“The less you talk about the matter the better,” she said, looking at me with hostility. “You’ve brought ruin to her, but perhaps it would have happened anyhow, sooner or later. You’re still young and I find it hard to believe that you know what you’ve done. Nevertheless, I cannot forgive you. I pray to God that He will forgive you.”
I was filled with dismay and forebodings over this secretiveness. I did not know what to believe. As far as I was concerned I did not feel guilty, for what had happened between Claudia and me had been of her own free will. But I was in a hurry.
After changing my clothes, I went quickly to Palatine to say goodbye to Nero, who said that he envied me my chance of becoming acquainted with ancient Greek culture. Holding my hand as a sign of friendship, he led me to his mother, although Agrippina was busy with Pallas over the treasury accounts. Pallas was considered to be the richest man in Rome. He was so haughty that he never spoke to his slaves, just expressing his desires with hand gestures which everyone had to interpret immediately.
Agrippina was evidently not pleased to be disturbed, but as usual she was pleased to see Nero. She wished me success in my assignment, warned me about the frivolity of Corinth, and hoped that I would seek out the best in Hellenic culture but return a good Roman.
I stammered out something, looking straight at her and making a gesture of appeal. She understood without words what I wanted. Freed-man Pallas did not even deign to look at me, but rustled impatiently with his scrolls and wrote figures on his wax tablet. Agrippina told Nero that he could usefully watch how skillfully Pallas added large sums, and led me to another room.
“It would be better if Nero did not hear what we have to say,” she said. “He’s an innocent boy, although he wears the man-toga.”
That was not true, for Nero himself had boasted of sleeping with a slave-girl, and also of trying out relations with a boy for the fun of it-although I could hardly tell his mother that. Agrippina looked at me with her clear eyes and a goddesslike expression and sighed.
“I know you want to hear something about Claudia,” she said. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I know how hard one takes these things when one is young. But it is better that you have your eyes opened in time, however much it hurts.
“I’ve had Claudia put under supervision,” she went on. “For your sake, I had to know the truth about her life and habits. I don’t mind that she disobeyed when she was expressly forbidden to show herself inside the city walls. Neither do I mind that she partook in certain slaves’ secret meals, at which I gather some not very pleasant things happened. But it was unforgivable that, outside the city and without the necessary health supervision, she used to sell herself for money to foremen, shepherds and anyone else.”
This dreadful and unbelievable accusation left me speechless, and Agrippina gave me a look of pity.
“The matter has been dealt with by the police court with the minimum publicity,” she said. “There were many witnesses. For your own sake, I won’t tell you who they were. You would be too ashamed. Out of mercy, Claudia has not been punished as the law demands. She has not been whipped, nor has her head been shaven. She has been sent away for a certain length of time to a closed house in a country town to better her ways. I shall not tell you where it is, so that you don’t go and do something stupid. If you still want to see her when you return from Greece, I’ll arrange it for you, as long as she has improved. But you must promise that you will not try to make contact with her before then. You owe that to me.”
Her explanation was so inconceivable that I felt my knees give way and I almost fainted. I could do nothing but remember everything about Claudia which had seemed strange to me-her experience and the fact that she was unusually hot-blooded. Agrippina put her lovely hand on my arm and shook her head slowly.
“Examine your conscience well, Minutus,” she said. “Only your youthful vanity stops you from seeing how cruelly you have been betrayed. Learn from this and don’t trust depraved women and what they say to you. It was lucky for you that you managed to extricate yourself in time by turning to me. You were wise to do so.”
I stared at her in an attempt to find even the slightest sign of uncertainty in her plump face and clear eyes. She stroked my cheek lightly.
“Look into my eyes, Minutus Lausus,” she said. “Whom do you believe more, me or that simple girl who so cruelly betrayed your innocent trust in her?”
My common sense and my confused feelings vied with each other to say that I must believe this gentlewoman, the Emperor’s consort, more than Claudia. I bowed my head, for hot tears were rising in my eyes from painful disappointment. Agrippina pressed my face to her soft bosom. Suddenly I felt an excited trembling in my body and was even more ashamed of myself.
“Please don’t thank me now, although I’ve done much for you that has been distasteful to me,” she whispered in my ear, so that I felt her warm breath and trembled even more. “I know that you will come and thank me later, when you’ve had time to think the matter over. I have saved you from the worst danger a young man can meet on the threshold of manhood.”
Cautiously, for fear of some unexpected witness, she pushed me away and gave me a lovely smile. My face was so burning hot and tear-stained that I did not want anyone to see it. Agrippina sent me away a back way. I walked down the steep alley of the Goddess of Victory with my head bowed, and I stumbled on the white stones.
Book V
Corinth is a metropolis, the most lively and lighthearted metropolis in the world, according to its own citizens. Although Mummius razed it to the ground two hundred years ago, the city, risen from the ashes, has today gathered half a million inhabitants from countries all over the world, thanks largely to the foresight of the god Julius Caesar. From the Acropolis, the city and its streets appear to glow with light well into the night. For a melancholy youth brooding bitterly over his own gullibility, Corinth and its colorful life is in truth a cure.
But my servant Hierex many a time regretted that he had so tearfully begged me to buy him as he stood on the slave dealer’s platform in Rome. He could read, write, massage, cook, haggle with the tradesmen and speak both Greek and broken Latin. He assured me he had traveled in many countries with his previous masters and learned to smooth the way for them.
The price asked for him was so high that he ought to have been a slave of the highest quality, though of course there turned out to be reasons for a reduction. Hierex asked me not to haggle too much, for his master had given him up reluctantly for financial reasons caused by a court action. I guessed that Hierex would receive a share of his own price if he could raise it with his glib tongue. But in the state of mind I was in at the time, I was not in a position to haggle.
Hierex naturally hoped for a friendly young master and was afraid of ending up in a carefully run household of jaundiced old people. My silence and melancholy taught him to hold his tongue, however difficult that was, for he was a real Greek chatterer by birth. Not even the journey distracted me and I did not want to speak to anyone. So I gave orders as Pallas did, with gestures only. He did his best to serve me, probably fearing that behind my dismal exterior lay a cruel master who found pleasure in chastising a slave.
Hierex was born and bred as a slave. He was not strong, but I bought him to avoid having to look further, for he had no visible defects and his teeth were good although he was over thirty. Naturally I guessed there was something wrong with him for him to be for sale at all, but in my position I could not travel without a servant. At first he was nothing but a torment to me, but when I had taught him to keep silent and look as gloomy as myself, he took care of my luggage, my clothes and my food very well. He could even shave my still youthful beard without cutting me too badly.