CHAPTER II
My lord… why should you still be hovering around me? Do you want or need anything about me that could eventually calm down this lifelessness and propitiate your eternal peacefulness? Should I have you here , you would certainly smile, lucid and dazzling, as you used to do , at those Gallic beliefs which Stoics also shared : everything you are finally disappears among ashes , flown away by the wind.
My lord… why should you still be hovering around me? Do you want or need anything about me that could eventually calm down this lifelessness and propitiate your eternal peacefulness? Should I have you here , you would certainly smile, lucid and dazzling, as you used to do , at those Gallic beliefs which Stoics also shared : everything you are finally disappears among ashes , flown away by the wind.
“My sweet Calpurnia, my wife, do you believe all those foolish ideas,
suitable for such an easy-to-manipulate dunce as Brutus is, whose remorse only
worsens that natural unbalanced personality of his? All those endless letters
he sends to Servilia from the frontline….”
That’s obvious, domine, how on
earth could you go on speaking? It is a muddy issue that should be avoided. Servilia… The hungry, knowledgeable,
mature lady, born from a most noble, ancient lineage. Why , domine,
should I play my part as a pawn in her life? Anyway, I didn`t give you
children or heirs. Of course, that… She. How could I imagine that a Macedonian
general’s descendant, such a plain blackish girl…. With that nose which would
certainly make Marcus Portius Cato’s look quite common (Martia would consider
it noble, deign of a real Roman) BUT she had that wide, startling smile, able
to bewitch anybody and make her look like such a genuine, friendly, reliable
person… and that voice, which, in fact, consisted of many, gifted with as many
shades as a multiple instrument, suitable to be played in numberless
undertones. No doubt this was the fruit of that occult wisdom which was alien
to any human knowledge as HE once told me . HE spoke to me about how they used
music and sound to produce sundry effects and even told me the story of that
wisdom which had been treasured by those survivors of the sunk realm about
which Plato let us know and how all they succeeded in arriving in Egypt. Didn`t
she tell you about this? Maybe she didn´t dare. Yes, I can remember they way
they used music and sound in order to achieve different effects . Everything
that HE told me. It must have been a mystery reserved to the initiated . No
doubt she was a priestess of the Old Lore, maybe the High Priestess. Yes… those
large golden eyes, which would pierce through your entrails , reading the
subtlest core of yourself, making you forget the insignificance of her unqueenly bearing…. Nevertheless I, much
taller, more sensual-breasted… Only a High Priestess of the Arcane Wisdom can
generate earth fertility through her own fecundity. It is not only an
officially accepted belief there in Egypt but we have been seen ourselves plied
to admit that as a real thing.
Cesarion…. How , my lord, can your transparent eyes and thin hair be so
strong as to be ruthlessly transmitted within your fiery blood? If only that
poor devil were as blackish, skinny, elephant-nosed…. as she is, bearing that
same trunk-like nose of hers. Why could’t I, the legal wife to the Lord of the
Roman world, have also played the role of the High Priestess and , thus, been
fertile both for you and Rome? I did not even have the right to be a Vestal
Virgin. No, obviously. My father had
already perused into his own horizon long before. Much earlier than your
wedding to Pompeia Sulla and appointment as Pontifex
Maximus. But it had to be your mother and that wise, close female friend of yours who took the
first step every evening in your insula.
By the way , I think I will miss all these plants that fill the peristilus. Do you remember they were
the sprouts that Aurelia herself brought from that insula, hers and yours? I
truly think they are what really makes her own presence linger here after such
a long time. No doubt I will never move out unless I get one sprout of each
plant . It will be like having her in my own house. It may also help me forget
the anguishing narrowness of that new peristilus.
Bona Dea!.... Domine….Caius… Why do I still feel unable to call
you that, your praenomen? Not only because there are almost thirty
years between our ages. It happened when you used to come to my father’s home
and raise me in your arms to kiss me . “My little girl, Julia, … She is almost the same age as you…” My poor,
sweet Julia… I never told you that Magnus let me keep that slight, rosy vest
she used to wear here before getting married. What an ironic thing, that a
fruitless being might survive whereas the fertile ones die early thanks to a sterile
fecundity. What was the use, for both Julia and her mother, of being
slaughtered in order to give birth to corpses? Forgive me, my love. Perhaps
your eyes tremble with those unusual tears which nobody ever saw before, a
tribute to the memory of that girl about whom your mother would constantly
spoke, so often that I can`t evoke her without feeling moved, even if I did not
even meet her. Cornelia…. Cornelia? Yes, but this was a Cinna. And physically,
nothing in common. One, according to your mother, slight, dark, sweet,
discreet… Cornelia Sulla, however, with that silky, red-golden mass of hair
shining around her translucid marble-like face . So similar to the look of that
people HE once told me about.
No, nobody in Rome should speak aloud about that : they would see it as
something nefas which could affect
the prosperity of our land. It is true that I have never talked to you about
it. Could it have been possible due that you were usually absent, engaged
either in war campaigns or in anyone else’s lectus.?
Nevertheless, had we had all the days of our marital union for ourselves,
you would not have revealed that to me, either. In the same way as you
undervalued me that morning, rejecting my warning. How on earth, my lord, would
you be able to publicly discredit your prestige as a soldier, kneeling before
the sleepless insanity of a woman who you had deprived of a fertility which you
had not grudged to others? No, my lord, who could ever expect that of you? But…
if you had guessed how eagerly your dear
Antonius would demand the delivery of your will…. My dear lord! A decent
provision of wheat and sextertii for
each citizen , those that you have not deprived of the privilege of walking
around your gardens , the same you once enlargened for me and your “girls”.
However, your candid,silent wife is being rushed away to a small house. As I
keep resisting myself to move into my father’s villa in Pompeii- which, by the way, it is being refurbish now - he
insists that I accept his servants’ help in order to decorate my own house. “….
At least it should look proper for such a noble lady. The same Greek artists who
are painting my walls in Campania might give a different light to your little
house on the Palatinus, depthening the narrow rooms by designing arches which
would lead to unreal places through dawn-like colours, river-hued green and
sunset gold , making us believe that there was some kind of twilight sky over
the violent sea, dark golden-streaked and green…. Just like the one we can make
out from Pompeian galleries.” Lucius Calpurnius has even advised to hang grapes
in the peristilus and insisted on the convenience of putting up
columns and covering the walls and floor with marble. “A widow of your rank
cannot content herself with living among bricks and concrete, like all those vicini from the insulae.” Like him, I could also have a compluvium with a tessella image of Venus Felix on it. A
sort of protection against evil spells.” Since Venus Genetrix did not really
protect her male descendant – though he had erected a temple devoted to her as
a token of thankfulness for his glorious victories…. Why not trying that face
the Goddess wore before the one to whom your husband owed his survival?”. Yes, domine. Though this beaming, ravishing
smile of yours , he made it possible that you might carry out your work , my
lord. You can`t deny that . Thanks to him, you succeeded in Spain, Venus
anointed you in Gades temple so that you became able to submit Gallic people
and Eastern provinces. If he had not spared your life…. What about you… and
Rome? I am sure you once thought about it . You were always aware of that
–though he might lack all that money you used to squander , I’m certain that
you would laugh at it and blamed it on your mother’s doing.
Who knows? After all, I still remember how reluctantly you would accept
my father’s invitations to spend some time in his villa. YES, it sounds quite convincing to claim your extreme amount
of work to do. Your close friends – supposing that you ever really had any
– knew the truth : your reticence
towards a colony founded by HIM. You were never willing to accept that .
Neither his having become a dictator, having
into account that at the age of thirty he had no social relevance at all
despite his ancient patrician lineage , having led a life oh the edge of an
abyss , with no Aurelia-like mother figure to control his upbringing. Yes, my
husband, you were quite aware of his lacking someone Pfatherly or motherly to
shape him and that he was not the usual pampered club of the old aristocracy,
but someone who had fought to rebuild that dignitas
of his, which had remained as if in a sort of lethargy among the imagines of his ancestors that had
miraculously survived to the possibility of being burnt down by a drunken
father. No doubt patrician stuff survives even in the muddiest circumstances .
According to my father, even a king saw him as the reincarnation of Apollo. You
also grasped that . But it was plain to see that you were not willing to admit
it: that living sparkle beyond what is purely human . How on earth could you
get to know that!
Anyway, neither was I seduced by
Pompeii’s thick air, full of salt, dust
and ashes, which dries up your mouth. No wonder the large number of
taverns there and Pompeian people’s
proneness to heavy drinking. Let apart the fact that my father never
considered it a suitable place for a virtuous patrician maiden. Obviously, he
always kept me protected …for you. Mainly after Pompeia Sulla’s scandal , my
virtue had to be strictly looked after.
No, my lord, no wonder that at this moment in our lives , Marcia and I
have ended up living together . My poor
Marcia, still writing epistolae to
her lord… she doesn’ t even have Portia anymore, as a living reminder of
Marcus. I even trembled whenever I listened to her feverish , bright-eyed
speaking about how she had devoted her life to the pride she felt for her
father : her huge, grey eyes – his! – floating in the air, aloof from her own
person, remembering each word, every idea Marcus had been inculcating in her since
childhood. I usually thought to be watching Cato reborn into his daughter,
loyal to his principles… No,domine, nowadays
I don’t mind what you might think about it anymore but I have always felt that
both he and the rest of the Senate’s optimates
were true and had reasons that I also shared such as returning to the noble
spirit of old Roman republic. This is not the influence of Portia or Marcia
over me, my husband. We need austerity, sense of values, courage, balance,
contention… I am quite aware that , when I leave the Vestals’ company, we will
be forced to face a worldly society where, sooner or later, we will have to
insert ourselves , specially when our father is no more among us. You know them
well, my lord, all these ladies whose vital motivation is reduced to flaunting
more and more spectacular jewels and their ivory or cryselephantine furniture
or gesturing and prattling about that wonderful painter from Syracuse who has
filled their rooms with fake Campanian landscapes. It is certain that my loath
to all that and the loneliness to which I was hussled by my mother’s absence
and then yours have opened up my eyes to new enticements. No doubt something
had to be done. I could not go on like that , within that void which had once
belonged to Pompeia Sulla, deprived even
of Aurelia’s presence, paying no attention to her controlling shadow …. Anyway,
in spite of it all, it happened to be a shelter that I have begun to miss. Neither could I count on
the small Vestals. Now, without their
“dad” or “granny” near, I have become aware that I have always been no more
than an alien element, neither old enough to be a sort of reference for them
nor so young as to be considered deign of their trust. I only found myself
comforted by those loyal visits of Marcia, and Cornelia. She well knew that,
lacking this intellectual enticement which Marcus Portius had given his
daughter since she was a small girl, my existence missed an incentive that
could really nourish my life and therefore palliate this wide absence of husband,
mother, children…. As she knew that you had left some offspring – something
that, obviously, Aurelia had not revealed to me. Though, you know, my father
had not paid attention to it. What’s more, he would only smiled at it
indulgently.(After all, you are not the only high-ranked noble Roman who has
ever done that) But Cornelia was aware of how much it hurt me, not only
emotionally but also regarding my personal dignity. She well knew that…..
