which was redundant to the effect, would be plaited and coiled on the back of their heads. False curls allowed the whole front structure to be removed, which saved having to sleep upright.
The rows of frontal curls were a challenge for sculptors. Apart from the technical difficulty, it is not easy to ply a chisel while trying not to grin.
Wearing this hairstyle women could not judge how odd they looked. In boudoirs of the day, even the most beautifully ornamented bronze or silver hand-mirrors had polished metal surfaces that showed only blurred images.
The curly coronet was as hot as a bearskin to wear. From the side, it seemed liable to topple off. From behind, joins showed. Yearning to be fashionistas, Flavian ladies were nevertheless convinced by their attendants that they looked quite lovely. Other people that they might have consulted were no help. What husband, when asked, ‘How is my hair today, Septimus?’ was ever going to answer, ‘Bunnikins, you look ridiculous’? Septimus was probably miles away, dreaming of screwing that kitchen girl with the enormous breasts, or wistfully lusting after his favourite altar-boy, the one who wore his tunics unbelievably short to display those pert buttocks ready for rodding.. Even down-to-earth husbands would be just as vague, as they groaned over the price of oxen or wondered how to catch out a business manager who was blatantly fiddling. Perhaps a rare wholesome specimen might instead be philosophising on human goodness — though on the whole Roman men were more fascinated by badness.
From a young age, Flavia Lucilla had helped create the crazy concoctions with which women of the Flavian family turned themselves into trendsetters. Even under Vespasian, an emperor whose political appeal was ‘old country values’, it was permissible for respectable women to spend hours having their hair tended. Some women enjoyed being viciously cruel to the slaves who had to work on them; they could pinch and punch and beat unhappy foreign girls while they were themselves beautified. All knew that complicated hair made them expensive ornaments to their noble menfolk, which the men liked, and which showed that the upper classes were special because they had leisure and money for time-consuming processes. Their men were taught to go along with it. For one thing they reassured themselves that while wives were being combed endlessly indoors, they were not out committing adultery with charioteers. (Men believed that was what all wives dreamed of; wives gossiped that some of their number indeed managed it.)
Lucilla always smiled wryly at the concept of her mother as a guardian of morals. But she did admire a woman who could persuade her clients to deck themselves out so crankily, and to pay handsomely for it. Only much later, much too late, did Lucilla concede that, creatively, her mother must have possessed an impish sense of humour.
By that time, Lachne was gone. During their flight from home in the terrible fire, she was already breathless. She must have been affected by smoke, yet was also sickening. Lucilla had supposed she was terrified that her jewellery collection, hastily retrieved, would be lost in the crush or discovered by Orgilius, who would realise she had tried to dupe him. Mother and daughter quarrelled, badly. Already feeling ill in truth, Lachne forgot her need for Lucilla’s dexterity. She goaded the girl, who had nowhere else to go, no means to support herself — unless she wanted to become a waitress in a street bar, which was the same as being a prostitute. Lucilla in response made vicious comments on her mother’s men. ‘That would include my father — if I knew who he was. But even you don’t know, Mother, do you?’
If Lachne did, she took the secret to her grave. As the quarrel flared more violently, Lucilla fled. She went back to their old apartment, but Lachne had paid rent only sporadically, so very soon the landlord kicked her out and put in new tenants. Helpless, the unhappy girl slunk back to see Lachne, only to learn that her mother had caught the plague that was running through Rome in a populace weakened by famine after the eruption of Vesuvius.
The epidemic was virulent. Lachne had died.
There was a funeral. People Lucilla barely knew turned up, one of them Lara, whom Lucilla had always believed was a young aunt. Fellow slaves of Lachne’s had clubbed together to put up a memorial. To Flavia Lachne, freedwoman of Domitilla, hairdresser. She lived forty-three years. This was made by Flavius Endymon, clothes mender; Flavius Nepos, cook; Flavius Afranius, litter-bearer; Flavia Lara, hairdresser.
Lucilla wondered whether Endymon, Nepos or Afranius could be her father, though she felt no affinity with any of them.
Members of the Flavian family sent gifts, there was never any suggestion these imperial patrons might attend in person; the gifts were selected on their behalf by the same freedmen and women who supplied the undertakers and provided the inscription stone. Since those who had generously paid for the stone wanted their names listed on it to advertise their piety, there was no room to mention Lucilla.
She was terrified about her future. People at the funeral had fallen upon Lachne’s clothes and other possessions, taking them away as ‘keepsakes’. The young woman Lara, who had a useless husband and several small children, was particularly eager to gather up mementos. All Lucilla kept was the famous jewellery collection. It was her only fallback. Otherwise, her choices were to work or to marry someone with a job or little business; marriage would probably entail hard work in any case. Lucilla ought to be entitled to a basic corn dole, but it was never enough to live on and had to be claimed by her male head of household; Lucilla had no head of household.
Orgilius said she could stay at the apartment for a while. How long, or on what terms, he did not specify. Lucilla soon found out. One evening he visited, plied her with drink, pleaded with her to be nice to him, and seduced her.
It was no surprise. Nor was it brutal rape. Lucilla knew the rapid coupling was no different from abuse meted out daily to slaves in most homes. Orgilius felt he had inherited the girl, a fair return for financial investment in her mother. True, Lucilla was young, but much younger children had to service the rich. He blamed Lucilla, murmuring, ‘You encouraged me, you naughty minx!’ as he slunk off.
Lucilla saw that Orgilius had some shame and would stay away for a while — a short while. Inevitably, he would return. He took her compliance for granted. Who could blame him? Though he had made her tipsy, she had not tried to fight him off.
Lucilla tried not to feel wanton, though she was a normal girl, already intrigued about sex. Even with a horrible partner, and with such cursory manoeuvres, her body had to some extent responded. So she viewed what had happened with detachment. That did not mean she wanted more of this.
Orgilius was rich, but he was overweight and pudding-faced. He made her flesh creep. She suspected he could turn nasty and Lachne had complained of his interest in experimental sexual acts. He was sixty. He had warts. He thought a young girl should take orders and be grateful. Next time he grabbed Lucilla, their congress would go on very much longer and she would be expected to participate vigorously.
She seemed stuck with Orgilius, as a provider. If she fell pregnant, however, he would evict her. She had no knowledge of prevention, nor of where to go for an abortion, which was illegal anyway. To be publicly linked to the businessman carried a penalty. Unless she kept this secret and lied, she would be spoiled for marriage, with its poisonous reliance on a bride’s supposed virginity.
She opted to flee.
Her one hope lay in Lara. Lara had left her address, as if inviting contact. When Lucilla turned up, tearfully begging for help, Lara immediately took her in. Lucilla’s vague hope that she could simply stay with this family in their admittedly crowded apartment and help look after the children ended as soon as Junius, Lara’s husband, wandered in. Junius worked in some unspecified branch of the leather trade. He was small and shifty; it was difficult to see why Lara, a beautiful young woman with a pleasant personality, had married him. Maybe he had seemed her only option for security, though he oozed various kinds of unreliability and smelt of tannin. His speculative glance at Lucilla spoke volumes. She saw at once that Lara would want her to find other accommodation quickly, lest things go badly wrong. She herself now had no wish to dally.
By then she had had a new shock. Lara was not an aunt. Apparently Lachne was her mother too. She and Lucilla, Lara explained, were sisters.
That was not the entire truth; the truth was another family secret which Lucilla would be a long time discovering.
The story Lara told was that Flavia Lachne had been only thirteen when she was first made pregnant. As with Lucilla later, she had never said whether her elder daughter Lara was fathered by a fellow slave, someone outside the house, or one of the family. Any of these was possible in most households. It was a slave’s lot to be sexually exploited, though the lucky ones passed puberty first. Lucilla sometimes thought her sister had a Flavian air, though slaves often took on the mannerisms of the family they lived with. Her origins were best unexplored. Lara herself
