(A woman as homely as she is!)
Fututores besiege her by day and by night,
Got any more bright ideas?”
He moved on to an aging prostitute, who plied her trade in the baths, and, wrinkling his nose, declaimed- “Why won’t I kiss you? Philaenis, you ask.
You’re one-eyed, you’re red-faced, and bald.
To undertake so vile a task,
Why, let some fellator be called!”
He pranced over to a heavy woman with pendulous breasts and clapped his hands with delight- “Dasius sells tickets here,
No brighter boy than he!
Big-titted Spatale just tried to come in,
And Dasius charged her for three!”
He pounced upon a portly man with curled and scented hair and, waggling a reproving finger under his nose, improvised- “Your slave boy’s mentula is tired and sore,
And, Naevolus, so is your culus.
We reckon what he has been using you for,
O Naevolus, don’t try to fool us.”
Poor Naevolus looked like he wanted to escape. Martial released him and tip-toed over to another, his hand cupped behind his ear. “Flaccus, listen, d’you hear
The sound of hundreds clapping?
It must be Maro strolling near,
His great mentula flapping.”
This brought a lot of laughter; the well-equipped Maro was a familiar sight.
Martial was warming to his work, starting to enjoy himself-and then in one swift instant he found himself abandoned. Pliny had just been spotted near the door.
The most populous city on earth was still in many ways only an overgrown village, where nothing stays secret for long. The prefect’s troopers stationed at Verpa’s house had told friends, who had told other friends, and so on, until all Rome by now knew that Gaius Plinius Secundus was handling the Verpa case. He was instantly mobbed.
Martial knew him by sight; had heard him holding forth in the Basilica Julia where the Chancery Court sat and any passerby might stop and listen. He had put him down as just another brass-throated haranguer with the soul of an accountant.
There being nothing else for it, Martial was forced to follow his audience, only to hear the vice prefect protesting that he had no comment, and would they kindly let go of him! Spying Martial in the crowd, Pliny shouted over the hubbub, “I fear I’ve spoiled your recital, and most amusing it was.”
“Not your fault, sir.” Martial shouldered his way to Pliny’s side and held out his right hand. Never to quarrel with a potential meal was the chief rule of his life. “Marcus Valerius Martialis at your service.”
“I know your name. Who in Rome doesn’t? How can I make it up to you?”
“Well,” the poet favored him with his most winning smile-he could be charm itself when he wanted to. “It is approaching dinner time, and I find myself actually unengaged…”
“Say no more. Literary men are always welcome at my table. I’m on the Esquiline near the Lake of Orpheus. Ask anyone in the neighborhood for directions. I’m going home soon. Come in an hour. Vale.”
As Pliny passed through the exercise yard, some rowdy young men were making a nuisance of themselves, kicking a ball around in a circle, running and making diving catches, accompanied by much shouting and laughter. Suddenly the laughter died in their throats. One of them had kicked the ball high up over the heads of his companions and they watched in horror as it struck the gilded body of the Lord and God, towering on its pedestal over the exercise yard. Instantly they scattered, trying to lose themselves in the crowd. But some weren’t quick enough. An older man tackled one, held onto him by the ankle, crying, “Here, I’ve got the traitor!” From the edge of the crowd grim-faced troopers closed in on the terrified boy.
Pliny didn’t stay to watch the outcome. He felt a coldness in his belly.
Chapter Ten
The tenth hour of the day.
The sun was dipping behind the housetops as Martial, dressed in his one presentable dining-out suit, set out from his tenement on the Quirinal along cobblestone streets still littered with the detritus of the morning’s festivities. His way lay across the Viminal, and up the steep slope of the Esquiline. At his heels trotted a sad-looking little boy who carried his napkin. The poet couldn’t afford to keep a slave, but hired one sometimes for appearance’s sake. Martial was hungry, starving in fact, but the evening held no further enticements for him. Dinner with this earnest, unimaginative lawyer and his equally dull friends would be something to suffer through. But that was how impecunious poets survived.
A slave met him at the doorway, removed his shoes and gave him dining slippers to wear, and conducted him into the triclinium, where his host rose to greet him.
To his surprise, Martial found himself the only guest. “We dine intimately tonight,” said Pliny, “just my wife and my freedmen. Simple fare. No roast piglet stuffed with thrushes, no honeyed dormice, no sows’ udders. A ‘philosopher’s meal’ is my style.”
Martial, who relished sows’ udders, did his best to hide his disappointment.
“I feed my freedmen and my humblest guests the same food and wine I consume myself,” Pliny burbled, “I make no distinctions of class.”
“Admirable,” murmured the poet, wishing that Pliny fed his freedmen on mullet and Lucrine oysters.
“Recline here by me in the place of honor. I’ve long wanted to meet you, in fact. I’m a bit of a poet myself actually. Oh, I don’t publish. Just for my own amusement.”
The slaves brought honeyed wine and Pliny poured the customary libation to the Lares and Penates.
Martial gave him an appraising look. “You don’t include the emperor’s bust among your household gods?”
Pliny’s hand froze for an instant. Without looking at the poet, he said, “Do you?” Then they measured each other with their eyes. “Of course, I worship him-” they both said at once. Then both stopped. Then both smiled. It was a delicate, dangerous moment. Either one of them might have been a spy. “We must serve the emperor we have,” said Pliny carefully.
“Indeed we must,” said Martial. The moment passed. It would be all right.
While slaves carried in the first course, Pliny introduced his freedmen; there were three of them reclining on one couch. “This is Zosimus,” he indicated a thin, serious young man in his twenties. “He is my secretary and my most gifted Greek reader, and my trusted friend. And this is-but, ah, here she comes now!”
Leaning on her nurse’s arm, the heavily pregnant girl came into the room and eased herself onto the dining couch beside her husband.
Well, here’s a tasty morsel, thought Martial. Though his preference ran mostly to the other thing, the poet was an admirer of feminine beauty. He noted her lustrous dark eyes and her swelling breasts.
For her part, Calpurnia didn’t know what to make of this shaggy bear of a man with his flashing teeth and rolling eye. He was certainly unlike any other of her husband’s friends, being rather what she imagined an aging pirate might look like. She struggled with her shyness and risked a smile. “I am pleased to meet any friend of my husband’s. Are you new to our city?”
Though you would not have guessed it from his poems, Martial had a charming manner with women. He made her a low bow, then laughed. “I come from gold-bearing Tagus, from high-girt Bilbilis and the banks of rugged Salo, in short, from Spain. I came to Rome to seek fame and fortune as a writer, and Rome has grizzled my locks.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “The noise, the distractions drive me wild, and yet I can’t break away. The city gets in your blood. And though I am read all over Rome, nay, all over the Empire, it brings me no money. Fortune still eludes me.”
“You wish to be known at court, my friend?” Pliny broke in.
“That is my desire, sir.” The poet put on his serious face. “I’ve sent trunksful of verse up to the palace. I’ve praised the worthy Parthenius, I even dedicated half a dozen poems to little Earinus, though I blush to admit it.”