He made a slight grimace. 'Not wrong at all. Between the pirates at sea and Spartacus inland, trade everywhere in Campania has come to a standstill. Hardly anything moves on the roads or the sea lanes – which makes it all the more amazing that Marcus was willing to send the Fury after you.'

'By Marcus you mean Marcus Mummius?'

'Of course not; Mumrnius doesn't own a trireme! I mean Marcus Crassus.' Fabius smiled thinly. 'Oh, but you weren't supposed to know that, were you, at least not until you landed? Well, here we are. Hold on for the jolt – these clumsy rowers, you'd think they were trying to ram an enemy vessel. A stint on the Fury might do them some good.' I saw the slaves at the oars cower, or pretend to.

As we stepped onto the dock I looked back again at the harbour. 'You mean to say there's no trade at all these days?'

Fabius shrugged. I ascribed his grimace to the patricians' traditional disdain for all matters of commerce. 'Sailboats and skiffs shuttle back and forth across the Cup, of course, exchanging goods and passengers between the villages,' he said. 'But it's a rarer and rarer occurrence to see a big ship from Egypt or Africa or even Spain come in from the sea headed for the big docks at Puteoli. Of course, in another few weeks travel by sea will stop altogether for the winter. As for goods from inland, all of the south of Italy is under the shadow of Spartacus now. He's made his winter stronghold in the mountains around Thurii, after spending all summer terrorizing the region east of Vesuvius. Crops were destroyed, farms and villas were burned to the ground. The markets are empty. It's a good thing the locals needn't live off bread; no one around here will starve so long as there are fish in the Cup or oysters in Lake Lucrinus.'

He turned and led us across the dock. 'I don't suppose there are any shortages in Rome, despite the troubles? Shortages are not allowed in Rome.'

' "The people fear, but suffer not," ' I quoted from a recent speech I had heard in the Forum.

Fabius snorted. 'It's just like the Senate. They'll go to any lengths to see that the rabble in Rome remains comfortable. Meanwhile, they can't manage to send a decent commander against either Spartacus or the pirates. What a congregation of incompetents! Rome has never been the same since Sulla opened the doors of the Senate as a reward to all his rich cronies; now trinket salesmen and olive oil merchants line up to give speeches, while gladiators rape the countryside. It's only luck that Spartacus has so far lacked either the brains or the nerve to march on Rome itself.'

'That possibility is discussed daily.'

'I'm sure it is. What else do Romans have to talk about these days, between plates of caviar and stuffed quail?'

'Pompey is always a popular subject for gossip,' I offered. 'They say he's almost put down the rebels in Spain. Popular opinion looks to Pompey to hurry back and put an end to Spartacus.'

'Pompey!' Faustus Fabius infused the name with almost as much disdain as had Marcus Mummius. 'Not that he doesn't come from a good family, of course, and no one can discount his military achievements. But for once Pompey is not the right man in the right place at the right time.'

'And who is?'

Fabius smiled and dilated his broad nostrils. 'You'll be meeting him shortly.'

Horses awaited us. Accompanied by Fabius's bodyguard, we rode through the village of Misenum and then headed north on a stone-paved road beside the broad, muddy beach. At length the road turned inland from the beach and ascended a low wooded ridge. On either side, through the trees, I began to glimpse great houses, set far apart with cultivated gardens and patches of wilderness between them. Eco widened his eyes. At my side he had met wealthy men and had occasionally been allowed in their homes, but such ostentation as that which thrives on the Cup was new to him. The city houses of the wealthy, set close together with plain facades, do not impose as do their country villas. Away from the jealous eyes of the urban masses, in settings where no one but slaves or visitors as wealthy as themselves are likely to come knocking, the great Romans show no fear in advertising their taste and their ability to pay for it. Old-fashioned orators in the Forum say that wealth did not flaunt itself in earlier days, but in my lifetime gold has never been afraid to show its face, especially on the Bay of Luxury.

Faustus Fabius set a leisurely pace. If this errand was urgent, he did not show it. There seems to be something in the very air of the Campanian coast that relaxes even the most harried of city dwellers from the north. I sensed it myself – a crispness in the pine-scented air spiced with sea spray, a special clarity of sunlight charging the sky and reflected from the vast bowl of the bay, a feeling of harmony with the gods of earth, air, fire, and water. Such contentment loosens tongues, and I found it easy to open up Faustus Fabius by exclaiming at the views and asking a few questions about the topography and the local cuisine. He was a Roman through and through, but clearly he visited the region often enough to have a thorough knowledge of the coastal Campanians and their old Greek customs.

'I must say, Faustus Fabius, my host on land is certainly more informative than the one I had at sea.' He acknowledged the comment with a thin smile and a knowing nod; I could see he had little affection for Marcus Mummius. 'Tell me,' I went on, 'just who is this Mummius?'

Fabius raised his eyebrow. 'I thought you would have known that. Mummius was one of Crassus's proteges in the civil wars; since then he's become Crassus's right-hand man in military affairs. The Mummii aren't a particularly distinguished family, but like most Roman families that survive long enough, they do possess at least one famous ancestor. Unfortunately, the fame goes hand in hand with a taint of scandal. Marcus Mummius's great-grandfather was a consul back in the days of the Gracchi; he won triumphs for his campaigns in Spain and Greece. You never heard of Mad Mummius, also known as the Barbarian?'

I shrugged. The minds of patricians are surely different from those of us ordinary men; how else can they effortlessly catalogue so much glory and gossip and scandal about so many ancestors, not just their own but everyone else's? At the least prompting they can recount picayune details of life after life, going all the way back to King Numa and beyond.

Fabius smiled. 'It's unlikely, but if the matter should happen to come up around Marcus, be careful what you say; he's surprisingly sensitive about his ancestor's reputation. Well, then: many years ago this Mad Mummius was commissioned by the Senate to put down the revolt of the Achaean League in Greece. Mummius destroyed them completely, and then systematically looted Corinth before levelling the city and enslaving the populace by senatorial decree.'

'Another glorious chapter in the history of our empire. Surely an ancestor any Roman should be proud of

'Indeed,' said Fabius, his teeth slighdy clenched at the irony in my voice.

'And his butchery earned him the name Mad Mummius?' 'Oh, by Hercules, no. It wasn't his bloodthirstiness or his cruelty. It was the indiscriminate way he handled the works of art he shipped back to Rome. Priceless statuary arrived in pieces, filigreed urns were scarred and scraped, jewels were torn from caskets, precious glassware was shattered. They say the man couldn't tell a Polyclitus from a Polydorus!' 'Imagine that!'

'No, really! They say a Juno by Polyclitus and a Venus by Polydorus each lost her head in transit, and when Mad Mummius was having them reassembled he ordered the workmen to attach the wrong heads to the wrong statues. The error was evident to any fool with two eyes. One of the Corinthian captives, outraged by the blasphemy, advised Mad Mummius of the error, whereupon the general had the old man soundly whipped and sold to the mines. Then he ordered his men to leave the statues exactly as they were, saying he thought they looked better that way.' Fabius shook his head in disgust; to a patrician, a scandal a hundred years ago is still a scandal this morning. 'Old Mummius became known as Mad Mummius, the Barbarian, given that his sensibilities were no better than those of a Thracian or a Gaul. The family has never quite shaken off the embarrassment. A pity, since our Marcus Mummius idolized his ancestor for his military skills, and rightly so.'