Gelina glanced over her shoulder at the slave who had retrieved the olive pit, and who now was retreating with a tray towards the kitchens. 'Do you think it's wise to carry on such discussions, considering

Crassus snorted and leaned back on his couch. 'Really, Gelina, if a Roman cannot discuss the nature of property in the presence of property, then we have come to a sad pass. Everything Fabius says is true. As for Dionysius and his notion about some sort of vague continuity between slave revolts, the idea is absurd. Slaves have no link with the past; how can they, when they don't even know the names of their ancestors? They're like mushrooms; they spring from the earth in vast numbers at the whim of the gods. What is their purpose? To serve as the tools of men greater than themselves, so that those men can realize their greater ambitions.

Slaves are the human implements given to us by that divine will which inspires great men and enriches a great republic like our own. They have no past, and the past does not concern them. Nor do slaves have a sense of the future; otherwise Spartacus and his ilk would know that they are doomed to a fate far worse than the one they thought they were escaping when they turned on their masters.'

'Hear, hear!' said Mummius tipsily, banging his cup on the table. Metrobius shot him a withering glance and started to speak, then thought better of it.

'The common slave who labours in the fields lives from day to day,' Crassus continued, 'conscious of very little beyond his immediate needs and the necessity of satisfying his master. Contentment, or at least resignation, is the natural condition of slavery; for such men to rise up and kill their betters is in fact unnatural, or else it would happen all the time and slavery could not exist, which means that civilization could not exist. The revolt of Spartacus, like that of the wizard Eunus and a handful of others, is an aberration, a perversion, a rent in the fabric of the cosmos woven by the Fates.'

Dionysius leaned forward, gazing at Crassus with cloying admiration. 'You are truly the man of the hour, Marcus Crassus. Not only a statesman and a general, but a philosopher as well. There are those who would say, however perversely, that Spartacus is the man of the hour, that he dictates the agenda of our hopes and fears, but I think that Rome will soon forget about him in the splendour of your victory. Law and order will be restored and all will be as if Spartacus never existed.'

'Hear, hear!' said Mummius.

Dionysius leaned back and smiled coyly. 'I wonder where the wretch Spartacus is at diis very moment?'

'Holed up near Thurii,' said Mummius.

'Yes, but what is he doing even as we speak? Does he gorge himself on stolen victuals, gloating to his men about stolen victories? Or has he retired to bed already – after all, what kind of conversation can uneducated slaves enjoy to keep them up past dark? I imagine him lying awake in the darkness, restless and far from sleep, vaguely troubled by an intuition of what Fortune and

Marcus Crassus have in store for him. Does he he within a tent that reeks of his own foul smell? Or upon hard stones beneath a starry sky – no, surely not, for then he would be naked to the sight of the gods who despise him. I think such a man must sleep in a cave, burrowed into the dank earth like the wild beast he is.'

Mummius laughed curtly. 'There's nothing so awful about sleeping in caves. Not from the stories I've heard about a certain great man in his younger days.' He cast a shrewd eye at Crassus, who grudgingly smiled.

Dionysius pursed his lips to suppress his own smile of triumph at this turn in the conversation, which he had obviously intended and in which Mummius was his unwitting accomplice. He leaned back and nodded. 'Ah, yes, how could I have forgotten such a charming tale? It was in the bad old days before Sulla, when the tyrants Cinna and Marius, enemies of all die Licinii, spread terror through the Republic. They drove Crassus's father to suicide and killed his brother, and young Marcus – you must have been no more than twenty-five? – was forced to flee to Spain for his life.'

'Really, Dionysius, I think that everyone here has heard the story too many times already.' Crassus tried to sound bored and disapproving, but the smile at the corners of his lips betrayed him. It seemed to me that he was as aware as I that Dionysius had contrived to bring up the subject to make his own as yet unspoken point, but the memory of the story clearly pleased Crassus too much for him to resist having it told again.

Dionysius pressed on. 'Surely not everyone has heard the tale – Gordianus for one, and his son Eco. The tale of the cave,' he explained, looking at me.

'It sounds vaguely familiar,' I admitted. 'Some bit of gossip overheard in the Forum, perhaps.'

'And Iaia and her young protegee – surely the story of Crassus in the sea cave would be new to them.' Dionysius turned toward the women with a look that was strangely like a leer. Their reaction was equally strange. Olympias blushed a deeper red while Iaia blanched and drew herself up stiffly. 'I know the story quite well,' she protested.

'Well, then, for Gordianus's sake it should be told. When the young Crassus arrived in Spain, a fugitive from the depredations of Marius and Cinna, he might have expected to be warmly greeted. His family had old connections; his father had served as praetor in Spain, and Marcus had spent time there as a youth. Instead he found the Roman colonists and their subjects overawed by their fear of Marius; no one would speak to him, much less help him, and indeed there was considerable danger that someone would betray him and deliver his head to the partisans of Marius. So he fled the town, but not alone – you had arrived with some companions, had you not?'

'Three friends and ten slaves,' said Crassus.

'Yes, so he fled the town with his three friends and ten slaves and journeyed down the coast, until he came to the property of an old acquaintance of his father's. The name eludes me…'

'Vibius Paciacus,' said Crassus, with a wistful smile.

'Ah, yes, Vibius. Now there happened to be a large cave on the property, right on the seashore, which Crassus remembered from his boyhood. He decided to hide there with his company for a while, without telling Vibius, seeing no reason to endanger his old friend. But eventually their provisions ran out, so Crassus sent a slave to Vibius to sound him out. The old man was delighted to learn that Crassus had escaped and was safe. He inquired after the size of the company and, though he did not go himself, he ordered his bailiff to have food prepared each day and to deliver it to a secluded spot on the cliffs. Vibius threatened the bailiff with death if he poked his nose any further into the business or started spreading rumours, and promised him freedom if he carried out his orders faithfully. In time the man also brought books, leather balls for playing trigon, and other diversions, never seeing the fugitives or where they were hidden. The cave itself-'

'Oh, that cave!' interrupted Crassus. 'I had played there as a boy, when it seemed as mysterious and haunting as the cave of the Sibyl. It's very near the sea, but safely high above the beach, surrounded by steep cliffs. The path that leads down to its mouth is steep and narrow, hard to find; inside, it opens to an amazing height, with chambers off to each side. A clear spring emerges from the base of the cliffs, so there's plenty of water. Fissures pierce the rock, so there's plenty of daylight but also protection from wind and rain. Not at all a damp or dank place, thanks to the thickness of the stone walls; the air was quite dry and pure. I felt like a child again, free from all the cares of the world, safely hidden. The months before had been a terrifying ordeal, with the death of my father and my brother, and the panic in Rome. There were melancholy days in the cave, but there was also a feeling that time had stopped, that for the moment nothing was wanted of me, neither grief nor revenge nor struggling for a place in the world. I think my friends grew quite bored and restive, and there was hardly enough for the slaves to do, but for me it was a time of rest and seclusion, sorely needed.'