Under Vesuvius

read a few verses aloud and glanced at Julia to see if her face had reddened, but she was too sophisticated for that.

'This,' she commented, 'is some of the most heated erotic verse since Sappho.'

I frowned in fake puzzlement. 'So it seems, but why would one want to lick a doe's hoof?'

'As you know perfectly well,' she said, 'in erotic verse, the doe's hoof is a traditional symbol for the female genitals. All these other symbols are similarly inclined. Rather too many of them for good taste, but the verse is excellent.'

'Do you think it's original or a copy of some poet's work?'

'I don't recognize the poem, but the style resembles the Corinthian.'

'It's addressed to one Chryseis,' I said.

'Of course. It's traditional to give your lover a pseudonym in such poetry. Everyone knows that Catullus's Lesbia was really Clodia.'

'It was in the slave girls' room,' I pointed out. 'Do you suppose it might have been meant for one of them? They're all attractive girls, and some local swain might be paying court to one of them.'

'Don't be dense, dear. Don't you remember who Briseis was?'

'Oh. Right.' In the Iliad, of course, Briseis was the captive girl seized from Achilles by Agamemnon, setting off the chain of events that ended with the funeral of Hector.

Chryseis was the daughter of Apollo's priest.

5

In the evening, with the cool offshore breeze making the flames of the new-lit torches flutter, we attended the funeral of Gorgo, daughter of Diocles. The family tomb was located beside the road to Baiae, about a mile from the temple. A large contingent of the local Greek community had turned out, along with all the usual notables.

It is not Greek custom (or Roman, for that matter) to give women elaborate funerals, especially if they are not married and mothers. Still, it was a simple, dignified ceremony and I found it more congenial than the elaborate sort. The quietly sobbing slaves were infinitely preferable to the wailings of hired professional mourners. Their grief seemed to be genuine.

Diocles gave the eulogy, speaking of Gorgo as a virtuous, blameless girl, one who had never caused gossip or given her father (the mother, apparently being long dead) any cause for displeasure, worthy to bear the

name of the famous Spartan queen, and so on in this vein. It was a conventional oration, but most funeral eulogies are.

When the final words were pronounced, Diocles took a torch from an attendant and touched it to the pyre. This, too, was modest, merely enough wood to cremate the body decently, not an ostentatious construction of logs stacked twenty feet high. But the wood had been soaked in cedar oil, and the slaves threw frankincense onto the flames by the double handful from bags donated, along with the soaked wood, by Manius Silva.

When the ceremonies were over, I invited the attendees to partake of some refreshment. Earlier in the day I had had slaves from the villa set up tables near the tomb, beneath an awning in case of rain. There we served sweet cakes and honeyed wine, traditional Roman funeral fare at least since the obsequies of Scipio Africanus, more than 130 years before. (In Scipio's day, these sweets were esteemed great luxuries.)

'It's good to have the facilities of the villa,' Julia said. 'We've never before been able to afford this sort of liberality.' She wore a dark stola, with her palla covering her head. Most of the ladies present were thus attired. Even the usually flamboyant Quadrilla, Jocasta, and Rutilia dressed somberly.

'I can't argue with that,' I agreed. Being able to live and act like a grandee has its attractions, and I warned myself not to grow too fond of its seductions. Once accustomed to such a life, one begins to make excuses to prolong it. It becomes easy to overlook ethical lapses and to seek the favor of unworthy persons. It is, in short, deeply corrupting.

Of course, some men were not at all disturbed by the allure of corruption, as witness my benefactor, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. He'd made a career of corruption and done very well out of it.

Mopsus, the silk importer, came forward to thank us for our generosity. 'Praetor, I know this raises your credit with the populace, and it was already high. Tell me, has the slaver's son confessed yet?'

'He maintains his innocence firmly,' I told him.

'Well, I guess we could expect that. I suppose there must be a trial.'

'All will be done according to law,' I assured him.

'Naturally, naturally. Still, the sooner the wretch is condemned and executed, the sooner the place will return to normal.'

He was the first. One notable after another came up, took me by the hand, and informed me that a trial was scarcely necessary, the boy was guilty, why waste everybody's time?

'There seems to be a strange unanimity of opinion,' I told Julia when the funeral guests were making their way back toward Baiae and the other towns.

'The slaver is a despised figure,' she said. 'It's natural that people would suspect the worst of his son.'

'Yet there seems to be little real malice. It's as if-as if people just want it to be over.'

'Why?' she asked. 'It isn't causing all that much unrest; the tenor of life here hasn't altered a great deal.'

'As you said earlier, most people are guilty of something; they all have something to hide. Maybe they are uneasy at the prospect of an investigation.'

A shift in the wind brought us the smell of fragrant smoke, only faintly tinged with the smell of incinerating flesh. 'I wonder why Silva donated all that expensive wood and incense. As far as I know, he's not related to the priest and they don't seem to be particularly close friends.'

'Maybe for the same reason you laid on these funeral refreshments: It is traditional for office holders and those standing for high honors to give ostentatiously. He's a duumvir of Baiae, he's very rich, and he's competing with the others for public esteem. He may have done it as a euergesia.'

She used the Greek word for the obligation laid upon the wealthy to provide public works and entertainment for the people. It is the same custom that drives Roman candidates to bankrupt themselves building temples, bridges, basilicas, and porticoes, giving lavish entertainments and banquets and munera, all to win the favor of the populace and, more important, to outdo all the other great men in so providing. In Greek communities, there is no greater honor than to be known as a euergetes.

'Maybe you are right,' I said to Julia, 'but I am beginning to suspect everybody now.'

She gave my arm a squeeze. 'Isn't that always the best policy?'

That evening I visited Gelon in the villa's palaestra. This gymnasium was as large as any such public facility in Rome, and a great deal more luxurious. The sand in the wrestling pit and on the running track had been imported from the Arabian desert, all the stonework was of the finest marble, the statuary were all portrait figures set up at Olympia to celebrate champion athletes of centuries past.

Here my lictors and the young men of my party exercised and practiced when I had no need of them. I had enjoined my crew very strictly that all were to be fit and any who grew too slack would be sent home. As a holder of imperium, I could at any moment receive orders from Rome to take command of an army, and they would be obliged to follow me to war.

When I arrived at the palaestra I found Gelon and his guards in a sand pit, under the watchful eyes of my lictors, engaged in spirited sparring with six-foot staffs, apparently a Numidian combat sport. Gauls and Spaniards and Judaeans are also fond of this weapon, but this Numidian play seemed more subtle than that practiced by the others. I enjoyed this exhibition for a few minutes, then beckoned my chief lictor.

'Praetor?' he said, jogging up to me.

'How has the prisoner comported himself?'

'Quite well. He frets at confinement, but there's plenty to amuse oneself with in this place. The stables are double guarded.'