The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  As villas on the Campanian coast went, Clitumna’s version was not overlarge, but even so, it was far bigger than the house on the Palatine; vacationing Romans able to afford the luxury of owning country villas liked to feel surrounded by space. Standing atop a volcanic headland and having its own private beach, the villa lay some distance south of Circei, and had no close neighbors. One of the many speculation builders who frequented the Campanian coast had put it up during the course of the winter three years before, and Clitumna had bought it the moment she discovered the builder had a genius for plumbing, and had installed a shower bath as well as a proper bathing tub.

  Thus the first thing Clitumna did after she arrived was to have a shower bath, after which she dined, after which she and Sulla went to bed in separate rooms, and alone. He remained at Circei for two days only, devoting all his time to Clitumna, who continued to be cheerless, though she didn’t want Sulla to leave.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he said to her as he walked with her in the grounds of the villa early in the morning of the day he returned to Rome.

  Even that hardly evoked a response. “Yes?” she asked.

  “On the first night of the full moon you will receive your surprise,” he said seductively.

  “Night?” she asked, becoming the slightest bit interested.

  “Night, and full moon! That is, provided it’s a fine clear night and you can see the full moon.”

  They were standing beneath the tall front facade of the villa, which like most was built upon sloping ground, with a loggia atop the front section, where the villa dweller could sit to take in the view. Behind this narrow front facade was a vast peristyle-garden, and behind the peristyle-garden lay the villa proper, in which the bulk of the rooms were situated. The stables were located on the ground level of the front facade, with living quarters for the stable staff above, and the loggia above that again.

  The land in front of Clitumna’s villa sloped away in grass and tangles of rambling roses to the cliff top, and was most artfully planted on either flank with a grove of trees which ensured privacy should another villa go up on the next block of land.

  Sulla pointed to the large clump of salt pines and pencil cypresses on their left.

  “It’s a secret, Clitumna,” he said in what she called his “growly voice,” always a sign of prolonged and particularly delicious lovemaking.

  “What is a secret?” she asked, beginning to be eager.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret any longer,” he whispered, nibbling her ear.

  She squirmed a little, cheered up a little. “Is the secret the same as the surprise on the night of the moon?”

  “Yes. But you must keep everything a secret, including my promising you a surprise. Swear?”

  “I swear,” she said.

  “What you must do is sneak out of the house at the beginning of the third hour of darkness, eight days from last night. You must come down here absolutely on your own, and hide in that grove of trees,” said Sulla, stroking her flank.

  Her listlessness was gone. “Oooooooooh! Is it a nice surprise?” she asked, squeaking on the last word.

  “It will be the biggest surprise of your entire life,” said Sulla, “and that’s not an idle promise, darling. But I do require a couple of conditions.”

  She wrinkled her nose girlishly and simpered, looking very silly. “Yes?”

  “First of all, no one must know, not even little Bithy. If you do take anyone into your confidence, your chief surprise will be disappointment. And I will be very, very angry. You don’t like it when I’m very, very angry, do you, Clitumna?”

  She shivered. “No, Lucius Cornelius.”

  “Then keep our secret. Your reward will be amazing, a completely new and different kind of experience,” he whispered. “In fact, if you can manage to seem specially downcast from now until you receive your surprise, it will turn out even better, I promise you.”

  “I’ll be good, Lucius Cornelius,” she said fervently.

  He could see the way her mind was working, and knew that she had decided the surprise was a new and delectable companion—female, attractive, sexually willing, compatible, and a cozy gossipy talker for the passing of the long days between the lovely nights. But she knew Sulla well enough to understand that she must abide by his conditions, or he was just as likely to take whoever it was away again forever—perhaps install her in an apartment of her own, now that he had Nicopolis’s money. Besides which, no one defied Sulla when he spoke in earnest, a reason why the servants of Clitumna’s household held their tongues about what had gone on between Clitumna and Nicopolis and Sulla, and if they ever said anything at all, did so in a fear which robbed their words of much of their normal impact.

  “There’s a second condition,” he said.

  She snuggled against him. “Yes, darling Lucius?”

  “If the night is not fine, the surprise cannot come. So you will have to respect the weather. If the first night is wet, wait for the next dry one.”

  “I understand, Lucius Cornelius.”

  *

  Thus Sulla drove off to Rome in a hired gig leaving Clitumna faithfully hugging her secret, and trying assiduously to present a picture of acute depression. Even Bithy, with whom Clitumna had taken to sleeping, believed her mistress desolate.

  Upon reaching Rome, Sulla summoned the steward of Clitumna’s house on the Palatine; he was one staff member not relocated to Circei, as the villa there had its own steward, who acted as caretaker in his mistress’s absence—and cheated her very cleverly. So did the steward of her Palatine house.

  “How many servants did the mistress leave here, Iamus?” asked Sulla, sitting at his desk in the study; he was evidently making out some kind of list, for it lay beneath his hand.

  “Just myself, two house boys, two house girls, a market boy, and the undercook, Lucius Cornelius,” said the steward.

  “Well, you’re going to have to hire some extra help, because four days from now, Iamus, I am going to throw a party.”

  Sulla flapped his list at the astonished steward, who didn’t know whether to protest that the lady Clitumna had given him no word of a party in her absence, or to go along with the idea and pray there were no ructions later, when the bills came in. Then Sulla relieved his mind.

  “It’s my show, so I’m paying for it,” said Sulla, “and there’ll be a big bonus in it for you on two conditions—one, that you co-operate fully in helping me put on the party, and two, that you make no mention of it to the lady Clitumna after she returns home, whenever that may be. Is that clear?”

  “Fully, Lucius Cornelius,” said Iamus, bowing deeply; largesse was a subject every slave risen high enough to be a steward understood almost as well as he understood how to doctor the household account books.

  *

  Off went Sulla to hire dancers, musicians, tumblers, singers, magicians, clowns, and other acts. For this was going to be the party to end all parties, one he intended would be heard far and wide across the Palatine. His last stop was the flat of Scylax the comedic actor.

  “I want to borrow Metrobius,” he said, erupting into the room Scylax had preferred to set up as a sitting room rather than as a study. It was the apartment of a voluptuary, redolent with incense and cassia wood, tapestried to death, overfurnished with couches and pouffes all stuffed with the finest wool.

  Scylax sat up indignantly at the same moment Sulla was sinking into one of the sybaritically cushioned couches.

  “Honestly, Scylax, you’re as soft as custard-pudding and as decadent as a Syrian potentate!” said Sulla. “Why don’t you get a bit of ordinary horsehair furniture? This stuff makes a man feel as if he’s sinking into the arms of a gigantic whore! Ugh!”

  “I piss on your taste,” lisped Scylax.

  “As long as you hand over Metrobius, you can piss on anything you like.”

  “Why should I, you—you—savage?” Scylax ran his hands through his carefully arranged, dyed golden locks
; he fluttered his long lashes, darkened with stibium, and rolled his eyes between them.

  “Because the boy’s not yours body and mind,” said Sulla, testing a pouffe with his foot to see if it was less yielding.

  “He is mine body and mind! And he hasn’t been the same since you stole him from me and took him all over Italy with you, Lucius Cornelius! I don’t know what you did to him, but you certainly spoiled him for me!”

  Sulla grinned. “Made a man out of him, did I? Doesn’t like eating your shit anymore, eh? Aaaaaaaah!” With which sound of disgust, Sulla lifted his head and roared, “Metrobius!”

  The lad came flying through the door and launched himself straight at Sulla, covering his face with kisses.

  Over the black head Sulla opened one pale eye at Scylax, and wiggled one ginger brow. “Give up, Scylax, your bum-boy just likes me better,” he said, and demonstrated the truth of this by lifting the boy’s skirt to display his erection. Scylax burst into tears, streaking his face with stibium.

  “Come on, Metrobius,” said Sulla, struggling to his feet. At the door he turned back to flip a folded paper at the blubbering Scylax. “Party at Clitumna’s house in four days,” he said. “It’s going to be the best one ever, so swallow your spleen and come. You can have Metrobius back if you do.”

  *

  Everyone was invited, including Hercules Atlas, who was billed as the world’s strongest man, and hired himself out to fairs and fetes and festivals from one end of Italy to the other. Never seen outside his door unless wearing a moth-eaten lion skin and toting an enormous club, Hercules Atlas was a bit of an institution. However, he was rarely asked as a guest to the parties where he entertained with his strongman act, for when the wine flowed down his throat like water down the Aqua Marcia, Hercules Atlas became very aggressive and bad-tempered.

  “You’re touched in the head, to ask that bull!” said Metrobius, playing with Sulla’s brilliant curls as he leaned over Sulla’s shoulder to peer at yet another list. The real change in Metrobius that had occurred while he was away with Sulla was his literacy; Sulla had taught the lad to read and write. Willing to teach him every art he knew from acting to sodomy, Scylax had yet been too crafty to endow him with something as emancipating as letters.

  “Hercules Atlas is a friend of mine,” said Sulla, kissing the lad’s fingers one by one with a great deal more pleasure than ever he felt kissing Clitumna’s.

  “But he’s a madman when he’s drunk!” Metrobius protested. “He’ll tear this house apart, and very likely two or three of the guests as well! Hire his act by all means, but don’t have him present as a guest!”

  “I can’t do that,” said Sulla, seeming unworried. He reached up and pulled Metrobius down across his shoulder, settling the boy in his lap. And Metrobius wound his arms about Sulla’s neck and lifted his face: Sulla kissed his eyelids very slowly, very tenderly.

  “Lucius Cornelius, why won’t you keep me?” Metrobius asked, settling against Sulla’s arm with a sigh of utter content.

  The kisses ceased. Sulla frowned. “You’re far better off with Scylax,” he said abruptly.

  Metrobius opened huge dark eyes, swimming with love. “But I’m not, truly I’m not! The gifts and the acting training and the money don’t matter to me, Lucius Cornelius! I’d much rather be with you, no matter how poor we were!”

  “A tempting offer, and one I’d take you up on in a trice— if I intended to remain poor,” said Sulla, holding the boy as if he cherished him. “But I am not going to remain poor. I have Nicopolis’s money behind me now, and I’m busy speculating with it. One day I’ll have enough to qualify for admission to the Senate.”

  Metrobius sat up. “The Senate!” Twisting, he stared into Sulla’s face. “But you can’t, Lucius Cornelius! Your ancestors were slaves like me!”

  “No, they weren’t,” said Sulla, staring back. “I am a patrician Cornelius. The Senate is where I belong.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “It’s the truth,” said Sulla soberly. “That’s why I can’t avail myself of your offer, alluring though it is. When I do qualify for the Senate, I’m going to have to become a model of decorum—no actors, no mimes—and no pretty-boys.” He clapped Metrobius on the back, and hugged him. “Now pay attention to the list, lad—and stop wriggling! It’s not good for my concentration. Hercules Atlas is coming as a guest as well as performing, and that’s final.”

  In fact, Hercules Atlas was among the first guests to arrive. Word of the revels to come had got out all up and down the street, of course, and the neighbors had steeled themselves to endure a night of howls, shrieks, loud music, and unimaginable crashes. As usual, it was a costume affair. Sulla had tricked himself out as the absent Clitumna, complete with fringed shawls, rings, and hennaed wig convoluted with sausagelike curls, and he constantly emitted uncanny imitations of her titters, her giggles, her loud whinnies of laughter. Since the guests knew her well, his performance was deeply appreciated.

  Metrobius was equipped with wings again, but this night he was Icarus rather than Cupid, and had cleverly melted his large feathered fans along their outer edges, so that they drooped, and looked half-finished. Scylax came as Minerva, and contrived to make that stern, tomboyish goddess look like an old and over-made-up whore. When he saw how Metrobius hung all over Sulla, he proceeded to get drunk, and soon forgot how to manage his shield, his distaff, his stuffed owl, and his spear, and eventually tripped over them into a corner, where he wept himself to sleep.

  Thus Scylax failed to see the endless succession of party turns, the singers who commenced with glorious melodies and stunning trills, and ended in warbling ditties like

  My sister Piggy Filler

  Got caught with Gus the Miller

  A-grinding of her flower

  Beneath the miller’s tower.

  “Enough of this,” said our dad.

  “It’s clear that you’ve been had.

  Married you’d better be quick

  Or your arse will feel my stick!”

  which were far more popular with the guests, who, knew the words, and could sing along.

  There were dancers who stripped to the buff with exquisite artistry, displaying pubes devoid of the smallest hair, and a man whose performing dogs could dance almost as well— if not as lubriciously—and a famous animal act from Antioch which consisted of a girl and her donkey—very, very popular with the audience, the male half of which was too intimidated by the donkey’s endowments to proposition the girl afterward.

  Hercules Atlas did his turn last of all, just before the party segregated into those too drunk to be interested in sex, and those drunk enough to be interested in nothing else. The revelers gathered around the colonnades of the peristyle-garden, in the midst of which Hercules Atlas had set himself up on a very sturdy dais. After warming up by bending a few iron bars and snapping a few thick logs like twigs, the strong man picked up squealing girls by the half dozen, piling them on his shoulders, on his head, and under each arm. Then he lifted an anvil or two in his hands and began to roar lustily, more fearsome than any lion in any arena. Actually he was having a wonderful time, for the wine was flowing down his throat like water down the Aqua Marcia, and his capacity to guzzle was as phenomenal as his strength. The trouble was, the more anvils he picked up, the more uncomfortable the girls became, until their squeals of joy became squeals of terror.

  Sulla strolled out into the middle of the garden and tapped Hercules Atlas politely on his knee.

  “Here, old fellow, do drop the girls,” he said in the most friendly way. “You’re squashing them with lumps of iron.”

  Hercules Atlas dropped the girls immediately. But he picked up Sulla instead, his hair-trigger temper let loose.

  “Don’t you tell me how to do my act!” he bellowed, and spun Sulla around his head like a priest of Isis his wand; wig, shawls, draperies fell from Sulla in a cascade.

  Some of the party goers began to panic; others decided to help by venturing
out into the garden and pleading with the demented strong man to put Sulla down. But Hercules Atlas solved everyone’s dilemma by shoving Sulla under his left arm as casually as a shopper a parcel, and leaving the festivities. There was no way he could be stopped. Ploughing through the bodies hurling themselves at him as if they were a cloud of gnats, he gave the door servant a shove in the face that sent him halfway across the atrium, and disappeared into the lane, still toting Sulla.

  At the top of the Vestal Steps he halted. “All right? Did I do all right, Lucius Cornelius?” he asked, setting Sulla down very gently.

  “You did perfectly,” said Sulla, staggering a little because he was dizzy. “Come, I’ll walk home with you.”

  “Not necessary,” said Hercules Atlas, hitching up his lion skin and starting down the Vestal Steps. “Only a hop and a skip away from here, Lucius Cornelius, and the moon’s just about full.”

  “I insist,” said Sulla, catching him up.

  “Have it your own way,” shrugged Hercules Atlas.

  “Well, it’s less public if I pay you inside than out in the middle of the Forum,” said Sulla patiently.

  “Oh, right!” Hercules Atlas clapped a hand to his well-muscled head. “I forgot you haven’t paid me yet. Come on, then.”

  He lived in four rooms on the third floor of an insula off the Clivus Orbius, on the fringes of the Subura, but in a better neighborhood by far. Ushered in, Sulla saw at a glance that his slaves had seized their opportunity and taken the night off, no doubt expecting that when their master came in, he would be in no state to take a head count. There did not seem to be a woman of the house, but Sulla checked anyway.

  “Wife not here?” he asked.

  Hercules Atlas spat. “Women! I hate ‘em,” he said.

  A jug of wine and some cups stood on the table at which the two men seated themselves. Sulla pulled a fat purse from where he had secreted it inside a linen band around his waist. While Hercules Atlas poured two cups full of wine, Sulla loosened the strings holding the mouth of the purse shut, and deftly palmed a plump screw of paper he fished out of its interior. Then he tipped the purse up and sent a stream of bright silver coins tumbling across the tabletop. Too quickly; three or four rolled all the way to the far edge and fell to the floor, tinkling tinnily.