Then I heard another sound, jarringly out of place amid the swelling hubbub of excited male voices in the Forum. It came from nearby, from the little open square in front of the Temple of Vesta. It was a woman, wailing and shrieking.

From the sounds she made, I thought she was being attacked. I stepped away from the group and circled around the temple until I saw her, kneeling on the paving stones at the foot of the temple steps. The others followed me.

When he saw her, Canininus sneered. "Oh, it's only her!"

I stared at the woman in wonder. There was something unnatural about the way she rolled her shoulders and swung her head in a circle. She held her arms aloft, her palms raised to heaven. Her eyes were rolled upward. The wailing I had heard was actually a sort of incantation. As I listened, I began to hear words amid the grunts and shrieks.

"Caesar-Pompey-it comes to this!" she cried. And then, after a long keening moan: "Like vultures they circle over the carcass of Rome-eager to pick the bones clean-wheeling and wheeling until they collide!"

"Who is she, Canininus?" I said.

"How in Hades should I know?" he snapped. "I only know she's been haunting the Forum for the last few days, begging for alms. She seems normal enough, but every now and then, this happens-she goes into a sort of trance and shouts nonsense."

"But who is she? Where did she come from?"

I looked at the others. Manlius shrugged. Volcatius raised a bristling white eyebrow. "I haven't a clue-but she's certainly a tasty-looking morsel!"

I looked back at the woman. She had risen to her feet, but her blue tunica had become tangled at her knees, pulling down the neckline to reveal the cleavage of her breasts. No woman in her right mind would display herself so immodestly in the Forum, and certainly not before the Temple of Vesta. She shook her head back and forth, whipping the air with her unpinned blond tresses.

"She's called Cassandra," said Mopsus.

Why had I even bothered to ask the other graybeards, when Mopsus was present? "Is there anything that goes on in Rome that you don't know, young man?"

He crossed his arms and grinned. "Not much. Cassandra-that's what they call her on account of the way she can see the future. I heard some slaves at the butcher's market talking about her just this morning."

"And what else do you know about her?"

"Well…" He was momentarily stumped, then brightened. "She's very pretty."

"And if she's Roman, she must not be married, or else she'd be wearing a stola instead of a tunica," observed Androcles. His older brother looked chagrined at having missed this deduction.

As we watched, the woman suddenly went limp and collapsed. I was on the verge of going to help her when I saw a figure descending the steps of the temple. It was one of the Vestals, dressed in the traditional costume of the sisterhood that tends the sacred hearth fire of the Roman state. She wore a plain white stola and a white linen mantle about her shoulders. Her hair was cut short, and around her forehead she wore a white band decorated with ribbons. I caught a glimpse of her face and recognized Fabia, the sister-in-law of Cicero. She was quickly followed by two younger Vestals.

The three of them gathered around the prostrate form of the woman called Cassandra. They put their heads together and conferred in low voices. Cassandra stirred and rose to her knees, using her arms to steady herself. She looked dazed. She seemed hardly to notice the Vestals as the three of them helped her to her feet. I could see that Fabia was speaking to her, apparently asking her questions, but Cassandra made no reply. She blinked like a woman waking from a deep slumber and seemed finally to register the presence of the three women surrounding her. She straightened her tunica and her disarrayed hair with awkward, halting movements.

Taking her by the elbows and gently guiding her, talking to her in low voices, the three Vestals led her up the steps and into the Temple of Vesta.

"Well!" said Canininus. "What do you make of that?"

"Perhaps the old virgin wants to ask the young madwoman what it's like to take a man," said Volcatius, leering. "I'll bet that one's had more than her share of men between her legs!"

"Who knows what women talk about when there aren't any men around?" said Manlius.

"Who cares?" said Canininus. "Now that Caesar's about to give Pompey a good thrashing…"

And with that, the conversation turned away from the madwoman, for now, at last, there was the fresh news of Caesar's crossing to give us men something to talk about.

Later that day, at the evening meal, I happened to mention the incident of the madwoman. The family was gathered in the dining room. Shutters were drawn to keep out the cold air from the garden at the center of the house, and a brazier had been lit to heat the room. Bethesda and I shared a couch. Davus and Diana shared the one to our left. Hieronymus reclined alone on the couch to our right.

"Yes, yes, the woman called Cassandra," said Bethesda, putting down her bowl of chick pea soup and nodding. This was before her malady set in, when her appetite was still strong. The soup smelled strongly of black pepper. "I've seen her down in the marketplace."

"Have you? How long has she been about?"

Bethesda shrugged. "Not long. Perhaps a month."

"Have you seen her experience one of these fits?"

"Oh, yes. A bit unnerving the first time you see it. After it passes, she doesn't seem to know what's happened. She gradually comes to her senses and carries on with whatever she was doing before. Begging for alms, usually."

"No one helps her?"

"What's to be done? Some people are frightened by her and move away. Others want to hear what she says and move closer. They say she utters prophecies when she's like that, but I can't make sense of the noises she makes."

"Why didn't you ever mention her to me?"

"What possible interest could you have in such a wretched woman, Husband?" asked Bethesda, lifting her bowl of soup to take another sip.

"But where does she come from? Has she no family? How long has she been experiencing these spells?"

"If you were to ask after every odd character who wanders about the markets nowadays begging for scraps, you should find yourself very busy indeed, Husband. These are hard times. Maimed soldiers, widows, farmers, and shopkeepers who've lost everything to greedy creditors-there's no end to the beggars and vagrants. Cassandra's just one more."

"Mother's right," said Diana. "Sometimes you see whole families wandering about with no place to go, especially down by the river. You feel sorry for them, of course, but what can anyone do? And some of them are dangerous. They look dangerous, anyway. That's why I always take Davus along when we go to the markets."

"Victims of the war," I said, shaking my head. "It was the same when I was your age, Diana, during the first civil war. Refugees from the countryside, runaway slaves, orphans running wild in the streets. Of course, things got even worse after the war." I was remembering Sulla's bloody dictatorship and the heads of his enemies mounted on spikes all over the Forum. "Who named this woman Cassandra, anyway?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

"Some wag in the market, I imagine," said Bethesda.

"People give nick names to the more colorful characters," noted Davus. "There's one they call Cerberus because he barks like a dog; a fellow they call Cyclops because he's got only one eye; and a woman they called the Gorgon because she's so ugly."

"She's not that ugly," objected Diana.

"Oh, yes she is," insisted Davus. "She's as ugly as Cassandra is beautiful."

"And there are even those," said Diana, raising an eyebrow but snuggling closer to him, "who call a certain fellow 'mighty Hercules' behind his back."