The Year of Confusion(19)

I ran the list through my mind and came up with nothing. Sallustius was watching me, smirking knowingly and then I realized I was wrong in considering only Roman women. “Cleopatra!”

His eyebrows went up. “You are quick, I confess it. Yes, despite their resentments of her foreignness and her seductive wiles, Rome’s women are fascinated with the Queen of Egypt. The common rabble think she is a native Egyptian, but of course she is actually Greek, and well-born Greeks are respectable.”

“Actually she’s Macedonian, but that’s close enough. I hadn’t considered it. For such an intelligent and educated woman, she is crazed by every form of mysticism imaginable. And I’ve visited that temple in Egypt that has the zodiac set into the ceiling. Astrology made its way from Babylonia to Egypt centuries ago.”

“So for many months now Cleopatra and her Roman friends have been having stargazing parties at her house out on the Janiculum. Her astrologers are always on hand to deliver nebulous pronouncements, advise the ladies on their love lives and their husbands’ careers, and what the future holds for their children.”

“And are some of these astrologers among the calendar crowd on the island?”

“Ah, here is my boy Apollo with some refreshment!” His “boy” Apollo was perhaps the ugliest old man in Rome, a lifelong retainer of the Sallustius family who, according to long rumor, had as a youth been incredibly handsome, hence his name. Whatever his history, he carried wine not in a skin, but in an enormous bottle of green glass that was worth a fortune. The cups he carried were of fine hammered gold and he poured us each a cup. It was wonderful Caecuban.

“Sallustius, with your love of fine things, why do you have that ugly old man dogging your steps?”

“Decius, there are some things better even than beauty. Loyalty is one of them.”

“Profoundly true. You were about to tell me about those astrologers.”

“No, I was about to ask you a question.”

“I was afraid of that, but for the sake of wine this good, I’ll be patient.”

“Every social circle has a leader at its center. Which Roman lady do you think has been the most enthusiastic about astrology and who first broke the ice and took her friends to Cleopatra despite their initial resentment of that exotic queen?”

“You’re not going to tell me that it was Calpurnia, are you?”

“I am a historian, not a fabulist. Who is the second most unlikely?” It was just his annoying Socratic method.

It struck me. “Not Servilia!”

“Servilia, indeed. Back several years ago, when she was trying to win back Caesar’s affections, she consulted with every crackpot, lunatic, fraudulent witch, fortune-teller, and mystic in Rome. As you know well, Rome abounds with such people. If I were one inclined to gossip,” he assumed a look of comical innocence, “I might tell you that she engaged in some practices with these people that might lay her open to some very severe punishments, were they to come to light.”

I examined the fine gold cup and speculated about the sources of Sallustius’s wealth, but said nothing.

“So she was able to set aside her understandable resentment toward the latest lady to acquire the ever-migrating affections of the great man?”

“So it would seem. It might have been calculation but I prefer to attribute it to greatness of soul.”

“Who could doubt it? Now, I will grant you I doubt that Demades was involved in these convivial explorations of the gods’ plans. He was, after all, of the anti-astrology party, if I may so term it. Were any of the pro-astrology party present? Polasser, for instance, or the Arab or the Indian?”

“Oh, but you are wrong. Demades was there at many of the meetings. As to the others, I confess ignorance.”

“Why would the rationalist Demades take part in these mystic gatherings, when he evinced great hostility toward such things?”

“My friend Decius,” he said, grinning, “I can only present you with the facts available to me. It is your special art to make sense of these things.”

“And so I shall, in time,” I assured him, rising to go.

“But wait. You agreed to an exchange of information,” he protested.

“I agreed on the proviso that your information should prove useful to my investigation. That is yet to be proven. Should I decide in the affirmative, rest assured that you shall have your interview concerning Caesar in Gaul.”

“You are a legalistic hair-splitter, Decius,” he said.

“It’s my heritage,” I told him. “We Metelli are all great lawyers.”

Outside I found Hermes and told him what I had learned. I was unsure about the value of Sallustius’s information. The presence of Servilia had come as a jolt, but I probably would have discovered it eventually as Cleopatra was among the persons I had intended to interrogate. The astronomers were, after all, her own gift to Caesar, for his calendar project. Unfortunately she was out of Rome and one didn’t summon a queen to come back to the City to answer the questions of a lowly senator. And I wasn’t about to demand that Caesar call her back.