Caesar Dies | Page 9

He lay on both elbows and stared at the scene with disgust. Naked girls,
against a background of the torchlit water and the green and purple
gloom of cypresses, was nothing to complain of; statuary, since it could
not move, was not as pleasing to the eye; but shrieks of idiotic laughter
and debauchery of beauty sickened him.
There came a series of sounds at the pavilion entrance, where a litter
was set down on marble pavement and a eunuch's shrill voice criticized
the slow unrolling of a carpet.
"What did I warn you?" Norbanus whispered, laughing in Sextus's ear.
Pertinax got to his feet, long-leggedly statuesque, and strode toward the
antechamber on his right, whence presently he returned with a woman
on his arm, he stroking her hand as it rested on his. He introduced
Sextus and Norbanus; the others knew her; Galen greeted her with a
wrinkled grin that seemed to imply confidence.
"Now that Cornificia has come, not even Sextus need worry about our
behavior!" said Galen, and everybody except Sextus grinned. It was
notorious that Cornificia refined and restrained Pertinax, whereas his
lawful wife Flavia Titiana merely drove him to extremes.
This Roman Aspasia had an almost Grecian face, beneath a coiled
extravagance of dark brown hair. Her violet eyes were quietly
intelligent; her dress plain white and not elaborately fringed, with

hardly any jewelry. She cultivated modesty and all the older graces that
had grown unfashionable since the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died. In
all ways, in fact, she was the opposite of Flavia Titiana--it was hard to
tell whether from natural preference or because the contrast to his
wife's extremes of noisy gaiety and shameless license gave her a
stronger hold on Pertinax. Rome's readiest slanderers had nothing
scandalous to tell of Cornificia, whereas Flavia Titiana's inconstancies
were a by-word.
She refused to let Galen yield the couch on Pertinax's right hand but
took the vacant one at the end of the half-moon table, saying she
preferred it--which was likely true enough; it gave her a view of all the
faces without turning her head or appearing to stare.
For a long time there was merely desultory conversation while the feast,
restricted within moderate proportions by request of Pertinax, was
brought on.
There were eels, for which Daphne was famous; alphests and
callichthys; pompilos, a purple fish, said to have been born from
sea-foam at the birth of Aphrodite; boops and bedradones; gray mullet;
cuttle-fish; tunny-fish and mussels. Followed in their order pheasants,
grouse, swan, peacock and a large pig stuffed with larks and mincemeat.
Then there were sweetmeats of various kinds, and a pudding invented
in Persia, made with honey and dates, with a sauce of frozen cream and
strawberries. By Galen's order only seven sorts of wine were served, so
when the meal was done the guests were neither drunk nor too well fed
to carry on a conference.
No entertainers were provided. Normally the space between the table
and the front of the pavilion would have been occupied by acrobats,
dancers and jugglers; but Pertinax dismissed even the impudent women
who came to lean elbows on the marble railing and sing snatches of
suggestive song. He sent slaves to stand outside and keep the crowd
away, his lictor and his personal official bodyguard being kept out of
sight in a small stone house near the pavilion kitchen at the rear among
the trees, in order not to arouse unwelcome comment. It was known he
was in Daphne; there was even a subdued expectation in Antioch that
his unannounced visit portended the extortion of extra tribute. The
Emperor Commodus was known to be in his usual straits for money.
Given a sufficient flow of wine, the sight of bodyguard and lictor might

have been enough to start a riot, the Antiochenes being prone to
outbreak when their passions were aroused by drink and women.
There was a long silence after Pertinax had dismissed the steward.
Galen's old personal attendant took charge of the amphora of
snow-cooled Falernian; he poured for each in turn and then retired into
a corner to be out of earshot, or at any rate to emphasize that what he
might hear would not concern him. Pertinax strolled to the front of the
pavilion and looked out to make sure there were no eavesdroppers,
staring for a long time at the revelry that was warming up into an orgy.
They were dancing in rings under the moon, their shadowy figures
rendered weird by smoky torchlight. Cornificia at last broke on his
reverie:
"You wish to join them, Pertinax? That would dignify even our Roman
Hercules--to say nothing of you!"
He shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were glittering.
"If Marcia could govern Commodus as you rule me, he would be safer
on