cosmopolitan city than ever before. He allowed Agrippa to build the baths. He imported the worship of exotic gods. He catered at every turn to the citizens’ appetite for entertainment and pleasure.
Finished with their morning exercise, Lucius and the boy bathed. They began by scraping the sweat from their bodies, using strigils. They did so in the shadow of the famous statue by Lysippus which depicted a naked athlete doing exactly the same thing, bending back one muscular arm to run his strigil over the other arm, which was extended before him. Agrippa had installed the statue at the baths with great fanfare. Lysippus had been the court sculptor to Alexander the Great. Though many copies had been made of the
Lucius and the boy went back and forth between pools of varying temperature. The coolest was quite bracing after their exercise. The hottest was obscured by a curtain of steam and required a gradual process of immersion. Even the floors were heated, by water piped beneath the tiles. The walls were of marble, and even in the wettest areas Agrippa’s decorators had found means to adorn them with paintings, infusing dyes into beeswax, then fixing and hardening the images with heat. The paintings depicted gods, goddesses, and heroes. Scenes of legend appeared to hover in the mist.
After bathing, they wrapped themselves in linen cloths and took a light meal in an adjoining arcade. The boy ate pieces of bread slathered with garum. Lucius abstained from the spicy garum and ate fig-paste instead.
They discussed the boy’s studies. He was currently reading
After eating, they rested. A few old friends and colleagues stopped to say hello, and Lucius was delighted to introduce his grandson. The talk turned to foreign imports, the cost of slaves, the advantages and disadvantages of transport by land or by sea, and who had been awarded contracts for various construction projects in the city. “As you can see, my boy,” remarked Lucius, “these days, more business is done here in the baths than in the Forum.”
In the old days, of course, all the talk would have been about politics and war. Nowadays, war was an activity on the distant frontier that might or might not affect trade, and politics-true politics, as their forefathers had understood the word, with everyone freely arguing and shouting to make themselves heard-no longer existed. One might speculate about intrigues within the imperial family, or conjecture about the relative influence wielded by members of the emperor’s immediate circle-but only in whispers.
Exercised, bathed, and fed, the two retired to the dressing room. Young Lucius slipped into the tunic he had worn earlier, but his grandfather, assisted by the slave who had shaved him, put on his toga. While the boy watched, he pontificated on the proper wearing of the toga.
“A man isn’t simply wrapped in his toga,” he explained. “He carries it, as he carries himself, with a show of dignity and pride. Shoulders back, head up. And the drapes should fall just so. Too few folds, and you look as if someone threw a sheet over you. Too many folds, and you look as if you’re carrying a bundle of laundry to the fuller.”
The boy’s laughter delighted Lucius. It meant that his grandson was paying attention. He was watching, listening, learning.
The slave handed his master a shiny trinket on a golden chain. Lucius slipped the necklace over his head and tucked it beneath his toga.
“What’s that, Grandfather? An amulet of some sort?”
“Not just any amulet, my boy. It’s very old, and very important, and today is the very last day I shall ever wear it. But we’ll talk of it later. For now, I want to show you a bit of the city. There are some places I should like you to see through my eyes.”
“Shall I summon the litter?” asked the slave.
“Actually, I think not. The hot plunge has so loosened my knees that I think I might be up for a bit of walking. But you must be patient, young Lucius, and not run ahead of me.”
“I shall stay by your side, Grandfather.”
Lucius nodded. How polite the boy was, always respectful and well-mannered. He was studious, as well, and very clean and neat. The boy was a product of his times. The world had become a much more orderly, peaceful, settled place than it was in the old days of the civil wars. His ancestors would be proud of young Lucius. They would be proud of the harmonious world that their descendents, through much bloodshed and toil, had finally achieved.
As they headed out from the baths, a flash of excitement crossed young Lucius’s face, then he bit his lower lip nervously.
“What is it, my boy?”
“I was thinking, Grandfather, as long as we’re taking a walk, and we’re so close-but father says it’s something you don’t like to talk about. Only, he says you were actually there, when it happened…”
“Ah, yes. I think I know what you’re trying to say. Yes, that will be our first stop. But I have to warn you, there’s nothing to see.”
“Nothing?”
“As you shall observe.”
They strolled to the Theater of Pompeius. Lucius took the steps slowly, but not on account of his knees. As they reached the top, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His skin prickled and his breath grew short. Even after all these years, he felt a sense of dread as they drew near to the spot.
They came to a brick wall. “It was here,” he said. “This is the place where the Divine Julius, your great- great-granduncle, met the end of his mortal life.”
The boy frowned. “I thought it happened in some sort of assembly hall, at the foot of Pompeius’s statue.”
“Yes. The entrance to the hall was here, and the place where Caesar fell was perhaps fifty paces from this spot. But the hall has been sealed. Some years ago the emperor decreed-or rather, the Senate voted, at the emperor’s behest-that this place should be declared an accursed site, never to be seen or set foot upon. The statue of Pompeius was removed and placed elsewhere in the theater complex. The entrance to the hall was walled up, like a tomb. The Ides of Martius was declared a day of infamy, and it was forbidden that the Senate should ever again meet on that date. As I told you, there’s nothing to see.”
“But it’s true, Grandfather, that you were here? That you saw it happen?”
“Yes. I saw the assassins strike. I saw Caesar fall. I heard his final words to the infamous Brutus. Antonius was here, too, though he arrived after I did. They purposely detained him outside, partly to prevent him from shielding Caesar, but also, I think, because they didn’t wish to kill him. The assassins did possess a certain sense of honor. They truly believed that what they were doing was for the good of Roma.”
“But how can that be? They were bloodthirsty killers.”
“Yes, they were that, as well.”
The boy frowned. “And Antonius; I thought he was-”
“But let us speak no more of this,” said Lucius. “There’s so much more I want to show you.”
They walked toward the older parts of the city. In the Forum Boarium, Lucius showed the boy the Ara Maxima, and informed him of the role once played by the Pinarii in maintaining the cult of Hercules. Long ago, that religious role had been abandoned by the family, but it marked the first appearance of the Pinarii in history, and so was never to be forgotten. They had shared the duty with another family, but the Potitii were long extinct, as were a number of the original patrician families, whose names now existed only in annals and inscriptions.
They ascended the Palatine, walking slowly up the ancient Stairs of Cacus, which took them by a recess in the stone reputed to have been the very cave where the monster once dwelled. They paused beneath the shade of the fig tree said to be a descendent of the legendary ruminalis, beneath which Acca Larentia had suckled the infants
