"If I am going to emerge from the festival a hero," I said, "then perhaps you could lend me some more of your luck."
She came into my arms and pressed herself against me, her arms winding around my neck and pulling my head down, first kissing me, then drawing my face into the valley between her breasts. My hands slid over her and the silken gown was like a coating of oil. Voluptuous as she was, her flesh was as firm as that of a young racehorse. My hands tested the firmness of her thighs and buttocks, the rocklike points of her nipples as her tongue played with mine. Then, much too soon, she broke away.
"I must go back. Later, Decius. In two nights, we will have all the time we need." Then she turned and was gone.
I was trembling like a boy who has just had his first, inconclusive experiment with a slave girl. My pulse pounded in my ears and I was sure that my breathing could be heard on the other side of the hedges. I had to readjust my subligaculum before I could return to the house and take my leave. I must have looked a bit wild-eyed and disheveled, but everyone else was far the worse for the wine, so my condition was not remarked upon.
As I made my way home through the dark streets, 1 tried to analyze the things I had seen and heard in the last few days, but Aurelia kept intruding on my thoughts. I was sure that I was missing some terribly obvious things, but my mind never worked properly when I was obsessed with a woman. This may not have been solely a personal failing, as other men have reported similar afflictions.
Whatever my frailties may have been, when I got home I collapsed on my bed in a fever of lust and confusion.
Chapter VII
That year, we held the festival of the October Horse in the Forum. In other years, it was usually held in the Campus Martius, but the augurs had seen signs that were unfavorable to the Campus Martins. Mars wanted the festival held within the city walls this year. In earliest times, the festival had always been in the Forum, but in those days the Forum had been an open field. With its present clutter of public buildings, temples, monuments and speakers' platforms it was a rough place to hold a horse race. But by that time the city was spilling out onto the Campus Martius as well, since it had grown too crowded for the old walls to contain any longer. The old mustering-field for the army was quickly growing as urbanized as the rest of the city.
Holding the race in the Forum was favorable to me in one respect: If it had been in the Campus Martins, the race would have been run in chariots. I was a competent rider, but a wretched charioteer. The chariot has been obsolete for centuries, except for races and ceremonial processions, so I never saw any point in acquiring the skill, although I had taken some lessons out of curiosity. Clodius, on the other hand, was known to practice regularly at the stables of the Greens (he had switched from Red to Green upon becoming a man of the people). It would have been unthinkably disgraceful for any wellborn man to race publicly, but many race-crazed young men practiced assiduously to learn a skill they would never be able to use.
To my further advantage was Clodius himself. He was a bit shorter than I, but of stocky build and he weighed a good many pounds more. Much would depend on the respective strength of the horses we drew. Since they would have been chosen from among the best race-horses of the stables, it was probable that their power would be nearly equal, giving me the advantage.
With half the Subura behind me, I entered the Forum amid thunderous cheers. The whole city seemed to be packed into the ancient city center, or on the balconies and atop the gates and rooftops overlooking it. People had climbed onto the monuments for a better view. Beside me were two other men who would ride for the Subura. They were both handlers for the Circus, expert riders.
Mars in those days was still an extramural god, and had no altar within the city except for a shrine in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, so a temporary altar had been erected in front of the Rostra , similar to the permanent altar on the Campus Martins. There stood the Flamen Martialis and his attendants, ready to conduct the ceremony. Behind the priest, on the Rostra, stood the magistrates of state and the other pontifices and flamines, the augurs, and a few privileged foreigners.
Approaching from the other end of the Forum I saw Publius Clodius and his two companions, backed by the dwellers of the Via Sacra. Like mine, most of his followers were young men, excited and ready for a brawl. Clodius was still a rather handsome young man, despite some marks I had put on his face and which were always a great joy for me to look upon. I was pleased to note that he had added a pound or two since I had last seen him. In keeping with the solemnity of the occasion, we didn't make faces at each other, but maintained an impassive, hieratic demeanor.
I stepped onto the low dais that had been erected for the altar and stood there with the other five riders. My father was there, along with the fathers of two of the other men. Since, by the well-known Roman legal fiction, we were still our fathers' property, the three fathers and the flamen had to go through a certain mummery temporarily releasing us to the service of the god. When that was done, my father came to me and said: "This is a damnably risky business, but they'll remember it in the tribal assemblies when it comes time for you to stand for the aedileship. Just be careful and let the others take the risks, as much as possible." Then he left the dais. Father had a wonderfully political way of looking at everything. Anything short of death was acceptable to him, so long as it helped you get elected.
Then the flamen's attendants stripped us of our tunics. This was an ancient practice, but the main reason for it was to ensure that we were not wearing armor or concealed weapons beneath our outer garments. Only a subligaculum was permitted, and even that was discreetly searched lest we be concealing some amulet or charm intended to put a curse on a rival. During this stage of the proceedings I was pleased to note that I looked far better thus unclad than Clodius, with his extra poundage. He was a powerful man, though, and not to be underestimated. I did not shine so well in comparison to the other four, all of whom were as well conditioned as any professional athlete.
As the others were being searched I looked out over the crowd. Besides the Suburans, I had other supporters. I saw Milo and a large group of his thugs. The enmity between Clodius and me was as the love of brothers compared to what lay between him and Milo. A number of Catilina's men were there as promised, including Valgius and Thorius, the bearded lovelies who had followed Aurelia. The sight of Valgius tickled something in my memory, but he also made me think of Aurelia, which was something I was doing too much of already. I looked up at the Capitol, where the new image of Jupiter was at last in place, and saw that the repairs to the wall where it had been moved in had been completed. The haruspices had said that the new Jupiter would warn us of dangers to the state. Then I heard the sound of trumpets and a reverent silence fell over the crowd. The ceremony had begun.
Down the Via Sacra came the Palatine Salii, the twelve young patricians who formed the brotherhood of the dancing priests of Mars. Dressed in scarlet tunics and wearing bronze helmets and breastplates of antique design, they performed a slow and solemn war dance to the music of the holy trumpets and wailing flutes. Each bore in his hand one of the sacred spears of Mars, and on his other arm he carried one of the ancilia, the strangely shaped bronze shields of Mars. This was their last ceremony of the year, and they would dance in all the holy places for four more days, at which time the holy shields, spears and trumpets would be purified and stored away in the regia and all worship of Mars would cease for the duration of winter, barring the outbreak of war.