When I came to the house of the late Publius Clodius Pulcher I thought how strange it was that I could just walk up to the door and knock. There were times when my life would have been forfeit just for showing up in the neighborhood. It was situated in the most fashionable district of the Palatine, just as in Catullus’s famous poem: “… five doors up the Clivus Victoriae.…”
The janitor who opened up at my knock wasn’t the usual aged, used-up slave you usually found performing that task. This one was a stalwart young man with handsome, Cappadocian features, wearing a brief tunic. The housekeeper to whom I gave my name and errand was a raven-haired Greek beauty and all the household slaves, at least in the front of the domus, were pretty boys and girls. Some things hadn’t changed in this household anyway. Clodia had had a similar liking for beautiful things.
“Please come with me, Senator,” the housekeeper said, returning from the inner fastnesses of the mansion. I followed her attractively swaying backside to the peristyle, where rare trees and shrubs grew from giant pots surrounding the pool. The woman showed me to an exquisite bronze table, its fretwork discus supported by three ithyphallic satyrs. The chair was one of three made as a suite with the table, all of the finest Campanian bronzework. Their cushions were stuffed with down and sweet herbs. This was one of those luxurious households Cato was always railing about.
“Please be seated, Senator. My lady will be here presently.” I sat and a pair of twin German slave girls brought a pitcher of hammered gold and cups of the same metal, embossed with doves and flowers. The wine was the exquisite Caecuban favored by the Claudian family, wholly unwatered.
While I sipped, admiring the Greek statuary, I tried to guess from which direction Fulvia would make her entrance. Every doorway opening off the peristyle was beautifully decorated and flanked by fine sculpture. Finally I settled on the door with Leda and the swan on one side, Ganymede and the eagle on the other. Both had been executed in scandalous erotic detail and were the most eye-catching works of art within sight. I was right. When she arrived it was between those two statues and for further counterpoint, the pale marble contrasted nicely with her gown.
Leave it to Fulvia to look good in mourning. In tribute to her recently departed brother, she wore a black gown, its fabric sheer to near-transparency, the gatherings of the sleeves drooping so low as to leave her arms and shoulders almost bare.
“Decius Caecilius!” She came forward, one hand extended. “Just yesterday your wife called for the first time in years; today I have the pleasure of your company. Dare I hope this signifies a warming of relations between us?” Her furry voice was as sensuous as her tiny, voluptuous body.
I took her hand. “My feelings for you have always been of the warmest, Fulvia, although your late husband and I had our differences. And speaking of relations, please accept my condolences on the untimely death of your brother.”
I fought to suppress the usual effect this woman had on me. Fulvia was in her midtwenties and at the height of her beauty. She was, in fact, one of Rome’s great beauties, more so even than Clodia and the equal of Fausta, the daughter of Sulla. But where Fausta’s beauty was icily patrician, Fulvia’s had a carnality we usually associate with Alexandrian whores and Spanish dancers from Gades. Her abundant, tawny hair; her huge, heavy-lidded gray eyes; her wide, full lips, all held promise of infinite depravity.
“Very kind of you, Decius, but I scarcely knew him.” She sat and one of the twins filled a cup for her. In those days women weren’t supposed to drink unwatered wine, but they weren’t supposed to wear those sheer gowns either. “People are saying you killed him, but I don’t believe it. I’ve heard he was butchered horribly, and I know that you would do a quick, clean job of it.”
“You flatter me. Yes, I’ve never killed a man willingly, but when forced to it I’ve always gotten the business done with as little fuss as possible.”
“I’ll have to see to his funeral arrangements. I still have a few friends. One of them is coming here soon to handle the details. I think I’ll just have him cremated here and send his ashes back to Baiae for the full funeral treatment and interment in the family tomb. It’s on a beautiful site beside the bay.”
“That would be best,” I told her. “With so few friends and relations here in Rome, he wouldn’t get a send-off proper to a man of his ancestry.”
“I’m so glad you agree. I have a bad enough reputation without appearing dry-eyed at the funeral. I am really not very good at wailing and clothes rending, although I did my best for poor Clodius.”