power of Caere. But those are things you know more about than I, Clarissimus.”
“I thought your face was known to me in some way,” cried Claudius in delight. ‘Tour face and eyes I recognize from the murals in the old Etruscan tombs I studied in my youth, although even then they were being destroyed by damp and neglect. If you are called Mezentius, then your son should be named Lausus. Do you know who Lausus was, boy?”
I told him Lausus was a son of King Mezentius who fought together with Turnus against Aeneas.
“That’s what it says in your history of the Etruscans,” I said innocently. “Otherwise I shouldn’t have known it.”
“Have you really read my little book, despite your youth?” asked Claudius, and then he began to hiccough with emotion. Narcissus patted him gently on the back and ordered the slaves to fetch him more wine. Claudius invited us also to take wine, but warned me in a fatherly way not to drink wine undiluted until I was as old as he was. Narcissus took the opportunity to ask Claudius for his signature to confirm my father’s knighthood. He signed willingly although I think he had forgotten what the matter was about.
“Is it really your will that my son shall bear the name of Lausus?” asked my father. “If so, it is the greatest honor I can think of that Emperor Claudius himself wishes to stand as godfather to him,”
Claudius drank his wine, his head trembling.
“Narcissus,” he said firmly. “Write that down too. You, Mezentius, just send a message to me when the boy is to have his hair cut and I’ll come as your guest if important matters of State do not hinder me at the time.”
He rose decisively and nearly stumbled before the slaves had time to come forward and support him. With a loud belch, he remarked, “My many learned works of research have made me absentminded, and I remember old things better than new things. So it would be best to note down at once everything I have promised and forbidden. Now I had better take my siesta and must vomit properly. Otherwise I shall have stomachache from that tough goatmeat.”
When he had left the room, supported by his two slaves, Narcissus turned to my father.
“Let your boy receive the man-toga at the first suitable moment,” he advised, “and then let me know. It is possible that the Emperor will remember his promise to stand as godfather. At least I shall remind him about the name and his promise. Then he’ll pretend he has remembered, even if he has not.”
Aunt Laelia had to go to great trouble to find even a few nobles who could be considered related to the Manilianus family. One of the guests was an old former consul who kindly held my hand while I sacrificed the pig. But most of them were women, contemporaries of Aunt Laelia, who were largely tempted to the house in the hope of a free meal. They gabbled like a flock of geese when the barber cut my hair short and shaved the scanty down from my chin. It was an effort to keep calm while they dressed me in the toga and stroked my limbs and patted my cheeks. They could hardly contain their curiosity when, because of the promise I had made, I took the barber up to my room and had him also shave off all the body hairs which showed my manhood. These I put together with the down from my chin into a silver box, the lid of which was decorated with a moon and a lion. The barber chatted and joked while going about his business, but also told me that it was not at all unusual that noble youths receiving the man-toga offered the hair from their private parts to Venus to win her favor.
Emperor Claudius did not come to our family feast, but he had Narcissus send me the gold ring of knighthood and permission to have it written in the rolls that he personally had given me the name Lausus. Our guests went with my father and me to the temple of Castor and Pollux. My father paid the necessary dues into the archive, and then I had to put the gold ring on my thumb. My ceremonial toga with its narrow red border was ready. The ceremony was not particularly formal. From the archive we went to the meeting room of the Noble Order of Knights, where we paid for permission to choose our horses at the stables on Mars field.
When we returned home, my father gave me the complete outfit of a Roman knight, a wrought-silver shield, a silver-plated helmet with red plumes, a long sword and a spear. The old ladies urged me to put it all on, and naturally I could not resist the temptation. Barbus helped me fasten the soft leather tunic and soon I was marching around the floor in my short red boots, strutting like a turkey cock with my helmet on my head and a drawn sword in my hand.
It was already evening. Our house was ablaze with lights and outside people stood watching as well-wishers came and went. The spectators greeted with acclamation the arrival of a finely decorated sedan which was carried up to our entrance by two coal-black Slaves. Aunt Laelia, tripping over her garments, rushed up to meet this late arrival, and out of the sedan stepped a short plump woman whose silk gown revealed almost too clearly her voluptuous figure. Her face was hidden behind a purple veil, but she drew it to one side and allowed Aunt Laelia to kiss her on both cheeks. She had fine-drawn features and a beautifully painted face.
Aunt Laelia, her voice shrill with emotion, called out, “Minutus, my dear, this is the noble Tullia Valeria, who wants to wish you good fortune. She is a widow, but her late husband was a real Valerius.”
The woman, still startlingly beautiful although she had reached a mature age, stretched out her arms and swept me, armor and sword and all, to her bosom.
“Oh, Minutus Lausus,” she cried, “I heard that the Emperor himself has given you your second name and I am not surprised now I see your face. If my fortunes and your father’s whims had allowed it, you could be my own son. Your father and I were good friends in our time, but he must still be ashamed of his behavior toward me as he- didn’t come to see me as soon as he came to Rome.”
She was still clasping me tenderly in her arms so that I could feel her soft, breast and smell the stupefying scent of her perfumed salves as she looked around. When my father caught sight of her face he stiffened, turned deathly pale and made a movement as if he wished to turn and flee. The lovely Tullia took my hand and approached my father with a charming smile on her face.
“Don’t be afraid, Marcus,” she said. “On a day like this I forgive you everything. What is past is past, and don’t let us grieve over it. But I have filled many flasks with my tears because of you, you heartless man.”
She let me go, wound her arms around my father’s neck and kissed him tenderly on his lips. My father shook himself free, trembling from head to foot, and said reproachfully, “Tullia, Tullia, you should know better. I’d rather see a Gorgon head than your face here in my house tonight.”
But Tullia put her hand over his mouth and turned to Aunt Laelia.
“Marcus hasn’t changed at all,” she said. “Someone should take care of him. When I see how confused he is and hear him talk in that unreasonable way, I regret that I overcame my pride and came to him when he was ashamed to come to me.”
This beautiful silk-clad woman entranced me, however old she might be, and I felt a malicious pleasure in seeing my father so completely lose his self-control in her presence. Tullia now turned her attention to the other guests and greeted some of them in a friendly way and others superciliously. The old ladies had much to whisper about with their heads together, but she took no notice of their spiteful glances.
She would eat only a few sweetmeats and drink a little wine, but she asked me to sit beside her on the couch.
“It’s not unseemly,” she said, “although you are fully grown now. I could be your mother.”
With her soft hand she stroked the back of my neck, sighed and then looked in my eyes so that I felt a tingling all over my body. My father noticed and came up to us with his hands clenched.
“Leave my boy alone,” he said briskly. “You’ve already caused me enough trouble.”
Tullia shook her head sadly and sighed.
“If anyone has helped you, Marcus,” she said, “then it was I in your manhood days. Once I even traveled all the way to Alexandria after you, but don’t think I would do it again. It is only for your son’s sake that I have come to warn you. Valeria Messalina is offended that Claudius has given your son his name and sent him the ring of knighthood without consulting her. For that reason there are certain other persons who are curious about you and your son and want to favor all those with whom this shameless woman seeks a quarrel. It is a difficult choice that awaits you, Marcus.”
“I don’t want to be involved, even to know about such things,” cried my father in despair. “I can’t believe that after all these years you immediately want to involve me in one of your intrigues in which I can lose my good reputation just as I have managed to retrieve it. Shame on yon, Tullia.”
Hut Tullia teasingly laughed aloud and brushed her hand across my father’s.
“Now I see why I was so insane about you once, Marcus,” she said. “No other man has ever been able to pronounce my name so delightfully.”
And to tell the truth, when my father spoke her name there was a touch of melancholy in his voice. Of course
