“Our reigning emperor certainly doesn’t suffer from Claudius’s complaint,” observed Dio. “Titus buried his first wife, divorced the second, and, despite his reputed dalliance with the beautiful queen of the Jews – and with brawny Melancomas here – he seems to like eunuchs best of all. Is it true, Martial, that Titus keeps a whole stable of pretty eunuchs in the palace?”
“It’s true. Each is prettier than the other.”
“A fact which provides yet more evidence for my thesis regarding the triumph of Persian standards,” said Dio. “You’d think the emperor would seek another Melancomas. Instead, he surrounds himself with castrated boys.”
Lucius laughed and threw up his hands. “Do you see what’s happened? The conversation veered briefly to politics, then circled directly back to sex.”
“The subject is eunuchs, who have no sex,” said Martial.
“Enough!” declared their host. “To please Lucius Pinarius, we will talk about something else. Surely there must be some other topic worthy of discussion, in a world so enormous.”
“We could talk about the world itself,” suggested Lucius. “Did you know that the general Agricola has discovered that Britannia is an island? It’s true. The land mass to the uttermost north doesn’t go on forever, as people thought. It ends in a stormy, frigid sea.”
Dio laughed. “That information might be of some interest, if anyone had a reason to go to Britannia. I’d much prefer to travel south. Epictetus, you’ve hardly said a word. Didn’t you just come back from Campania?”
“Yes. I took a brief trip down to Herculaneum and Pompeii, and then across the bay to Baiae. I may have found a rather lucrative position in the home of a very wealthy garum maker. His villa is built right next to the manufactory, which stinks of fermenting fish, but the house has a spectacular view of the bay, and the brat I’ll be teaching is not a complete barbarian.”
“But how could you bear to leave the city?” asked Martial.
“Granted, Campania isn’t Roma,” said Epictetus, “but anyone who’s anyone in Roma has a second home on the bay, so interesting people are always coming and going. The social scene is the same as in Roma, but along with dinner parties they have boating excursions and banquets on the beach. Some people live there year-round, like your friend Pliny.”
“You dropped in on him, as I suggested?” said Martial. “Good old Pliny, a bit of a bore but always good for a drop of wine and a bed for the night.”
“I didn’t find him boring at all. In fact, he told me about some rather odd things going on down there.”
“What sort of things?” said Lucius.
“Strange phenomena,” said Epictetus.
“Oh, Pliny loves that sort of thing,” said Martial. “Collects every odd fact in the world and puts them in a book.”
“He’s rather worried about the earthquakes they’ve been having.”
“You’ll have to get used to earthquakes if you move to Campania,” noted Epaphroditus. “There were a couple of big ones back in Nero’s reign. You must remember, Epictetus, you were there with me when Nero performed for the very first time in public, in Neapolis. An earthquake struck the theatre in the middle of his song – the ground surged like a stormy sea – but Nero just kept singing. No one dared to get up! Afterwards, he told me that he considered the earthquake a good omen, because the gods were applauding him by shaking the ground. The moment he was finished, everyone got up and ran for the exits. And no sooner was the place emptied than the whole building collapsed! And what did Nero do? He composed a new song, an ode of thanks to the gods, since they saw fit to stave off the catastrophe until after he finished his performance, and not a single person was injured. Ah, Nero!” Epaphroditus wiped a nostalgic tear from his eye.
Epictetus responded to the story with a brittle smile. Now that he was a freedman, he no longer needed to pretend to share his former master’s fond memories of Nero, but he was discreet enough to keep his opinions about the late emperor to himself. “Yes, earthquakes are common in Campania,” he said, “but lately they’ve been having two or three tremors every day. It was nerve-rattling, let me tell you. And earlier this month, a great many springs and wells in the vicinity ran dry, sources of water that have always been reliable in the past. Pliny says that something must be happening deep in the earth. It has people worried. They say…” He lowered his voice. “They say that gigantic beings have been seen, walking through the cities by night. They skulk in the forests. They even fly through the air.”
“Giants?” said Lucius.
“Titans, one presumes. The gods of Olympus defeated them aeons ago and imprisoned them in Tartarus, the deepest caverns of the underworld. The people in Campania are afraid the Titans have broken free and made their way to the surface. That would explain the tremors and the divergence of the subterranean water channels. These Titans are always seen coming from the direction of Mount Vesuvius.”
“Aren’t there caves at the summit of Vesuvius?” said Lucius. “I know there’s a circular valley with steep sides at the top. The rebel slave Spartacus camped there with his army of gladiators.”
Epaphroditus cocked his head. “You’ve been reading Titus Livius.”
Lucius nodded. “I take down the scrolls I inherited from my father and dip into his history every so often.”
Epictetus continued. “To the locals, Vesuvius is best known for the vineyards and gardens on the slopes. The soil is amazingly fertile. But yes, Spartacus did hide his army there, in the early days of the great slave revolt. It’s a substantial mountain, visible for miles around and far out to sea, but not too difficult to scale because the slope is so gradual. At the top there’s a kind of hollowed-out depression, a desolate, rocky, flat place surrounded by steep, craggy walls – a perfect place for Spartacus to make his camp, since it’s hidden from sight and the walls form a kind of natural parapet all around. It occurs to me that the summit of Vesuvius is not unlike the new amphitheatre over there, if you imagine the amphitheatre set atop a great mountain with the slopes coming up to its rim – though of course the crater atop Vesuvius is much larger. Among the rocks there are fissures that appear to have been singed by flame, as if they once spat fire. You see that sort of phenomenon still active in places all around Campania, but on Vesuvius the fuel long ago gave out and the fissures closed up.”
“Unless they’ve opened up again because these Titans are breaking out,” said Martial.
Epaphroditus shook his head. “I wouldn’t put too much store in these supposed sightings of Titans. It’s my opinion, and I suspect Pliny would agree, that the Titans have long been extinct. Certainly, they once existed: occasionally, excavating deep holes for foundations or canals, people find bones so enormous they can only have belonged to the Titans. But the fact that one finds only bones would indicate that such beings must be extinct.”
“I should think that makes their appearance now all the more disturbing,” said Lucius. “Epictetus just told us that people have reported seeing these giant creatures – in the cities, in the woods, even in the sky. All these rumblings in the earth may be the portents of some terrible event.”
Epaphroditus gave him a quizzical look. Lucius knew what he was thinking. Despite his disavowal of any interest in augury, Lucius had just expressed a belief in divination. Without realizing it, he had slipped a hand inside his toga and was touching the fascinum of his ancestors. He often wore the talisman, though never outside his clothes, where it could be seen.
There was a sudden gust of wind. It was not the mild westerly breeze that had provided some relief from the heat earlier in the day but a stronger, warmer wind from the south. The light changed as well. Though there was not a cloud in the sky, the sun abruptly grew dim, then dimmer still. The sky grew dark. The five friends stopped talking and exchanged uncertain glances.