Under Vesuvius(30)

“That girl was not the modest, blameless idol the old man described in her eulogy.” What she felt delivering these words was difficult to read, but I sensed deep emotion there.

“What mortal has ever matched up to his or her eulogy? The form is stylized and consists almost entirely of conventional phrases. I myself have delivered eulogies for utterly wretched human beings and made them sound like fit companions for the gods.”

She laughed, and she had a good laugh, one that made all the flesh she was displaying jiggle. “Well, be that as it may, the girl was—I don’t want to speak ill of the dead and attract her vengeful spirit—” she spilled a few drops of wine onto the pavement in propitiation “—but that young woman was spreading herself pretty thin.”

“And if she was promiscuous, what of it? That’s the stuff of family scandal, not the concern of a senior magistrate.”

“It is if her activities involve treason.”

“Treason?” I said, intrigued. In those days treason was an exceedingly slippery concept. With so many men and factions vying for supreme power, each tended to define the concept his own way. These days, it just means anything the First Citizen doesn’t like.

“Treason,” she reaffirmed. “We don’t engage in Roman-style power politics down here, but we aren’t entirely unaware of how it’s played. Campania and points south are old Pompeian territory, full of his clientela.”

“I can hardly be unaware of that.”

“Before much longer, it’s going to come to a showdown between Caesar and Pompey.”

I closed my eyes. Finally, those two names. I had thought I was away from it all, but no chance of that. “The names are not unfamiliar to me. But activity on behalf of one or the other scarcely merits the onus of treason.”

“It does when dealings with foreign powers are involved.”

Perhaps I should clarify something here. Clientage—that interlocking series of relationships that so closely binds men not necessarily of the same family—has always been a bedrock of Roman society and remains so even now. But in my younger days it carried even greater import. Citizen clients were obliged to vote for you, and noncitizen clients owed you all the accustomed duties. Hence, politically ambitious men took every pain to expand their clientela. Great men had millions of clients, encompassing whole districts. In Italy, this meant a great well of loyal manpower when raising legions. The greatest men, like Caesar and Pompey, had foreign kings and by extension their kingdoms, among their clientela. Needless to say, the First Citizen put an end to that upon assuming dictatorial power.

Once again, my cup paused in its ascent.

“Before we proceed further,” I said, “I should very much like to know how it happens that you know what these men have been up to.” Men in my experience generally did not make their women a part of their political lives. There were exceptions, of course. Clodia, for instance. Or, for that matter, my wife, Julia.

“My husband’s business subjects him to long absences from Italy. During those times, I conduct his affairs here. Whether they like it or not, those men have to deal with me frequently.”

This did not satisfy me, but I let her go on.

“I am quite aware when one or more of those men are in financial difficulties, and when one is, they all are. They try to conceal this from me and everybody else. The pattern of their dealings changes and they begin to meet in secret. Their meeting place is always the same: the Temple of Apollo.”

“Mere changes in commercial habits should not reveal such a thing to you. How did you come by this knowledge?”

“The usual way. I employ spies in their households.”

Immediately, I thought of the unfortunate Charmian, now languishing in the ergastulum with her back cut to pieces. I would have liked to surprise Jocasta with this knowledge, but it’s always good to keep something in reserve.

“What did your spies report?”

“That the duumviri and certain others met with the priest and discussed the secession of the former Greek colonies of southern Italy, Baiae, Cumae, Stabiae, Tarentum, and Messana, and several others. Soon after these meetings their pecuniary problems cleared up as if by magic.”

“Whose money?” I demanded.

“Who wants to see Rome brought low? There is no shortage of candidates, but the remaining free Greek states seem the likeliest, don’t you think? Macedonia is always fretful and in a state of rebellion.”

“Macedonia is poor.”

“Rhodes is not. Rhodes is rich and powerful and still, just barely, independent. Ptolemy chafes under the Roman heel and might like to be truly independent instead of a Roman puppet. And Alexandria is a Greek city. They might all see a coming civil war as their last chance. If all of them subscribed to a bribe fund, it would scarcely dent their resources to buy powerful sympathizers in all the humiliated towns.”