Saturnalia by John Maddox Roberts Page B

I remembered that Atia was the daughter of Julia the sister of Caius and Lucius Caesar by a nonentity named Atius. This Octavius was the birth father of our present First Citizen, a fact of which we were blissfully unaware at the time, and that is the extent of the First Citizen’s connection with the Julians, although he likes to pretend that the blood of the whole clan fills his veins.
    From my house Hermes and I walked to a street near the Forum where one of my favorite bathhouses was situated. It was a fairly lavish establishment, although the baths of thosedays were nowhere near the size of the ones built recently by Agrippa and Maecenas, with their multiple
thermae
and exercise rooms, libraries, lecture halls, plantings, statuary, and mosaics. This one had a few decent sculptures looted from Corinth, skilled masseurs from Cyprus, and hot baths small enough for a dozen or so men to converse easily. Good conversation with one’s peers is half the pleasure of the baths, and it is difficult to be heard in the vast, echoing
thermae
of today, which will accommodate a hundred or more bathers at a time.
    The bathhouse I used was patronized mainly by senators and members of the equestrian order and was therefore a good place to pick up on the latest doings of the government. Leaving my clothes in the atrium under Hermes’s less than watchful eye, I went as quickly as possible through the cold plunge, then into the
caldarium
to soak luxuriously in the hot water. As I entered the dark, steamy room I was disappointed to see that there were only two others in the bath; men I did not know.
    I greeted them courteously and stepped into the deliciously hot water, then settled chin deep to soak. I had my back to the door and had been in place no more than a few minutes when my new companions looked up toward the entrance with alarm on their faces. I did not bother to look around as men filed in behind me and climbed into the bath, big, hard-faced men, covered with scars. They were arena bait of the worst sort. My two erstwhile companions hastily vacated their places. Soon six hulking brutes shared the water with me, and they left a space to my right. Another man lowered himself into that space, youngish, good-looking in a dissipated fashion, and decorated with only a few minor scars, some of which I had given him.
    “Welcome back to Rome, Decius,” he said.
    “Thank you, Clodius.” He had me cold. There was absolutely no way I could fight or escape, and it would be undignified to try. So much for my predicted long, long life.
    “Be at ease, Decius. I’m a tribune designate and I have a great many important things on my mind just now. You are the least of my concerns for the moment. Don’t cross me and you have nothing to worry about.”
    “I rejoice to hear it,” I said, meaning every word.
    “I won’t even hold your friendship for that mad dog Milo against you as long as you don’t ally yourself with him against me.”
    “I’m not looking for trouble, Clodius,” I said.
    “Excellent. We understand one another then.” He seemed marginally more sane than usual, not that this was saying much. “As a matter of fact”—he was oddly hesitant—“there is a way we might patch things up between us, start off clean, so to speak.”
    This was truly mystifying.
    “What do you mean?”
    “By now you know that my brother-in-law, your kinsman Metellus Celer, was poisoned?”
    “I know he is dead,” I said cautiously. “I have only heard rumors that he was poisoned.”
    “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. You’re one of those philosophers of logic.”
    I let the insult pass. “I prefer solid evidence to hearsay,” I told him.
    “Well, rumor then has it that Celer was poisoned by his wife, my sister, Clodia. My enemies and the common herd are whispering behind my back that she is guilty, just because she flouts convention and champions my cause.”
    “The world is full of injustice,” I averred.
    “You’re supposed to be