"Praetor! So soon among us! I am Gelon, son of Gaeto, merchant of Baiae. I bid you welcome to our district." Here he performed a courtly bow, a gesture never performed by Romans but somehow dignified and without the groveling implications of the Oriental bow. "And to your lady, the distinguished Julia of the Caesars, and the lovely Lady Antonia, and this other Lady Julia whose name of preference I must learn, and to all your entourage, welcome again!"
The women cooed and fluttered like pet doves. So much for patrician dignity.
"You are uncommonly well-informed," I noted.
"As it happened, a party of my father's agents who returned yesterday from Capua, attended a ceremony at which the Capuans honored you."
"Well, that explains it. We thank you for your very courteous welcome, Gelon, and we look forward to our stay in beautiful southern Campania."
"Should you desire to see the many sights of the neighborhood, Praetor, please allow me to be your guide. It would be both an honor and a pleasure to me."
"I may well take you up on that," I told him. Behind me I heard scandalized little sounds from the stuffier part of my following. He was, after all, a slaver's son and a foreigner to boot. But I didn't care. I was the one with imperium and could do as I pleased. I was going to have to keep an eye on Julia, though.
"What are you doing here?" This indignant shout came from a bald, white-bearded specimen who, to judge by his white robe and laurel chaplet, had to be Diocles, priest of Apollo.
"I'm supposed to be here," I informed him. "I'm the new praetor peregrinus."
"Not you!" he cried, pointing a skinny finger at Gelon. "Him! That African slave seller! He fouls the holy precincts of Apollo!"
I was perfectly aware that he hadn't meant me, but I couldn't help having a little fun. "Oh, he can't be all that bad, surely. His horses are as handsome as Apollo's own. Could such splendid animals be owned by a man unworthy to approach your temple?"
The old boy tried to calm down and regather his dignity. "The honored praetor is pleased to jest. This lowborn foreign scoundrel has been seeking out my daughter at every opportunity." He shot that lovely young woman a venomous glare, and she lowered her eyes, then stole another adoring glance at young Gelon.
"That proves only that he has good taste," I said. Then Julia moved in to smooth things over, a task she undertook on my behalf with some frequency.
"Reverend Diocles," she said, stepping close and laying a soothing hand in his arm, "forgive my husband's levity. He is a very serious man in court but nowhere else. And this young man has acted most courteously. Please do not mar our arrival with rancor."
Actually, I didn't mind a bit of rancor. It livened things up. But the old man acquiesced with a fair degree of grace. "I would do nothing to make your arrival among us any but the most pleasant of experiences. Gorgo!" he snapped. "Go back inside."
The girl turned wordlessly and obeyed, wiggling her bottom rather more than necessary. The display was intended for young Gelon, but I admired it anyway.
"And I, too, will take my leave of you, Senator," said the youth who was the focus of these contending passions. "Perhaps I will have the privilege of seeing you again at the banquet to be held in your honor."
"I shall look forward to it," I assured him, and with that he mounted. It was a performance far removed from the undignified scramble with which I placed myself on a horse's back. He seemed to flow onto the saddle as if lifted there by the hands of an invisible god. The women gasped in admiration.
"He rides pretty well," Hermes said grudgingly, "but I'll wager he's no good with a sword."
"Diocles," my wife said, "please have dinner with us this evening. I would love to meet your wife as well."
"Alas, my wife died many years ago," he told her.
"Then bring your lovely daughter."
"Gorgo? To the house of the praetor? She is not worthy-"
"Nonsense. I would love to become better acquainted with her."
"Then, to please you, my lady-"
"Splendid!" Julia could work people like a politician when she wanted to.
We took our leave of the priest and began to walk back toward the villa. "Looks like it will be lively times in Campania," I observed.
Julia poked me with her fan. "You should not have provoked him. He is a priest, after all."
"Just of Apollo," I said. Perhaps I should explain here that Apollo, though worshipped in Rome, was not in those days highly regarded as a deity. He was brought to Rome from Greece by our last king, Tarquinius Superbus. Four and a half centuries of residency did not make him a Roman, and people still regarded him as a Greek import. It has only been in recent years that the First Citizen raised him to the dignity of a State god and built him the splendid temple on the Palatine. He did this because an ancient temple of Apollo resides on the headland overlooking Actium, and he credits Apollo's favor for his unexpected victory in the naval battle fought there against the fleet of Antonius and Cleopatra. Personally, I think he gives Apollo the credit so that Marcus Agrippa, who really won the battle for him, won't get too much of it.
The grounds and gardens were so splendid that I didn't think the house could possibly match them, but I was wrong. The steward led us through room after room, each of them a jaw-dropper in point of luxury. Every room had exquisitely frescoed walls and ceilings, painted with mythological scenes in the highest degree of artistry. We learned that these were renewed every year, plaster and all, because Hortalus couldn't abide faded colors. There floors consisted of picture mosaics, each room's featuring a different deity and known by that god's name. Since there were so many rooms, there were gods represented I had never heard of.
The library was not a single room but a whole series of them, each packed with books stored in racks of fragrant cedar. One room was devoted entirely to Homer and commentaries upon him, another to the Greek playwrights, another to the philosophers.
His wine cellars contained amphorae of wine from every region of the world, the great jars seeming to stretch on into infinity. Old Hortalus had needed plenty of wine, because not only did he entertain lavishly but also watered the trees in his olive orchard with wine, believing they yielded superior fruit and oil because of this special treatment.
But even these wonders paled when we saw the baths. Even the finest public baths in Rome were not as splendid nor as extensive. You could have rowed a trireme on the larger pools. The hot baths were fed with water piped in from Baiae's famous hot springs by miles of underground aqueducts laid in at enormous expense. Not only were the waters health giving but also the splendid air was not marred by the pall of woodsmoke that hangs over conventional hot baths. Marble was the only stone used in these baths, unless you counted the jewels and coral with which the bottoms of the pools were decorated. And all of them were surrounded by more of the fabulous statues Hortalus had collected so single-mindedly.
It was not exactly the most luxurious dwelling I had ever seen. I had, after all, lived for months in Ptolemy's palace in Alexandria. But for a private citizen's house it was pretty comfortable. Lucullus and Philip-pus and a few others owned properties even more lavish, but Quintus Hortensius Hortalus owned several more like this one. And this was a man who, by his own choice, never accepted the offices of propraetor or proconsul and thus never had a province to loot. It just goes to show you what a successful career in the law can get you.
"I just know I'm going to love it here!" Julia proclaimed when the tour was over.
I was having second thoughts about the whole matter. "You understand, my dear, that these are the fruits of a lifetime of conniving, political corruption, bribery-I could go on for hours. I have a feeling that, lacking Hortalus's stupendous income, this place might get rather expensive to support."