that I could fulfill my conjugal responsibilities as well as anyone else. After that no one doubted that Arsinoe had become pregnant by me.”
At this moment Arsinoe entered the room with tear-swollen eyes, lagging steps and downcast eyes. She stooped to kiss Tertius Valerius’ forehead and in passing deftly wiped his chin and wattle with a linen towel.
“Surely you are not exerting yourself with tiresome matters, my dear Tertius,” she said affectionately, and gave me a reproachful glance.
Tertius’ head ceased wobbling and he straightened himself like the senator he was. “Unpleasant matters are best settled immediately,” he declared. “Everything has turned out for the best and only certain financial matters remain. When you arrived in our city, Turnus, your property was mistakenly entered in your name, but I will not believe that you did so with calculated slyness. You probably wished only to protect Arsinoe’s money since you did not know our city’s laws and thought that it was not possible for a woman to own property. Similarly you had entered in your name that talent of silver which Arsinoe had you bring for her on your previous journey. After all, her pride demanded that she have a dowry as though I were not sufficiently wealthy.”
He stroked Arsinoe’s hand. In her defense I must say that she dared not meet my glance. “As a man of honor, Turnus,” continued Tertius Valerius emphatically, “will you be so kind as to transfer Arsinoe’s property to her name officially, just as I transferred certain estates with their slaves to her name at our marriage? No one can compel you to do so, of course, but I fear that your past would not stand a trial.”
I looked at Arsinoe’s beautiful face, at the glow of her eyes and the smooth whiteness of her bare arms. “I shall arrange the matter tomorrow,” I said. “I am only too happy to serve Arsinoe as I have in the past. A silver talent and a moderate amount of gold in coins and objects is a dowry not to be scorned by even a Roman senator. Let it add to her fame among the noblewomen, although her most precious dowry, of course, lies in her modesty and irreproachable manners.”
Arsinoe did not blush but merely nodded as she stroked the old dotard’s thin hair.
Why didn’t I fly into a rage at those contemptible lies? Why didn’t I open Tertius Valerius’ eyes to the kind of woman Arsinoe really was? Above all, why didn’t I snatch her into my arms and carry her away as I had before?
Because at last I realized the futility of such actions. Arsinoe knew what she wanted and if she preferred wealth, security and a high position at the side of a friendly old man to me, why should I try to change her mind? The crock was broken and the wine had seeped out. Perhaps the crock could have been repaired somehow but why should I have tormented her and myself any longer? If Tertius Valerius was happy, why should I have disturbed his joy by arousing unnecessary doubts?
When I relinquished all my rights willingly and without haggling, Tertius Valerius glanced questioningly at Arsinoe as though seeking advice. She nodded.
Overcoming his innate miserliness Tertius Valerius said magnanimously, “You are a fine fellow, Turnus, and deserve compensation for rescuing Arsinoe from the heartless Greek and returning her safely to the city of her birth. Therefore, with my wife’s permission, I have thought of giving you a small farm with fifteen jugera of land and the necessary farming implements as well as two slaves. The farm is on the opposite bank of the river some distance from the city and near the Etruscan border. I myself obtained it as security for a loan after a plebeian was killed in the war, and though the slaves are old, they are a dependable couple. The Volscians burned the house but the necessary sties and pens are being built and the slaves are living in a provisional shelter.”
His offer was undeniably generous considering his miserliness, but upon deliberation I realized that he wished me out of his house and out of the city as soon as possible. Yet to begin cultivating fifteen jugera I would be compelled to seek Roman citizenship, and that I wanted to avoid.
Finally I said, “I accept your gift lest I shame your generosity, noble Tertius Valerius. I shall be happy to have the farm as a memento of Arsinoe, though I hardly think I myself will cultivate it, for I prefer to continue to live in the city. Presumably I can earn my living by teaching Greek to children or prophesying from the hand or appearing as a dancer in the sacred performances at the circus.”
Arsinoe’s head moved violently and Tertius Valerius felt ashamed for me. Touching her hand reassuringly he said to me, “Dear Turnus, I am happy that you are not ashamed to admit your humble origin but are content to be what you are without aspiring to citizenship. I think that Suburra is just the right place for you, for I heard earlier that you had enjoyed life there with your own kind although I didn’t mention it while you were my guest.”
Arsinoe flushed and exclaimed, “At last you have betrayed yourself, Turms! That is your place, among the disreputable women, and I cannot say that I miss you. But drag yourself in the mud if you will, I cannot watch out for you all my life. I must think of my own future and that of my unborn son. Go to your sluts, the sooner the better I I will not have such a notorious man in this house.”
“Now, now,” said Tertius Valerius soothingly. But I was warmed by the knowledge that Arsinoe still was jealous of me even though she had chosen the better life. Finally she burst into tears once more, covered her eyes with her hands and fled from the room.
Everything happened according to plan and soon I was inspecting my weed-covered fifteen jugera far beyond the hill of Janiculum near the Etruscan border. The gray and toothless slave couple feared me greatly and tremblingly showed me a sow in the sty and a few goats and heifers. As his greatest treasure the old man brought out an ox hide that he himself had tanned and hidden from the Volscians, for he had had sufficient wit to slaughter the ox and skin it before the Volscians’ arrival.
I would, of course, have had the right to kill the old couple, incapable of work as they were, using as a pretext the wretched condition into which they had allowed the farm to lapse. That was what the Romans did to their decrepit slaves, as mercifully as they killed old beasts of burden. But my heart did not permit it so, instead, I sold my gold ring and jeweled band for a pair of oxen, and to help the old slaves hired a shepherd boy whose parents had been killed by the Volscians. Later I built a small summer house and decorated its gables with painted clay ornaments in the Etruscan manner.
In Suburra, where I rented a room, and at the market place it was easy for me to obtain the truth about Arsinoe’s incomparable heroism during the Volscian siege, truth which made it apparent that she had deliberately sent me away so that she might be free to win a place for herself among the women of Rome.
When the Volscians had besieged the city the people had emphatically refused to fight beside the patricians. Disturbances increased in the Forum and the Senate did not even dare to appoint a dictator as it had during previous emergencies. Arsinoe had found her opportunity by joining the sewing circle in which the Roman women regardless of rank wove warm shirts for those unselfish citizens who placed the fatherland above class conflicts and shivered atop the wall during the cold autumn days and nights.
Side by side with the patrician women Arsinoe had carried hot soup and warm bread to the wall from Tertius Valerius’ kitchen. Among the patriotic women who thus distinguished themselves were Coriolanus’ spirited mother Veturia and his Etruscan-born wife Volumnia, whom he had married only for her dowry and for whom he cared little although she had given him two sons. Both the women, the old mother and the humiliated wife, sought to prove by their actions that their sympathies were entirely with Rome.
When the people had compelled the Senate to send emissaries to Coriolanus’ camp to offer peace and the priest of Regia had in vain attempted to persuade him, Arsinoe had suggested that the Roman women send their own delegation to Coriolanus. Surely he could not resist the tears of his old mother, the reproachful look of his wife and the sight of his young sons.
Although the women had been afraid of the Volscians, Arsinoe’s enthusiasm and fearlessness had been contagious and some twenty patrician women had followed her as she herself led the swaying Veturia and the weeping Volumnia and her sons. The soldiers, remembering Arsinoe’s hot soup and friendly visits, had opened the gates before the Senate had had time to forbid such a foolhardy venture.
The shivering and hungry Volscians had been so amazed by the arrival of the women that they had gladly accepted the meat and bread in the women’s baskets, and led them in a festive procession to the camp and Coriolanus’ tent. There the women had gathered about a fire to warm themselves, for it was night before Coriolanus consented to see his mother and sons. There by the fire Arsinoe had told the women in confidence about her goddess and assured them that as a final resort she herself, with the aid of the goddess, would persuade Coriolanus.
Finally Coriolanus had admitted the women into his tent. His mother had tearfully cursed her son and declared that she would have strangled him in his crib with her own hands had she known that she had given birth to a traitor. Volumnia for her part had thrust forward her sons and demanded whether he intended to destroy his
