Chapter VI

82 - 81 BCE   -   Winter, Rome

Year of the consulship of

Gaius Marius the Younger and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo

Two days later, the morning rose surly and bitter, wrapping itself in a thick cloud blanket against the cold. Crassus had left early for the senate. From there he would ride to surprise his wife on the Via Laurentina as she returned to Rome from Lavinium with her two children, one of which Crassus had never set eyes upon. As the morning progressed, I quickly discovered that when the cat is off in search of other game, the mice in this house had better keep their mouths shut and their whiskers well hidden if they didn’t want them plucked out one by one.

I was owned by Crassus, but my quotidian fate rested with the Spaniard, Pío. He was the kind of man whose features are difficult to describe:  the moment you set eyes on any one of them you are struck with the need to look quickly away. I do not make a practice of such thoughtless prejudice:  just because he looked like an unwashed, overfed barbarian did not necessarily mean he wasn’t the sweetest of men. So to be clear as an Alpine lake, let me set your mind at rest:  Pío was not the sweetest of men. Crassus had found him during the months he had been forced to flee the city. Publius, Crassus’ father, had been governor of Hispania Ulterior, and his fair and prosperous rule had gained him many friends. Vibius Piciacus was among them. When the disheveled son of his murdered comrade sought refuge, Piciacus did what he could to keep young Marcus safe from the spies of Cinna and Marius. There was a large cave by the sea on Piciacus’ estate, and there Crassus and his few retainers hid for the better part of a year. Piciacus, fearing reprisals should his generosity be discovered, would not visit his guest himself, but sent his manservant Pío there each day with food and anything else Crassus might require, including the company of two young women paid well for their silence and their service. When news of Cinna’s death reached Hispania, Crassus came out of hiding. As a reward for his constant and discrete care of his charges, Pío was given his freedom. He chose to return with Crassus to Rome; Piciacus must have been glad to see the last of him.

My first encounter with Pío occurred in the dining room. Appropriate, considering his capacity for consumption. He had stripped the meat off a roast leg of goat and was absentmindedly gnawing the bone to splinters. With his free hand he held a serviette beneath the machinery of his mouth to catch the falling detritus. From this visage of dainty gluttony my eyes fled to his feet, but the sight of those broad, hirsute plains sloping to the grimy boulders of his toes gave them no shelter. I know he wore a belt; I could see the leather escaping his sides to find sanctuary across the broad expanse of his back, but head-on there was no sign of it:  the sagging lozenge of flesh had overwhelmed and smothered the sweat-stained band. Crassus had not employed the man as his atriensis - an archaic term for the manager of his household which Crassus still favored - for his good looks. Was it the Spaniard’s talent or my owner’s sense of obligation that had moved him? If talent, it was well-hidden.

The house was preparing a feast for the masters’ return that would double as the start of the seven days commemorating the Saturnalia, the most raucous of Roman holidays. I limped into the room on my own with Sabina by my side, who watched my progress closely. She had furnished me with a staff, but warned that I should use it as little as possible if I wanted to strengthen my wounded leg. I did indeed want that, but more immediately wanted not to lose my balance and fall crashing to the ground. I clasped the crutch like a lover.

Livia came in, carrying a small tripod table which she carefully set down near one of the couches. She waved at us, then ran back to the kitchen, skidding to avoid a servant heading the other way. A little bird chittered after Pío picking up verbal crumbs. Pío spit directions that were barely Latin at the bustling servants who were mostly Greek, and this little man translated. I didn’t recognize him at first for he was washed, shaved and healed of all his sores and bruises. But then another serving girl got in his way and he elbowed her aside to regain his position near his master. The familiar rudeness also jostled free a memory:  a bedraggled chain whose links could barely be called men, trudging without will toward whatever unplanned future the auction block held in store. Here was my bilingual companion-in-misery, saved from a choiceless fate (almost at my expense) and thrust into one of his own making a lifetime ago. I hobbled to him with one arm outstretched, but to my surprise he backed away and Pío’s giant hand came down between us.

“This is Alexandros,” Sabina said. “He is the second translator for the house. You know Nestor?”

“So that is your name,” I said, peering over Pío’s flattened palm. Nestor gave me a look that would freeze the Kephisos in summer.

“Keep him away from me,” Nestor said with a mixture of pleading and revulsion. “He’s insane, Pío.”

I started to protest, but upon reflection could not argue; with what Little Nestor knew of me, even I was forced to credit his opinion. He was, after all, witness to my botched attempt at suicide before the great Sulla. Pío’s voice matched his countenance:  its assault on the ears made one want to retreat a step; two would be better. Stalwart, I held my ground as he said, “You love your father?”

Now that was unexpected. “I beg your pardon?”

“You love your father,” Pío insisted. “I love my father. When he with my mother fifteen years, master Piciacus allow him bring carpenter to build fine cabinet to hold my mother’s clothes which he bought. Twelve years I had. Every day this man come to work on cabinet. My father work in fields. My mother spread her legs for this man. My father killed him. Slow. Then they killed my father. More quick. The carpenter’s name was Andros. I do not like this name. I do not like your name. Here you will be ... Alexander. Like the famous one. I think maybe you will not be so famous? This name I like - Alexander. Sabina, show him to kitchen and let him see that cook’s meanings are pure. No mistakes like last week. You, Nestor, you will speak for everything but kitchen? Good.”

With a word from that Hispanic grotesquerie another chip from my old life fell to the tiled floor. I am certain he had no idea how cruelly this arrow had hit the mark. At home in Greece, no human property was allowed to keep his or her own name – new ones were always assigned by their owner. It was purposefully dehumanizing, and completely sustainable, in my opinion. I never dreamed it would be happening to me, and not for any practical reason, but on a whim, because Pío didn’t like the sound of it! How absolutely rich! The sting of it burned as deeply as the wound in my leg. Well, that is an exaggeration, to be honest. But it did hurt; you need only imagine it happening to you. Sabina barely took notice, accepting the tyrant’s ruling without comment. “He is well enough to take quarters,” she said. “Where do you want him?”

“Who has empty bed? You, Nestor,” he said, pointing a fat finger, “you have empty bed. Translators share room.”

“No!” Nestor protested.

“I’ve an empty bed,” offered a servant wearing the tunic of the wine steward.

“No,” said Pío. I sensed he was the kind of man who believed thoughtful reconsideration to be a sign of weakness. “Translators together.”

Fuming impotently over the theft of my name, I wanted to lunge at Pío. I, however, am the kind of man who believes thoughtful reconsideration to be a sign of manliness and strength. In any case, before Sabina could lead me out of the triclinium, others had performed what pride and fear were about to suppress. Oh, I was scathingly articulate and brutally eloquent when complaining about someone to someone else, even if that meant talking to myself. Given the opportunity to actually vent directly to the object of my anger, I was as ferocious as a puppy, as outraged as an oyster.

A young, be-freckled woman with honey hair, tied in fraying braids intertwined with daisies marched into the dining room, her bare and muddied feet marking her determined passage. No one had dared remind her to don a pair of indoor sandals, six of which, in varying sizes, lined every entrance to the house. Her face, as flushed from the sun as her tunic and knees were begrimed by yard work, was set and grim. She walked straight up to Pío and knocked the napkin out of his hand, bits of goat and bone, so fastidiously gathered, now littering the floor. With her other hand she slapped him as hard as she could, and before he could make a grab for her was out the way she had come.

Medusa would have applauded the frozen and stony silence caused by this performance, and a second was just beginning. Keening rose from the direction of the baths, a flooding river of sound that crested with the arrival of another woman, her face streaked with tears. Pío spun to face her, comical with rage and discomfiture. She was upon him, spearing his eyes with a look that needed no translation. Looking up at him, she paused for the barest of moments, then spoke her terse jeremiad with hoarse and indignant fury:  “How could you?”

Rhetoric at its finest, for it demands, nor permits reply. Pío, of course, did not know the rules.

She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wrist. “I owe you nothing,” he said, spoiling the purity of her lament. She yanked free of him. “Not even the explanation,” he called after her. The woman’s sobs grew, then receded till they became not-so-faint reverberations echoing from the chamber of the baths.

“Pío controls the slave larder,” Sabina said in response to my raised eyebrows. We spoke Greek as we walked to the kitchen through the atrium. The chill air swirling down from the open compluvium made us quicken our pace. “There’s enough for everyone, unless he wants something from you. Then you find less on your plate.”

“You must go to the master,” I cried. Take note how quick I was to say ‘you’ and not ‘we.’ Sabina cocked her head, taking her own turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh,” I said, chastised. “A foolish question. Pío is favored for an old debt. He cannot be touched. And even if the paterfamilias should have him punished, he would find ample opportunity to take his vengeance.” Sabina nodded. “But how then,” I asked, “could that first woman slap him with impunity?”

“Tessa? Oh, it’s just part of her little act. She likes to be the center of attention, and she’s a little carefree with her charms, if you take my meaning.” She paused. “And, besides, I think he likes it.”

We entered the crowded kitchen filled with the pungent smell of garum and baking acorn bread. Sabina introduced me to the Roman cook and his three Greek assistants. She turned to go but I stopped her in the doorway. “What about you? Are you safe?”

“Pío is a bully,” she said, dismissively. As if that answered the question.