A slave went off carrying our request for an audience. While we waited for a reaction we were left free to wander.
I had assumed my toga, but was otherwise my happy self.
'You might have combed your hair!' whispered Geminus. He eyed the toga; that had belonged to Festus, so it passed muster.
'I only comb my hair for the Emperor, or women who are very beautiful.'
'Dear gods, what have I brought up?'
'You didn't! But I'm a good boy, who won't ingratiate himself with thugs who kick his ancient pa in the ribs!'
'Don't cause trouble, or we'll get nowhere.'
'I know how to behave!' I sneered, subtly implying I might not draw upon the knowledge.
'No one,' decreed Didius Geminus, 'who wears a coloured tunic with his toga knows how to behave!'
So much for my indigo number.
We had passed a senatorial statue, presumably not ancestral, since our hosts were only middle rank. Also in the atrium were a couple of loyal portrait heads of the Claudian emperors, their clean-cut boyish looks at odds with the gruff and rugged features of Vespasian who ruled Rome today. The first general collection was out of doors in a peristyle garden just beyond the atrium. In March the effect was bare horticulturally, though the art showed up well. There were various columnar herms, among a rather twee gathering of hounds and hinds, winged cupids, dolphins, Pan among the reeds, and so forth. They had the inevitable Priapus (fully formed, unlike the vandalised creature at Father's warehouse), plus a gross Silenus sprawled on his back while a fountain trickled uncertainly from his wineskin. These were ordinary pieces. As a plant lover, I took more interest in the Eastern crocuses and hyacinths that were enlivening the garden.
My father, who had been here before, led me with a firm step to the art gallery. At this point I began to feel shafts of envy.
We had passed through several quiet, well-swept rooms with neutral decor. They contained a spare quantity of extremely good furniture, with one or two small but superb bronzes displayed on plinths. The entrance to the gallery was guarded by not one, but a pair of gigantic sea creatures, each bearing nereids on their threshing coils, amid fulsome waves.
We crept between the sea-nymphs and in through a majestic portal set. The alabaster door-case stood as high as my rooms at home, with huge double doors in some exotic wood studded with bronze. They were folded back, probably permanently since pushing them closed would take about ten slaves.
Inside, we were dumbstruck by a twice life-size Dying Gaul in glorious veined red porphyry. Every home should have one-and a stepladder for dusting him.
Then followed their set of Famous Greeks. Rather predictable, but these people had crisp priorities in throwing together a set of heads: Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Demosthenes, a handsome bearded Pericles, and Solon the Law Giver. Crowding afterwards came some anonymous dancing maidens then a full-length Alexander, looking nobly sad but with a good mane of hair that should have cheered him up. These collectors preferred marble, but allowed in one or two excellent bronzes: there were Spear Carriers and Lance Bearers; Athletes, Wrestlers and Charioteers. Back with the classic Parian stone we came on a winged and sombre Eros, plainly in trouble with some mistress who had stamped her foot at him, facing a pale, even more remote Dionysus contemplating the eternal grape. The god of wine looked youthful and beautiful, but from his expression he had already realised his liver would be for it if he carried on that way.
Next came a wild jumble of delights. Plenty and Fortune; Victory and Virtue. A Minotaur on a pedestal; a caseful of miniatures. There were graceful Graces, and musing Muses; there was a colossal group of Maenads, having a ripping time with King Pentheus. There was what even I immediately recognised as a more than decent replica of one of the Charyatids from the Erechtheion at Athens. Had there been room, they would probably have imported the whole Parthenon.
The Olympian gods, as befitted their status, were lording it in a well-lit hall to themselves. Enthroned there were Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, that good old Roman triad, plus a formidable Athene, partly in ivory, with a pool to keep her humid. There was, I noted bleakly, no lord of the oceans-unless (faint hope) he was away in a workshop being cleaned.
All these pieces were astounding. We had no time to scrutinise how many were original, but any copies were so good they must be desirable in their own right.
I can only summon up a certain amount of reverence before an uncontrollable need to lighten the atmosphere sets in: 'As Ma would say, I'm glad someone else has to sponge this lot down every morning!'
'Hush! Show some refinement!' This was one of my many quarrels with Pa. Politically, he was perfectly shrewd, and as cynical as me. Move on to culture, and he became a real snob. After selling antiques to idiots for forty years, he should have been more discerning about owners of art.
We were about to leave the Hall of the Gods when the owners thought it time to appear. They must have reasoned we would be gasping with admiration by now. On principle I tried to look too ethereal to have placed a value on the goods; no one was fooled. One of the reasons for letting folk walk around was so they could reel at the stupendous cost of what they had just seen.
The pair came in together. I already knew from Father that I was about to meet a couple where his taste and her money had made a long, successful bond. He was to speak the most, but her presence remained a force throughout. They were a firmly welded pair, welded by an inexorable interest in grabbing things. We had come to a house where the need to possess hung in the air as strong as a sickness.
Cassius Carus was a thin, mournful streak with dark curly hair. About forty-five, he had hollow cheeks, and pouched, heavy-lidded eyes. He had apparently forgotten to shave lately-too enraptured with his monumental nudes, no doubt. Ummidia Servia was perhaps ten years younger, a round, pallid woman who looked as if she could be irritable. Maybe she was tired of kissing stubble.
They both wore white, in lavishly formal folds. The man had a couple of gross signet-rings, the woman gold filigree about her, but they did not trouble much with jewellery. Their uncomfortably dignified dress was to set them up as fitting custodians of their art. Personal adornment did not come into it.
They knew Father. 'This is my son,' he said, producing a chill for a second while they worked out that I was not the fabulous Festus.
Each gave me an upsettingly limp hand.
'We've been admiring the collection.' My father liked to slaver.
'What do you think?' Carus asked me, probably sensing more reserve. He was like a cat that jumps straight on the lap of the only visitor who sneezes at fur.
In my role as the auctioneer's respectful son I said, 'I have never seen better quality.'
'You will admire our Aphrodite.' His slow, light, slightly pedantic voice made this virtually an instruction. Carus led the way for us to view the wonder, which they kept until last in the collection, in a separate courtyard garden. 'We had the water put in specially.'
Another Aphrodite. First the painter's special, now an even more suggestive little madam. I was becoming a connoisseur.
The Carus model was a Hellenistic marble whose sensuality stopped the breath. This goddess was too nearly indecent to be displayed in a temple. She stood in the middle of a circular pool, half undressed, turning to gaze back over one lithe shoulder as she admired the reflection of her own superlative rear. Light from the still water suffused her, setting up a gorgeous contrast between her nakedness and the rigid pleating of the chiton she had half removed.
'Very nice,' said my father. The Aphrodite looked even more satisfied.
Carus consulted me.
'Sheer beauty. Isn't she a copy of that very striking Venus on the great lake at Nero's Golden House?'
'Oh yes. Nero believed he had the original!' Carus said 'believed' with a flick of contemptuous malice, then he smiled. He glanced at his wife. Servia smiled too. I gathered Nero thought wrongly.