AD 84
Lucius made ready to set out from his house on the Palatine, dressed not in his toga but in a worn, brown tunic borrowed from one of his household slaves. No Roman wife, married to a man of property, would have allowed her husband to leave the house looking so drab and nondescript; but at thirty-seven, Lucius still had no wife, nor had he any intention of acquiring one. He came and went as he pleased, unconstrained by concerns of family or by most of the societal obligation that applied to men of his age and wealth.
As he stepped out the front door, his heart began to race. How absurd, he thought, that a man his age should feel such adolescent excitement at the prospect of a sexual tryst, and with a woman who had been his lover for more than three years. Yet the thrill he felt at seeing her never diminished; it grew stronger. Was it the danger that excited him? Or was it because they were able to meet so seldom, which made each occasion special?
He looked up at the cloudless sky. He would have preferred the anonymity of a hooded cloak, but on a hot summer day such a garment might attract more attention than it deflected. He took a few steps down the narrow street, then looked back at his house. How absurdly big the place was, for a single man to dwell in. A huge staff of slaves was required just to keep the place running. Sometimes he felt that the slaves were the true inhabitants and he was simply an occupant.
How he preferred the tiny house on the Esquiline that was his destination, the place he had purchased for the sole purpose of meeting his lover.
He made his way down the slope of the Palatine and across the heart of the city, passing the Arch of Titus and the Flavian Amphitheatre, glancing up at the towering Colossus of Sol. He passed through the crowded Subura, hardly conscious of the noise and the odors. He ascended the steep, winding path up a spur of the Esquiline Hill and paused for breath at the little reservoir called the Lake of Orpheus, so named because the splashing fountain was decorated by a charming statue of Orpheus with his lyre surrounded by listening beasts. The house of Epaphroditus was nearby, but Lucius turned in a different direction.
At last he arrived at his destination. The house was small and unassuming, with nothing to distinguish it. The door was made of unpainted wood without even a knocker for ornament. He pulled a key from his tunic and let himself in. There was no doorkeeper to admit him; there were no slaves at all in the house. That in itself made the house a special place. Where did a man ever go in Roma where he could be truly alone, without even slaves present?
She was waiting for him in the tiny garden at the centre of the house, reclining on a couch. She must have only just arrived, for she was still dressed in the hooded cloak she had worn to cross the city. Unlike Lucius, she could not possibly go out in public without hiding her face, even on a day as hot as this.
He sat beside her without saying a word. He pulled back the hood. The sight of her short blonde hair excited him. It gave her a curiously boyish look and made her different from other women. Only the other Vestals and their female servants ever saw her like this, without her headdress; the sight of her cropped hair, like the sight of her naked body, was his alone, a privilege both sacred and profane that was enjoyed by no other man on earth. He ran his fingers through her hair, intoxicated by a sense of possession.
He put his mouth on hers and tasted her sweet breath. He slid his hands inside the cloak and touched warm, sleek flesh. He gasped. Beneath the cloak, she was wearing nothing at all, not even a sleeping gown or a simple tunic. She had crossed the city like this, naked except for slippers and a hooded cloak.
“Madness!” he whispered. He pushed back the cloak and buried his face against her neck. She laughed softly, touching her lips to the inner folds of his ear, nipping gently at the earlobe with her teeth. She opened the cloak and let it fall, so that she was suddenly naked in his arms
He threw off his tunic and made love to her, as quickly and desperately as a boy. It was selfish of him, because he knew she preferred a much slower rhythm. But she indulged him, and seemed to draw pleasure from his trembling, uncontrollable excitement. All his emotions crested at once and poured from him in a flood. He wept, which aroused her; as if to draw more tears from him she dug her fingernails into his back and drew him closer to her, exerting a strength that never failed to surprise him, wrapping her limbs around him as the tendrils of a vine embrace a stone.
He did not have to work to reach the climax: it came upon him unbidden, like a fire that consumes all before it. It consumed her as well, for he felt her shudder against his sweating flesh and clench the part of him inside her. She cried out so long and so loudly that people in the neighbouring houses must have heard. Let them hear, he thought; they would know they heard a woman in ecstasy, but they could not know she was a Vestal.
When it was over, they lay close together, their naked bodies touching, saying nothing and savouring the afterglow.
When he had first met her, he was struck at once by the beauty of her face, but he could not have imagined how beautiful her body was. It took his breath away the first time he saw her naked; it still took his breath away. Over the years he had paid to take his pleasure with some of the most accomplished and alluring courtesans in Roma, but he had never known any woman with more beautiful breasts or more sensual hips than Cornelia; the voluptuous curves and the pale, marmoreal perfection of her flesh induced him to explore every part of her with his hands, eager to discover the most secret and sensitive parts of her body. Her breasts and hips were like those of Venus, ripe and womanly; her slender calves, her small hands, and the hollows of her neck and throat were as smooth and delicate as those of a child.
She was beautiful. She was also passionate. Not even the most skilled courtesan had ever responded to his touches with so much vitality, or touched him so lewdly and shamelessly in return. At times he felt he was the more vulnerable partner, a quivering slave of pleasure at the mercy of a completely uninhibited lover able to give or withhold ecstasy with the merest brush of her fingers or the soft caress of her breath.
She was beautiful, passionate – and dangerous. What he did with Cornelia was not only illicit and irreverent, it was illegal. Their lovemaking was a crime as serious as murder. He took no perverse pleasure in that fact, or so he told himself. Yet why had he chosen Cornelia, of all women? Deep down, he sensed that the forbidden nature of their relationship played some role in his excitement, but like a leaf caught on the flood he did not question how he had come to be in such a situation, or make any attempt to resist the force that carried him along. He simply accepted that he was at the mercy of a power greater than himself and submitted to it.
Cornelia gave him the greatest physical pleasure he had ever experienced, but she also fascinated him in ways that had nothing to do with her body. He had never known a woman who could converse so knowledgeably about the world; she was as educated as Epictetus, as witty as Martial, as worldly as Dio. As a Vestal, she knew everyone of importance and was in a position to follow everything of significance that happened in the city. She was far more connected than was Lucius to the spheres of politics and society; she opened a window to those worlds through which he could gaze from a comfortable distance, maintaining his customary detachment. She was not only the best possible bed-mate but the most interesting conversationalist he knew. He could talk to Cornelia about anything, and what she had to say was always of interest.
As the glow of their frenzied lovemaking subsided and the sweat of their bodies cooled, they gradually drew apart. They lay side by side, touching at the hips and shoulders, staring at the ceiling above.
“What excuse did you give this time?” he said.
“For my absence from the House of the Vestals? I’ve assumed responsibility for looking after the lotus tree in the sacred grove attached to the Temple of Lucina here on the Esquiline.”
“How much care does a lotus tree need?”
“This one is over five hundred years old. We tend it very lovingly.”
“And what makes it special to the Vestals?”
“All lotus trees are sacred. There’s a lotus tree in the grove next to the House of the Vestals. When a girl is inducted, her hair is cut for the first time and the locks are hung on the tree as an offering to the goddess. It’s a beautiful ceremony.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Something’s troubling you. What is it, Lucius?”
He sighed. “A messenger came to my house yesterday. He delivered a letter from Dio of Prusa.”
