leeks in white sauce; and two cold – black olives and sliced beetroot. The accompanying wine was a light Tyrian, best mixed two to three with water.
'Eels. The ancients have much to say about eels.' The voice of a sophist was trained to dominate theatres, public assemblies, thronged festivals so Callinicus had no problem in commanding the attention of those gathered. 'In his poetry Archestratus tells us that eels are good at Rhegium in Italy, and in Greece from Lake Copais in Boeotia and from the River Strymon in Macedonia.' Anamu felt a surge of pleasure to be part of such a cultured evening. This was the right setting for one such as himself, one of the pepaideumenoi, the highly cultured. Yet at the same time he experienced a pang of envy: he had not been able to join in – so far, there were no mushrooms.
'On the River Strymon Aristotle concurs. There the best fishing is at the season of the rising of the Pleiades, when the waters are rough and muddy.'
Allfather, it was a terrible mistake to invite this pompous bastard, thought Ballista. He can probably keep this stuff up for hours.
'The leeks are good.' A caravan protector's voice might not be as melodious as that of a sophist but it was accustomed to making itself heard. It broke the flow of Callinicus's literary anecdotes. Nodding at the green vegetables, larhai asked Ballista which chariot team he supported in the Circus.
'The Whites.'
'By god, you must be an optimist.' Iarhai's battered face creased into a grin.
'Not really. I find continual disappointment on the racetrack philosophically good for my soul – toughens it up, gets me used to the disappointments of life.'
As he settled to talk racehorses with her father, Ballista noticed Bathshiba smile a small, mischievous smile. Allfather, but she looked good. She was more demurely clothed than in her father's house, but her dress still broadly hinted at the generous body beneath. Ballista knew that racing was not a subject which was likely to interest her. He wanted to make her laugh, to impress her. Yet he knew he was not good at such small talk. Allfather, he wanted her. It made things worse, made it still harder to think of light, witty things to say. He envied that smug little bastard Acilius Glabrio, who even now seemed to be managing a wordless flirtation across the tables.
The main course arrived: a Trojan pig, stuffed with sausage, botulus, and black pudding; two pike, their flesh rendered into a pate and returned to the skins; then two simple roast chickens. Vegetable dishes also appeared: cooked beet leaves in a mustard sauce, a salad of lettuce, mint and rocket, a relish of basil in oil, and garum, fish sauce.
The chefflourished his sharp knife, approached the Trojan pig and slit open its stomach. It surprised no one when the entrails slid out.
'How novel,' said Acilius Glabrio. 'And a good-looking porcus. Definitely some porcus for me.' His pantomime leer left no doubt that when he repeated the word he was using it as slang for cunt. Looking at Bathshiba, he said, 'And plenty of botutus for those who like it.'
Iarhai started to rise from his couch and speak. Quickly Ballista cut him off.
'Tribune, watch your tongue. There is a lady present.'
'Oh, I am sorry, so very sorry, utterly mortified.' His looks belied his words. 'I meant to cause no embarrassment, no offence.' He pointed at the porcus. 'I think that this dish led me astray. It always puts me in mind of Trimalchio's feast in the Satyricon – you know, the terrible obscene jokes.' He gestured to the pike. 'Just as porcus always leads me astray, this dish always makes me homesick.' He spread his hands wide to encompass the three couches. 'Do we not all miss a pike from Rome caught as they say 'between the two bridges', above Tiber island and below the influx of the cloaca maxima, the main sewer?' He looked around his fellow diners. 'Oh, I have been tactless again – being Roman means so many different things these days.'
Ignoring the last comment, Ogelos jumped in. 'It would be hard for anyone to catch a pike or anything else here in the Euphrates now.' Talking fast and earnestly, he addressed himself to Ballista. 'My men tell me that the fishing boats I own have all been taken by the troops. The soldiers call it requisitioning; I call it theft.' His carefully forked beard quivered with righteous indignation.
Before Ballista could reply, Anamu spoke. 'These ridiculous searches at the gates – my couriers are kept waiting for hours, my possessions are ripped apart, ruined, my private documents displayed to all and sundry, Roman citizens are subjected to the grossest indignities… Out of respect for your position, we did not speak out at the council meeting, but now we are in privacy we will – unless that freedom is to be denied us as well?'
Again Ogelos took up the running. 'What sort of freedom are we defending if ten people, ten citizens, cannot meet together? Can no one get married? Are we not to celebrate the rites of our gods?'
'Nothing is more sacred than private property,' Anamu interrupted. 'How dare anyone take our slaves? What next – our wives, our children?'
The complaints continued, the two caravan protectors raising their voices, talking over each other, each drawing to the same conclusion: how could it be worse under the Sassanids, what more could Shapur do to us?
After a time, both men stopped, as if at a signal. Together they turned to larhai. 'Why do you say nothing? You are as much affected as us. Our people look to you as well. How can you stay silent?' larhai shrugged. 'It will be as God wills.' He said nothing more. larhai gave an odd intonation to theos, the Greek word for god. Ballista was as surprised as the other two caravan protectors by his passive fatalism. He noticed that Bathshiba glanced sharply at her father.
'Gentlemen, I hear your complaints, and I understand them.' Ballista looked each in the eye in turn. 'It pains me to do what must be done but there is no other way. You all remember what was done here to the Sassanid garrison, what you and your fellow townsmen did to the Persian garrison, to their wives, to their children.' He paused. 'If the Persians breach the walls of Arete, all that horror will look like child's play. Let no one be in any doubt: if the Persians take this town there will be no one left to ransom the enslaved, no one left to mourn the dead. If Shapur takes this town it will return to the desert. The wild ass will graze in your agora and the wolf will howl in your temples.'
Everyone in the room was staring silently at Ballista. He tried to smile. 'Come, let us try to think of better things. There is a comoedus, an actor, waiting outside. Why don't we call him in and have a reading?'
The comoedus read well, his voice true and clear. It was a beautiful passage from Herodotus, a story from long ago, from the days of Greek freedom, long before the Romans. It was a story of ultimate courage, of the night before Thermopylae, when the incredulous Persian spy reported to Xerxes, the King of Kings, what he had seen of the Greek camp. The three hundred Spartans were stripped to exercise; they combed each other's hair, taking not the least notice of the spy. It was a beautiful passage, but an unfortunate one given the circumstances. The Spartans were preparing to die.
Reaching out to pick up the carcass of one of the chickens, Turpio spoke for the first time that evening. 'Don't the Greeks call this bird a Persian Awakener?' he asked of no one in particular. 'Then we will treat the Sassanid Persians as I treat this.' And he pulled the carcass apart.
There was a smattering of applause, some murmurs of approval.
Unable to bear another, let alone a rough ex-centurion, getting even such muted praise, Callinicus cleared his throat. 'Of course I am no expert in Latin literature,' he simpered, 'but do not some of your writers on farming refer to a valiant breed of fighting cock as the Medica, that is to say the bird of the Medes, who are the Persians? Let us hope that we do not meet one of those.' This ill-timed scholarship was met with a stony silence. The sophist's self-satisfied chuckle faltered and died away.
The desert that now appeared consisted mainly of the usual things – fresh apples and pears, dried dates and figs, smoked cheeses and honey, and walnuts and almonds. Only the placenta in the centre was unusual: everyone agreed they had never seen a larger or finer cheesecake. The wine was changed to the sort of forceful Chalybonian said to be favoured by the kings of Persia.
Watching the Persian boy Bagoas anointing Mamurra with balsam and cinnamon and placing a wreath of flowers on his head, a gleam of malevolence shone in Acilius Glabrio's eyes. The young patrician turned to Ballista, a half-smile playing on his face.
'You are to be congratulated, Dux Ripae, on the close way in which you follow the example of the great Scipio Africanus.'
'I was not aware that I followed directly any illustrious example of the great conqueror of Hannibal.' Ballista
