I, Virgil, page 6
Picture the scene, then.
It is late summer. We are sitting in the colonnade which surrounds the garden. In front of us is a small fishpond with a marble fountain brought from Athens. On the fountain are two cupids riding on the back of a dolphin, its beak raised, spouting water which splashes into the pool. Overhanging the pool, a huge bush of rosemary, its scent filling the garden. A peacock struts through the rose-bed, trailing a tail like a tapestry, shimmering blue, green and gold. Valeria is sitting in a high- backed chair of cedar-wood, like a throne, I on a low stool in front of her. She is wearing white. A sky-blue band around her forehead holds in her dark curls, two of which have escaped and lie soft against the peach-bloom of her cheek.
We have been reading Sappho.
She reads well. Her voice is light, the words feathers blown in the breeze, the Greek sweet on her tongue. I am lost in it, in the drowsy hum of the bees, and when the poem ends it has blended with the sunshine and the scent of the rosemary and pervades the garden like a golden mist.
She sets down the book.
'You read something now, Publius,' she says.
My mind is full of Sappho, but to read her, after Valeria, would be unseemly, like a frog contending with a nightingale. I compromise, change to Latin, to Catullus, most beautiful of our poets. Hesitate, begin:
He seems to me the equal of a god –
To surpass the gods, if it be right to say so –
Who, sitting opposite you, watches and watches,
Listens and listens to you
Laughing sweetly.
And I, poor wretch, am stripped of all my senses.
For once I see you, Lesbia, I am nothing:
A slow tongue, limbs burning with thin fire,
Ears deafened by their own ringing, eyes wrapped in darkness.
Valeria sits absolutely still, her face shut, unreadable. I have offended her. I wonder how I could have been so stupid, so insensitive, as to speak love-words I did not mean in a language that must convince by its very familiarity. Then, suddenly, she grins – a most unpoetic grin – and ruffles my hair.
'"Too much free time, my Publius,"' she says, capping my poem with its ending, substituting my own name for the poet's. '"That's your trouble. Idleness has been the ruin of you."'
I laugh, and the mood is broken. It is useless to contend with Valeria.
The peacock spreads his tail and defecates on the marble slabs.
16.
Perhaps I should introduce you at this point to another member of the Valerius family – or rather a prospective member – since he will appear again in my story: Valeria's fiancé and distant cousin, Marcus Cotta.
I did not much like Cotta. He resembled one of these plaster figurines that hucksters turn out from moulds by the thousand and sell as souvenirs outside the theatre or during the Games: the face is always the same, but the name inscribed on the base changes to fit whatever actor or charioteer or gladiator happens to be popular at the time. You can see any number of Cottas lounging about the Market Square of an evening, or exercising their thoroughbreds in Mars Field: smooth, dandyish young men with polished faces and polished voices, smelling of hair-oil, barber's powder and money. Cotta's only individuality – and his one redeeming feature, in my eyes – was his devotion to Valeria; and for that I could have forgiven him anything.
He didn't like me, either.
Oh, it was not a matter of jealousy; or rather, not of sexual jealousy. Cotta seemed to share Proculus's sixth sense regarding my harmlessness. It produced in him not an easy tolerance but a desire to dominate – I almost wrote, a desire to bully, but that is too strong a word: Cotta was no worse (and no better) than the average specimen of his class, which meant that he was sound enough judged by the standards of that class's slightly warped morality. His dislike of me was based on something less tangible than sexual jealousy. What he resented was that Valeria and I shared something which he could not comprehend, and yet which he realised was of vast importance: a common soul.
That sounds pretentious, I know, but I will let it stand, because it is the truth. How else can I put it? To say we were friends is too mild, and yet to use the phrase 'more than friends' is to beg the question; worse, to suggest a coy sexuality that was completely lacking on both sides. Nor can I say, 'We were like brother and sister'. That relationship is used too often, and too tritely, as a synonym for closeness: family ties are no guarantee of mutual sympathy, as I know to my cost. I could conjure with the name of Plato, in one of its forms; could say, for example, that 'our relationship partook of Plato's ideal', or that 'I loved her platonically'. Such an expression might convey my meaning admirably to a philosopher, but in everyday language it is far too cold – and far too negative – to serve my purpose.
You see the problem? Ignore, then, the pretentiousness of the phrase, and accept it in the spirit in which it is meant.
Valeria and I shared a common soul.
I offered you, in the preceding chapter, a double vignette, or diptych–- idealised, perhaps, in the style of such things, but capturing the essence of my feelings for her. Let me give you another, now: a triptych this time, in stronger colours, of myself, Valeria and Cotta.
Again, it is summer; and again, we are in the garden behind the house. Climbing roses blaze red against the honey-dark stone of the columns. Cotta lies sprawled on the grass, his purple-edged tunic slightly stained with green, a jug of Proculus's best wine at his elbow. Valeria and I sit on chairs beneath the colonnade.
Cotta is in the worst of humours, for the worst of reasons. He has just learned that a tenement block which he owns caught fire the previous night. Tenants on the first floor, above the shops, were evacuated safely. The rest burned.
'We got the bastard who caused it,' he is saying. 'He lit a brazier, would you believe – a bloody brazier, in this weather!'
Valeria is very still, her eyes wide and lustreless. I can see what she sees in her mind's eye – flames, livid-yellow in the darkness, gorging themselves on rotten, tinder-dry planking; hear with her the screams, smell the greasy black smoke, heavy with the sick-sweet stench of roasting flesh.
'How many?' she says.
Cotta looks up.
'How many what?'
'How many people died?'
He frowns.
'How should I know? These places are rabbit-warrens. Fifty...a hundred, maybe. It happened at night, so they'd be asleep.'
Valeria's face is drained of colour. I reach over, touch her hand. Her fingers clasp mine, briefly.
'It'll cost me millions,' Cotta is saying. 'It's not just the loss of the building. There's the rents. And you can't get good contractors now for love nor money. They charge you through the nose, and the work's not worth a damn.'
'Didn't anyone try to save them?' I am surprised to see that my hands are trembling.
'Couldn't get near the place.' Cotta scowls. 'It went up like a torch. And the nearest water supply was two streets away. Why the hell doesn't someone do something about the city's water?'
'Or about the city's buildings,' I say gently.
'What, the tenements?' He looks genuinely surprised. 'They're okay. And they're all the mob deserve. You want every sewer-rat in Rome to have his own town-house? Marble floors, paintings on the walls, the way they live? The place'd be a slum inside a month.'
'No.' I sigh. 'I don't expect that. Only that the blocks be well-built and well-maintained, instead of the death-traps we have now.'
'Oh, sure! And where's the money going to come from?'
'From the rents, of course,' Valeria says. She still looks pale, but now it is with anger. 'How much did you charge a year for a room in your tenement, Marcus? One thousand? Two?'
'It was no more than the going rate.' Cotta sounds hurt. More, now he is faced with opposition from Valeria, he is definitely on the defensive. 'And senatorials have to make money somehow. We can't dirty our hands with trade like you narrow-stripers.'
I do not think he means it as an insult. For him it is a statement of fact, and it does not occur to him that we might take it otherwise. Valeria does not reply and, encouraged, Cotta presses on.
'Besides, the rents went to a good use.' He gestures with his wine-cup at the ring Valeria is wearing beside her iron betrothal ring. It is Alexandrian, inlaid with a Love-Goddess and attendant cupids. 'They paid for that bit of jewellery I bought you on your birthday, for a start.'
'We don't mean you shouldn't make a profit, Marcus.' I keep my voice soft; I do not want a quarrel, for Valeria's sake. 'Only that you could've ploughed some of the money back in repairs. After all,' I search for words that he will understand, 'it's sound business sense to protect an investment, isn't it?'
'Or just think of it as conscience-money.' Valeria, it seems, doesn't particularly care whether they quarrel or not. I have never seen her so angry.
Cotta looks from one of us to the other. His expression is puzzled, and I realise that, quite genuinely, he cannot see what all the fuss is about. Suddenly I feel more sorry for him than angry. He is like a child who has been smacked for doing something he did not know was wrong. I glance at Valeria. She smiles, nods slightly; and says:
'I hear you've bought a new stallion, Marcus. Tell us about it.'
He does, at length, and the unnecessary quarrel is avoided. I touch Valeria's left arm in gratitude; and notice that, save for Cotta's betrothal ring, her hand is now bare of jewellery. The Alexandrian ring has gone, and I never see her wear it again.
I never...
Never again.
Close the picture, Virgil! Close it quickly!
Never again.
Never...
I have done with pictures of Valeria. They bring too much grief.
17.
The rioting grew worse that autumn. Up on the Esquiline, we were above it for the most part, but the valley below, where the poorer classes lived, seethed like maggoty cheese. Elections were delayed for the second time in two years. Armed gangs – supporters of the aristocrat Milo, who was one of the candidates, and of the demagogue Clodius – roamed the streets and turned the city into a battleground. You did not go out at nights, if you valued your life, and in the morning it was not uncommon to see fresh blood glistening on the pavements or a huddle of what seemed like rags on a street corner. I found it best, when walking to and from the law-courts in the Market Square, to close my eyes and ears to the world around me. I felt like a sane man walking through a city of madmen.
More and more, Proculus's house became for me an island of sanity, and I hurried back there as quickly as I could after classes. We dined late, as a rule – Proculus's business often occupied him well into the evening – and there was usually company. I enjoyed these dinners, if only because they contrasted so strongly with my Uncle Quintus's. I enjoyed their simplicity, their subordination of the act of eating and drinking to conversation. They were, in all senses of the word, civilised.
Also, it was through them that I made my first important contact as a budding poet.
It was a fine September evening. I was sitting in my room reading, taking advantage of the last of the sunlight, when Valeria put her head round the open door.
'So that's where you've got to,' she said.
I grinned and set the book down.
'Where else would I be?' I said. 'Some of us are here to study, after all. We can't all be rich dilettantes like you.'
She put out her tongue at me, walked over to the desk, picked up the book and examined its label.
'The Phainomena,' she sniffed. 'How boring.'
'I find it fascinating,' I said. 'But then women don't have the brains for scientific philosophy.'
'Prig,' she said. 'Anyway, I've read it in the original. This is a translation, and not a very good one at that.'
'It was all I could get! Anyway it doesn't matter much whether....'
She laughed, dropped the roll onto the desk.
'I wish you could see yourself,' she said. 'You've gone as red as a slice of sausage. Now put on your best mantle and come downstairs. It's dinner-time and I was sent to tell you.'
'Already? And my best mantle?'
'Father came home early and brought a guest with him.'
'Who?' I recovered Aratus, rolled him up and stuffed him into his case. 'Pompey himself? With Caesar to carry his slippers?'
She paused at the door.
'No, not quite,' she said. 'But put the mantle on anyway. Then at least he won't throw nuts at you in mistake for the performing bear.'
The first course had been served when I entered the dining-room. There was no sign of Valeria or her mother.
Not a family dinner, then, nor a literary or philosophical evening. Politics. I winced inwardly.
On the middle couch, in the place of honour, lay a man in his early twenties with sharp-cut features and an aristocratic nose. He looked up at me as I came in: a quick, assessing glance.
'Ah, Publius.' Proculus gestured towards the empty couch to the young man's left. 'So Valeria managed to roust you out. Pollio, this is the guest-friend from the North I mentioned, Vergilius Maro.'
'Asinius Pollio.' The young man leaned over and shook my hand as I lay down on the third couch. 'Pleased to meet you.'
My response of pleased surprise was genuine. I had heard of Pollio, of course, and I was glad Valeria had told me to put on my best mantle. He was the best of the up-and-coming young men at Rome: an all-rounder such as I knew I could never be and so regarded with awed admiration. Pollio had been a friend of Catullus, wrote excellent poetry and tragedy, composed orations in a pure Attic style and was thinking of trying his hand at history. He was also one of Caesar's most promising protégés, already earmarked for the magistrate's purple-edged mantle and the general's red cloak. All in all, a frighteningly accomplished character.
'We were just talking about the riots, Publius.' Proculus unshelled a quail's egg, dipped it in salt. 'I was asking Pollio here why Pompey doesn't do something.'
Pollio frowned.
'That's a job for the consuls, surely,' he said. 'Pompey has no power in Rome. He can't even enter the city so long as he has governor status.'
'It couldn't be that he simply wants things to fall apart completely, I suppose?'
Pollio paused in the act of reaching for an olive.
'Now why should he want that?' he asked.
'To force the Senate to appoint him dictator. Why else?'
'He'd be a fool to do any such thing.' That came out flat. 'To accept the dictatorship would be playing into the Senate's hands. It would set him on a collision course with Caesar and we'd have civil war within a month.'
'You think that's what the Senate wants, sir?' I said. 'Another civil war?'
'It's not what they want, it's what they'll get, only they're too blind to see it. They've been trying to drive a wedge between Caesar and Pompey for years, and now Crassus is gone and Julia dead it looks like they're finally succeeding.'
Julia was Caesar's daughter, and Pompey’s wife. She had died the year before, of complications after a miscarriage.
'Would that be such a bad thing?' Proculus smiled. 'Pompey is at least open to reason. And he's worked wonders these last few years stabilising the corn supply. Unlike your Caesar he does now seem to be aware of his responsibilities.'
Pollio laughed.
'I'm sorry, Proculus,' he said. 'You're talking like a senator, and I'm afraid the Senate keeps its collective brain in its collective rectum. Why should Pompey trust the Senate?' He held up his hands, fingers spread. 'First of all they snub Pompey, refusing to ratify his arrangements for the eastern provinces and the soldiers' land-grants, both perfectly reasonable requests. Then they repeat the mistake with Caesar. They can't bar him from the consulship so they pass a dubious law giving him the forests and cattle-fords to govern after his term of office. Finally, they throw up their hands in horrified surprise when the two injured parties join forces. Now wouldn't you say that was just a little short-sighted?'
'All that's immaterial.' Proculus frowned. 'Both Pompey and Caesar are subordinate to the laws of the state. They cannot be allowed to act out of self-interest.'
'And when those laws are themselves founded on self-interest, what then? Isn't it better to set them aside and do what we know to be right?'
Proculus set down his wine-cup with such force that the wine slopped onto the table and spread out over the polished wood.
'No!' he snapped. 'It is not better! The end does not justify the means. Oh, I'm not denying the Senate was partly to blame for the whole affair. But to get Caesar his Gallic provinces and Pompey land for his troops has cost us seven years of riots and bloodshed.'
'That was Clodius, not Caesar.'
'Clodius is Caesar's creature!'
'If the Senate hadn't been so pig-headed, my dear Proculus, Caesar wouldn't have needed to bypass them and use Clodius to push his legislation through the Popular Assembly.' Pollio selected another olive. 'And as a People's Magistrate Clodius has a perfect legal right to block any senatorial resolution that seems to him...misguided.'
'You mean that seems to Caesar...misguided.' Proculus beckoned the major-domo over, indicated the spilt wine. 'Mop that up, would you? And serve the main course.'
Pollio grinned.
'I suppose, then,' he said mischievously, 'you draw a distinction between Clodius and Milo?'
Proculus stiffened. I knew that he had mixed feelings about Annius Milo. Milo was a renegade aristocrat, a lover of violence for its own sake. Five years before, Pompey, with the Senate's blessing, had helped him form a gang to rival Clodius's. A pitched battle between the gangs had made a shambles of the Market Square and choked the Great Drain with corpses. Clodius's power had been severely shaken, if not completely broken. To many senators, including Proculus's beloved Cicero, Milo was a hero, the saviour of the state.
