• • •

Begrudgingly, a glowering Cicatrix admitted me to my own house. "You've got a visitor," he said in a surly voice, breathing garlic at me.

In the garden, I found Bethesda, Diana, and little Aulus waiting for me. They had been joined by Eco.

"Papa!" He gave me a forlorn look and a bruising hug. "I've heard the news about Davus. Damn Pompey to Hades!"

"Not so loud. Pompey's man is only a few steps away."

"Yes, I saw him on the way in. Mother and Diana explained about that, too. Pompey is such a bully."

"Lower your voice."

Instead Eco spoke louder, as if intentionally pitching his voice for Cicatrix to hear. "Absurd, that a citizen in his own home should have to whisper every time he makes reference to the so-called Great One!"

I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my even-tempered son in such a belligerent mood. The crisis was provoking reactions in all of us. "Did you bring Menenia and the twins with you?" I asked.

"Through that mob in the Forum? No, they're safe at home."

"How are they taking things?"

"Titus and Titania are old enough to know that something's very wrong- you can't hide much from two eleven-year-olds. But they don't really understand what's happening, or likely to happen."

"I'm not sure anyone does, not even Caesar or Pompey. And their mother?"

"Serene as the face of Lake Alba, even though the Menenii are as divided as any family in Rome- some for Pompey, some for Caesar, the rest trying to find a hole to hide in till it's all over. But don't worry about us, Papa. After the Clodian riots, I put a lot of effort and expense into making the old family house secure. It's practically a fortress now, there are so many bars on the doors and spikes around the roof. It sounds as if you could have used something to keep climbers off the roof here." He turned his eyes up to the roof surrounding the courtyard. "Too bad about Pompey's unfortunate kinsman. And the outrage of it, that Pompey should use such a tragedy to force you into his service, and practically kidnap Davus-"

"What's done is done," I said.

He nodded. "Just another problem to be solved, eh? You always told me there was no such thing as a big problem, just lots of smaller problems intertwined, like knots in a rope. Start at one end and work your way to the other. A good attitude to have when the whole world is falling apart. Where shall we start?"

"You should start by going home to Menenia and the twins. We may be in for a dangerous night."

"But what about our problem with-"

"Satisfying Pompey and getting Davus back is not our problem, Eco. It's my problem. I'm responsible for what happened. I'll find a way out of it."

Diana spoke up. "Papa, don't be silly. You'll need Eco to-"

"No. I won't have him involved in this. So far, neither Pompey nor Caesar has any particular claim on Eco. Let's keep it that way."

Eco shook his head and started to speak, but I raised my hand. "No, Eco. You have your own family, your own problems. Who knows what may happen in the coming days and months? It's best that you remain as independent as you can, for as long as you can. In the long run, that may help to save us all."

I could see they were not satisfied, but even in a family as unconventional as mine, as unmindful of "traditional Roman values," as the report in Numerius's shoe had put it, there is a point beyond which the will of the paterfamilias cannot be disputed. I had a hard time seeing myself as a stern Roman father in the mold of the elder Cato, but if pressed I can perform a convincing enough imitation. Eco and Diana fell silent.

Two others in the garden were unawed, however. Little Aulus, paying no attention to me at all, tripped over one of his feet and burst into screams. Bethesda crossed her arms and peered at me. "What about tonight?" she said. "If the city is as dangerous as you say, what shall we do? Without Davus there's not a bodyguard in the house, unless you count that monster Pompey left at the front door."

"I doubt if anyone is likely to slip by Cicatrix, wife."

"Unless they come over the roof, husband," she said wryly.

"I suppose Mopsus and Androcles could at least keep watch," I said dubiously.

"I can spare a man to come over and help protect the house," offered Eco. "You could post him here in the courtyard, or up on the roof."

"For that I'd be grateful," I said, laying aside my mantle as paterfamilias with the relief one feels at taking off an uncomfortable pair of shoes.

"And if things grow even worse?" asked Bethesda.

"Perhaps we'll all take refuge in Eco's house on the Esquiline, since it's more defensible. But it may not come to that. These rumors about Caesar may be only rumors. He may have withdrawn beyond the Rubicon, for all we know."

"But with so many abandoned houses, isn't there likely to be looting?" observed Diana, between making faces at Aulus to distract him.

"Perhaps not. The rich have left factotums and gladiators to guard their property. A few would-be looters hung in the streets may be enough to keep things quiet."

Bethesda looked down her nose. "Rome is as bad now as Alexandria was when I was a girl. Worse! Riots and assassinations and insurrections, one after another, and no end in sight."

"I suppose it will end only when either Pompey or Caesar is dead," said Eco. He lowered his voice without being asked.

"I'm afraid that might be only the beginning," I said. "If Cicero is right, it's inevitable that one or the other will make himself dictator, and not for a year or two as Sulla did, but for life. Romans may have forgotten how to run a republic, but they certainly can't remember how to live under a king. The end of this crisis may mark the start of another, far worse."

"What a time for Aulus to grow up in," said Diana. Cicero had expressed the same anxiety for his expected grandchild. She turned her face away, hiding sudden tears from Aulus, but the boy was not to be fooled. Confusion crossed his face, then he opened his mouth to join her quiet weeping with a pitiful wail of his own. Bethesda hurried over and spread her arms to embrace them both, shooting a sharp glance at me over her shoulder.

Eco and I, with Androcles and Mopsus surreptitiously peering from the doorway, looked on helplessly. What good was the much vaunted power of the paterfamilias, if it could not stop a woman from weeping?

VII

As it turned out, Caesar did not lay siege to Rome that day, nor the next, nor the day after. The remaining days of Januarius slipped past. Every dawn spawned new rumors and fresh panic. Every sunset faded without the arrival of Caesar before the gates.

From south of the city came news that Pompey had joined the loyalist legions in Capua, had appointed Cicero to organize resistance along the Campanian seacoast, and was daily consulting the consuls and the coterie of senators who had fled with him.

The talk of Rome for several days had to do with the famous training school for gladiators in Capua owned by Caesar and notorious for the ferocity of its pupils. First I heard that five thousand gladiators, promised freedom by their master, had broken out, massacred Pompey's troops, and were marching on Rome to rendezvous with Caesar. Then word spread that Pompey had anticipated Caesar's gambit, freed the gladiators himself and enlisted them in his army- over the furious objections of his advisors, who argued that wholesale manumission of slaves in a time of crisis set a dangerous precedent. The last rumor to trickle in- least spectacular and most likely- claimed that the school had been shut down and the gladiators dispersed to various new masters throughout the region, purely as a precautionary measure.