He gazed at me angrily, than his features gradually softened. His eyes glistened. A tear ran down one cheek. "I have led an honorable life. I have served Rome to the very best of my ability. I have been generous to my friends, forgiving to my enemies. I love life dearly. At last, I am about to have a child! Why must this shameful fate befall me? If the child is a son, will it befall him as well? My body is still strong; I may live many years yet. What's to become of me in the time I have left, if I lose my senses? Have the gods no mercy?"
I looked upon Lucullus and shivered. I saw a man surrounded by opulence beyond measure, at the summit of his career, adored by the multitude, beloved by his friends-yet utterly alone. Lucullus possessed everything and nothing, because he had no future.
"The gods have much to answer for," I said quietly. "But while you still can, you must struggle against your delusions, especially those which pose a danger to others. Renounce this idea you have about Motho, Lucullus. Say it aloud, so that Marcus can hear."
His face became a tragedy mask. The struggle within him was so great that he trembled. Marcus, weeping more openly than his brother, gripped his arm to steady him.
"Motho… is not Varius. There, I've said it! Though every fiber of my being tells me it's a lie, I'll say it again: Motho is not Varius."
"Say that you won't harm him," I whispered.
Lucullus shut his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. "I shall not harm him!"
I turned and left the brothers alone, to find what comfort they could beneath the branches of the cherry tree called Most-Precious-of-All.
So I came to taste my first cherry; so I made the acquaintance of Lu-cullus, to whom I never spoke again.
The months that followed marked the pinnacle of a life which, to any outsider, must have appeared especially blessed by the gods. Lucullus celebrated a magnificent triumph (at which the rebel general Varius did not appear). Also, a son was born to him, healthy and whole. Lucullus named the boy Marcus, and was said to dote upon him shamelessly. His marriage to Servilia was less happy; he eventually accused her of adultery and divorced her. Whether the charge was true, or the result of a delusion, I never knew.
Those months brought other changes, some very sad. Our conversation about Lucullus was one of my last encounters with my dear friend, Lucius Claudius, who fell dead one autumn afternoon in the Forum, clutching his chest. To my astonishment, Lucius did make me heir to his Etruscan farm-he had not been jesting that day in his garden. At about the same time, Cicero defeated Catilina and won his campaign for the consulship, making him a New Man among the nobility-the first of his family to attain Rome's highest office. Of my move to the Etruscan countryside, and of the great and tragic events of Cicero's consulship, I have written elsewhere.
An era of enormous tumult was beginning. Steadfast Republicans like Cicero and Cato desperately looked to Lucullus, with his immense wealth and prestige, to rise up as a bulwark against the looming ambitions of warlords like Caesar and Pompey. Lucullus failed to meet their expectations. Instead he withdrew more and more from public life into an existence of sensual pleasure and seclusion. People said Lucullus had lost his ambition. Conventional wisdom presumed he had been corrupted by Greek philosophy and Asian luxury. Few knew that his mind had begun rapidly to fail, for Lucullus and Marcus did everything possible to hide that fact for as long as they could.
By the time of his death, several years after I met him, Lucullus was as helpless as a baby, completely under the care of his brother. A curious rumor attended his demise: one of his beloved cherry trees had died, and Lucullus, denied the delicacy he most desired, had lost the will to live.
Lucullus had faded from the scene, but the people of Rome re-called his glory days and reacted strongly to his death. Great funeral games were held, with gladiatorial contests and reenactments on a
massive scale of some of his more famous victories. During the period of public mourning, his gardens were opened to the public. I braved the crowds for the chance to see them again. If anything, the exotic flowers were more beautiful and the foliage more luxuriant than I remembered.
Escaping from the crowd to walk down a secluded pathway, I came upon a gardener on all fours, tending to a rose bush. The slave heard my approach and glanced up at me with his single eye. I smiled, recognizing Motho. I thought he might recognize me in re-turn, but he said nothing, and with hardly a pause he went back to what he was doing.
I walked on, surrounded by the smell of roses.
THE LIF E AND TIMES OF GORDIANUS THE FINDER: A PARTIAL CHRONOLOGY
This list places all the short stories and the novels (published so far) of the Roma Sub Rosa series in chronological order, along with certain seminal events, such as births and deaths. Seasons, months, or (where it is possible to know) specific dates of occurrence are given in parentheses. The short stories previously collected in The House of the Vestals are followed by a double-dagger (}); the stories that appear in the present volume are followed by an asterisk (*).
Gordianus born at Rome
108
Catilina born
106
Cicero born near Arpinum (3 January)Bethesda born at Alexandria
100
Julius Caesar born (traditional date) Events of "The Alexandrian Cat”
Gordianus meets the philosopher Dio and Bethesda in Alexandria
Eco born at Rome
84
Catullus born near Verona 82-80
Dictatorship of Sulla
80
Roman Blood (May); the trial of Sextus Roscius, with Cicero defending
"Death Wears a Mask"} (15-16 September)
Bethesda tells Gordianus "The Tale of the Treasure House"} (summer)
79 Meto born
78 Sulla dies
"A Will Is a Way"} (18-28 May);
Gordianus
meets Lucius Claudius "The Lemures"} (October)
Julius Caesar captured by pirates (winter)
77
"Little Caesar and the Pirates"} (spring/August);
Gordianus meets Belbo "The Consul's Wife"*
"If a Cyclops Could Vanish in the Blink of an Eye"*
"The Disappearance of the Saturnalia Silver"} (December)