His knowledge of Greek was weak, and so I suggested, “Let us speak your own language, that I may understand you better.”
He began to speak the language of the city which sounded as harsh and merciless as its residents were said to be. I shook my head. “I understand not a word. Let us speak the old and true language. I have learned it somewhat by associating with an Etruscan.”
In talking with the merchant it had been as though the Etruscan that I had learned from Lars Alsir in Himera had burst forth again after years of dormancy. Or as though I had once known the language and then forgotten it. The words had come to my lips so easily that the merchant had gradually stopped speaking the polyglot language of the sea and begun speaking his own language with me.
The old man waxed even more interested. “You are truly an exceptional Greek if you know the holy language. I myself am an Etruscan and a real augur, not one who merely recites by rote. Don’t despise me even though my weak eyes make it necessary for me to seek a livelihood since people no longer come to me.”
He shaded his eyes with a hand, looked closely at me and asked, “Where have I seen your face before and why is it so familiar to me?”
Although such talk is usual on the part of wandering seers in every country, he spoke so sincerely and was such a venerable old man despite his poverty that I believed him. I did not, however, reveal my certainty that the gods had sent him to me at that precise moment and place.
Arsinoe immediately became envious, thrust her beautiful face before the old man’s nose and demanded, “What of me? Don’t you recognize my face, if you are a true augur?”
The old man put his hand to his forehead, stared into her eyes and began to tremble. “Of course I recognize you, and the days of my youth return to me when I look at your face. Are you not Calpurnia whom I met by the spring in the woods?”
He recovered himself and shook his head. “No, you cannot be Calpurnia, for she would be an old woman if she were alive. But in your face, woman, I see all the women who have made me tremble during my lifetime. Are you perhaps the goddess herself in a woman’s guise?”
Arsinoe laughed delightedly, touched his arm and said to me, “This old man pleases me. He is surely a true augur. Let him study the omens for you, Turms.”
But the augur was staring at me again in bewilderment. “Where is it that I have seen your face?” he asked in Etruscan. “I seem to remember having seen a smiling likeness of you during my travels to the holy cities to learn my profession.”
I laughed again. “You are mistaken, old man. I have never even visited any Etruscan cities. If you really recognize my face, you have perhaps seen me in a dream to enable you to give me my omens.”
He drooped again and the glow in him was extinguished. Humbly he said, “If that is so and you desire it, I shall study the omens gratuitously, although I have not eaten much these past days. Some soup would strengthen my body and a drop of wine would cheer an old man’s mind. But don’t consider me a troublesome beggar even though I do reveal my need.”
“Don’t worry, old man,” I assured him. “I shall reward you for your trouble. It would not even become my dignity to accept something free. I myself am a giver of gifts.”
“Giver of gifts,” he repeated and raised his hand to his mouth. “Where have you learned those words and how dare you say that of yourself. Aren’t you a Greek after all?”
I realized from his alarm that I had unwittingly used the secret name of some Etruscan god, but how the words had come to me I did not know. Nevertheless I laughed, placed my hand on his shoulder and said reassuringly, “I speak your language poorly and use the wrong words. In no way do I want to insult you or your religion.”
“No,” he protested, “your words were correct but in the wrong place. They are the words of the holy Lucumones. Times are bad and we are living in the day of the wolf, if even a stranger can repeat holy words like a raven which has learned to talk.”
I did not take offense at his abuse. Instead I asked with curiosity, “Who are the Lucumones? Explain the matter to me so that I will never again err in using the right words in the wrong place.”
He looked at me with hostility and explained, “The Lucumones are the holy rulers of the Etruscans. But they are born rarely these days.”
We soon found ourselves in that part of the city where the visiting peasants and cattle merchants, had their lodgings. But the hairy-armed innkeepers tempting us with their ladles did not please us nor did I understand their language. The narrow alleys were dirty and muddy, and Arsinoe declared that she could see from the women’s faces what profession they practiced. The place, which the old man called Suburra, had been cursed and the only people who lived there were the disreputable elements and the people of the circus.
The old man showed us the altar which the Greeks had erected to Herakles and asked us whether we desired to find lodgings among the Greeks who had come there as exiles to practice their various trades. The altar looked quite ancient and the augur explained that, according to the Greeks, the founders of Rome were the descendants of Aeneas who had fled there following the fall of Troy.
“Let him who will, believe it,” he said. “The Greeks are talkative tellers of tales and quickly infect the primitive peoples with their customs wherever they may settle. If it did not offend you I would say that the Greeks with their customs are everywhere like a contagious disease.”
“You don’t offend me and I don’t want to live among the Greeks,” I said.
He explained that Rome also had Phoenician merchants and artisans who had come there both from the eastern lands and from Carthage. But I did not wish to live among them, either. Finally the old man showed us an ancient fig tree to whose foot the newly born twin brothers Romulus and Remus had drifted in their willow basket in the flood. There the she-wolf had suckled them until their rescue by shepherds.
“Their names have been distorted,” declared the old man. “Their real names were Ramon and Remon for the two rivers, until the river Ramon straightened its course and overcame Remon. Now the Romans call it the Tiber, for a certain Tiburinus who was drowned in it.”
I noticed that as we had talked we had reached a street paved with flagstones. The old man explained that this was the Etruscan quarter and that the street was called the Vicus Tuscus because the Romans called the Etruscans “Tuscans.” Here lived the wealthiest merchants, the most skilled artisans and the old Etruscan families of Rome. They comprised one third of Rome’s noble families, just as one third of the Roman cavalry consisted of descendants of old Etruscan families.
Looking around him the augur said, “My feet are tired and my mouth is dry from much talking.”
“Do you think that some Etruscan would consent to give lodgings to me and my family although I am an alien?” I asked.
He did not wait for more but immediately rapped with his crook on a painted gate, entered and led us to a pillared, half-covered court with a rain-water pool in the center and the household gods on their altars along the edge. Around the court were buildings which were rented to travelers, while the main house contained a number of rooms with wall paintings, tables and seats. The innkeeper was a reserved man and did not greet the old augur with great warmth. But when he had studied us he accepted us as his guests and bade his slaves prepare food. Leaving Hanna and Misme in one of the buildings in the yard to guard our possessions, we went inside to eat.
The room contained two couches, and the augur explained, “The Etruscans permit a woman to eat in the same room with men, reclining on a couch. She may even lie on the same couch with her husband if she wishes. The Greeks permit a woman merely to sit in the same room, but the Romans consider it indecent for a woman to eat in the company of a man.”