'If Iris was given anything for herself- a hairpin or a length of fringe off a dress- she turned it into denaru straightaway.'
'Did old Paulus encourage this?'
'Dunno. But he let it go on. He was pleasant enough. A good master allows his servants to save up if they can.'
'Did they buy their own freedom?'
'Paulus saved them the trouble.'
'He died?'
Minnius nodded. 'By trade he polished marble. There was plenty of work, even if he never made much at it; the will was generous to his people when he went.' Paulus could manumit a percentage of his household by bequest; my clients had the bold look of slaves who would have ensured they were among the favourites he chose for the privilege.
'They soon made good with their savings,' Minnius mused. 'Is there some special scheme for cargo ships?'
I nodded. 'Incentives; for fitting out a grain transport.' By coincidence I had been looking into corn imports shortly before this and was well up on all the fiddles. 'The scheme was started by the Emperor Claudius to encourage winter sailings. He offered a bounty, dependent on tonnage, for anyone who built new vessels. Insurance, too; he underwrote any ships that sank. The legislation has never been repealed. Anyone who knows that can still reap benefits.'
'Pollia had a ship that sank,' Minnius told me rather dourly. 'She managed to acquire a new one quite rapidly too...'
He was obviously suggesting it was the original ship with its name changed - an intriguing hint of sharp practice among the Hortensius crowd. 'Had she fitted out the ship herself?' I asked. Under the Claudian scheme a woman who did so would acquire the honours of a mother of four children: what my mother called the right to tear her hair in public and be treated to constant harassment.
'Who knows? But she was soon wearing earfuls of rubies, and sandals with silver soles.'
'What did the men do to earn their fortune? What line are they in now?'
'This and that. In fact this, that, and pretty well everything else you could name...'
I sensed coyness creeping over my informant: time to back off. I purchased two of his stuffed pastry pigeons for Helena, plus some slices of must cake for my sister Maia- to reward her selfless gesture in recovering my swallowed bets.
The price was as exorbitant as I expected on Pincian Hill. But I did get a neat little basket containing a natty nest of vine leaves, to carry my confectionery home with clean hands. It made a change from the inky papers torn out of old scrolls of philosophy which were used to wrap up custards where I lived in the Aventine.
On the other hand, there is nothing to read on a vine leaf once you've licked it clean.
Chapter VIII
Next I risked raising my blood pressure with a visit to a praetor.
In the days of the Republic two magistrates were elected annually (selected, since it was an appointment from the ranks of the Senate so not exactly subject to a free vote), but by my time legal business had increased so much it kept eighteen of them busy, two solely on fraud. The one who had investigated the gold-digger was called Corvinus. The Forum Gazette had familiarised me with the ludicrous pronouncements of the current legal crop, so I knew Corvinus was a self-opinionated piece of pomposity. Praetors always are. In the scale of public appointments it is the last civil honour before a consulship, and if a man wants to parade his ignorance of modern morality then being praetor gives him dangerous scope. Corvinus predated the current Emperor's campaign to clean up the courts, and I reckoned the praetorship would be his last position now Vespasian was in charge.
Unfortunately for my clients, before Corvinus was retired to his Latium farm, he had had time to make his pronouncement that poor little Severina had lost three wealthy husbands in rapid succession purely through bad luck. Well. That shows you why I think what I think about praetorian magistrates.
I had never met him, and in fact I didn't intend to, but after I came down from the Pincian I went straight to his house. It was a quiet mansion on the Esquiline. A faded trophy hung over the door, commemorating some ancient military show in which an ancestor had been honoured for not running away. Indoors were two statues of dour republican orators, an indifferent bronze of Augustus, and a huge chain for a watchdog (but no dog): the usual tired trappings of a family which had never been as important as | it thought, and was now sinking into oblivion.
I hoped Corvinus would be in Cumae for the summer, but he was the sort of conscientious fool who probably sat in court on his own birthday; he grumbled about the pressure of business- yet fed his ego by bungling pleas all through the August heat. A bored porter let me in. Bundles of ceremonial rods and axes were lolling in the atrium, and I could hear a murmur from a side room where his honour's lictors were gnawing their midday snack. In a side passage a row of benches had been provided so clients and plaintiffs could hang about looking pathetic while the Praetor snored off his lunch. Sunlight slanted in from high square windows, but once my eyes grew accustomed to the harsh interplay of light and shade I discovered the familiar crowd of moaners who clog up the offices of famous men. All watching one another, while they pretended not to; all trying to dodge the mad-eyed know-all who wanted a conversation; all set for a long and probably disappointing afternoon.
I avoid sitting around catching other people's diseases, so I strolled briskly past. Some of the hangdog crowd sat up straighter, but most were prepared to let anyone who looked as if he knew what he was doing carry on doing it. I felt no qualms about queue-jumping. They had come to see the Praetor. The last thing I wanted was to endure a pointless interview with some tedious legal duffer. Praetors always have a clerk. And because litigants are so touchy to deal with, a praetor's clerk is usually alert. I had come to see the clerk.
I found him in the deep-shade of an inner courtyard garden. It was a warm day, so he had moved a folding campstool out to the fresh air. He had a startling tan, as if it had been painted on- possibly the result of a week's concentrated vine pruning. He wore a large seal ring, pointed red shoes, and a glittering white tunic; he looked as sharp as a furnace-stoker on his festival day off.
As I expected, after a long morning up against senators' sons who had been caught peering into the changing rooms of women-only bathhouses and vague grannies who wanted to ramble through three generations of family history to explain why they stole four duck eggs, the clerk was glad to push aside his pyramid of petition rolls and enjoy a chat with me. I introduced myself straightaway, and he replied that his name was Lusius.
'Lusius, some clients of mine are worried about a professional bride. Name of Severina; I don't know her cognomen-'
'Zotica,' said Lusius abruptly. Perhaps he thought I was a time-waster.
'You remember her! Thank the gods for efficiency-'
'I remember,' growled the clerk, growing more expansive with this chance to express his bitterness. 'There were three previous husbands, who had all lived in different sectors of the city, so I had to cope with a trio of disorganised aediles all sending me incomplete local details, four weeks after I required them- plus a letter from the Censor's office with all the names spelt wrong. I ended up co-ordinating the documents for Corvinus myself.'
'Routine procedure!' I commiserated. 'So what can you tell me?'
'What do you want to know?'
'Did she do it, basically.'
'Oh she did it!'
'That's not what your man decided.'
Lusius described his man in two brief words: the usual opinion of a praetor if you hear it from his clerk. 'The honourable Corvinus,' Lusius confided, 'would not recognise a boil on his own bum.' I was starting to have a lot of time for Lusius; he seemed a man of the world -the same shady world I inhabited myself.
'Routine again! So will you tell me the tale?'
'Why not?' he asked, stretching his legs in front of him, folding his arms, and speaking as if he thought anyone who worked as hard as he did deserved time off for anarchy. 'Why not, indeed? Severina Zotica...'
'What is she like?'
'Nothing special. But the madams who cause the most trouble never look much to outsiders who are not involved with them.' I nodded. 'And a redhead,' he added.
'I should have known!'
'Imported as a teenager from the big slave market at Delos, but she got there by a roundabout route. Born in Thrace- hence the hair- then passed about with different owners; Cyprus, Egypt, then before Delos Mauretania, I think.'
'How do you know all this?'
'I had to interview her at one point. Quite an experience!' he reminisced, though I noticed he did not dwell on it. In fact his expression became guarded, like a man keeping his own council talking about a girl he planned not to forget. 'Once she reached Italy she was bought by a bead-threader; he had a shop in the Subura; it's still there. His name was Severus Moscus. He seems to have been a decent enough old bastard, who eventually married her.'
'Husband number one. Short-lived?'
'No; the marriage had lasted a year or two.'
'Peacefully?'
'As far as I know.'