"Greetings, Senator! How may the firm of Demaratus be of service to the Senate and People of Rome?" He was a foreigner, but he could sling the old formula like a citizen.
"Actually, I am on a mission for Caesar," I told him.
"Ah! The gold leaf to adorn the new temple of Venus Genetrix? Please inform the Dictator that the leaf is being hammered out even as we speak. Come, I will show you."
This wasn't what I was there for, but I've learned far more by indirection than by asking questions directly. I followed him inside and saw some twenty men seated on the floor in a row. This was where the hammering noise was coming from. Before each man was what appeared to be a stack of sheepskin cut square, about twice the width of a man's hand on each side.
Before the men sat a woman playing a lively tune in the Lydian mode on a double tibia, keeping time for them like a ship's hortator. They were pounding these sheepskin cubes with big-headed wooden mallets. After each tenth blow the men turned the sheepskins over with a dexterous flip of the hand, then continued pounding on the other side. Apparently they could continue this monotonous labor forever, and they'd been doing it for a long time. Their arms, particularly their forearms, were tremendously developed although they were not otherwise muscular. At a trill from the tibia each man tossed his hammer in the air, twirling, caught it in the other hand as it came down, and continued to pound.
"Very impressive," I said. "What am I looking at?"
This is how gold leaf is made." He showed me how the gold was first hammered as thin as possible with a hammer and anvil, which is very thin indeed, then was cut into small squares and placed between layers of thin sheepskin, the skins bound into stacks of a hundred or more, then pounded for hours by these mallet-men. The pieces would treble or quadruple their size under this treatment and become so fine that they seemed to weigh nothing and would cling to any object one desired to gild.
"When the gilders apply the leaf to the new temple," he went on, "they will bond it fully to the stone, metal, or wood by passing a red-hot iron a fraction of an inch from the surface. No further treatment is needed save a gentle burnishing."
"He's not planning to gild the whole temple, is he?"
"Not at all. But the altar is to be gilded, the capitals of the columns, the details of the frieze and the pediment, all the interior pilasters, the base of the statue and the entire ceiling. It will be a most lavish use of gold leaf, worthy of a Ptolemy."
"Or a Caesar. This is wonderful," I told him, always happy to learn something new. "But alas, it is not gold leaf I wish to inquire about but gold chain."
"Chain? Has Caesar another project? I've already returned to him the gold left over from the aegis of Venus."
"Returned? Caesar himself gave you the gold to make the chains?"
"But of course. Why buy gold when you already have plundered gold in your possession?"
That made sense. "In what form was this gold?"
"When Considius undertook the pearl contract, he told Caesar that my firm would handle the gold-work. Caesar sent it in the form of six golden Gaulish cauldrons, all carefully weighed. These we melted down into bullion form. When the chains were completed, I returned the remaining gold to Caesar."
"But those cauldrons were part of Caesar's triumphal trophies."
"The cauldrons you will see in the triumph will be replicas of gilded copper."
"You simply can't trust anything any more," I said. He shrugged philosophically. "Was this the largest order you've ever undertaken?"
"The aegis of Venus? By no means. It required something less than five hundred sixty yards of fine chain. Just last year, the Cumaeans adorned their temple of Neptune by draping the interior with a great fisherman's net of golden chain. This required more than seventeen hundred yards of chain of a much heavier gauge than I used for the aegis. Pompey has consistently ordered wonderful golden chains, manacles, and neck-rings to bind the many noble and royal prisoners who adorned his memorable triumphs. At least he used to." We observed a moment of silence to acknowledge the passing of that great but difficult man.
This talk of chains called for another tour of the facilities, and I saw the workmen hammering gold bars into plates, then cutting the plates into thin rods with shears, drawing the rods into long wires, twisting the wires around mandrels of the requisite size and shape, snipping the coils thus formed into rings, linking the rings into chains, and then, the most difficult task of all, soldering all the links in glowing furnaces.
Great skill was required to keep the furnaces at exactly the right temperature. Too cool and the solder would not flow. Too high and the gold would melt and all the labor would have to be repeated. The furnaces were under the supervision of a skinny old man dressed only in a linen loincloth who spent his days squatting in front of them, judging their heat by color alone. Beside him squatted a youth he was training to the same exacting skill. At the old man's subtle hand signals the bellows-men quickened or slowed their hauling on the ropes, and the firetenders threw in fresh charcoal or scooped out glowing cinders.
"Have you done other work connected with the new temple?" I asked. "For instance, the goddess's golden wig?"
"No, that would have been done on Cyprus under the supervision of the sculptor."
"I see."That meant only one more call to make.
The establishment of Thyrsites was on the river south of the Sublician Bridge. It was little more than a warehouse equipped with all the tackle necessary for lifting weighty sculpture and stout wagons for transporting them. When the slave at the door announced my arrival, Thyrsites hurried to greet me. Thus far that day I had dealt with a Roman-named Syrian and a Greek-named Egyptian. Thyrsites was a Greek-named Greek, even if he was from Egypt. He begged to know how he could be of assistance.
"I've come at Caesar's behest to inquire about the statue of Venus Genetrix," I informed him.
"Ah! A wonderful work, is it not? Have you seen it?"
"I have. Wonderful, indeed."
"I do hope no harm has come to it?" His concern seemed genuine.
"None that I know of. I just need some information."
"I am at your service."
"First off, how is the pediment made?"
He looked puzzled. "It is simply a solid block of granite porphyry, very highly polished but extremely plain in the Doric fashion as you must have seen. Caesar did not want attention to be distracted from contemplation of the goddess herself."
"Very good. And the statue?"
"The finest Corinthian bronze, hollow-cast, like all large bronze sculpture, using the lost wax process perfected centuries ago by Rhoecus and Theodoras. In this case the casting was simplified by the top of the head's being left unfinished, since the goddess was to wear a golden wig. Personally, I think this is why so many statues wear wigs or helmets. It makes the casting process less chancy."
"I've wondered about that," I told him. "And this wig, is it cast of solid gold?"
"It is pure gold, but it is all hammer work, no casting. It is quite thin and delicate and was packed in a separate crate. It is fastened to the cranium by pins passing through eyelets behind the ears, quite invisible to a viewer standing below."
"That is all I need to know," I told him, and turned to go.
"But, Senator," he stammered, mystified, "why do you-"
But I was already away. I didn't have to answer to anybody, and the fewer who knew what I knew the better.
My last call of the day was Caesar's house, his temporary home on the Campus Martius. It was getting late, but he greeted me without impatience. "Decius! We will be having dinner soon; perhaps you can join us. I take it you have learned something?'
"I have, Dictator."
"Then you can regale my guests with the tale of your accomplishments."
"That would be unwise, Caesar."
His face clouded. "How so?"
"I am afraid it concerns a woman of your household."