Part 3 (2/2)
[31] _Sequestres_.
[32] _Interpres_.
[33] a.s.sembly of the Roman tribes for election.
”All right,” broke out Calatinus with a laugh, ”another cheque on Flaccus.”
”One thing else,” said Pratinas; ”I must have a little money to shut up any complaints that those ridiculous anti-bribery Licinian and Pompeian Laws are being broken. Then there is my fee.”
”Oh, yes,” replied the other, not to be daunted in his good humour, ”I'll give you fifty thousand in all. Now I must see this rabble.”
And the mob of clients swept up to the armchair, grasping after the great man's hand, and raining on him their _aves_, while some daring mortals tried to thrust in a kiss.
Pratinas drew back and watched the crowd with a smile half cynical, half amused. Some of the visitors were regular hangers-on, who perhaps expected an invitation to dine; some were seekers of patronage; some had an eye to political preferment, a few were real acquaintances of Calatinus or came on some legitimate business. Pratinas observed three friends waiting to speak with Calatinus, and was soon in conversation.
The first of the trio was known as Publius Gabinius, who was by far the oldest. Coa.r.s.e-featured, with broken complexion, it needed but a glance to proclaim him as gifted with no other distinctions than those of a hard drinker, fast liver, and the owner of an attenuated conscience. Servius Flaccus, the second, was of a different type. He was languid; spirited only when he railed at a slave who brushed against his immaculate toga. The frills on his robes made him almost feminine; and he spoke, even in invective, in a soft, lisping voice.
Around him floated the aroma of countless rare unguents, that made his coming known afar off. His only aim in life was evidently to get through it with as little exertion of brain or muscle as was possible.
The third friend was unlike the others. Lucius Domitius Ahen.o.barbus clearly amounted to more than either of his companions. A constant wors.h.i.+p of three very popular G.o.ds of the day--Women, Wine, and Gaming--with the other excitements of a dissipated life, had ruined a fine fair complexion. As it was, he had the profile of a handsome, affable man; only the mouth was hard and sensual, and his skin was faded and broken. He wore a little brown beard carefully trimmed around his well-oiled chin after the manner of Roman men of fas.h.i.+on; and his dark hair was crimped in regular steps or gradations, parting in the middle and arranged on both sides like a girl's.[34]
[34] Suet., ”Nero,” 51.
”Good morning, Pratinas!” said Lucius, warmly, taking the Greek's hand. ”How glad we are to find you here. I wanted to ask you around to Marcus Laeca's to-night; we think he will give something of a feast, and you must see my latest sweetheart--Clyte! She is a little pearl. I have had her head cut in intaglio on this onyx; is she not pretty?”
”Very pretty,” said Pratinas, looking at the engraving on the ring.
”But perhaps it is not right for me, a grave philosopher, to go to your banquet.”
”How (h)absurd! (H)of c(h)ourse you c(h)an!” lisped Flaccus, who affected Greek so far as to aspirate every word beginning with a vowel, and to change every _c_ into a _ch_.
”Well,” said Pratinas, laughing, for he was a dearly loved favourite of all these gilded youth, ”I will see! And now Gabinius is inviting Calatinus also, and we are dispersing for the morning.”
”Alas,” groaned Ahen.o.barbus, ”I must go to the Forum to plead with that wretch Phormio, the broker, to arrange a new loan.”
”And I to the Forum, also,” added Calatinus, coming up, ”to continue this pest of a canva.s.s for votes.”
The clients fell into line behind Calatinus like a file of soldiers, but before Pratinas could start away with the other friends, a slave-boy came running out from the inner house, to say that ”the Lady Valeria would be glad of his company in her boudoir.” The Greek bowed his farewells, then followed the boy back through the court of the peristylium.[35]
[35] An inner private court back of the atrium.
III
The dressing room occupied by Valeria--once wife of s.e.xtus Drusus and now living with Calatinus as her third husband in about four years--was fitted up with every luxury which money, and a taste which carried refinement to an extreme point, could accomplish. The walls were bright with splendid mythological scenes by really good artists; the furniture itself was plated with silver; the rugs were magnificent. The mistress of this palatial abode was sitting in a low easy-chair, holding before her a fairly large silver mirror. She wore a loose gown of silken texture, edged to an ostentatious extent with purple. Around her hovered Arsinoe and Semiramis, two handsome Greek slave-girls, who were far better looking than their owner, inasmuch as their complexions had never been ruined by paints and ointments. They were expert hairdressers, and Valeria had paid twenty-five thousand sesterces for each of them, on the strength of their proficiency in that art, and because they were said to speak with a pure Attic Greek accent. At the moment they were busy stripping off from the lady's face a thick layer of dried enamel that had been put on the night before.
Had Valeria been willing, she might have feared no comparison with her maids; for from a merely sensuous standpoint, she would have been reckoned very beautiful. She had by nature large brown eyes, luxuriant brown hair, and what had been a clear brunette skin, and well-rounded and regular features. But her lips were curled in hard, haughty lines, her long eyelashes drooped as though she took little interest in life; and, worse than all, to satisfy the demands of fas.h.i.+on, she had bleached her hair to a German blonde, by a process ineffective and injurious. The lady was just fuming to herself over a gray hair Arsinoe had discovered, and Arsinoe went around in evident fear lest Valeria should vent her vexation on her innocent ministers.
Over in one corner of the room, on a low divan, was sitting a strange-looking personage. A gaunt, elderly man clothed in a very dingy Greek himation, with s.h.a.ggy grey hair, and an enormous beard that tumbled far down his breast. This personage was Pisander, Valeria's ”house-philosopher,” who was expected to be always at her elbow pouring into her ears a rain of learned lore. For this worthy lady (and two thousand years later would she not be attending lectures on Dante or Browning?) was devoted to philosophy, and loved to hear the Stoics[36] and Epicureans expound their varying systems of the cosmos. At this moment she was feasting her soul on Plato. Pisander was reading from the ”Phaidros,” ”They might have seen beauty s.h.i.+ning in brightness, when the happy band, following in the train of Zeus (as we philosophers did; or with the other G.o.ds, as others did), saw a vision, and were initiated into most blessed mysteries, which we celebrated in our state of innocence; and having no feeling of evils yet to come; beholding apparitions, innocent and simple and calm and happy as in a mystery; s.h.i.+ning in pure light; pure ourselves, and not yet enchained in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body ...”
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