It was a kind of blasphemy to treat works of art, especially images of the gods, in such a fashion, with no respect for their unique power and singularity. I shuddered.
"Why in Hades have you brought me here?" I asked Publicius. "You'll see," he said in hushed voice. "You'll see!"
We were led at last to the garden at the house's center, where an immensely fat man in a red tunic rose from a bench to greet us. A fringe of white hair circled his perfectly round head. A strand of tiny pearls and lapis beads peeked out from between the folds of fat that circled his neck. Rings of silver and gold glittered on his fingers. Among them I saw what looked like an iron citizen's ring. Verres had no right to wear it. The court's verdict had stripped him of his citizenship.
"Publicius! Minucius! How good to see you again. Welcome to my house."
"I swear to Artemis, he gets bigger each time we see him," said Publicius under his breath in a tone more full of wonder than disdain, and then, louder, "Gaius Verres! How kind of you to welcome us. We bring two guests, newly arrived from Rome."
"Ah! Rome…" Verres's beady eyes glimmered. "So near, yet still so far away. Some day…"
"Yes, some day," Publicius agreed wistfully. "And perhaps not so long from now, from the look of things. The world has turned upside-down."
"And shaken out these two," said Verres, regarding Davus and myself.
"Ah, yes, let me introduce you. Gaius Verres, this is Gordianus, called the Finder. The father of Meto," he added in a hushed voice.
If Publicius expected our host to be impressed, the fat man disappointed him. Verres looked me up and down as if appraising an object newly offered for acquisition. His rudeness was almost refreshing after the obsequious fawning of the Catilinarians. "When I was last in Rome, you were known as Cicero's hunting dog," he said gruffly. He spat the name Cicero as if it were an epithet.
"Perhaps," I said, staring at him coldly. "But you haven't been in Rome for a very long time, Gaius Verres." The Catilinarians winced. "At any rate, I had nothing to do with your trial."
Verres grunted. He turned his attention to Davus and raised an eyebrow. "And this big fellow?"
"Davus is my son-in-law."
Verres crossed his arms and pulled at his several chins. "A model worthy of the great Myron himself. I should like to see him naked. But with what sort of props? He's too' grown-up for Mercury. His features are not intelligent enough to pass for Apollo. Not coarse enough for Vulcan, or old and worn enough to be Hercules, though perhaps some day… No, I have it! Give him a helmet and a sword and he could be Mars. Yes, especially scowling like that…
Misreading Davus's frown of consternation as anger, Publicius hurriedly spoke up. "Gordianus and Davus arrived in the city only a few days ago. It was the day of the battering-ram-"
"Yes, yes, I know," said Verres. "Everyone in Massilia has heard the story by now. Two Romans swam in through a flooded rat hole and were scooped up by the scapegoat, who's now fattening them up-though why, no one can imagine, since it's the scapegoat who'll wind up as the main course one of these days."
This casual impiety induced an uncomfortable silence in the two Catilinarians. Publicius bit his lip. Minucius lowered his eyes. Clearly, of the three, Verres had by far the strongest personality. A tyrant he had been, and a tyrant he remained, even if his shrunken kingdom extended only as far as the walls of his own house.
"Well, then," Verres went on, "I suppose I can guess why you've come. Not to see my ivory Jupiter from Cyzicus, or the Apollo I brought back from Syracuse; nor to savor the beauty of my Ephesian Alexander, or experience the very rare sight of my miniature Medusa, which was executed by a student of Praxiteles. Did you know that the snakes on her head were carved from solid carnelian? Incredibly delicate! The largest is no thicker than my little finger. The Syracusans said the snakes were sure to break if I dared to move her, but not one of them suffered even a chip when I shipped her to Rome… and then here to Massilia."
"Fascinating, Gaius Verres," said Publicius, in a tone that indicated he had heard the tale more than once. "But what we actually came to see-that is, what we came here to show Gordianus, so that he might behold it once again with his own eyes-"
"Yes, yes, I know why you've come. It's why you always come."
Verres called for a slave, spoke to him in a whisper, and sent him from the room. The slave returned with a bronze key, a big,
bulky thing with numerous notches, and a flickering lamp. Why a lamp, when the sun was still up? Verres took the key and the lamp and dismissed the slave. "Follow me," he said.
We left the garden. A long hallway led to the back of the house, where a flight of stairs descended steeply to a subterranean level.
The underground passage was so narrow that we had to proceed in single file. Verres and the Catilinarians went ahead of me, with Davus in the rear. The floor was treacherous and uneven. The wavering flame from Verres's lamp was too weak to light our feet, but it did illuminate the masses of spider webs above our heads. In places the ceiling sagged; Publicius and Davus, the tallest among us, had to stoop.
At last the winding subterranean passage terminated in a bronze door. There was a scraping noise as Verres pushed the key into a keyhole and worked it back and forth. The walk had required no special exertion, yet Publicius and Minucius both took labored breaths. By the flickering lamplight I saw that they trembled.
Davus took my arm and whispered in my ear. "Father-in-law, I don't like this. Who knows what's in that room? It might be a prison. Or a torture chamber. Or…"
Or a hiding place, I thought. The Catilinarians had spoken of Meto. He had come to them, they said, sought them out. They told me they had something to show me, something I could see only at the house of Verres. I felt a sudden rush of irrational excitement and found myself breathing as heavily as the others.
The door swung inward on creaking hinges. Verres stepped inside, leaving the rest of us in darkness. "Well, then, come on," he said. Publicius and Minucius stepped forward, visibly shaking. Davus insisted on stepping in front of me so as to enter ahead of me. I was the last to step inside the long, narrow room.
XIII
It was neither a prison nor a torture chamber, but the most obvious and logical thing to be found behind a bronze door beneath a rich man's house: a treasure room. The chamber was crowded with ornately decorated jewelry boxes and urns heaped with coins, small silver statuettes and talismans carved from precious stones. On the walls were mounted antique weapons and military regalia of the sort collectors fancy. Amid this clutter, my eyes were drawn to something at the far end of the room. It stood apart, with space cleared around it so that it could be seen clearly.
I recognized it at once and felt a sudden, painful stab of nostalgia. I had first seen it in a setting in some ways similar to this, illuminated by lamplight in a place of darkness. It had been in a mine north of Rome where Catilina and his inner circle were hiding. The thing was made of silver, perched atop a tall pole festooned with a red and gold pennant. Through the gloom, I peered up at the eagle with its beak held high and its wings spread. But for the glimmer of silver it might have been a real bird, frozen in glory.
"The eagle standard of Catilina," I whispered. "You remember!" said Publicius.
Of course I did. How could I forget? I had last seen it tumbling to earth at Pistoria, lost in the chaos of the battle, marking the spot where Catilina fell.
Publicius touched my arm and whispered in my ear, "This was what your son came here to find. That was his true mission to Massilia!"
I gazed up at the eagle, fascinated by the play of light and shadow across its spread wings. "What are you saying? I don't understand."
"Before Catilina, it was Marius who carried the eagle standard-Marius the mentor and hero of Caesar-in his campaign against the Teutones and the Cimbri, here in Gaul."