break it.’
Lucius leant forward, holding the glass sphere up to the light again. ‘Imagine that this ball is you, your mind, your body, your future and your hopes.’ Marcellus looked confused. ‘You asked if Quintus could be trusted, said you cannot have a game if you don’t throw the ball to another player. If I was to say that I agree with you, there is no one to whom you can safely throw this object without fear of it being damaged, then I believe I would have answered your question about Quintus Cornelius!’
Cholon sat gazing at the blank sheet of papyrus before him. Outside his window, to distract him, the sounds of the teeming streets of Rome, along with the smells, wafted up; that, at least, was his excuse for not writing. But deep down he knew it was untrue, knew that his imagination would not furnish the words of the play he saw so clearly in his head. A child, born to a noble family, exposed at birth but rescued, who grows up to manhood and ends up a slave in the house of those very parents who disposed of him. The themes were clear in his mind too. The Romans were forever prattling on about nobility, as though it was something in the blood. He wanted his foundling to be an uncouth lout, so that when the family found him to be their own, they sought to disown him all over again. He had toyed with the idea of introducing a touch of Sophocles, having the boy sleep with his own mother, but that smacked of tragedy and Cholon very much wanted to write a comedy; a piece that would expose, through satire, the hypocrisy surrounding the high opinion in which the Romans held themselves.
He heard a slave shout the hour in the street, and laid aside his stylus, pushing from his mind the picture in which all Rome hailed him as a comic master. He was due to dine with Claudia tonight, to report on his trip to the south and the payment of Aulus’s bequests, and his mind turned to that villainous peasant Dabo.
‘What was the name of the baker? Decius. Donatus.’
There he was, again, talking to himself. He really must engage the services of a couple of slaves. Nothing like the presence of inferiors to keep you on your toes. Later that evening, as he sat opposite Claudia, listening to her tales of Titus, her grandchildren and the appalling way that Quintus treated his wife, he could not help thinking how attractive she was. Not that he harboured any desire for her himself, but it seemed odd to him that, given her independent means, there was no queue of suitors outside her door.
Thoas the Numidian was outside her door, listening hard to see if he could discover any more information. He had taken a fancy to one of the women who ran a wine shop near the market-place but unfortunately she had expensive tastes. Since his only source of coin was from Lucius’s steward, he needed a constant supply of information to maintain his suit. Callista, Claudia’s maid, sat alone in her mistress’s suite. She knew where her husband was, and what he was doing. Should she tell? If she did Claudia might send Thoas away, which was the last thing she wanted. Callista needed her husband back in her bed, demonstrating the same ardour he had shown when they first married.
‘But surely the Claudians are a very illustrious family,’ said Cholon, not in the least amused by Claudia’s dismissive wave.
‘There you are. That remark shows that you cannot acquire the mysteries of Roman bloodlines merely by being granted citizenship.’
‘Oh, I know how exclusive you all are. What I cannot comprehend is why the thought of a Claudian marrying a Falerii causes such mirth.’
‘It’s because we are Sabine,’ said Claudia.
‘Forgive me, but how can you be? Your family line is full of consuls and the like.’
‘Originally the Claudians were Sabine nobles. The last King of Rome, Tarquinus Superbus, invited us to enter his service, giving us comparable status in the city. To the full-blooded Romans, the diehards, we’re still outsiders.’
‘How long ago was all this?’ asked Cholon.
Claudia waved a dismissive arm again. ‘Three or four hundred years ago, but it’s like yesterday to the Falerii.’
‘Then why is Lucius betrothing his son, Marcellus, to a member of your family?’
‘Money, Cholon. Old Uncle Appius Claudius is close to being the richest man in Rome. Even Aulus, with all the wealth he brought back from Macedonia, barely surpassed him. The dowry will be enormous.’
Cholon was tempted to ask why Aulus had married her in that case, since the Cornelii claimed to be a much older family than even the Falerii, but he knew that it would have been tactless, as well as unwelcome, and would serve only to ruin the relaxed atmosphere of the evening. Claudia, for her part, was wondering how long she would have to wait to ask Cholon that all-important question. Her son, if he had survived, would be exactly the same age as Marcellus Falerius. There would be a ceremony soon, when the boy put on his manly gown, and since he was going to be betrothed to a Claudian, albeit from another branch of the family, then she was going to be invited to witness the event. It was not something to which she was looking forward.
‘Let me tell you about the most startlingly odious cretin I met on my travels. This fellow had sent someone else to serve in his place in the legions, while he stayed at home and worked his farm.’ Cholon leant forward, a look of amazed amusement on his face. ‘Do you know, he had the gall to try and fool me into paying Aulus’s bequest to him, even though he was hale and hearty…’
Thoas had already left the door. There might be something to gain from exaggerating what the two of them had said about the forthcoming betrothal, but he doubted, once that Greek bastard had started telling tales of his travels, he would hear anything else of interest.
CHAPTER TEN
Lucius Falerius Nerva’s grandfather, like so many other senators, had done well in the distribution of Latifunda on the island of Sicily after the Second Punic War. These ‘farms’ were not like those in Italy, being vast arable areas worked entirely by slave labour. The main property, on the northern coastal plain, was fertile, and, with the hills nearby, generally well watered. The other, in a valley towards the centre of the island, was less favoured, requiring a greater commitment to irrigation than Lucius had been prepared to either plan or fund. Both holdings had been allowed to stumble along without much improvement, under the control of a lackadaisical overseer; worse than that, he had allowed male and female slaves to mix freely, with predictable results. They built themselves comfortable huts; some had been on the land so long that their young children toiled alongside them, both generations working at an unhurried pace and eating a fair proportion of what they grew. Flaccus, having paid a quick visit to the other Barbinus properties, changed that in his first week by rebuilding the slave compounds — he would destroy any exterior lodgings — followed immediately by a severe cut in the food supply.
A surveyor had laid out the practical way to increase the area under cultivation and thus the yield, an improvement that would require an increase in the number of slaves. Such an investment might eat into Flaccus’s profits, so he first determined to see what he could achieve with the resources to hand. No other farm on the island, as far as he could tell, had operated such a lenient regime and all produced higher profits, so an initial improvement should be simple. His next step was the separation of the families, a policy he explained to his band of mercenaries.
‘They shouldn’t have womenfolk and a litter anyway. Makes ’em soft. We’re going to shift all the women and children inland. They’re useless in the fields anyhow, especially at ploughing and planting time, and they spill most of the water they carry in the wrong place. We’ll send them to the other farm. They can start work on the irrigation ditches.’
‘They can’t break rocks, Flaccus,’ said Dedon, an interruption that was practical rather than sympathetic.
‘No, but they can carry them. Breaking stones will be a punishment for those that give us trouble.’ He looked around the assembled mercenaries, aware of their indifference. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is all going to go smooth. We’ll have plenty of aid from the other farms to start with, but once we’ve sorted the place out we’ll be on our own. I don’t expect that all of you will be here in a year’s time. One or two of you might be dead.’
That made them pay attention. ‘There are only a few of us, an’ hundreds of slaves. Some of them will work with us, the ones who’d rather flay their mates than toil themselves, but we’ll always be outnumbered and Rome is a long way off. Other farms, barring the odd runaway, have got their slaves nice and pliant, but only because
