the omen, against the emperor’s explicit orders? Yet, Lucius could hardly have borne the strain of waiting alone.
“Then let us pray for neither of those things, father. Let us pray for the well-being of the Roman state,” suggested Lucius.
“Ah, you remind me of your late grandfather!” said the elder Pinarius with a dry laugh. “The old man was a master at finding the middle path. You’re right, of course. We shall go to the Senate House and make an offering there.”
They crossed the Forum, walking past the massive buildings Augustus had erected to house the imperial bureaucracy. They passed the ancient speaker’s platform called the Rostra, decorated by captured-ships’ beaks, where the great orators of the Republic had harangued the voters of Roma. The Rostra was little used these days.
The Senate House was relatively new, having been begun by Julius Caesar just before his assassination and completed by Augustus. The exterior was quite austere compared to the elaborately coloured and decorated temples nearby. “I was present when the emperor dedicated this building,” recalled the elder Pinarius, “still a boy, not yet wearing my manly toga. I practically grew up here, watching debates with your grandfather, taking notes and carrying messages for him long before I became a senator myself.”
They ascended the steps and entered. In contrast to the exterior, the chamber was exquisitely finished. Gilded railings and plush red draperies divided the various spaces within the vast room. Polished marble adorned the walls and floors. Windows set high in the walls filled the lofty space with light. The Senate was not meeting on this day, but there were plenty of members about, idly conversing or tending to business with their secretaries. Under the autocratic rule of Augustus, the Senate still performed numerous bureaucratic functions. The continuing survival of the ancient institution helped to maintain the official fiction that Roma was still a republic, and the emperor was merely the first among equals, not the master of his fellow citizens but the devoted servant of all.
Lucius and his father approached the Altar of Victory. The altar itself was made of green marble adorned with elaborate carvings of laurel leaves. Looming beyond and above the altar was a towering statue of the goddess Victory, surrounded by a sampling of the spoils of war taken by Augustus. These displays were changed from time to time. On this day the spoils on exhibit included the iron prow of an Egyptian warship taken at Actium, fashioned in the shape of a crocodile’s head. There was also a selection of Queen Cleopatra’s royal jewellery, including a carnelian necklace, and one of the queen’s tall atef crowns made of ivory with inlays of gold and lapis.
The elder Pinarius began the ritual performed by every senator upon entering the chamber. He burned a bit of incense on the altar, poured a libation of wine, and recited a prayer. “Goddess, grant victory to Roma and defeat to her enemies. Watch over the empire which you delivered to Augustus. Protect Roma from all those who would cause her harm, whether from without or from within.”
They stepped back from the altar. Lucius’s father shook his head as he repeated in a whisper the final words of the prayer. “‘Enemies from without… or from within.’ That last part was meant to apply to people like Marcus Antonius – and your grandfather. What a mess the old man made of his inheritance! He, too, was a great-nephew of the Divine Julius, no less than Augustus. He, too, was named an heir, though he was given a smaller share. He, too, might have risen to greatness. But how he loved that scoundrel Antonius! To please Antonius, he made an enemy of his own cousin. Augustus never quite trusted your grandfather’s late conversion to the winning side. The emperor spared him but excluded him from playing any role in the new regime. The Pinarii was set to one side, neither persecuted nor rewarded – the forgotten heirs of Julius Caesar.” The wistful tone of his voice suddenly turned bitter. “And through all our financial difficulties, Augustus has never so much as tossed a sesterce our way!”
He left unspoken the hope that he and Lucius had already discussed, privately and in whispers, that perhaps things would soon change. If the emperor should die, Tiberius would almost certainly take his place, and Tiberius had no reason to treat the Pinarii like outcasts. Perhaps the family falling-out between Augustus and Lucius’s grandfather could finally be forgotten. If Lucius could please the new emperor, there was no reason why he should not move forward in life. Towards that end, following Claudius’s advice and with an aim towards pleasing the future emperor, Lucius had begun to study the Babylonian science of astrology. And though Claudius carried little weight with Tiberius, he was nonetheless a member of the imperial family, and perhaps his growing friendship with Lucius might yet bring some benefit to the Pinarii.
Even as Lucius’s thoughts turned to Claudius, his friend appeared at the entrance to the Senate House. Claudius looked this way and that, appearing flustered and confused, then spotted Lucius and hurried to him.
“I thought I s-s-saw you earlier in the Forum. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Lucius raised his eyebrows. “Is there news?”
Claudius shook his head. “Nothing to report. But I do have something else to tell you. Something quite interesting. Perhaps it will at least take your mind off the m-m-matter that is preoccupying us all.” He looked around the chamber, at the clusters of senators in hushed conversation and the secretaries scurrying to and fro, and cringed. “I can’t stand the atmosphere in this place, all the stuffy formality and self-importance! Come, let’s find a more comfortable spot to talk. I know where we can go.”
He led them across the Forum, through the valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine, all the way to the waterfront. Their destination was a tavern on the docks. As they stepped inside and their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Lucius wrinkled his nose at the smell, a combination of spilled wine, unwashed humanity, and the effluvia of the Cloaca Maxima, which emptied into the Tiber nearby. The handful of patrons were the types who habituated taverns in the middle of the day – actors, sailors, prostitutes, and gamblers.
Claudius heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods for a place where I can feel at ease! No one staring at me, no one c-c-carping at me, expressing their disapproval and disappointment. Here I can be myself.”
“Are you sure it’s proper for someone from the imperial household to be seen in such an establishment?” Lucius’s father looked askance at the clientele. He hung back for a moment, then sat on a bench beside his son, across from Claudius.
“Why not? Quite a few of Great-Uncle’s freedmen patronize this tavern. Why, it was Euphranor who first showed me this place. There’s no one more trusted by the emperor. I’ve seen the m-m-man on this very bench, so drunk on cheap wine he couldn’t stand up.”
“You said you had something to tell us,” said Lucius’s father. He looked up at the buxom serving girl who had brought cups and a pitcher of wine. “Just a splash of wine, no more; fill the rest of the cup with water.” Lucius gave the same order as his father, but Claudius drank his wine neat. He drained a whole cup, then ordered another before he spoke.
“It’s about that amulet, that family heirloom of yours. I see you’re wearing it today, Lucius.”
Lucius touched the lump of gold at his breast.
“I have been c-c-consulting with my old tutor, Titus Livius,” said Claudius, his speech slightly slurred. “Of course you’ve read his history of the city, from its earliest beginnings. No? Neither of you? Not even the parts about your own family? Most people at least have a slave search through the scrolls to find the mentions of their ancestors.” Claudius shook his head. “Well, my conversations with Livius have confirmed my initial belief that this talisman can be identified as a fascinum. In other words, long ago, before the details were worn away, it would have depicted a magical phallus, probably a winged phallus, considering the shape. If you squint and use a bit of imagination, you can visualize the amulet as it originally appeared.” Without asking, he reached out and took hold of the talisman, pulling the necklace towards him and Lucius along with it. “Yes, look – here is the shaft, and here the t-testes, and here the two little wings!”
Claudius released the amulet. Lucius took it between his fingers and gazed down at it, feeling profoundly disappointed. A fascinum? Such trinkets were exceedingly common, worn for protection by women in childbirth and put around the necks of infants to protect them from the harmful gaze of the envious, the so-called evil eye. Even slaves wore them.
“So that’s all it is?” Lucius said. “Nothing but a common fascinum?”
Claudius wagged his finger. “Ah, hardly c-c-common! No, this fascinum is special, very special. Indeed, if my conjectures are correct, it could be the oldest such amulet in existence. These days, a fascinum is thought of as a mere trinket, a good-luck charm. One sees them made of cheap metal, hanging from the necks of slaves. Hardly anyone remembers the god Fascinus, from whom such amulets take their name, but the winged phallus appears in some of the most ancient stories told by our ancestors. Such a manifestation appeared in the hearthfire to the mother of King Servius Tullius, and even earlier, another such manifestation appeared to one of the kings of Alba,
