A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C., - [famous ebook reader .txt] 📗

streets at night; highwaymen in every foul alley; unsafe to stir at evening without an armed band! No police worth mentioning; freshets every now and then; fires every day or else a building tumbles down. And then they must wake me up at an unearthly hour in the morning. Curses on me for ever coming near the place!" And the speaker rolled over on the bed, and shook himself, preparatory to getting up.

"Bah! Can these Roman dogs never learn that power is to be used, not abused? Why don't they spend some of their revenues to level these seven hills that shut off the light, and straighten and widen their abominable, ill-paved streets, and keep houses from piling up as if to storm Olympus? Pshaw, I had better stop croaking, and be up and about."

The speaker sat up in bed, and clapped his hands. Into the ill-lighted and unpretentiously furnished room came a tall, bony, ebon-skinned old Ethiopian, very scantily attired, who awaited the wishes of his master.

"Come, Sesostris," said the latter, "get out my best himation[26]—the one with the azure tint. Give me a clean chiton,[27] and help me dress."

And while the servant bustled briskly about his work, Pratinas, for such was his lord's name, continued his monologue, ignoring the presence of his attendant. "Not so bad with me after all. Six years ago to-day it was I came to Rome, with barely an obol of ready money, to make my fortune by my wits. Zeus! But I can't but say I've succeeded. A thousand sesterces here and five hundred there, and now and then a better stroke of fortune—politics, intrigues, gambling; all to the same end. And now?—oh, yes, my 'friends' would say I am very respectable, but quite poor—but they don't know how I have economized, and how my account stands with Sosthenes the banker at Alexandria. My old acquaintance with Lucius Domitius was of some use. A few more months of this life and I am away from this beastly Rome, to enjoy myself among civilized people."

Pratinas went over to a large wooden chest with iron clasps, unlocked it, and gazed for a moment inside with evident satisfaction. "There are six good talents in there," he remarked to himself, "and then there is Artemisia."

He had barely concluded this last, hardly intelligible assertion, when the curtain of the room was pushed aside, and in came a short, plump, rosy-faced little maiden of twelve, with a clearly chiselled Greek profile and lips as red as a cherry. Her white chiton was mussed and a trifle soiled; and her thick black hair was tied back in a low knot, so as to cover what were two very shapely little ears. All in all, she presented a very pretty picture, as the sunlight streamed over her, when she drew back the hangings at the window.

"Good morning, Uncle Pratinas," she said sweetly.

"Good morning, Artemisia, my dear," replied the other, giving her round neck a kiss, and a playful pinch. "You will practise on your lyre, and let Sesostris teach you to sing. You know we shall go back to Alexandria very soon; and it is pleasant there to have some accomplishments."

"And must you go out so early, uncle?" said the girl. "Can't you stay with me any part of the day? Sometimes I get very lonely."

"Ah! my dear," said Pratinas, smoothly, "if I could do what I wished, I would never leave you. But business cannot wait. I must go and see the noble Lucius Calatinus on some very important political matters, which you could not understand. Now run away like a good girl, and don't become doleful."

Artemisia left the room, and Pratinas busied himself about the fine touches of his toilet. When he held the silver mirror up to his face, he remarked to himself that he was not an unhandsome man. "If I did not have to play the philosopher, and wear this thick, hot beard,[28] I would not be ashamed to show my head anywhere." Then while he perfumed himself with oil of saffron out of a little onyx bottle, he went on:—

"What dogs and gluttons these Romans are! They have no real taste for art, for beauty. They cannot even conduct a murder, save in a bungling way. They have to call in us Hellenes to help them. Ha! ha! this is the vengeance for Hellas, for the sack and razing of Corinth and all the other atrocities! Rome can conquer with the sword; but we Greeks, though conquered, can, unarmed, conquer Rome. How these Italians can waste their money! Villas, statues, pretty slaves, costly vases, and tables of mottled cypress,[29] oysters worth their weight in gold, and I know not what else! And I, poor Pratinas, the Greek, who lives in an upper floor of a Subura house at only two thousand sesterces rental, find in these noble Roman lords only so much plunder. Ha! ha! Hellas, thou art avenged!"

And gathering his mantle about him, he went down the several flights of very rickety stairs, and found himself in the buzzing street.

II

The Romans hugged a fond belief that houses shut out from sunlight and air were extremely healthy. If such were the fact, there should have been no sickness in a great part of the capital. The street in which Pratinas found himself was so dark, that he was fain to wait till his eyes accommodated themselves to the change. The street was no wider than an alley, yet packed with booths and hucksters,—sellers of boiled peas and hot sausage, and fifty other wares. On the worthy Hellene pressed, while rough German slaves or swarthy Africans jostled against him; the din of scholars declaiming in an adjoining school deafened him; a hundred unhappy odors made him wince. Then, as he fought his way, the streets grew a trifle wider; as he approached the Forum the shops became more pretentious; at last he reached his destination in the aristocratic quarter of the Palatine, and paused before a new and ostentatious mansion, in whose vestibule was swarming a great bevy of clients, all come in the official calling costume—a ponderous toga—to pay their respects to the great man. But as the inner door was pushed aside by the vigilant keeper, all the rest of the crowd were kept out till Pratinas could pass within.

The atrium of the house was a splendid sight, with its veined marble pillars, mosaic floor, bubbling fountain, choice frescoes, and expensive furniture upholstered in Tyrian purple. A little in the rear of this gorgeous room was seated in a high armchair the individual who boasted himself the lord of this establishment, Lucius Atilius Calatinus. He was a large, coarse man, with a rough, bull-dog face and straight red hair. He had been drinking heavily the night before, and his small bluish eyes had wide dark circles beneath them, and his breath showed strongly the garlic with which he had seasoned the bread and grapes of his early lunch. He was evidently very glad to see his Greek visitor, and drove the six large, heavily gemmed rings which he wore on one of his fat fingers, almost into the other's hand when he shook it.

"Well met, Pratinas!" was his salutation. "Tell me, is that little affair of yours settled? Have you stopped the mouth of that beastly fellow, Postumus Pyrgensis, who said that I was a base upstart, with no claim to my gentile name, and a bad record as a tax farmer in Spain, and therefore should not be elected tribune[30]?"

"I have stopped him," said Pratinas, with a little cough. "But it was expensive. He stuck out for ten thousand sesterces."

"Oh, cheaply off," said Calatinus, laughing. "I will give you my cheque on Flaccus the banker. But I want to know about the other matter. Can you make sure of the votes of the Suburana tribe? Have you seen Autronius?"

"I have seen him," said Pratinas, dryly.

"And he said?"

"Twenty thousand sesterces for him to deposit with trustees[31] until the election is over. Then he as go-between[32] will make sure of a majority of the tribesmen, and distribute to them the money if all goes well at the comitia.[33] It was the best bargain I could make; for Autronius really controls the tribe, and some one might outbid us."

"All right," broke out Calatinus with a laugh, "another cheque on Flaccus."

"One thing else," said Pratinas; "I must have a little money to shut up any complaints that those ridiculous anti-bribery Licinian and Pompeian Laws are being broken. Then there is my fee."

"Oh, yes," replied the other, not to be daunted in his good humour, "I'll give you fifty thousand in all. Now I must see this rabble."

And the mob of clients swept up to the armchair, grasping after the great man's hand, and raining on him their aves, while some daring mortals tried to thrust in a kiss.

Pratinas drew back and watched the crowd with a smile half cynical, half amused. Some of the visitors were regular hangers-on, who perhaps expected an invitation to dine; some were seekers of patronage; some had an eye to political preferment, a few were real acquaintances of Calatinus or came on some legitimate business. Pratinas observed three friends waiting to speak with Calatinus, and was soon in conversation.

The first of the trio was known as Publius Gabinius, who was by far the oldest. Coarse-featured, with broken complexion, it needed but a glance to proclaim him as gifted with no other distinctions than those of a hard drinker, fast liver, and the owner of an attenuated conscience. Servius Flaccus, the second, was of a different type. He was languid; spirited only when he railed at a slave who brushed against his immaculate toga. The frills on his robes made him almost feminine; and he spoke, even in invective, in a soft, lisping voice. Around him floated the aroma of countless rare unguents, that made his coming known afar off. His only aim in life was evidently to get through it with as little exertion of brain or muscle as was possible. The third friend was unlike the others. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus clearly amounted to more than either of his companions. A constant worship of three very popular gods of the day—Women, Wine, and Gaming—with the other excitements of a dissipated life, had ruined a fine fair complexion. As it was, he had the profile of a handsome, affable man; only the mouth was hard and sensual, and his skin was faded and broken. He wore a little brown beard carefully trimmed around his well-oiled chin after the manner of Roman men of fashion; and his dark hair was crimped in regular steps or gradations, parting in the middle and arranged on both sides like a girl's.[34]

"Good morning, Pratinas!" said Lucius, warmly, taking the Greek's hand. "How glad we are to find you here. I wanted to ask you around to Marcus Læca's to-night; we think he will give something of a feast, and you must see my latest sweetheart—Clyte! She is a little pearl. I have had her head cut in intaglio on this onyx; is she not pretty?"

"Very pretty," said Pratinas, looking at the engraving on the ring. "But perhaps it is not right for me, a grave philosopher, to go to your banquet."

"How (h)absurd! (H)of c(h)ourse you c(h)an!" lisped Flaccus, who affected Greek so far as to aspirate every word beginning with a vowel, and to change every c into a ch.

"Well," said Pratinas, laughing, for he was a dearly loved favourite of all these gilded youth, "I will see! And now Gabinius is inviting Calatinus also, and we are dispersing for the morning."

"Alas," groaned Ahenobarbus, "I must go to the Forum to plead with that wretch Phormio, the broker, to arrange a new loan."

"And I to the Forum, also," added Calatinus, coming up, "to continue this pest of a canvass for votes."

The clients fell into line behind Calatinus like a file of soldiers, but before Pratinas could start away with the other friends, a slave-boy came running out from the inner house, to say that "the Lady Valeria would be glad of his company in her boudoir." The Greek bowed his farewells, then followed the boy back through the court of the peristylium.[35]

III

The dressing room occupied by Valeria—once wife of Sextus Drusus and now living with Calatinus as her third husband in about four years—was fitted up with every luxury which money, and a taste which carried refinement to an extreme point, could accomplish. The walls were bright with splendid mythological scenes by really good artists; the furniture itself was plated with silver; the rugs were magnificent. The mistress of this palatial abode was sitting in a low easy-chair, holding before her a fairly large silver mirror. She wore a loose gown of silken texture, edged to an ostentatious extent with purple. Around her hovered Arsinoë and Semiramis, two handsome Greek slave-girls, who were far better looking than their owner, inasmuch as their complexions had never been ruined by paints