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"My thought exactly. I find myself wondering if he plans to ask Pompey for a few of those veterans. A man as important as Clodius intends to be needs a proper escort."

"A private army? He already has a great mob of ex-gladiators and street brawlers."

"Pompey's veterans would add a certain tone, not to mention demonstrating solidarity between the two." This sounded reasonable enough, but I suspected it to be pure malice on the part of Crassus. He wanted to cast suspicion on his old rival. As if I needed encouragement to be suspicious of Pompey.

"And," Crassus went on, "I've noted that Pompey has lent him some Etruscan soothsayers. Tame soothsayers are always an advantage to an ambitious man."

"I didn't know that Pompey was cultivating the entrail-examiners." All our haruspices in those days came from Etruria.

"Oh, very much so," Crassus assured me. "You know the common people hold them in awe. And there are certain, shall we say, military-political advantages to a power base in Tuscia." He used the common Latin word for the old Etruscan nation. There were, indeed, advantages to a power base there, considering that you had only to cross the Tiber to be in Tuscia. The very Trans-Tiber district lay on Etruscan land. Tuscia had been a part of the Roman hegemony for a long time, but like many of our allies, its people were an independent lot and considered us upstarts.

And the Claudians had Etruscan blood, although they always claimed to be Sabine in origin. In recent years there had been a veritable mania for things Etruscan. People claim Etruscan descent whose ancestors came to Italy as slaves two generations ago. Others pay absurd prices for authentic Etruscan art, and there is a thriving trade in forgeries. Now that the people are all but extinct, there is something romantic about them that was not apparent when they were around to plague us. Back then we still remembered that they had once lorded it over us as kings and we had little love for them. Their primary reputation lay in the fields of magic and soothsaying, which always struck me as an easy way to make a living without actually having to do anything.

I had a few more questions to ask, but we were interrupted by the arrival of none other than Caius Julius Caesar with his whole retinue.

"I fear I must take my leave, Decius," Crassus said. "The Pontifex Maximus and I have a little business to discuss." He lowered his voice as if letting me in on a deep secret. "I've just about persuaded him to let me have the first plebeian vacancy in the college of pontifexes."

"Then please accept my congratulations in advance," I said. I did not doubt that he was telling the truth, but I also did not doubt they had far more serious business than mere sacerdotal honors. Caesar had debts. Crassus had money. It didn't take Aristotle to figure out the connection there.

As I walked away from the house of Crassus, I pondered the connections between Caesar and Crassus. What I needed, I decided, was a good, unbiased source for rumor, gossip and calumny. And I knew just where to go to find it.

Chapter VII

A foreign embassy might seem a strange place to go looking for semi-reliable information on internal Roman politics, but I knew better. Ambassadors live on inside information and rumor. They freely discuss among themselves things avoided by Romans. They hear everything and are always anxious to curry favor with well-connected Romans.

The Egyptian ambassador at this time was a fat old degenerate named Lisas. He had been in Rome forever and he knew everybody. I have already mentioned the connection between Crassus and Ptolemy, which made Lisas a natural source to sound out. Besides, I was hungry and Lisas was a famous host.

The Egyptian embassy was a great sprawl of buildings outside the city walls on the slope of Janiculum. Its architecture and decor displayed the great Hellenistic mishmash of Egypt and Greece that characterized Alexandria. Hermes goggled at the place as we trudged toward the main gate.

"Did you ever come this way when you ran away?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "I've never been outside the city walls before."

"A good thing. When the Egyptians catch a runaway, they feed him to the crocodiles in their pool." Just then one of those torpid beasts bellowed from the other side of the wall surrounding the compound.

"I've heard that," Hermes said, his face pale. "Is it true?"

"Absolutely," I assured him.

A liveried slave stood in the gateway to greet visitors, and when he saw my Senator's insignia, he bowed so low that his nose could have brushed his ankles.

"Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger to see the Ambassador Lisas," I said grandly. The slave conducted me into a wide atrium and hurried off in search of the master. In the center of the room was a sphinx of white marble with the face of Alexander the Great.

A few minutes later Lisas waddled in amid a cloud of greetings. Besides his great girth, he was distinguished by a huge black wig and grotesquely heavy facial cosmetics. Like all the ruling caste of Egypt, he was of Macedonian descent, but he affected the trappings of the pharaonic past. He was famed for his many perversions, some of them unknown outside Egypt until he brought them to Rome. In spite of all this, I liked the man, who was genuinely kind and thoughtful.

"It is so good to have you back among us, Decius Caecilius," Lisas said, eyeing Hermes wistfully. I knew he would do no more than look. He was too well-mannered to make an indecent proposal concerning another man's slave. "But I can see that you're faint with hunger. Please come with me and we'll remedy that." I went with him into a triclinium laid out as if for a minor banquet. It was not a regular dining-hour, but Lisas kept a buffet in this room at all hours for unscheduled visitors. I heaped a plate with smoked fish and pickled tongue and other items such as did not have to be served hot. Lisas did likewise and we sat down to talk. Since this was purely informal, we dispensed with couches and servitors. I brought up the subject on my mind and he mused for a while, popping sugared dates into his mouth.

"Crassus and Caesar:" His pudgy fingers sketched idle designs in the air between us. "One hears so many rumors."

"What sort of rumors?" I asked.

"You recall the year of Caesar's aedileship?"

"Who could forget that year?" I said. "He put on the greatest games in history."

"There was a rumor at the time, just a rumor, mind you, that he had more than public duty and splendid games in mind. He is supposed to have taken part in a conspiracy to overthrow the state, in league with Crassus.

You recall that the Consuls-designate of that year were not allowed to take office?"

"I remember," I said. The year before, the consular election had been won by Publius Autronius Paetus and Publius Sulla, nephew of the Dictator. They had been convicted of bribery before they had a chance to take office, and the two runners-up were chosen to serve in their stead.

"The plan, it is said, was that Caesar and Crassus would attack the Senate house on the new year and kill all their enemies while they were gathered in one place. Then Crassus was to assume the Dictatorship and name Caesar his Master of Horse. Publius Sulla and Autronius would then serve as Consuls."

"That sounds like malcontent talk to me," I said. "Not that I'd put it past any of them, but it's rather farfetched. Neither Caesar nor Crassus had enough followers to pull it off. Now, Sulla I can understand. He's harebrained enough to try something like that. Ever since the old Dictator died, every adult male bearing the name Cornelius Sulla has been involved in every crackpot conspiracy that's come along. He was tried for throwing in with Catilina, and it took a defense by Cicero to get him off. His brother was accused and convicted, although he escaped execution."

"It was Caesar's intervention that spared him, was it not?" Lisas said blandly.