute, the discussion, whatever it is, evaporates the moment I get there, turning into polite vaporous chitchat. The Count, having calmed himself totally, an impressive display of patrician self-control, offers me a lofty, remote nod of acknowledgment, gives Adriana and Lucilla a pat on the shoulder apiece, and excuses himself to go in search of a fresh drink. Frontinus, still a little red in the face but cheerful as ever, commends me to his brother's attention with an upturned palm. “Our British friend,” he says.

“I am honored, your Excellence,” I say, making a little bow to Cassius Lucius Frontinus.

“Oh, none of that, now,” says Uncle Cassio. “We aren't in the camp.” He speaks in Latin. His voice is thin and hard, like the edge of a knife, but I sense that he's trying to be genial.

For a moment I am giddy with awe, simply at finding myself in his presence. I think of this little man—and that is what he is, little, as short as his brother and very much slighter of build—striding untiringly from Dacia to Gallia and back in seven-league boots, putting out the fires of secession everywhere. The indomitable general, the savior of the Empire.

There will be fire of a different sort ablaze in the Empire soon, and I am standing very close to its source. But I have no awareness of that just yet.

Cassius Frontinus surveys me as though measuring me for a uniform. “Tell me, are all you Britons that big?”

“I'm a bit larger than average, actually.”

“A good thing. We came very close to invading you, you know, very early in the war. It wouldn't have been any picnic, facing a whole army of men your size.”

“Invading Britannia, sir?” Lucilla asks.

“Indeed,” he says, giving the girl a quick chilly smile. “A preemptive strike, when we thought Britannia might be toying with joining the rebellion.”

I blink at him in surprise and some irritation. This is a sore place for us: why is he rubbing it?

Staunchly I say, “That would never have happened, sir. We are Loyalists, you know, we Britons.”

“Yes. Yes, of course you are. But the risk was there, after all. A fifty-fifty chance is the way it seemed to us then. It was a touchy moment. And the High Command thought, let's send a few legions over there, just to keep them in line. Before your time, I suppose.”

I'm still holding my goblet of wine, still untasted. Now, nervously, I take a deep draught.

Against all propriety I feel impelled to defend my race. With preposterous stiffness I say, “Let me assure you, gen
eral, that I am not as young as you may think, and I can tell you that there was never the slightest possibility that Britannia would have gone over to the rebels. None.”