'Eight thousand, five hundred,' said Crassus. 'My final offer. Better than the value of the raw land, which is all that may be left. Consider the expense of having the rubble carted off' He stared into the conflagration and shook his head. 'Eight thousand denarii, no more. Take it now if you're interested. Once the flames start in earnest I won't offer you an as.'

The greybeard wore an expression of agony. A few thousand denarii was hardly adequate compensation. But if the building was gutted it would be utterly worthless.

Crassus called to his secretary. 'Gather up my retinue. Tell them to be ready to move on. I came here to buy, not to watch a building go up in flames.'

The greybeard broke down. He clutched at Crassus's sleeve and nodded. Crassus made a sign to his secretary, who instantly produced a fat purse and paid the man on the spot.

Crassus raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately his entire retinue went into action. Gladiators and slaves scurried about the building like ants, seizing buckets from the hands of exhausted volunteers, tearing up paving stones and throwing rocks, dirt, and anything else that would not burn into the breach between the buildings.

Crassus turned on his heel and walked straight towards us. I had seen him many times in the Forum, but never so close. He was not a bad-looking man, slightly older than myself, with thinning hair, a strong nose, and prominent jaw. 'Citizen!' he called to me. 'Join the battle. I'll pay you ten times a workman's daily wage, half now and half later, and the same for your slave.'

I was too stunned to answer. Crassus walked on, unperturbed. making the same offer to every able-bodied man in the crowd. His secretary followed behind, disbursing payments.

'They must have seen the smoke and come straight over, the hill from the Forum,' Tiro said.

'A chance to buy property at the foot of the Capitoline for next to nothing — why not? I hear he keeps slaves posted on the hilltops to watch for fires such as this, so that he can be first on the spot to buy up the spoils.'

'It's not the worst stories they tell about Crassus.' Tiro's face turned livid, either from my sudden scrutiny or from the heat of the flames.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, only that he made his fortune by profiting from the proscriptions. When Sulla had his enemies beheaded, their property was confiscated by the state. Whole estates went up on the auction blocks. Sulla's friends were able to buy them for scandalous prices. Everyone else was afraid to bid.'

'Everyone knows that’ Tiro.'

'But Crassus finally went too far. Even for Sulla.'

'How?'

Tiro lowered his voice, though no one could possibly have heard us amid the rumble of the flames and the sudden din of Crassus's hirelings. 'I overhead Rufus telling my master one day. Rufus is connected to Sulla by marriage, you know, through his sister Valeria; he hears all sorts of things that otherwise would never leave Sulla's house.'

‘Yes, go on.'

"The story goes that Crassus had an innocent man's name added to the proscription lists, just so he could get his hands on the man's property. This was an old patrician who had no one to protect his interests; his sons had been killed in the wars — fighting for Sulla! The poor man was rounded up by thugs and his head was chopped off that very day. His estates were auctioned off a few days later, and Crassus saw to it that no one else was allowed to bid. The proscriptions were strictly for political enemies, and terrible enough, but Crassus used them to satisfy his own greed. Sulla was furious, or pretended to be, and hasn't let him run for a public office since, for fear that the scandal will come out.'

I searched the busy crowd for Crassus. He stood amid the swirling mass of slaves and gladiators, heedless of the confusion, staring wide-eyed and smiling like a proud parent at his latest acquisition. I turned around and followed his gaze. As we watched, the wall of the flaming tenement gave way and fell in on itself with a great shudder and a shower of sparks. The fire was contained. The smaller building would not be lost.

I looked again at Crassus. His face was flushed with an almost religious joy — the ecstasy of a bargain well and truly struck. In the reddish glow of the bonfire his face looked smooth and younger than its age, flushed with victory, set about eyes that glittered with an unquenchable greed. I stared into the face of Marcus Licinius Crassus, and I saw the future of Rome.

14

Cicero was still in seclusion when I returned with Tiro to the house on the Capitoline. The old manservant solemnly informed us that his master had stirred before midday and managed to descend to the Forum to conduct some business, but had returned after only a short while, weakened by the disquiet in his bowels and exhausted from the heat. Cicero had retired to his bed with word that not even Tiro should disturb him. It was just as well. I had no stomach for reciting the day's events and parading the players before Cicero's caustic eye.

Tiro assumed authority to offer me food and drink, and even a bed if I felt too weary to make my way home. I declined. He asked at what hour he should expect me the next day. I told him he would not be seeing me at all until the day after, at the earliest. I had decided to pay a visit to the town of Ameria and the country estates of Sextus Roscius.

The stroll down the hill and through the Forum refreshed my mind. The dining hour approached, and an evening breeze carried scents of cooking from every corner. The Forum had reached the end of another long day of business. The lowering sun cast long shadows across the open squares. Here and there business continued in an informal vein. Bankers gathered in small groups at the foot of the temple steps to exchange the final gossip of the day; passing friends exchanged last-minute invitations to dinner; a few stray beggars sat in tucked-away corners counting the day's revenue.

Rome is perhaps most appealing at this hour. The mad

trafficking of the day is done, the languor of the warm night still lies ahead. Duskin Rome is a meditation on victories accomplished and pleasures yet to come. Never mind that the victories may have been trivial and impermanent, or that the pleasures may fail to satisfy. At this hour Rome is at peace with herself. Are the monuments to the gods and heroes of her past pitted with corrosion and weathered by neglect? In this light they appear newly hewn, their crumbling edges made smooth and their fissures erased by gentle twilight. Is her future uncertain, unforeseen, a feverish leap into darkness? At this hour the darkness looms but does not yet descend, and Rome may well imagine it will bring her only sweet dreams, dispensing its nightmares to her subjects.

I left the Forum for more common streets. I found myself wishing that the sun could stand still on the horizon, like a ball come to rest on a windowsill, so that twilight might linger indefinitely. What a mysterious city Rome would become then, perpetually bathed in blue shadow, her weed-ruptured alleyways as cool and fragrant as mossy riverbanks, her great avenues pocked with deep shadows where the narrower tributaries lead off to those place where the masses of Rome are constantly getting and begetting themselves.

I came to that long, serpentine, unrelieved passageway through which I had taken Tiro the day before, the Narrows. Here the sense of peace and serene expectation wavered and abandoned me. To traverse the Narrows while the sun is still rising is one thing; to pass through while the light fails is another. Within a few steps I was already plunged into premature night, with black walls on either side, an uncertain greyness ahead and behind, and a thin ribbon of twilight-blue sky above.