He looked about him but saw only Tertius Valerius clutching Arsinoe’s hand tightly as though seeking protection. “Perhaps the gods wish you to go to Tertius Valerius’ house. But remember that his oldest brother was a many-time praetor who incurred the wrath of the patricians because of his law of appeal. His other brother has also been a praetor, and this brother’s son Manius even a dictator and so successful in war that an ivory seat of honor at the circus was bestowed on his family. Throughout his life Tertius has striven to equal his brothers. Sheer ambition prompted him to send his sons to the executioner’s pillar when Publius sent his own sons, and to try to watch his sons’ flogging and execution as impassively as his brother. The youths had gathered in secret to pledge their support for the last Tarquinius.”
As the host prattled on, he rapidly entered number after number in Etruscan numerals. Finally he extended the wax tablet to me with a sigh. Both sides were filled from right to left and from bottom to top.
“All this you have eaten and received,” he assured me. “Included also is what your wife and daughter and slave have eaten and what you in your generosity gave to my slaves and to the poor.”
I began to add the figures and was horrified. “You have fed the entire city of Rome at my expense! That was not my intention.”
Arsinoe stroked Tertius Valerius’ veined hand. “Don’t always be so petty, Turms,” she murmured, and tilted her head to catch the old man’s glazed glance.
Tertius Valerius rose immediately and wrapped his purple-bordered toga tightly around himself. “Leave the account to me,” he declared. “The innkeeper can send his slave to my house to fetch the copper. Let us depart.”
I tried to protest but he was stubborn and called us his friends as the host scratched his neck with the stylus in bewilderment and exclaimed, “If I once doubted, I doubt no more! A Roman paying a guest’s account? No, when his head has cleared he will begin to haggle and run my slave back and forth between our houses until my hair turns gray before I get my money.”
The old man angrily snatched the tablet from the host’s hand and with trembling fingers drew his initials in the wax. Then, without another glance at the innkeeper, he seized Arsinoe’s arm.
“You lead me, my dear deceased wife, for I am old and my knees shake. And do not reproach me for my extravagance. It will happen only this once from the sheer joy of meeting you again as youthful and beautiful as you were during our happiest days.”
When I heard that I began to regret my hasty decision but it was too late, for Arsinoe was already leading the old man quickly through the room to the courtyard where his slaves were waiting to carry him home.
The journey was not long, and we soon arrived in the courtyard of Tertius Valerius’ old-fashioned house which, in imitation of his brothers, he had built at the foot of Velia. The gatekeeper slave was as old and trembling as his master and the link fastening his fetter to the gatepost had long ago rotted, so that he wore it only for the sake of appearances when guests arrived. Otherwise he limped about the courtyard or in the street in search of a sunny place in which to warm his aged body.
The slaves carried the litter inside to the court, where Arsinoe gently awakened the old man. We had the slaves lift him into bed and bring a brazier to heat the half-dark room, noticing as they did so that his household, run by decrepit slaves, was badly neglected. With a deep sigh he turned his cheek to the pillow but remembered to tell the slaves to obey us, his guests. Then he motioned us closer, and as we leaned over him he stroked Arsinoe’s hair and from courtesy also mine. Arsinoe laid her hand on his forehead and bade him sleep. He did so immediately.
When we returned to the court I asked the slaves to return to the inn for Hanna, Misme and our goods. Instead, however, they looked at us disdainfully and shook their heads as though they did not comprehend. But the white-haired housekeeper finally bowed his head before my stern look, admitted his Etruscan birth and ordered them to go. He said that he still understood the language well, although Romans avoided speaking it in public following the king’s exile. The more fanatical among them did not even wish their children to learn the old language, he explained, but the truly noble sons of Fathers still sent their own sons either to Veil or Tarquinia for a time in their youth to learn culture and good manners.
“Tell me your name and family and your wife’s name and whence you come, so that I may address you properly,” he said humbly.
I had no desire to conceal my real name from the housekeeper who enjoyed Valerius’ confidence. “I am Turms of Ephesus and an Ionian refugee as you can guess. My wife’s name is Arsinoe. She speaks only Greek and the language of the sea.”
“Turms,” he repeated. “That is no Greek name. How is it possible that an Ionian speaks the holy language?”
“Call me whatever you wish!” I exclaimed, and had to laugh.
In a friendly gesture I placed my hand on his shoulder, but the touch of it made him tremble. “The Romans distort the name Turms into Turnus,” he explained, “and it may be best for you to call yourself Tur-nus here. I will not ask anything more but will serve you as best I can so forgive my curiosity, which is a weakness of old age. I thank you for having deigned to touch me, a lowly person.”
His back erect, he walked effortlessly before us to show us the rooms. I asked him to speak to me in Latin, which was the language of the city, so that I might learn it, and he began by naming every object, first in Latin and then in Etruscan. Arsinoe, too, listened so attentively that I realized that she wished to learn to speak to Tertius Valerius in the city’s own language, and I feared the consequences.
3.
Tertius Valerius did not have another paralytic stroke despite the fervent wishes of his relatives who had long suffered the taunts of the man diey considered simple-minded. Even as a youth he had been so untalented in comparison to both his intelligent brothers that he had been called simply Tertius, the third son, while in the Senate he was known as Brutus, the imbecile.
But he was not untalented. His gifts were merely of another kind than those of his politically astute brothers who performed glorious deeds for Rome and rose to be first among the first. Every man, even an apparently simple one, has his own talent which is peculiar to him and which is perhaps never recognized by those around him if he has no opportunity to reveal it. Others are given the opportunity only once. Such, among the Romans, was the one-eyed Horatius who, although only a stupid, brawny man, remained alone on the Etruscan shore to defend the Roman bridgehead until the others behind him had time to destroy the bridge. Bull-headed stupidity was his talent, even though Lars Porsenna did conquer the city despite his stand.
Such lands and wealth as Tertius Valerius possessed could not have been accumulated by a stupid man. Nor was it ambition, in my opinion, that drove him to yield his sons to the lictors but rather an excessive sense of responsibility as a Roman and a desire to emulate his admired brothers. The Etruscans who were descended from patrician families strove to be even more Roman than the Romans themselves, attempting by their actions to dispel the understandable skepticism of the plebeians. One would have thought that those of Etruscan origin would have desired the return of Etruscan kings to Rome, but they did not. They preferred to rule the city and the people as patricians, senators and state officials.
Because of Arsinoe’s nearness and my simple care, Tertius Valerius quickly recovered from his paralytic stroke and was deeply grateful to us both. When he had emerged from his twilight condition he no longer imagined Arsinoe to be his deceased wife, although he remembered well that he had done so. He believed merely that his wife’s spirit had fleet-ingly transferred herself to Arsinoe’s body so that she might care for him tenderly. He declared himself fortunate to have been able to beg her forgiveness for having disregarded her pleas and sacrificed their sons.