I wished I could say the same for me.

 

"Tonight should be really useful for you, Falco," Laeta urged me, as we entered a suite of antique rooms in the old Palace. My hosts had an odd choice of venue. Perhaps they obtained the cob-webbed imperial basement at cheap rates. The Emperor would appreciate hiring out his official quarters to make a bit on the side.

We were deep under Palatine Hill, in dusty halls with murky histories where Tiberius and Caligula once tortured men who spoke out of turn, and held legendary orgies. I found myself wondering if secretive groups still relived such events. Then I started musing about my own hosts. There were no pornographic frescoes in our suite, but the faded decor and cowed, ingratiating retainers who lurked in shadowed archways belonged to an older, darker social era. Anyone who believed it an honor to dine here must have a shabby view of public life.

All I cared about was whether coming tonight with Laeta would help me. I was about to become a father for the first time, and badly needed respectability. To play the citizen in appropriate style, I also required much more cash.

As the clerk drew me in I smiled and pretended to believe his promises. Privately I thought I had only a slim hope of winning advancement through contacts made here, but I felt obliged to go through with the farce. We lived in a city of patronage. As an informer and imperial agent I was more aware of it than most. Every morning the streets were packed with pathetic hopefuls in moth-eaten togas rushing about to pay attendance on supposedly great men. And according to Laeta, dining with the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers would allow me to mingle with the powerful imperial freedmen who really ran the government (or who thought they did).

Laeta had said I was a perfect addition to his team—doing what, remained unclear. He had somehow convinced me that the mighty lions of bureaucracy would look up from their feeding bowls and immediately recognize in me a loyal state servant who deserved a push upwards. I wanted to believe it. However, ringing in my ears were some derisive words from my girlfriend; Helena Justina reckoned my trust in Laeta would come unstuck. Luckily, serious eating in Rome is men's work so Helena had been left at home tonight with a cup of well-watered wine and a cheesy bread roll. I had to spot any frauds for myself.

One thing was completely genuine at the Baetican Society: adorning their borrowed Augustan serving platters and nestling amongst sumptuous garnishes in ex-Neronian gilt comports, the food was superb. Peppery cold collations were already smiling up at us from low tables; hot meats in double sauces were being kept warm on complex charcoal heaters. It was a large gathering. Groups of dining couches stood in several rooms, arranged around the low tables where this luxurious fare was to be served.

"Rather more than a classic set of nine dinner guests!" boasted Laeta proudly. This was clearly his pet club.

"Tell me about the Society."

"Well it was founded by one of the Pompeys—" He had bagged us two places where the selection of sliced Baetican ham looked particularly tempting. He nodded to the diners whose couches we had joined: other senior clerks. (They mass together like woodlice.) Like him they were impatiently signaling to the slaves to start serving, even though people had still to find places around other tables. Laeta introduced me. "Marcus Didius Falco—an interesting young man. Falco has been to various trouble spots abroad on behalf of our friends in intelligence." I sensed an atmosphere—not hostile, but significant. Internal jealousy, without doubt. There was no love lost between the correspondence secretariat and the spies' network. I felt myself being scrutinized with interest—an uneasy sensation.

Laeta mentioned his friends' names, which I did not bother to memorize. These were just scroll-shufflers. I wanted to meet men with the kind of status owned by the great imperial ministers of olden days—Narcissus or Pallas: holding the kind of position Laeta obviously craved himself.

Small talk resumed. Thanks to my ill-placed curiosity I had to endure a rambling discussion of whether the Society had been founded by Pompey the Great (whom the Senate had honored with control of both Spanish provinces) or Pompey the rival of Caesar (who had made Baetica his personal base).

"So who are your members?" I murmured, trying to rush this along. "You can't be supporting the Pompeys now?" Not since the Pompeys fell from grace with a resounding thud. "I gather then that we're here to promote trade with Spain?"

"Jove forbid!" shuddered one of the high-flown policy-formers. "We're here to enjoy ourselves amongst friends!"

"Ah!" Sorry I blundered. (Well, not very sorry; I enjoy prodding sore spots.)

"Disregard the name of the Society," smiled Laeta, at his most urbane. "That's a historical accident. Old contacts do enable us to draw on the best resources of the province for our menu—but the original aim was simply to provide a legitimate meeting ground in Rome for like-minded men."

I smiled too. I knew the scenario. He meant men with like-minded politics.

A frisson of danger attended this group. Dining in large numbers—or congregating in private for any purpose at all—was outlawed; Rome had always discouraged organized factions. Only guilds of particular merchants or craftsmen were permitted to escape their wives for regular feasting together. Even they had to make themselves sound serious by stressing that their main business was collecting contributions for their funeral club.

"So I need not really expect to meet any substantial exporters of Spanish olive oil?"

"Oh no!" Laeta pretended to look shocked. Someone muttered to him in an undertone; he winced, then said to me, "Well, sometimes a determined group of Baeticans manages to squeeze in; we do have some here tonight."

"So thoughtless!" another of the scroll-pushers sympathized dryly. "Somebody needs to explain to the social elite of Corduba and Gades that the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers can manage quite well without any members who actually hail from southern Spain!"

My query had been sheer wickedness. I knew that among the snobs of Rome—and freed slaves were of course the most snobbish people around—there was strong feeling about pushy provincials. In the Celtic faction, the Spanish had been at it far longer than the Gauls or British so they had honed their act. Since their first admission to Roman society sixty or seventy years ago, they had packed the Senate, plucked the plum salaried jobs in the equestrian ranks, conquered literary life with a galaxy of poets and rhetoricians, and now apparently their commercial tycoons were swarming everywhere too.

"Bloody Quinctius parading his retinue of clients again!" mut-

tered one of the scribes, and lips were pursed in unison sympathetically.

I'm a polite lad. To lighten the atmosphere I commented, "Their oil does seem to be high quality." I collected a smear on one finger to lick, taking it from the watercress salad. The taste was full of warmth and sunshine.

"Liquid gold!" Laeta spoke with greater respect than I anticipated from a freedman discussing commerce. Perhaps this was a pointer to the new realism under Vespasian. (The Emperor came from a middle-class family, and he at least knew exactly why commodities were important to Rome.)

"Very fine—both on the food and in the lamps." Our evening was being lit with a wide variety of hanging and standard lights, all burning with steady clarity and of course, no smell. "Nice olives, too." I took one from a garnish dish, then went back for more.

"Didius Falco is famous for political analysis," commented Laeta to the others. News to me. If I was famous for anything it was cornering confidence tricksters and kicking the feet from under criminals. That, and stealing a senators daughter from her lovely home and her caring relatives: an act which some would say had made me a criminal myself.