Quintina tells me that she has written to you about the welfare of her younger sister, Tacita, and has requested guardianship of her until you return to Rome. I know you do not know your daughters that well, Quintus, and that you have been gone a long time, but I urge you to accept counsel from Quintina. She is a young woman of fourteen now, although her wisdom and judgment exceed her years.
The unpleasant truth is that the girls’ mother has immersed herself in the cult of Bacchus. It is well known in our circle and in higher society that she engages in scandalous behavior with other Bacchants, including certain bodily rites that are not becoming to a woman of her class. Your younger daughter is still years from marriage, but her reputation must be upheld if she is to obtain a quality husband. That is all I will say on the matter as it is not my place. I only mention this so that you take the words of your eldest daughter seriously.
I make daily offerings to Vesta so that she may bring you home, and I thank you for your sacrifice to Mars. You need not burden Venus with too many prayers, for my affection is as it should be.
Pomponia
She set down the stylus and reread her words as the ink dried. Quintus openly spoke of his love for her in his letters, at times with a lovesick abandon that she would never have thought him capable of. Her replies to him were always more measured. The two of them had already had one close call, and if their relationship were suspected of being an intimate one, especially a physically intimate one, the punishment would be unthinkable for both of them.
Plus, she was the Vestalis Maxima, and despite her feelings for him, she had a duty to the goddess, to the Vestal order, and to all of Rome. No matter how her heart ached when she thought of him, that duty had to come first.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I write, she thought as she rolled up the scroll, sealed it, and slipped it into a scroll box. Quintus will read the words he wants to see. He knows the secret love I have for him. She smiled despite herself at his characteristic presumptuousness and called for his Egyptian messenger slave.
* * *
It was the Vestalia, Vesta’s annual public festival in June, and none of the priestesses had enjoyed a full night’s sleep in over two months. The time leading up to the Vestalia was as busy as the festival itself.
One reason for this was the production of the mola salsa mixture and the sacred wafers: water had to be collected from the springs, flour had to be milled, salt had to be sanctified. And all had to be done according to the same strict and sacred rites the Vestals had honored for centuries.
Once finished, the sacred wafers would be distributed to altars, shrines, and other locations throughout the city of Rome. And considering that the city’s population was over a million people, this was no small task.
In years past, people had come to the temple to request the wafers during religious festivals or times of trouble, but after the foot traffic in the Forum had become too congested during the Vestalia, Fabiana had arranged for citywide disbursements. It was just one of the ways the former Vestalis Maxima had updated the practices of the order to cope with the city’s growing numbers.
While either loose mola salsa or sacred wafers could be used to purify sacrificial animals and offer into Vesta’s fire, the wafers were often favored. The Roman people offered them into their household hearths as purified food for the goddess so that she would stay within their walls and make their home a sacred space. Yes, they would also offer other things to the fire—a bit of bread, fruit, oil, or wine—but the wafers were special, so the Vestals continued to make token amounts for the public.
Yet many people still made the trip to the Forum during the Vestalia. They did so to offer into the temple’s exterior firebowls and to take embers from them home. It was also during the Vestalia that women—and only women—were allowed to enter the sanctum to see the sacred fire and make an offering directly to the goddess.
They came dressed in the finest of silks and the roughest of tunicas, leaving their sandals at the base of the temple’s marble steps to enter the sanctum barefoot. They carried plates of food to offer the goddess. Some contained rich delicacies, others dry crusts of bread. They bowed their heads and walked across the white-and-black mosaic floor, saw the aeterna flamma burning in its hearth, and felt its heat on their faces. As the fire crackled and snapped, they set the plates of food on the floor along the curved inner wall of the temple. To the Vestals who stood watch over the fire, they gifted jewelry, sweet treats, decorative carvings, or fine fabrics.
As high priestess, Pomponia had spent most of the festive day inside the temple, standing beside the sacred hearth with Tuccia and accepting the prayers and offerings of Vesta’s faithful.
Needing a breath of fresh air, she had Nona take her place. As she descended the temple’s steps—always under the watchful eyes of her guards, Caeso and Publius—she was rejuvenated by the scent of the laurel and flower garlands that wound around the temple’s columns and hung from its frieze. Around the sacred area of Vesta, musicians played lively pipes.
Priestess Caecilia stood beside one of the bronze firebowls outside the temple, blessing those who were eager to meet a Vestal Virgin face-to-face. Pomponia approached her for a quick word.
“Rome is getting too big,” she said. “Next year, I’m going to propose that we keep the temple open for another day or two during the Vestalia. I’ve heard people say they can’t make it inside.”
“I think that is wise,” said Caecilia. “A necessary change.” She glanced at Fabiana seated on a cushioned chair several feet away. “Although you might face some opposition.”
“I don’t know. Fabiana seems to care little about custom these days. Just look at her! A holy day like this, and there she is with that foul-smelling creature soiling her stola. What precedent exists for that?”
They both smiled at the former chief Vestal, who sat on a high-backed chair before the temple, a royal-purple canopy stretched over her head. Curled on her lap was Perseus.
Caecilia laughed. “And yet it is you who takes that ‘foul-smelling creature’ for a walk every night in the Forum. Oh yes, Pomponia, we’ve all seen you sit on the steps of the Regia with him and look up at the stars.”
The dog raised his head to regard every man, woman, and child who knelt before Fabiana in turn, each asking her blessing or praying to the goddess with her.
Pomponia knew—everyone knew—this might be the last Vestalia the ailing Fabiana would share with them. Fabiana seemed to know it too, which is why she had forced herself from her cool bedchamber to sit all day in the sun by the temple. Pomponia tried not to think that the appearance was Fabiana’s way of saying goodbye to the people of Rome.
Pomponia rocked on her heels and looked around. Priestess Lucretia was moving among a crowd of men and boys who held out plates of food to her. Only women were permitted in the temple, but the Fates took many women in childbirth, which meant that some families no longer had a wife or mother who could make a temple offering to Vesta.
The men and boys in such families would therefore wait outside and ask a Vestal to make an offering for them. Such was Lucretia’s duty today. She was fulfilling it tirelessly, even as the hot sun beat down on her white-veiled head.
In front of another bronze firebowl, Quintina stood on a step and leaned over into a large terracotta pot—it was nearly as big as she was—that contained an excess of the flour used to make the sacred wafers. She emerged with a ladleful of the mix and poured it into a chipped bowl held by a hungry-looking boy.
“Don’t give all of this to the goddess,” she told the boy. “Vesta is full. Eat it yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am!” The boy ran off and the next person in line approached Quintina with his empty bowl.
Somewhere down the line, a bit of roughhousing between two or three men had started, causing a little girl to fall to the cobblestone. She stood up, and a woman wiped the blood from
her knees.
A grim-looking centurion, one of many positioned around the temple to assist the regular guard, cast the men a warning glare and put his hand on his sword. “Get to the back of the line, you shit-eaters!” The men hung their heads like pouting children and did as they were told.
Pomponia regarded the bustling Forum beyond the Temple of Vesta. As was customary, garlands of bread and flowers hung from shops, basilicas, and the Rostra, as well as other buildings and temples. Similar garlands decorated private homes throughout Rome. Yet Pomponia had noticed that this year there were more flowers than bread.
A sudden swell of excited shouts and applause caught her attention, and she looked down the Via Sacra to see Caesar’s grand litter slowly making its way through the throngs of people toward the temple. Runners sprinted ahead to clear the street of people or of anything the muscly, finely dressed lecticarii might trip on.
Coins flew out of the large lectica onto the cobblestone, and people scrambled to gather them up. Others waved in awe and lifted their children onto their shoulders to catch a glimpse of Caesar.
Concordia’s mercy, thought Pomponia, just when I thought I had Chaos in chains.
The litter set down near the temple. As Caesar’s lictors and soldiers surrounded it, Octavia stepped out of the lectica, followed by her brother. Some people clapped and called out, but others just stared, their eyes expressionless at best and accusatory at worst. Hunger had dulled their goodwill toward Caesar. He could throw all the coin he wanted to; there was less and less bread to buy with it.
Octavian greeted Pomponia first. He pointed his chin at two women fighting over a denarius in the street. “It is unfortunate they cannot eat silver,” he said, seeming to read the Vestal’s mind.
Octavia, dressed in a white stola, bowed her head to Pomponia. “I have come to make an offering to Vesta,” she said. She held a simple terracotta plate upon which was some fruit and bread dipped in oil.
“The goddess will be pleased,” said Pomponia.
A moment later, another figure emerged from the lectica: Caesar’s wife, Livia. Unlike her modest sister-in-law, she wore a vibrant green dress with earrings that dripped down to her shoulders. Clutching a gold plate stacked with exotic meats, she stepped gingerly onto the cobblestone and bowed her head to the Vestal. “Priestess Pomponia,” she said, “I hope our presence does not add to your labors today. We shall make our offerings and leave.”
“Not at all,” said Pomponia. “Make your offering to the goddess, and then we shall all have some sweet lemon water in the courtyard.”
As the two women removed their sandals at the base of the temple’s steps and moved through the open doors into the sanctum, Pomponia studied Livia. She had known many ambitious men and women in her time with the Vestal order, but there was something about Caesar’s young wife that had always stood apart—something about her smile and the way every expression, every word, seemed strategically chosen for a reason that only she knew.
Livia was a river of ambition, yes, but there was something below the ambition: insecurity. It was the unseen but unstoppable undercurrent, and Pomponia sensed it would wash away anything that crossed its path.
After the two women had made their temple offerings, Pomponia escorted them and Caesar through the portico of the House of the Vestals and into the courtyard. The garden offered a semishaded refuge from the relentless sun and febrile heat, and she gestured to two canopied couches by one of the pools. She and Octavia sat on one, Octavian and Livia on the other.
“Lemon water,” Pomponia said to a house slave. “Sweet. And with ice, if we still have it.”
“At once, Domina.”
“I cannot recall a time when the serious heat came so early,” said Octavian.
“It makes the people petulant, Caesar,” Pomponia noted. “It’s been orderly today, but I can still feel it.”
“Hot and hungry,” said Octavian. “An unhealthy combination, especially when it comes to public order.”
It was Octavia who said what everyone was thinking. “My husband is to blame for it.”
“How are you coping, Octavia?” asked Pomponia.
“Good days and bad, my friend. Juno gives me strength.”
“I am happy to hear so.” Pomponia shook her head in frustration. “The day Julius Caesar was assassinated, Antony came here to hide. He stood right here, at this pool, and drank. It was here that I gave him Caesar’s will . . . Oh, if only I could have known what he would become. I would have had Quintus open his throat at Vesta’s feet. Forgive me, the heat inflames my anger too. It is hard to believe what Antony is doing to his wife and his own people.”
“We have all said and thought much worse,” said Octavian. The slave arrived with honey lemon water, mint leaves swirling in the tall glass jug and ice chips already floating in the full glasses. Octavian took a long draw of the cool liquid. “The problem is that Antony still has some support in the Senate and the common people do not believe he would act against them.”
“If only there was a way to prove Antony’s disloyalty,” said Livia.
Octavian crunched an ice chip between his teeth and glanced at her. His wife was not yet as smooth as he or his sister.
Pomponia looked at Octavian. “What are you asking, Caesar?”
He met her eyes. “Antony’s will is in the temple. I believe it will show that his allegiance and affection lie with his Egyptian wife and children, not with his Roman ones.”
Octavia took the Vestal’s hands. “The people need to know what is in his heart.”
“And what good will that do?” asked Pomponia. “It will not change him. It will not make the taxes or the grain come.”
“No,” said Octavian, “but proving his loyalty lies with Cleopatra will give me the support I need in the Senate to declare war on her, kill Antony as a traitor, and take control of Egypt myself.”
Pomponia paused. Here it was, finally—the price of friendship with Caesar. She chose each word carefully. “I have no allegiance to Antony. I have never had much use for the man. But you know that I cannot do what you ask. The temple is sacrosanct. Rome’s most important men have entrusted the Vestal order with their wills for centuries, and Antony is still a general of Rome. The Senate and the religious collegia would be highly critical of the sacrilege and of me as Vestalis Maxima. They would be critical of you as well, Caesar, especially if the will contains nothing damning to Antony.” She squeezed Octavia’s hands. “I make this decision out of religious and legal duty. If I were at liberty to make it out of friendship, it would be a different decision.”
“Of course,” said Octavia. “Forgive us.”
“Yes, forgive us,” Octavian echoed. “The request was born of desperation. We shall find another way to do what must be done.”
More lemon water and small talk followed until Livia exhaled heavily and stood up. “Husband,” she said, “and sister, I fear that the heat is quite getting the better of me.”
“We should go,” said Octavian. “I apologize again for my misguided appeal, Priestess. It was not fair of me to put political pressure on our most sacred order.”
“There is nothing to apologize for,” said Pomponia. “You are Caesar, and you are doing the work of Caesar.”
Livia bowed her head to the Vestal. “Thank you for taking the time to visit with us on this busy day. I wonder if you might come dine with Octavia and me at Caesar’s house after the Vestalia? Our new cook prepares the most exquisite dormice you have ever tasted, does he not, Octavia? He is the mortal son of Edesia, I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, I would like that,” said Pomponia. “Our dormice taste like boiled leather. I’ve just bought a new cook from the country, though, so we have high hopes.” She walked them out of the house to Caesar’s litter, which awaited them on the street before the portico.
They exchanged partings. Livia stepped
into the lectica, followed by Octavia, but Octavian paused. He looked as though he was going to say something of weight, but then offered Pomponia a light goodbye and stepped in after his wife and sister. As the high priestess waved and walked back toward the temple, he closed the red curtains of the lectica and sat back.
“I told you she wouldn’t do it,” he said to Livia.
“It was worth a try, husband.”
“Perhaps.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Octavia wiped away a tear and then rested her head on her sister-in-law’s shoulder. Livia felt her chest tighten in irritation—the woman had become insufferably whiny since Antony had married Cleopatra—but she suppressed her annoyance and stroked Octavia’s hair tenderly. “There, there, dear sister,” she said. “We shall find a way to make that barbarian husband of yours pay for his infidelity.”
“We shall indeed,” said Octavian. “One must admire Priestess Pomponia,” he continued thoughtfully. “She is a duteous chief Vestal, yet clearly she favors us politically. That may still be useful.”
Livia’s chest tightened even more. Mala Fortuna! The Vestal refuses you, yet your regard for her grows? She licked her lips. She had fully expected the Vestalis Maxima to refuse Caesar’s request for Antony’s will and had privately hoped the refusal would have soured her husband’s attitude toward the Vestal Virgins. To her dismay, it seemed to have had the opposite effect.
“Who is this Quintus the high priestess spoke of ?” she asked innocently. “Is it the same Quintus you sent to Egypt? The one with the Bacchant wife?”
“Yes, the same,” said Octavian.
“I did not know they were such good friends,” said Livia. This was worth remembering.
But her husband didn’t hear her. He was already distracted, sifting through a basket of scrolls and growling about overdue taxes, clogged public latrines, and an epidemic of sexual blisters in the brothels of the Subura. All Rome’s problems seemed to rise up to Caesar.
“Apparently, I am to blame not only for their hunger pangs,” he muttered, “but for the warts on their cocks as well.”
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