me?'
'Never mind. What matters is that you're mistaken. It wasn't me. I didn't kill the old Egyptian. I swear to you by the shades of my ancestors!'
'And your friend Asicius?'
'He didn't kill Dio, either.'
'Who did?'
'I don't know. But it wasn't me.'
'And the night of the murder-where had you been with Asicius, before I saw you? What were the two of you up to? Tell me that, and swear by your ancestors.'
'That's more than I can tell you.'
'But still not enough.'
Caelius squeezed my arm. 'Gordianus-'
'Gratidianus!' said Catullus, seizing my other arm. Caelius released
me and I found myself being pulled toward the entrance, my head reeling from the stench of oil smoke and cheap wine.
Behind me I heard a stranger cry out, 'By Venus! I wager everything and put my trust in the goddess of love!' Then a clatter of dice, and then the same voice, exultant amid groans of defeat: 'The Venus Throw! The Venus Throw! It conquers all!'
Out in the street I breathed the fresh air and looked up at a clear sky spangled with stars. 'Why such a rush to get me out of that place?'
'I couldn't leave you behind to tell them everything I'd just told you… about her.'
'I wouldn't have done that. And please, stop calling me Gratidianus. My name-'
'I know what you call yourself. But for me you'll always have another name, the one I give you. Just as she has another name. In case I should write a poem about you.'
'I can't imagine what sort of poem that would be.'
'No?
Gratidianus thinks he's clever, and he must be, because Lesbia loves him, far better than Catullus and all his clan-'
'Stop, Catullus. You're too drunk to know what you're saying.' 'A man is never too drunk to make a poem.'
'Just too drunk to make sense. I think I'd better find my way home.' I looked up the alley. Beyond the lurid glow cast by the phallic lamp above the door, the way was swallowed up by an unreassuring darkness.
'I'll walk you home,' offered Catullus.
A drunken poet for a bodyguard! What would happen if Caelius and his friends decided to come after us? 'Quickly then. Do you know another route? Where no one would think to follow?'
'I know every path leading to and from the Salacious Tavern. Follow
me.'
He led me on a circuitous route, slipping between warehouses set so close that I had to walk sideways to get through, picking a way around trash heaps where rats scurried and squeaked, and finally ascending a steep footpath up the western slope of the Palatine. It seemed a good route for avoiding assassins, but rather treacherous for a man who had been drinking as much as Catullus. I expected him to fall and break his neck at any moment, taking me with him, but he attacked the climb with only an occasional misstep. The climb seemed to sober him. His lungs were certainly strong enough. While I labored for breath, he had plenty left over to give vent to his thoughts.
'If only we could all become eunuchs!' he declared. 'What man wouldn't be happier?'
'I suppose we could become eunuchs, if we wanted.'
'Ha! The act is harder than you might think. I know, I've seen it with my own eyes. While I was in Bithynia, I took a journey to the ruins of old Troy, to find the place where my brother's buried. So far from home! On the way back a stranger asked me if I'd like to see the initiation rites of the galli. He wanted money, of course. Took me to a temple on the slopes of Mount Ida. The priests wanted money, too. I felt quite the gawking tourist, dropping coins into all those eager hands, just another crass, thrill-seeking Roman looking for a taste of the 'real' East. They took me to a room so smoky with incense I could hardly see, and so loud with flutes and tambourines I thought I'd go deaf. The rite was under way. The galli chanted and whirled in a weird dance, like fingers of the goddess keeping time. The young initiate had worked himself into a frenzy, naked, covered with sweat, undulating with the music. Someone put a shard of broken pottery into his hand-'Samian pottery,' the guide whispered in my ear, 'the only kind sure to avoid a putrid wound.' While I watched, the fellow turned himself into a gallus before my eyes. All by himself-no one helped him. It was quite a thing to see. Afterward, when the blood was running down his legs and he couldn't stand any longer, the others swarmed around him, swaying, chanting, shrieking. The guide sniggered and poked me in the ribs and made a show of covering his balls. I ran out of the place in a panic.'
Catullus fell silent for a while. We reached the top of the path and entered the maze of dark, silent streets.
'Imagine the freedom,' Catullus whispered. 'To leave the appetites of the flesh behind.'
'The galli have appetites,' I said. 'They eat like men.'
'Yes, but a man eats and is done with it. The craving I'm talking about feeds on itself. The more it's fed, the hungrier it grows.'
'A Roman controls his appetites, not vice versa.'
'Then perhaps we aren't Romans any longer. Show me a man in Rome who's larger than his appetites.'
I thought about this while we made our way through the winding, deep-shadowed streets.
'But even castration can't guarantee an end to passion,' Catullus resumed. 'Look at Trygonion!' 'What about him?'
'Don't you know where his name comes from? The famous epitaph by Philodemus?'
'Should I recognize that name?'
'Barbarian! Philodemus of Gadera. Probably the greatest living poet of the Greek tongue.'
'Oh, that Philodemus. An epitaph, you say?'
'Written years and years ago for a dead gallus called Trygonion. Can you follow the Greek?'
'I'll translate in my head.'
'Very well:
Here lies that tender creature of ladylike limbs,
Trygonion, prince of the sex-numb emasculates,
Beloved of the Great Mother, Cybele,
He alone of the galli was seduced by a woman.
Holy earth, give to this headstone a pillow
Of budding white violets.
'That old poem is how our Trygonion got his name. I don't remember what he was called before, something Phrygian and unpronounceable. One time, teasing him about his weakness for Lesbia, I called him our little Trygonion, the gallus who fell for a woman. The name stuck to Trygonion the way Trygonion sticks to Lesbia. I think of him whenever I consider castrating myself. It might do no good, you see. A useless gesture. Sometimes passion is stronger than flesh. Love can last beyond death, and in some rare instances a man's weakness for beauty can even outlive his testicles.'
'Trygonion is that devoted to Lesbia?'
'He suffers as I suffer, but with one great difference.'
'Which is?'
'Trygonion suffers without hope.' 'And you?'
'While a man still has his balls, he has hope!' Catullus laughed his peculiar, barking laugh. 'Even slaves have hope, as long as they have their balls. But a gallus in love with a beautiful woman-'
'So much in love that he would do anything for her?'
'Any at all, without question.'
'So much in love that he might be blinded by jealousy?' 'Driven mad by it!'
'He could be dangerous. Unpredictable… '
'Not nearly as dangerous as Lesbia.' Catullus was suddenly giddy, trotting ahead of me and circling back,
