Under Vesuvius

by John Maddox Roberts

  “At every opportunity. I like to get the first look at those who are condemned to slavery. If you had not given that man to the city, I would have bid on him.”

  “I would think your business would be depressed of late, with all the Gallic captives flooding Italy.”

  “Most of them are unskilled and useful only for farm labor gangs. I buy for quality, not quantity. And expert seaman are in high demand.”

  “How would a captain prevent a slave sailor from escaping?” I asked him.

  “Where would such a one go? The sea is a Roman lake. To sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules or to the eastern end of the Pontus Euxinus means living among savages. No, he would stay on his ship and follow his calling. After all, the work would be the same, the food the same, the dangers and the obedience to his captain the same as when he was free. Only the pay would be different, and what sensible man would trade living in civilization for life among barbarians over a handful of denarii?”

  “When you put it that way, it makes sense,” I admitted. Then I remembered why I had summoned him. “Gaeto, I realize that this does not come under my official purview, but I fear that your son may be heading for trouble.”

  The man frowned, a formidable expression on his powerful face. “Trouble, how so? If he has offended you in any way, I shall thrash him immediately.”

  “Nothing like that,” I assured him. “But there seems to be something going on between the boy and the daughter of Apollo’s priest on the estate I am inheri—where I now reside.”

  The frown was replaced with a smile. “Carefree, affluent young men pay court to beautiful young women. What could be more natural?”

  “Naturalness does not come into it. You are a foreigner here and the people of this district are citizens, even the Greeks and Samnites among them. The priest is an aristocrat of ancient family, while your profession is, shall we say, held in low esteem. Your son could find himself the target of resentment. People would dredge up old stories about Jugurtha and the Numidian war and, next thing you know, a mob of local drunks would set fire to your house and stone you to death when you came running out with your clothes on fire and that would be a pity because, as the man on the scene with imperium, I am empowered to call in soldiers to put down civil unrest and I would indeed do so and then I would be the one everyone would hate and them my family would be very unhappy with me for alienating a whole pack of voters.” I said that last sentence in a single breath, a tribute to my oratorical training.

  His smile turned grim. “I see. I will talk to my son about this.” Then he brightened. “In three days, Baiae will give a banquet in your honor. I will be there.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  “I think you may find it an illuminating experience.”

  And with that enigmatic utterance, he took his leave gracefully.

  * * *

  I think I can say without reservation that Baiae is the most beautiful place in Italy. It is situated on a jewellike little bay about eight miles from Cumae and about an equal distance from my new (and, I hoped, soon to be permanent) abode. It had been a part of Cumaean territory when that city was independent and served as its port. Because of its superb setting, salubrious climate, and hot springs, it had for centuries been a favorite spot for the great and wealthy to build their villas and it was the favorite resort for Romans during the hot months.

  Also, its reputation for luxury and immorality were legendary, and that was the part that appealed to me. Since the destruction of Sybaris, Baiae has reigned supreme as the home of libertines, rakes, and voluptuaries. Its scandalous life goes on day and night, made possible by that marvel unknown in Rome, effective street lighting. Lamps, cressets, and torches are kept alight during the dark hours by a crew of diligent public slaves. Cato, upon seeing Baiae thus illuminated, was scandalized. “People should sleep at night!” he cried.

  A town more different from Rome is hard to imagine. Its streets are broad and never steep. Lest the populace be troubled by the scorching sun, all the streets and plazas are covered by awnings of costly cloth. The streets themselves are paved with colorful tiles, swept and scoured clean by another gang of slaves. All the streets are lined with planting boxes and giant vases carved from tufa in which grow flowers and fragrant bushes in incredible profusion, so that the air always smells sweet, no matter which way the wind is blowing. Fine trees grow before the spacious porticos. There are many tiny parks and gardens scattered throughout the town, where exotic songbirds sing in cages hung from all the trees. Should the birds tire the ear, each park has its own consort of musicians and singers, also owned by the town.

  The boating parties of Baiae are legendary, and the bay’s wharfs are lined with pleasure craft, from small gondolas suitable for four or five inebriated carousers to covered barges that would carry several hundred guests. For really splendid occasions, a great number of these barges could be yoked together in the center of the bay with the whole free population of the town aboard, along with enough slaves to keep them entertained.

  Baiae has no penniless rabble like Rome’s. The greater part of the permanent population are equites, and even the shopkeepers enjoy a property assessment only slightly lower. Even the slaves are the envy of slaves in other parts of Italy. The very street cleaners live in barracks much finer than the tenements of Rome’s free poor.

  Cato’s final word on Baiae was characteristic: “What a waste of fine farmland.” That alone was enough to make me fall in love with the place.

  The delegation that greeted us when we were within a mile of the city was decked out in snowy togas, flower chaplets, and the insignia of many offices and priesthoods. Images of the gods were borne on litters, and musicians tootled while temple slaves in white tunics swung elaborate golden censers on chains, perfuming the air with fragrant smoke. A civic chorus (that old Greek specialty) sang songs of welcome.

  “Not bad for a man who never even conquered a single nation of barbarians,” I said with some satisfaction. “I wonder if every praetor gets this treatment or just the ones married to a Caesar.”

  “I’m sure your own dignity is quite impressive enough, dear,” Julia said.

  We were carried in her elaborate litter, rather crowded now, what with Circe and Antonia making a pair of sweet-smelling cushions behind us. I had wanted to ride, but Julia had vetoed that. It is all but impossible to wear a toga on horseback, and Julia declared that I must enter the town in my purple-bordered toga praetexta. An old-fashioned Roman would have walked, but there were limits to my respect for tradition.

  “Noble Praetor,” cried the leader of this delegation, “all Baiae welcomes you! I am Lucius Lucillius Norbanus, duumvir of Baiae and master of the vintner’s guild.”

  “And I,” said the man next to him, “am Manius Silva, duumvir of Baiae and master of the perfumer’s guild.”

  In order of precedence, the others were introduced, officials and priests, distinguished foreign visitors including a couple of princes, a vacationing Parthian ambassador, and a deposed king of some country in the general vicinity of India.

  “And now, Praetor,” Norbanus said, “allow us to bear you into the city in a manner befitting your rank.”

  Whereupon I was led to another litter, this one open and furnished with a curule chair grandly draped with leopard skin. It was hoisted to the shoulders of ten stalwart, yellow-haired Gauls, and in this state I was carried to the city while beautiful young girls strewed flowers before me. What a pity, I thought, that such an office is held for only a single year.

  The road to Baiae, like thost to most Italian municipalities, was lined with tombs, and just outside the gate of the city we paused at the most imposing of these, a great marble confection that had the appearance of being layered atop a much older, simpler one.

  “This,” Norbanus announced, “is the tomb of Baios, helmsman of the ship of Ulysses. When the wanderings of that angry man were at an end, Baios settled here and founded our city.”

  No matter
where I go, every city claims a Trojan War veteran as its founder. I don’t even have to go anywhere, since Rome makes the same claim. Doubtless there is some reason for this but I can’t imagine what it is.

  From the tomb, our little procession passed through the gate, which was little more than an ornamental arch, since this town was never meant to be defended, and into the city proper, where I was showered with enough flowers to glut the floral lust of a triumphing general. Somehow, I didn’t allow this to go to my head. I could tell that these people didn’t care a peach pit for another visiting Roman official. I was just one more excuse for a party. Well, that was fine with me. I liked parties as much as anyone. Maybe more than most.

  We wended our way through the city to the bay, and there I was carried onto a bridge laid atop a line of boats; and this was not a simple boat bridge of the sort used by the legions to cross rivers and straits but an elaborate construction, painted and gilded, its roadbed covered with turf, its railings sporting statues of Triton and Nereids and other fabulous sea deities and covered by the inevitable awning, lest anyone get sunburned while getting to the festivities.

  The banquet was held on one of those artificial islands I mentioned earlier. This one consisted of a central barge you could have raced chariots on for size, surrounded by two-story barges, so that the whole thing was surrounded by a gallery and topped by an immense canopy held up by poles twice the height of ship’s masts and dyed, unbelievably, purple.

  “There can’t be that much purple dye in the world,” I muttered. That dye is the most expensive substance known to man. The purple border of my toga praetexta had cost enough to buy an excellent farm complete with staff. I had nearly had a seizure when presented with the bill. Oh, well, the expenses of office were intended to keep the riffraff out.

  A herald of thunderous voice announced us, naming the most distinguished members of my party. Then we got to meet all the local grandees, most of them wealthy equites like the duumviri. These were mostly heads of various guilds and syndicates. I quickly discerned that few of these were involved in the actual manufacture of their products. Rather, they were importers, distributors, and speculators in goods, mainly high-priced luxury items but also staple products like wine, grain, oil, and garum.

  The men for the most part observed the sumptuary laws, their clothing, while of the highest quality, consisting of the usual white tunic and toga and no more than a few gold rings by way of jewelry. Their wives, however, provided a sharp contrast. Each sought to outdo the others in showy finery or shocking immodesty. All were draped with jewels and pearls; their hair was dressed into towering, complicated styles, adorned with more jewels and pearls and powdered with gold dust. And then there were the gowns.

  In Rome, the infamous, all-but-transparent Coan cloth was worn by a few rich, scandalous women but only at private parties attended by the fashionable set. Here in Baiae, women wore it at public banquets. It was frequently forbidden by the censors, who, it seemed, failed to impress the women of Baiae.

  “This is shocking!” Julia said in a strangled voice as these women lined up to be presented.

  “I’m getting to like this place better by the minute,” I told her.

  “You would.”

  “Look,” I said. “There’s a woman wearing a dress you can’t see through.” I inclined my head toward a tall lady with flaming hair whose gown was a startling emerald green.

  “That gown is pure silk!” Julia hissed. “She just wants to show that she can afford such a thing. Who can afford pure silk? I’ve only seen such dress at Ptolemy’s court.”

  We were conversing in the subdued tones one uses at such occasions, smiling and nodding as we did. Catilina’s wife and daughter had owned silk gowns, but I didn’t want to call Julia’s attention to my relationship with the latter lady.

  First to be presented was the wife of Norbanus, one Rutilia, who wore an astounding wig made entirely of hair-fine gold wire. Her close-pleated gown of pale saffron Coan cloth displayed a more than ample body and that her use of cosmetics did not end at her throat.

  “You honor us with your presence,” Rutilia said. “The two of you really must be our guests at a little evening entertainment Norbanus and I are hosting in a week’s time.”

  “It would be our honor,” Julia answered. “Is it a special occasion?”

  “Of course. It is in honor of your arrival. I can promise that all the most fashionable society of Baiae will be there without all this—” she waved gilded fingernails toward the glittering throng “—vulgar crowding.”

  “Well,” I said, “we wouldn’t want too many millionaires treading on our toes, would we?” Julia nudged me in the ribs.

  “We shall be anticipating the event eagerly,” Julia assured her.

  “Wonderful.” She beamed. “Well, I mustn’t monopolize you. So many boring people to meet, eh?” She bowed slightly and made her way off, swaying and jiggling fetchingly.

  And so we went through the greeting line. Last of all was the tall, red-haired lady in the emerald silk gown. Apparently she thought the extravagant dress was display enough, for her gold, jewels, and pearls were relatively restrained.

  “And you would be?” I asked.

  “Jocasta, Praetor,” she said, “wife of Gaeto the Numidian.” She had a furry voice, very pleasing to the ear.

  “Then you would be the mother of that charming young man we met, Gelon. He does you great credit.” Apparently, Julia did not find her voice or perhaps other attributes as pleasing as I.

  “I wish I could claim him, but Gelon is the son of Gaeto’s eldest wife, Riamo. She has never left Numidia and rules over the household there.”

  “And is your husband here?” Julia asked, looking out over the multitude. “My husband has met him, but I have not had the pleasure.”

  “Oh, he is certainly here,” the woman said, smiling. “There are very few gatherings in Baiae to which Gaeto is not invited.”

  “How—” Julia searched for a word, a rare practice for her, “—how enlightened.”

  And then we were swept off to be greeted by another pack of notables, after which it was time for the banquet proper to begin. We were led to an empty couch on a dais, where the magnates of the district reclined on couches at a long table. Other tables and couches stretched in long rows down the full length of the great central barge, and soon the servers were bringing in the first courses.

  In traditional fashion they first brought out eggs prepared in every imaginable fashion, some of them from birds I had never heard of. This being a coastal town—and the banquet held on the water to boot—it was fitting the most abundant and imaginative part of the feast were the fish courses. There were great varieties of shellfish along with the finned variety and great concoctions of lampreys, eels, octopi, squid, dolphin, and even skewered whale flesh. All this was accompanied by splendid wines, and soon the occasion was most convivial.

  The talk was light and frivolous, which was not unusual. After all, this was not a pack of dry old philosophers debating the merits of Pythagoras’s harmonic theories. But there seemed something strange about all the talk, and eventually I realized what it was.

  “Julia,” I said in a low voice, “do you realize that nobody has mentioned Julius Caesar once? Or Pompey or the eternal struggle between the populares and the optimates?”

  “Odd, isn’t it?” she said. “These people aren’t interested in senatorial politics. They gauge status by wealth, not breeding. They compete through display and by outentertaining their peers, not by currying favor with the masses.”

  “I find it a great relief. In Rome, I always find myself sprawled next to some old patrician who thinks he’s my better because his ancestors settled in Rome fifty years before mine, around a thousand years ago.”

  “Well,” Julia said, “in Rome you certainly wouldn’t see their sort at the same table as the city’s elite.” She nodded toward the end of our table, where Gaeto and his flame-haired wife reclined between a shippin
g contractor and a priest of Mars, with their wives, and all of them getting along as convivially as any born peers.

  “You’re letting your patrician snobbery show, my dear,” I chided her.

  “But the man’s a slaver!” she protested.

  “Your uncle Julius just made slaves of a whole nation.”

  “Conquest is honorable,” she pointed out, “and degradation is the price of defying Rome. It’s not the same as making a living buying and selling human beings.”

  That was it, of course: the buying and selling part. Just slaughtering a pack of barbarians and selling off the survivors was not the same thing at all. Patricians weren’t supposed to engage in trade. I wondered what she would think had she been present to see Uncle Julius auctioning off thousands of prisoners at a time, wheedling up the price with the touch of an expert. The slavers used to follow the legions like vultures, and Caesar knew exactly what he could get from them. I suppose Julia thought it was all right for him to sell them, since he hadn’t exactly bought them.

  The servers brought out a specialty of the region: a fish stew containing a great variety of shellfish in a savory broth tinged with aromatic saffron. This is one of my favorite dishes, and I forgot all about slavers and Caesar while I dug into the scallops and oysters, cracked crab claws, and, at intervals, dipped bread into the broth.

  “I see we’ve found your weakness,” said a woman named Quadrilla. She was the wife of the duumvir Manius Silva. She was a small, dark woman and her Coan-cloth gown rested on her like a shadow. On her head she wore a silver diadem set with black pearls. Her vulpine little face was engagingly acerbic.

  “Keep me supplied with this,” I told her, “and you’ll have nothing but favorable judgments from me. This must be what the gods eat on their better days.”

  “My husband exaggerates,” Julia assured her. “Much as he loves good food, he is boringly conventional in his public duties. I wish I could say the same for his off-duty activities.”

  While these women discussed my shortcomings, I let my gaze roam over the crowd. Everyone seemed extraordinarily happy, except those who were too inebriated to feel much of anything. In true Baiean fashion, there were specially trained slaves to carry these off to their litters before anything unpleasant happened. I saw my freedman, Hermes, arm wrestling with a man who, from his short, two-striped tunic and small topknot, I took to be a charioteer, the two of them surrounded by attractive young women. Hermes was strong, but men who have spent years holding and controlling the reins of a quadriga have hands and arms like iron. Hermes lost the contest and his wager, but he seemed to care little for his defeat. He smiled blissfully as the girl next to him, her hair dyed a startling purple, massaged his sore arm.