Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“Well, not every woman, of course.”

“I should think not!”

“After all, there are many ladies who would not dream of accepting any payment for something in which they take such pleasure.”

“You are speaking to a Roman lady.”

“And we all know the proclivities of the Roman ladies, do we not?”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean.”

“Do not be so coy with me, Lucretia. You are a beautiful woman. I am sure you have desires.”

“For the attentions of my husband and the respect of his friends.”

“Is that all, Lucretia. Is that really all…?”

“It certainly is.”

“Your blushes tell me otherwise. Who is he, I wonder? A childhood sweetheart, sweet memories never forgotten? A true love abandoned when you agreed to a proposal of marriage from the lofty House of Batiatus? No… nothing like that, I am sure.”

“Nothing like that.”

“But perhaps it is something wilder you seek? I wonder what it must be like for the lanista’s wife living each day with a balcony view of the strongest, the most dangerous men in the Republic. Are your eyes drawn to them, Lucretia? Do you look down on your husband’s warriors and imagine what it would be like to take one inside you?”

“The very thought of it,” Lucretia sputtered.

“Of imagining? Yes, for you have done more than imagine, have you not? What female would not sample the delights she owned? I am sure there is not a woman in Rome who hasn’t wondered what it would be like to summon her kitchen slave or gardener to her on a warm summer’s night. To order him to stand, unmoving before her. To whisper in his ear that subsequent events should be a secret shared only between the two of them, on pain of torture.

“I only tease. I am a rude old man and your blushes are so beautiful I cannot help but encourage them. Forgive me, I beg you! Forgive Gaius Verres and his drunken talk of such indiscretions. I am certain you are as pure as your namesake.”

“Cicero! My congratulations for the entertainments,” Batiatus said, breezily. “I have never seen orators in full flow before! Most illuminating.”

Cicero stared half-heartedly back at the lanista, and shrugged.

“I claim victory in the battle of words with Verres when it concerns matters theoretical and hypothetical,” he sighed. “In my daily labors, I am thwarted at every turn.”

Batiatus patted his arm in an attempt at reassurance.

“Let me ask you about a gladiatorial matter,” Cicero said, “If I may?”

Batiatus grinned expansively.

“I surely lack your rhetorical tongue. But when it comes to the arena, I may speak of what I know.”

“The woman of the Getae.”

“Ah yes, a natural,” Batiatus said. “Her frame is small, but she has a truly murderous intent. Her pleasure in killing warms the soul.”

“She will not be the last, I am sure.”

“She lives for it. But her survival thus far seems but an accident. She cares not for her own life.”

“I spoke with her in her cell. She is a spitting cat. Full of fire and vigour, but not prophecy. And while she has had better fortune than a cat, even cats meet their end in time.”

“Are you surprised? These prophecies are doggerel. The priests are artful swindlers. Who cares what nursery rhymes are in the Sibylline Books if they are only found to be true after the event? The Getae woman’s rantings are of no importance to you, to me, to any noble citizen.”

“She has no ‘ranting,’ as you put it. She is lucid. Angry, but not… prophetic. But Pelorus would not have lied to me. There must be some way to unlock her sight of futures and posterities.”

“The oracles of the east surely do not spring from their beds spouting prophecies. They are induced, their site aided by elixers and opiates.”

Cicero patted Batiatus on the arm.

“You are too kind, Batiatus. But I fear that my time is limited.”

“Perhaps not, good Cicero. There a matter I wish to discuss with you.”

“What possible help can you offer in this situation, good Batiatus?”

“I can claim ownership of the Getae witch.”

“She is not for sale.”

“That is of no import, if I proved her rightful owner. I wish to engage your services.”

Batiatus beckoned Cicero toward the inner rooms of the house. Cicero followed, indulgently, a cup of wine forgotten in his hand as they strolled toward the shrine of the household gods.

“Verres’s case seems solid,” Cicero said. “It seems but a formality for him to present Timarchides to the magistrate tomorrow and sign over what remains of the estate of Pelorus.”

“But what if I have examined Verres’s armor and found gap?”

“A fenestra.”

“Indeed, I have a window. A window for us both!”

“My policy is always to be available to petitions,” Cicero said. “But I cannot promise anything unless the facts of the case warrant my involvement.”

“In truth,” Batiatus said, “it is a relatively simple matter. Pelorus has died absent a will. He has no heirs, no family.”

They reached the shrine of the Pelorus household gods. The lamps sputtered in the near darkness over a sparse tableau. A figurine of Nemesis spread threatening wings across the table. Mercury, too, frozen in time as if in mid-run; Diana, the huntress, her statuette’s bow bent as if ready to release an arrow, although it lacked any string.

“You are sure of this?” Cicero asked.

“I am certain.”

Batiatus gestured at the altar, where the figurines of violent gods stood. There were no ancestral tablets among them; no representations of parents or cousins, children or friends. The altar in the house of Pelorus had only representations of the gods themselves, and no place for man.

“I see,” Cicero said. “He was alone.”

“Pelorus and I have been associates since childhood.”

“How so?”

“Ever since my father bought him-”

“Wait. Pelorus was a slave?”

“For some time, yes. He was freed by my father. He saved him from roadside brigands, and in a moment of uncharacteristic charity my father promised him whatever he desired. Naturally, he asked for his freedom, and it was granted with deep reluctance. And thenceforth, my father refused to have slaves as his bodyguards, lest similar happenstance place the same burden upon his goodwill and purse.”

Batiatus pointed at the only other object in the shrine-the wooden sword that hung on the wall.

“The proof yet lies there,” he said.

Cicero plucked the sword from its hooks and squinted in the dark at the crude words etched in its side. The abbreviations were drastic, largely hacked down to clusters of two and three letters, but the meaning was clear. Pelorus, a gladiator of Capua, freed for valor, with the blessings of his master Titus Lentulus Batiatus, and in thanks to the gods.

“From where did he come?” Cicero asked.

“The slave market. Purchased as a boy to be my companion, and sometime guardian. His family were Cimbri from the far north, captured in the campaigns of Gaius Marius.”

“Well, Batiatus, I fear that you will be disappointed. None but a Roman citizen can write a will.”