By the time he left Verpa’s house, it was nearing the ninth hour of the day, and the sun was creeping down the sky. The heat was still oppressive, as it had been for days. Pliny longed for the baths. Cool water, a bit of modest exercise, a rub-down, uncomplicated camaraderie with a few casual acquaintances, the blessed anonymity of nakedness, or so he thought. He directed his bearers to take him to the Baths of Titus. But the City Prefecture was on his way and conscientiousness got the better of him. He would stop and make his report first.
The Prefecture was a sprawling labyrinth of offices, archives and courtrooms connected by dim corridors where clerks and secretaries, minor officials and armed troopers bustled to and fro on hurried errands. Pliny hated the place. He passed rooms where lines of weary petitioners waited patiently to speak with clerks who ignored them. In other rooms, secretaries shuffled through stacks of files and dossiers. Was his own name, he wondered, on one of them? There were still other rooms, rooms in the cellars with iron doors and brick walls. He preferred not to think about what went on there. He pressed on.
In the antechamber of the city prefect’s office, he asked for Aurelius Fulvus and was told that the chief had gone for the day. He was turning to leave when he heard loud laughter coming from the inner chamber. Suddenly angry, he brushed past the secretary and marched in.
The prefect was sprawled in a chair with a cup in his hand. Some other men, whom Pliny didn’t know, sat around him. All of them were flushed with wine. Fulvus looked up as Pliny entered. He seemed to have some trouble focusing his eyes.
“Yes? I gave orders not to be-oh, it’s you, ah, Gaius Plinius. Yes, well, what brings you here? Ah, sit down, won’t you?” He gestured vaguely with the wine cup, spilling half the contents, but there were no empty chairs in the room. “Orfitus, get up and let my vice prefect sit.” Pliny replied stiffly that he preferred to stand. “As you like. And so, this is about…? “The Verpa case.”
“The…ah, yes, of course.” Fulvus made a visible effort to compose his long-jawed face. “And so what have you concluded? The wretched slaves, of course. It always is.”
“In this case not, sir. Or, not the majority of them. Everything points to a Jewish assassin who crept in through a window aided by a slave in the household.”
“Jews you say? By Thundering Jove!” Fulvus slapped the chair arm with a ruby-ringed hand. “Our Lord and God will be pleased! And how many are there?”
“Only five. One man, three women, and a boy.”
“Nonsense! Bound to be more. You keep at it, then. Don’t stop short. See what else you can nose out. The emperor likes you, you know. You can make a name for yourself with this case.”
“If that is your wish, sir. My hope is that the other slaves, the ones who aren’t atheists, can be exonerated. I’m ready to vouch for them myself if need be.”
“What?” Fulvus looked up in astonishment. So did his friends. “Exonerate? Slaves? Yes, well, something to think about. Now, is that all, my dear Pliny?
Pliny made no move to leave. “I mean it, sir. They had nothing to do with this murder.”
“You’ve made yourself quite clear. I said, we’ll see. Just you do your job.” Irritation rose in his voice. He turned his face away. “Orfitus, fill my cup like a good fellow. Good day, vice prefect. Look in again, won’t you, when you have more to report.”
As he left the building, Pliny’s stomach was churning. He was not ordinarily an excitable man, or so he believed. He had chosen a dull profession-or it had chosen him-because it imposed a wall of paper between himself and the sweaty emotions of real people. If he were investigating a charge of unjustified disinheritance or the distribution of assets among the offspring of a man who had been married four times; if he had been faced with a suspicious codicil or a questionable signature-here Pliny felt himself capable and sure-footed. He was not a stupid man. But this! Bloody daggers, sexual perversion, murderous fanatics, secret symbols scrawled on walls, a louche and slippery filius familias, a concubine catatonic with fright. He felt like a man standing on a pitching deck, grasping vainly for a handhold. ???
The crowd streamed out of the Theater of Marcellus and Martial patted his grumbling stomach. It was a long, hot walk to the Baths of Titus, but that was his hunting ground. He wouldn’t leave without a dinner invitation from some rich booby. He had lived more than thirty years in Rome since emigrating from Spain, a young man full of hope and poetry. In all that time he hadn’t had to stand in a bread line yet, although he had come close more than once.
Outside the baths, hucksters, street performers, and food-stalls filled a broad courtyard. Inside rose a vast, echoing fairy-land of brilliant mosaics, high coffered ceilings, wide windows that flooded the spacious rooms with afternoon sunlight; and everywhere, priceless works of art, though here, as elsewhere in the city, the new golden statues of Domitian the God effaced all else. Martial paid his copper coin and went in.
The Baths of Titus, built by Domitian’s elder brother during his brief reign, was only the latest of the great imperial thermae provided by emperors to the Roman people at enormous expense. The shouts of happy citizens disporting themselves, men and women together, filled the vast echoing complex. There was method to this philanthropy. It had not taken the emperors long to learn the profound truth that people who are warm and wet do not, as a general rule, riot in the streets. In this democracy of nudity even the poorest Roman could, for an hour every day, imagine himself to be a little king; could forget for a moment that elsewhere a real king, in a real palace, held the power of life and death over him.
Martial undressed in one of the large changing rooms and stowed his things in an open cubicle. Other bathers posted slaves to guard their belongings; Martial had nothing worth stealing.
Beyond, all was bare flesh. Here respectable citizen and cruising libertine, rich man and poor man, male and female met as equals.
Martial went first to the caldarium to luxuriate in the steam. Adjacent to the steam room lay the exercise court, from where the poet, who never exercised himself, could hear the grunts and groans of men swinging lead weights, of ball players tossing a medicine ball in a three-cornered game of catch, of wrestlers and runners. On his other hand, were the massage rooms. From here echoed the slap of hands on oiled shoulders and the shrill voice of the hair-plucker, calling his trade.
When he was red as a mullet, Martial went on to the tepidarium and from there into the frigidarium, where he dove into the cold pool with a great splash and a boy’s happy shout, and swam vigorously for a minute or two.
The baths cultivated the mind as well as the body. Beside the swimming pools and gymnasia, there were libraries, art galleries, and a large and beautiful recitation hall, where people, back in their clothes again, could beguile the hours, listening to a play or a poetry reading. Hither, in his threadbare tunic, went Martial.
Instantly a circle gathered round him, already chuckling. He was among friends. He knew their names, knew their foibles, knew they’d take insults from him that they wouldn’t have taken from anyone else. He whirled from one to another, leering, mugging, improvising.
He flung a hairy arm about the stooped shoulders of an elderly man. “Caecilianus!” “Now you’ve shut your wife up tight,
(A woman as homely as she is!)
Fututores besiege her by day and by night,
Got any more bright ideas?”
He moved on to an aging prostitute, who plied her trade in the baths, and, wrinkling his nose, declaimed- “Why won’t I kiss you? Philaenis, you ask.
You’re one-eyed, you’re red-faced, and bald.
To undertake so vile a task,
Why, let some fellator be called!”
He pranced over to a heavy woman with pendulous breasts and clapped his hands with delight- “Dasius sells tickets here,
No brighter boy than he!
Big-titted Spatale just tried to come in,
And Dasius charged her for three!”
He pounced upon a portly man with curled and scented hair and, waggling a reproving finger under his nose, improvised- “Your slave boy’s mentula is tired and sore,
And, Naevolus, so is your culus.
We reckon what he has been using you for,
O Naevolus, don’t try to fool us.”
Poor Naevolus looked like he wanted to escape. Martial released him and tip-toed over to another, his hand cupped behind his ear. “Flaccus, listen, d’you hear
The sound of hundreds clapping?
It must be Maro strolling near,
His great mentula flapping.”
This brought a lot of laughter; the well-equipped Maro was a familiar sight.
Martial was warming to his work, starting to enjoy himself-and then in one swift instant he found himself abandoned. Pliny had just been spotted near the door.
The most populous city on earth was still in many ways only an overgrown village, where nothing stays secret for long. The prefect’s troopers stationed at Verpa’s house had told friends, who had told other friends, and so on, until all Rome by now knew that Gaius Plinius Secundus was handling the Verpa case. He was instantly mobbed.
Martial knew him by sight; had heard him holding forth in the Basilica Julia where the Chancery Court sat and any passerby might stop and listen. He had put him down as just another brass-throated haranguer with the soul of an accountant.
There being nothing else for it, Martial was forced to follow his audience, only to hear the vice prefect protesting that he had no comment, and would they kindly let go of him! Spying Martial in the crowd, Pliny shouted over the hubbub, “I fear I’ve spoiled your recital, and most amusing it was.”
“Not your fault, sir.” Martial shouldered his way to Pliny’s side and held out his right hand. Never to quarrel with a potential meal was the chief rule of his life. “Marcus Valerius Martialis at your service.”
“I know your name. Who in Rome doesn’t? How can I make it up to you?”
“Well,” the poet favored him with his most winning smile-he could be charm itself when he wanted to. “It is approaching dinner time, and I find myself actually unengaged…”
“Say no more. Literary men are always welcome at my table. I’m on the Esquiline near the Lake of Orpheus. Ask anyone in the neighborhood for directions. I’m going home soon. Come in an hour. Vale.”
As Pliny passed through the exercise yard, some rowdy young men were making a nuisance of themselves, kicking a ball around in a circle, running and making diving catches, accompanied by much shouting and laughter. Suddenly the laughter died in their throats. One of them had kicked the ball high up over the heads of his companions and they watched in horror as it struck the gilded body of the Lord and God, towering on its pedestal over the exercise yard. Instantly they scattered, trying to lose themselves in the crowd. But some weren’t quick enough. An older man tackled one, held onto him by the ankle, crying, “Here, I’ve got the traitor!” From the edge of the crowd grim-faced troopers closed in on the terrified boy.
Pliny didn’t stay to watch the outcome. He felt a coldness in his belly.