The Roman sotk-2

by Mika Waltari

  I slept soundly and long, but was very disappointed when my father was not at home in the morning. I had hoped we could go straight to the stables to choose a horse for me. The house was being cleaned after the feast and Aunt Laelia complained of a headache. I asked where my father had gone so early.

  “Your father is old enough to know what he’s doing,” she replied angrily. “He had a great deal to discuss with his erstwhile friend. Perhaps he stayed the night at Tullia’s house. She has room for more men than him.”

  Barbus and I whiled away the time by playing dice in the bushes in the garden while the cleaners set about the house indoors with their brooms and buckets. Spring was in the air. At last my father returned at midday, unshaven, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He had covered his face with a fold of his toga and there was a lawyer with him carrying scrolls of paper and writing materials. Barbus gave me a nudge as a sign that it would be wiser to keep quiet.

  My father, in contrast to his usual behavior, kicked over the cleaners’ buckets and ordered the slaves to vanish from his sight with all speed. After hastily consulting the lawyer, he called me in. Aunt Laelia was weeping copiously and I hardly dared stammer out a question to my father about whether he now had time to come with me to choose a horse.

  “You and your horse will drive me mad,” he exclaimed. His face was twisted with rage and when one looked at him, it was easy to realize that in his youth he had gone about for years in a state of mental confusion. But he soon regretted his rage.

  “No, no, it’s all my own fault,” he said. “It’s my own weakness that has driven me into this state. A stroke of ill fortune has changed all my plans. Now I must go back to Antioch without a moment’s delay. So I have allotted to you the income from some of my estates in Caere and my properties here in the city. It will give you more than the annual income of a thousand sesterces required of a knight. Aunt Laelia will have to look after the house. It can be your home. I have also allotted an annuity to Aunt Laelia. And it’s nothing to cry about. My lawyer will be your guardian. He is of an old noble family. You can go and choose a horse together at once if you want to, but I must return to Antioch immediately.”

  My father was so confused that he was about to rush out on to the street at once to set off on his journey, but the lawyer and Aunt Laelia restrained him. They arranged for his luggage and clothes and food, although he said impatiently that he could hire a wagon at the city gates and go to Puteoli and buy everything he wanted on the way. Suddenly chaos reigned in our house after the cheerful festivities of the previous day. We could not let him go away like an exile, the corner of his mantle hiding his face. So we all went with him, Aunt Laelia, the lawyer, Barbus and I. Last came the slaves carrying his hurriedly packed belongings.

  When my father reached the Capua gate below Coelius, he let out a deep sigh of relief and began to bid us all farewell, saying that he could already see golden freedom looming ahead of him on the other side of the gate and that he should never have left Antioch. But at the gate, one of the city magistrates came up to us with his official stave in his hand and two powerful policemen behind him.

  “Are you the Roman knight, Marcus Mezentius Manilianus?” he asked my father. “If you are, then there is a lady of high position who has important business with you.”

  At first my father turned scarlet and then ashen gray in the face. He looked down at the ground, said that he had nothing to say to any lady, and then tried to leave through the city gates.

  “If you try to go outside the walls,” the magistrate warned him, “I am ordered to bring you before the City Prefect and it is my duty to arrest you to prevent you from escaping.”

  The lawyer hurried up* to my father, asking the magistrate to disperse the crowd that had already gathered, and also asking what my father was accused of.

  “It is a simple and discreditable story,” explained the magistrate. “I should prefer to see those involved settle it between them. The noble senator’s widow Valeria Tullia insists that last night Manilianus, in the presence of witnesses, de jure promised her marriage and afterward de facto slept with her. When she for some reason or other doubted Manilianus’ honorable intentions, she had this Manilianus followed by her slave after he had run from her house without bidding her farewell. When the widow Tullia became convinced that he intended to flee, she turned to the Prefect. If Manilianus removes himself beyond the city wall, he will be charged with breach of promise, rape, and also for the theft of a valuable necklace belonging to widow Tullia, which is presumably more ignominious for a knight than a breach of promise.”

  My father fumbled at his throat with stiff fingers, pulled out a gold necklace of different colored stones and then said in a broken voice, “Widow Tullia put this cursed necklace around my neck with her own hands. In my haste I forgot to return it to her. Matters of great importance force me to return to Antioch. Naturally I shall give the necklace back to her and stand whatever security you wish, but I must leave here immediately.”

  The magistrate was ashamed on behalf of my father.

  “Didn’t you in fact exchange necklaces with each other,” he asked, “to confirm your betrothal and marriage promise?”

  “I was drunk and did not know what I was doing,” protested my father.

  But the magistrate did not believe him.

  “On the contrary,” he said, “you appealed verbosely to a number of examples according to which philosophers have been able to enter into a genuine and legal marriage simply by giving a promise in the presence of witnesses. This is what I have been told. Do I understand that in a drunken state, you have made fun of an honorable woman and induced her into bed with you? In which case what you have done is even worse. I am giving you an opportunity to come to some agreement, but if you go through that gate, I shall have you imprisoned and your case will be settled in court instead.”

  At least the lawyer managed to persuade my father to hold his tongue and also promised to accompany him to Valeria Tullia’s house to talk the matter over. Exhausted and confused, my father broke down and wept.

  “Leave me to my misery,” he pleaded. “I’d rather go to prison, give up my knighthood and pay the fines than have to face that false woman again. She must have poisoned me and mixed something shameful in my wine for me to have been so out of my mind. I remember almost nothing of what happened.”

  Everything could be straightened out, the lawyer assured him, and promised to defend him at the trial. Then Aunt Laelia intervened, stamping her foot and weeping, burning red patches appearing on her cheeks.

  “You must not sully the good name of Manilianus with another shameful case, Marcus!” she cried. “Be a man for once and stand by what you have done.”

  Weeping, I supported Aunt Laelia’s demand and cried that such a case would also make me look foolish all over Rome and would ruin my future. I begged that we should all go to Tullia’s house at once. I promised that I would go down on my knees beside my father in front of this beautiful and noble lady and beg her forgiveness.

  My father was unable to withstand us. Followed by the magistrate and the policemen, we went to Viminalis hill, the slaves in the rear carrying my father’s things because no one had thought to order them to turn around and go back home. Valeria Tullia’s house and garden were immensely large and magnificent. In the columned courtyard we were met by a giant doorkeeper dressed in green and silver. He greeted my father respectfully.

  “Oh, my lord,” he cried. “You are welcome back to your house. My mistress is impatiently awaiting you.”

  With a final glance of despair, my father weakly asked us to wait for him in the courtyard and then went on in alone.

  A whole flock of slaves came hurrying out to offer us fruit and wine from silver vessels. Aunt Laelia looked cheerfully about.

  “There are some men who don’t know what’s good for them,” she remarked. “I can’t think what Marcus can have to complain about in a house like this.”

  Soon Tullia came
running out to greet us, dressed in nothing but a transparent shift of silk, her hair neatly combed and her face painted.

  “I’m so pleased,” she cried joyfully, “that Marcus has returned to me so soon and has brought his things with him too. Now he need never go away from here again, but we can live happily together for the rest of our days.”

  She ordered a purse of soft red leather to be handed to the magistrate as compensation for his trouble, and then said ruefully, “Of course in my heart I did not doubt Marcus for a moment, but a lonely widow has to be careful, and in his younger days Marcus was quite fickle. I am delighted that he has now brought his lawyer with him so that we can draw up the marriage contract at once. I wouldn’t have imagined, dear Marcus, that your wits were ordered to that extent, so disordered were they in my bed last night.”

  My father cleared his throat and swallowed, but not a word was forthcoming. Tullia took us into her large rooms and let us admire the mosaic floor, the murals and the beautifully proportioned panels. She let us look into her bedroom, but pretended to be shy, covering her face.

  “No, no,” she cried. “Don’t go in there. Everything is in disorder after last night.”

  My father at last managed to find his voice.

  “You have won, Tullia,” he snapped, “and I submit to my fate. But at least send the magistrate away so that he need no longer witness my degradation.”

  Handsomely dressed slaves hovered around us and did their best to serve and please us. Two small naked boys were running about the house playing at cupids. I was afraid that they would catch cold until I realized that the stone floor in this magnificent house was heated by hot pipes. The magistrate and my father’s lawyer consulted together for a while and decided that a promise of marriage given in the presence of witnesses was legally valid without a public marriage. The magistrate and his policemen left when he had been convinced that my father was prepared to sign a marriage contract without protest. The lawyer made the magistrate promise to keep silent about the whole affair, but even I with my scant sense realized that a person in his position could not possibly resist passing on such a delicious piece of scandal.

  But was it in fact a scandal? Was it not flattering for my father that such a noble and obviously immensely rich woman would stop at nothing to marry him? Despite my father’s modest habits and outward humility, he must have possessed hidden qualities of which I knew nothing and which would certainly rouse the curiosity of the whole of Rome, both about him and also about me. In fact this marriage could be to my advantage in every way. At least it would force my father to stay in Rome for the time being so that I need not drift about in this city in which I still felt insecure.

  But what could the beautiful pampered Tullia see in my father? For a moment I was seized with the suspicion that she led a frivolous life and was up to her ears in debt and so wanted my father’s money. But in fact my father was not especially rich by Rome’s standards, although his freedmen in Antioch and elsewhere in the East were wealthy. My suspicions were allayed when my father and Tullia, in complete agreement, decided to make the marriage contract so that even in the future they would each keep control of their own fortunes.

  “But whenever you have the time or feel like it, dear Marcus,” suggested Tullia mildly, “I hope you will talk to my treasurer and go through my accounts and give me advice about my affairs. What does a simple widow understand about such things? I have heard it said that you have become a clever businessman, although no one would have suspected it of you in your youth.”

  My father remarked in annoyance that now that law and order reigned in the country, thanks to Emperor Claudius and his freedmen, a sensibly placed fortune grew by itself,

  “But my head is empty and I have not a single sensible thought left,” he said, scratching his chin. “I must go to the barber and the baths to rest and collect what is left of my wits.”

  But Tullia led us straight past the marble statues and wells in the vast inner courtyard of the house, over to its far side where she showed us her own bathhouse with hot and cold pools, steam room and cooling room. A barber, a masseur and a bath-slave were all waiting there ready to serve us.

  “You need never again pay a single denarius to the clothes-minders at the public baths, or expose yourself to the crush and smell of the people,” Tullia explained. “If you feel like reading, poetry or music after your bath, there is special room here for that purpose. Go now, Marcus and Minutus, and bathe, while I consult with my dear friend Laelia on how we shall arrange our lives from now on. We women understand such things better than you impractical men.”

  My father slept until sunset. When we had dressed in the new clothes the clothing steward had laid out for us, the house was suddenly filled with guests. Most of them were quite young, happy and cheerful people, but among them were also two fat old men of debauched appearance whom I could not respect although one of them was a senator. I could at least talk about horses to a senior centurion from the Praetorian Guard, but to my surprise he showed a much greater interest in the women who, after drinking wine without restraint, loosened their clothes to be able to breathe more freely.

  When I noticed which way this marriage feast was developing, I went to find Barbus, whom the servants had been generously regaling. He was holding his head and said, “I have experienced greater hospitality licit: than I have ever known before and would Have even been married oil’ in a flash if I hadn’t, as an old veteran, known when to call a halt. This house is no place for you, Minutus, nor for an old soldier like me either.”

  The music played on and naked dancers and acrobats were writhing all over the floors as I went in search of my father. He was lying on a couch beside Tullia in gloomy silence.

  “Perhaps it is the custom in Rome,” I said, “that noble women are sick all over the place and the men make indecent gestures at me, but I simply cannot tolerate that anyone seems to think they have the right to paw me anywhere on my body. I’m neither a slave nor a eunuch. I want to go home.”

  “I’m much too weak-willed and comfortable,” my father admitted, “to extract myself from this depravity, but you must try to be stronger than I. I’m glad to hear your decision, and that you yourself have made it. I am forced to stay here, for no one can avoid his destiny, but it would be better if you lived with Aunt Laelia, and anyhow you have your own fortune now. You would gain nothing by living in your stepmother’s house.”

  Tullia was not looking at me so kindly as she had the previous evening. I asked if I could come the next morning to fetch my father so that we could choose a horse for me, but she briskly cut me off with the words, “Your father is too old to ride. He would only fall off the horse and injure his valuable head. At the centenary festival parade he can lead his horse.”

  I realized I had lost my father, and a sense of desolation came over me, for I had experienced his favor for a very short time. But I also realized that it was better for me to harden myself and create a life of my own. I went in search of Aunt Laelia, hitting out as hard as I could at a half-naked woman with glittering eyes who tried to hang around my neck. But the blow on her backside only spurred her on, so Barbus was forced to pull her away.

  Tullia was so pleased to be rid of us so easily that she let us take her own sedan. Inside the sedan Aunt Laelia adjusted her clothes and began to chatter.

  “I’ve heard a great deal of gossip about what goes on in the new houses in Rome,” she said, “but I could not believe my ears. Valeria Tullia is considered to be a decent woman. Perhaps marriage has made her quite unrestrained after the abstemious life of widowhood, although there were many fine men who seemed to make themselves at home at her house. Your father will have much to do keeping her in order.”

  Early next morning, while we were eating our bread and honey, I spoke to Barbus.

  “I must go and choose a horse,” I said, “and I must do it alone, for now that I am an adult I don’t need a companion as I did as a boy. Now you have the chance to
realize your dream of becoming an innkeeper.”

  “I have looked at several pleasant inns in different parts of Rome,” replied Barbus seriously, “and I am also in a position to buy one, thanks to your father’s goodness. But when all is said and done, the idea no longer delights me as it did in the days when I slept on the bare ground and drank the legion’s sour wine. And also an inn needs a woman as well as a landlord, but in my experience good landladies are very hardhearted women. In fact I’d prefer to stay in your service for the time being. Of course, you don’t need me any longer as a protector, but I’ve noticed that every knight who is the slightest concerned with his dignity usually has one companion or more, some even ten or a hundred if they are going out of the city. So it would be wisest if only for your own sake that you had a scarred old veteran with you.

  “The cavalry is another matter,” he went on, “but I fear you have several difficult weeks ahead of you. In the eyes of the others you are nothing but a recruit. I’ve told you how they train recruits in the legion, but you probably didn’t believe it all and thought I was exaggerating a bit, perhaps to amuse you. Above all, you must remember to control yourself, clench your teeth and never be angry with a superior. We’ll go there together. Perhaps I can give you some advice.”

  As we walked through the city to Mars field, Barbus remarked sadly, “I should really have the right to bear the insignia of an under-centurion, the mural crown, if only I hadn’t been so given to fighting after drinking. Even the chain I received in memory of Tribune Lucius, that time I swam across the Danube between the ice floes with him bleeding on my back, ended up in pawn in some wretched barbarian inn in Mesia, and I never got it out again before we were moved on. But we could go and look in some weapon shop and buy a secondhand souvenir chain. Perhaps you’d be better treated if your companion was wearing one round his neck.”