“Oh!” she said when I was finished. “I knew those women were wicked; I never realized they were truly evil!”
“An interesting distinction. I take it you mean the patrician women, not the witches?”
“Exactly. The strigae sound no more than primitive, like barbarians or people from the time of Homer. But Clodia and the rest must do this for the perversity of it.”
“Cicero said much the same thing just now,” I told her.
“Cicero? When did you speak with him?” So I gave her our conversation. Julia loved philosophical things for some reason, and she listened with close attention. Luckily, I had a well-trained memory and was able to repeat him word for word. I was a little put out that she hadn’t gone into palpitations over my mortal danger and desperate flight. True, I was right there so she could see that I had survived the experience, but I expected some display of concern. It was not the only disappointment of my life.
“He is right,” she said, nodding. “What you witnessed was a ritual of a very ancient religion. It makes those rustic wise women seem rather innocent, in a horrible sort of way.”
“Philosophical detachment is an admirable trait,” I told her, “but those people wanted to kill me! Put my eyes out anyway.”
“Punishments for profanation and sacrilege are always severe. Besides, you got out of it in one piece. You shouldn’t make such a great thing of it. You really aren’t a hero out of some epic.” I could tell she was still angry with me.
“Cicero himself compared me with Ulysses.”
“Cicero is sometimes guilty of rhetorical excess. Most politicians are. Now, how do we find Ascylta?”
It was no use. “We may have to wait until she’s back beneath her arch at the Flaminius. She is probably out there somewhere”—I gestured grandly to take in the spectacle of the overcrowded Forum—“but it would be futile to try to find her.”
“Have you anything better to do?” she asked impatiently.
“Well, it is a holiday, and I had a rough night. I had planned to indulge in a little debauchery …”
She pushed off the railing with her hands and landed lightly on her dainty, highborn feet. “Come along, Decius, let’s go look for her.”
Julia’s sprightly energy depressed me. Undoubtedly, she had enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Perforce, I concluded that wandering around the city was as good a way as any to spend the day, and we certainly would not lack for distractions. So off we went, peering into booths and tents, pausing to take in some of the innumerable performances or allow a chain of dancing celebrants to wind its mindless way past us.
The fortune-teller’s establishments were everywhere. Instead of being concentrated in one area as on ordinary days, they were set up wherever they could find space. And there were far more of them than usual, because the practitioners from all the villages and towns for many miles around Rome had come to town for the holiday. They had come from as far as Luca to the north and Capua to the south.
It seemed as if most of the Italian peninsula had crammed itself into Rome that day. And there was the usual crowd of foreigners, come to the center of the world to gawk, everything from Syrians in long robes to check-trousered Gauls and Egyptians with their eyes outlined in kohl. Somehow, Rome had become a cosmopolitan city. I suppose you can’t be the capital of the world without a lot of aliens hanging about.
By early afternoon we had exhausted the possibilities of the Forum Romanum so we decided to try the Forum Boarium, the cattle market. There the relative lack of monuments, platforms, podia, and the like made it easier to explore, as the many small merchants had established a sort of tent city, like a legionary camp, with an almost orderly grid of streets. There were fewer fortune-tellers and more people selling merchandise: ribbons, children’s toys, figurines, small oil lamps, and other things of trifling value to be passed along as gifts.
Julia acted as if she were in the great marketplace of Alexandria, exclaiming over every new display of tawdry trash as if she had just discovered the golden fleece hanging in a tree in Colchis. I think it was Colchis.
“Julia, I never knew you had this streak of vulgarity,” I said. “I approve. It makes you seem … well, you seem more Roman.”
“You do have a way with compliments.” She picked up a little terra-cotta group: two ladies gossiping with pet dogs in their laps.
I selected a lively little Thracian gladiator, poised to strike and painted in lifelike colors. He held a tiny bronze sword and his helmet sported a crest of real feathers.
“I like this one,” I proclaimed.