Roma - Saylor Steven. Страница 31

Publius shook his head. “Upstart! Pompous little pleb!”

Gnaeus turned and strode away, his head held high.

Titus reacted to Gnaeus’s speech much as he had when he beheld Vulca’s statue, and, gazing after his friend, he muttered the same word: “Magnificent!”

Publius looked at him sidelong and slapped the back of his head. “I think you’re more in love with Gnaeus than you are with your Etruscan pederast.” Publius had just learned this word, Greek in origin, and enjoyed using it.

“Shut up, Publius!”

That night, Titus’s grandfather presided at a large family dinner, which included Titus’s father and uncles and their families. There were two guests, as well: a young cousin of King Tarquinius, named Collatinus, and his wife, Lucretia. The women dined alongside the men, but, after the meal, when a serving girl brought a pitcher of wine, the women were offered no cups. When Collatinus made a toast to the health of the king, the women merely observed.

He was a pleasant-looking young man with a cheerful disposition, a bit loud and overbearing but not as arrogant as the sons of Tarquinius. His approachable manner was the chief reason the elder Potitius had decided to cultivate a relationship with him, thinking that Collatinus might offer access to the king without the unpleasantness of dealing with the king’s sons.

After the toast, rather than taking only a sip, Collatinus drained his cup. “A most excellent wine,” he declared, then smacked his lips and looked sidelong at his wife. “A pity you can’t taste it, my dear.”

Lucretia lowered her eyes and blushed. In that moment, the gaze of every man in the room was on her, including that of Titus, who thought he had never seen another woman half as beautiful. The blush only served to accentuate the perfection of her milky skin. Her hair was dark and lustrous, and so long that it might never have been cut. Though she was modestly dressed in a long-sleeved stola of dark blue wool, the lines of the gown suggested a body of exquisite proportions. As the blush subsided, she smiled and looked up again. Titus’s heart missed a beat when her green eyes briefly met his. Then Lucretia looked at Collatinus.

“Sometimes when you kiss me, husband, I receive a faint taste of wine from your lips. That is enough for me.”

Collatinus grinned and reached for her hand. “Lucretia, Lucretia! What a woman you are!” He addressed the others. “It was a wise law of King Romulus that forbade women to drink wine. They say the Greeks who live to the south let their women drink, and it causes no end of strife. There are even some here in Roma who have grown lax and allow such a thing, men of the very highest rank, who should know better.” Titus sensed that Collatinus was referring to his royal cousins. “But no good can come of it, and I’m glad to see that old-fashioned virtue and common sense is practiced by the Potitii, in keeping with your status as one of Roma’s oldest families.”

Titus’s grandfather nodded to acknowledge the compliment, then suggested another toast. “To old-fashioned virtue!”

Collatinus drained his cup again. Titus, being a boy, was given wine mixed with water, but Collatinus drank his wine undiluted, and was feeling its effects.

“If virtue is to be toasted,” he said, “then a special toast should be drunk to the most virtuous among us—my wife Lucretia. There is no finer woman in all Roma! After the toast, I’ll tell you a story to prove my point. To Lucretia!”

“To Lucretia!” said Titus.

She blushed and lowered her eyes again.

“A few nights ago,” said Collatinus, “I was at the house of my cousin Sextus. His two brothers were present as well, so there we were, all the king’s sons and myself. We were drinking, perhaps a bit more than we should have—those Tarquinius boys do everything in excess!—and a debate arose as to which of us had the most virtuous wife. Well, I say ‘a debate arose’; in fact, perhaps it was I who brought up the subject, and why not? When a man is proud of a thing, should he keep silent? My wife Lucretia, I told them, is the most virtuous of women. No, no, they said, their own wives were every bit as virtuous. Nonsense, I said. Do you dare to make a wager on it? The Tarquinii can’t resist a wager!

“So, one by one, we paid a visit to our spouses. We found Sextus’s wife off in her wing of the house, playing a board game and gossiping with one of her servants. Not much virtue there! Off we went to the house of Titus. His wife—she must be three times the size of Lucretia!—was lying on a dining couch, eating one honey cake after another, surrounded by a mountain of crumbs. Not much virtue in gluttony! Then we called on the wife of Arruns. I regret to tell you that we found her, with some of her friends, actually drinking wine. When Arruns pretended to be shocked, she told him not to be silly and to pour her another cup! Clearly, she does it all the time, without the least fear of being punished. ‘It helps me sleep,’ she said. Can you imagine!

“Then we called on Lucretia. The hour was growing late. I assumed she might be asleep already, but do you know what we found her doing? She was sitting at her spinning wheel, busily working while she sang a lullaby to our new baby, who lay in his crib nearby. I tell you, there was never a prouder moment in my life! Not only did I win the wager, but you should have seen the look on the faces of the Tarquinius brothers when they saw Lucretia. She’s always beautiful, but sitting there at her wheel, wearing a simple, sleeveless white gown so as to leave her arms free, with the glow of the lamplight on her face, she took my breath away. Those Tarquinius boys were so jealous! You made me very proud, my dear.”

Collatinus took his wife’s hand and kissed it. Titus sighed, imagining the sight of Lucretia by lamplight with bare shoulders and arms, but his grandfather frowned and shifted uneasily.

The old man quickly changed the subject, and the talk turned to politics. By cautious degrees, the elder Potitius sought to determine how candidly he could speak before Collatinus. As Collatinus drank more wine, it became evident that he was not overly fond of his cousin the king. The aristocratic bent of his politics, if not the specifics, reminded Titus of his haughty friend Gnaeus Marcius.

“All this coddling of the plebs by the king—and not the better sort of plebs, respectable people you or I might have to dinner, but ordinary laborers and lay-abouts; it’s not to my liking, I can tell you,” said Collatinus. “Of course, it’s very clever of the king, to grind down the power of the Senate even as he curries favor with the mob. He prosecutes rich men, confiscates their wealth, then uses that wealth to build massive public works, which gives employment to the rabble; that monstrosity of a temple is the most obvious example. He sends the bravest and boldest of the patricians into battle against Roma’s neighbors; the territory that’s won is made into colonies where the landless plebs can settle. The blood of Roma’s finest warriors is spilled so that some beggar can be given his own turnip patch!

“If he’d become king the old-fashioned way, by election, then no one could complain. They say the senators of old had to go down on their knees and beg King Numa to take the job; cousin Tarquinius has senators begging him not to take their property! Even the wise Numa needed the Senate to advise him, but not Tarquinius; he has a higher source of knowledge. Whenever there’s a question about public policy, whether it’s making war on a neighbor or fixing a crack in the Cloaca Maxima, Tarquinius whips out the Sibylline Books, picks a verse at random, reads it aloud in the Forum, and declares that it’s proof that the gods are on his side. Tarquinius the Proud, indeed! My mouth is awfully dry. Could we have more wine?”

“Perhaps you’d rather drink some water,” suggested Titus’s grandfather.