Chapter V

V

My lord, it had to be she, Cornelia, who, two or three nundina after our meeting, happened to send me a slave with a message:

“My sweet friend:

I have not visited you for some days as I had to meet up with  some friends and relatives from abroad at our villa in Cumae .. I would really love that Portia, Marcia and you could join me here. It will certainly do you so good, dear… after having been shuttered up within that Domus Publica for such a long time. I will go and fetch you . Otherwise, you would never come. Furthermore, there will be no risk of dangerous gossiping among your slaves or the vestal girls if it is me who takes you away. True, the kids are lovely but you well know what may be expected of a community of women living together.

Do pack up enough luggage for many days.

Cornelia Sulla”

At that time winter was just beginning, so I decided to choose a varied supply of both woollen and linen tunics and pallae . I did not forget to take a good amount of necklaces, pectorals, bracelets and earrings to match my clothes: turquoise, red and pink coral, amber, amethyst… It was such a rich variety, that of this treasure which I had inherited from my mother that I could even wear a different set of jewels every day.

Why did I have the idea of carrying so much luggage for only a few days? A considerable number of little cases containing jewellery and other ornaments went through the porticus of the Domus Publica  that morning . Cornelia herself had arrived in her litter from Cumae in order to pick us up. As she had warned me in her letter, had she not come to force me to go away, I would have surrender to that old routine which had been gathering  inside myself for years, my only company whereas I managed to survive , sunk in the gloom of my rooms, except for Cornelia, Marcia and Portia, apart from the High Vestal’s  occasional visits – maybe intended to control what  I used to do during your absence. No, there was no way to avoid it.

Moreover, I wondered, how on earth was I going to face the fact of meeting  total strangers? I had not developed my social skills for a long time. Frankly speaking, I had never do that. Since the day when you married me, my lord, I had lived here cloistered, with the presence of Domina Aurelia controlling my existence, without even a child who could allow me to have a little bit of initiative regarding his or her education. I am no more than a guest here, sunk in this mausoleum which might be a home (?) for the vestals but not for me. Perhaps these next days of absence will clear up my mind , driving me to a deeper consideration of my living here .This thought aroused me  so brightly that even Cornelia noticed it.

-My Goodness! Your face is shining! I was right…

Staying away from Rome had left its trace on her. Cornelia’s alabaster-like skin had turned  shinier and tanned, her deep, greyish-blue, almost transparent eyes sparkled between her golden lashes. Though being more or less your age, at that time she still kept that intense beauty which, as it was widely said, she had inherited from her father, whose marble busts only allow you to glimpse a vague shadow of what he must have looked like.

–No, there are not so many guests as to have the need of using all that luggage. Do not worry, I have brought a fine cart to carry it all. I guessed that you were impatient to make yourself pretty and change clothes every day. Who would care about your attire here , at Domus Publica? It would only be a fitting excuse to make your birds gossip around!

Her healthy glittering teeth looked dazzling in her bright face. Portia and Marcia had already sat down inside the litter while our personal female slaves were in another one. Something surprisingly sensitive of Cornelia: anyone else would have destined the servants to the luggage cart. The curtains were drawn and then we set off along Via Sacra , making our way to Cumae

Obviously, it was not a short trip . We even had to stop several times. My body was starting to miss that sedentary peace which I had known for almost a lifetime. I could not even accept that honey –soaked pastry which we were offered  to make our hunger vanish. Of course, neither could I swallow that strong dark wine which, against her custom, she had not flavoured with herbs, spices or honey so that we could appreciate its taste.

–But…. Cornelia!!!

–No, Marcia. A tiny sip will  do no harm to your reputation. We will later mix it with water, as usual.

It was thick, dense… as I could deduce from its colour, body and scent

-Of course it tastes rare! Nothing like what you may have drunk so far. This variety comes from Hispania

Yes, no doubt it was different. My friends’ eyes showed some kind of unknown dazzle, a playful, somehow accomplice-like shine. My mistrusting eyes watched the flask containing the….potion? perhaps sent by a rich friend who might have been sent to that province. I suddenly smiled at this thought. Why not? Cornelia was a rich widow, of ancient lineage. Cornelia…. Cornelia…. My sight almost merged with those inquisitive eyes , which seemed to be exploring the effects of that wine in us. Why should I have been forced to this, to spend so many long hours in this claustrophobic litter where the four of us pushed one another to find enough room? Fortunately that day there was not the usual Roman damp heat in the air. Why would this wine not make me sink into a dense sleep till we get our destination? Anyway, there would only be a few days away from home… Upset by this powerlessness to combat my exhaustion and inner anxiety, I could finally see that we were arriving in Cumae . See….? In fact, I guessed it through the deep salty air that was entangled within the flapping of the curtains and that pine scent around the lower town, where there stood the villae of those Romans who had chosen Cumae as their second home, just in the same way as some others had theirs in the rest of the Campanian colonies. Now I can remember Portia and her father’s villa, which, at that time, was not far from Cornelia’s. She would certainly miss it in the years after its expropriation and being put to auction. Poor Portia… what a joy she experienced when Brutus bought it for her. Poor noble Portia….Why…? Why…???

Cornelia’s villa had a breath-taking location. From its magnificent huge peristylium you could have a good view of the old upper town on the cliff that linked it to the harbour. As it is usual in Southern villae, the peristylium was not the open-topped column-surrounded space that we have in our Roman houses but a wide garden where rose bushes, hollyhock, mirth, honeysuckle and vines grew vigorously among pines, Tuscan cypresses and Eastern banana trees, sheltering a large pond with a fountain shaped like Venus Felix , the same figure as that one which, made of tessellae, gave its blessing to the cryptoporticus . She wore a purple cloak and held a steer in her right hand and a laurel bough in her left one. No wonder that Marcia and Portia looked at it all ecstatically. – You surely remember that Cato’s villa looked so small, severe, dark….

That tessella-built Venus Felix was also present in the compluvium of the atrium, around which there were the slaves’ cubicula. The noble rooms looked out into the immense peristylium, surrounded by porphyry columns which were crowned by acanthus leaves, those who Sulla himself had introduced in Rome, guarding an open semicircular gallery, from which you could watch that landscape presided by the promontory.

“Why should all this seem strange to you….? You know that all those proscriptions meant an outrageous number of confiscated lands and riches”

I can read these words within that smile of yours, ironic and dazzling…

The floor looked like flowing marble patterns which would have been woven in different shades: red, amber, purple, rosy, dark blue…. The frescoes in the triclinium screened the views that we had just seen outside : the old acropolis among the walls, watched through those solid porphyry columns. Obviously, the  three of us were cautious enough as not to make comments about Cornelia’s father’s expenses, perhaps because he had not been the one who had made an economic contribution to keeping that villa.

–Keeping this house is costly. Anyway, it is the only thing that has remained to me after….my father’s death.

Just for a moment the memory of some marble bust merged with those ivory-like features, golden-red curls and the light of her light eyes…Pater? … Was it possible that Cornelia had come to worship him the way she had never done it when he was alive, according to your mother’s words?

– Fortunately –She seemed to get out of that trance – I could save the vines and make some profit through the years

She had never told us about it. We knew that Sulla was a lover of good wine , like any Roman with a bit of taste, but all that business matter was utterly unknown to us .

–Many patricians do it. We have achieved a fine wine blending of ours  and a variety of Falernian wine which I was given a long time ago. In Rome it is gaining a more than acceptable reputation –Why had she never mentioned it before? – Even my friends from other provinces like Hispania really appreciate it. It is for them that I have made up a new variety.

How on earth had Aurelia not learnt about it? IT is true that Cornelia would always avoid this subject in her presence. I was beginning to understand why… No, but she does not know you so well, my lord. You are too human, even merciful, to let yourself be blinded by your ambition. Might she have feared that you would make her pay an excessive tax for her wine affairs?

In the triclinium a woman sat up off a lectus which was covered with a cloth of crimson linen, matching  those threads which, entangled with golden hair, made up that mass of thin braids that came out of that sort of palla , dyed in a deep shade of blue, as bright as Pompeian sea at dusk. It hid a woollen tunic, as purely white as the toga candida. Her intense, transparent blue-grey eyes cast a look which could be either friendly or  capable of piercing through the deepest layer of someone’s inner being , behind those dark lashes which stood out in that  translucent face, where  it was impossible to find the slightest  blush. Not even the High Vestal could have ever looked so… priestly

–Calpurnia Pisonis Caesonina, wife to your noble lord, I greet you.

Her voice was human, sweet….A thoroughly trained instrument that could adapt itself to give prophetic judgement, to make public appeal to the Gods so as to move their will. Hanging over her breasts, waist and belly, several kinds of gems shone: pomegranate on the lowest part of her body, orange-coloured carnelian over her belly, topaz and amber beads twinkled around her waist , jade and malachite invaded her breasts, some kind  of translucent  blue egg-shaped thing hung around her neck whereas around  her pale forehead  there was a wreath of tiny indigo beryl which hid her dark eyebrow , being held by the bright blue palla-like cloak. The lady’s head was crowned by a girdle of amethyst on which there stood a slightly shiny pale crescent (I would later learn that it was a gem called adularia).

– Blodwynn is my brother Kornel’s daughter. She has been brought up among the Britons.

–And I am a priestess of the Triple Goddess. I do not mind saying openly, aunt. That is what belongs to me. And where I belong …. Though being barefooted, lady Calpurnia, little do I have to do with the description which ….the Great Roman has made of the Gallic priestesses with grey entangled hair and cursing, thundering voice. As you can clearly see, no skulls but healing gems hang off my waist and neck in order to encourage good forces, in the same way as you ,Romans, make use of charms….

 She seemed to be trying to calm down the stern mistrusting look in Portia’s grey eyes. Portia…. Oh, my Gods…Portia. However ,I really trusted her loyalty as a friend and I could not imagine she would ever dare to betray me to her father, something that he would certainly use as a means to defend the optimates’ interests against yours… and mine. Might you ever have met her during your stay in Britannia? May she have come here in an attempt to flee from Roman invasion? The gems tickled when she sat back on the lectus.  Blodwynn. Yes, that was the name whose origin she would tell me a long time later, a most beautiful story, that of the flower woman, created by a god for the divine king of the sea and who happened to betray marital loyalty, ending up in the shape of an owl. The wise owl…. Minerva!

–My  love for the history of Roman Gods has never died. My….grandfather… your father, Cornelia…made my grandmother swear that she would force her children to respect Rome.

She had softened her voice. A flash quivered between her shaking eyelashes. A somehow funny memory came to my mind, the same as any Roman has of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the man who had destroyed so many Roman families, both plebeians and patricians, reducing all of them to utter poverty. The multicoloured marble and porphyry columns in this villa returned to my thoughts. Then I reacted. At that point of the conversation I could not remember if I had been told of the existence of the Gallic family  which Sulla had made outside his status as a Roman patrician.

 –My grandfather met….his second wife…when he was working as a spy . At that time he was as beautiful as Cornelia , according to what Mother told me. In fact, she did not know who he really was until I was properly informed in its due time. This happened

when I was sent to Britannia in order to be trained as a healer, working with different kinds of herbs that had to be virtually cut in certain times of the year with our consecrated sickle-knives and also to be taught to foresee with watching mirrors and sacred ponds in order to increase that deep knowledge that is within our beings and also channel the Divine Lady’s force and will through her triple face of Virgin, Mother and Wise Old Woman. I mean, the flowering earth which has not been fertilized yet, the earth which is already fertile and fruitful and that which remains bare after the harvest, apparently dead but really asleep, waiting for the beginning of the Bright Season. It is not so different from the ancient Rome which worshipped Fertile Mother Earth, is it? In fact, what is the difference between all of these three faces and Diana, Juno, Venus, Minerva….?

I discreetly tried to exchange subtlest glances with Marcia and Portia. The long speech that  Cornelia had inflicted on us nundina before came back to my mind. Was it all part of a plan that Sulla’s daughter had designed and whose purpose I could not see clearly yet? I decided not to pay attention to my fears and, consequently, keep an eye on how events would be going on.

Then…hadn’t she  learnt anything  about her grandfather’s real identity till she arrived in Britannia....?.

–I love this strange sauce… hot…. Garum…. Do you call it like that? And all this large variety of fish! Thanks a lot, aunt, for not serving game for dinner. We have been forbidden to eat any meat since childhood, particularly venison. Some British tribes think stags are totemic, sacred….

Despite the austerity regarding food which she had been taught, Blodwynn anxiously eyed everything that she could carefully eat in small portions: those newly-discovered lusty olives and golden oil, the sunny greenish clusters of grapes on the silvery trays...  Her eyes were displaying that unusual exploring avidity before that culinary scenery which was alien to her real life as a servant of the British goddess inside the sacred oak groves. Neither did she taste the wine that Cornelia had got heated with clove and cinnamon and mixed with that kind of water which happened to be thicker and more calcareous than Rome’s. She would only drink that unique water from a lake near the bangor –That was the name she gave it –where she had lived and that she had insisted on bringing here, inside a good number of containers. I guessed they had had to choose the long journey through the sea so that they might arrive here safely. How on earth could she have managed to survive? However, her translucent skin was not even tanned. Had she then contented herself to remain cloistered within a tiny cubiculum for so many days? Moreover, why should they be so technically developed that they might have succeeded in building such well-equipped ships, able to bear longest journeys? How on earth had they managed not to be intercepted by a Roman vessel? Many questions wandered through my thoughts while those intense grey-blue eyes merged into some kind of inner light, were watching us slowly , taking their time.... Perhaps trying to grasp something new, ignored to all of them overseas....

—A bangor... Yes , a collegium of druids like those in the Gaul. I do not know if your husband has described them as they really are : priestly associations where future priests and priestesses are trained. No, we are no druidesses but only devoted to healing, prophecy and praying the Great Supreme Mother, a face of the female principle out of which life springs out. ... You know, druids deal with everything related to our consuetudinary law and offering sacrifices of a certain importance – Her eyes slid downwards – in  order to pray for protection against our invaders. Druids keep most of our knowledge within their minds, having treasured it during  twenty years’ training period  at bangors.

–But you are also allowed to know about the secrets of music.... and play those strings instruments about which old Roman legionaries spoke . Those huge ones that ancient druids would put on top of the hills so that violent blasts of wind could produce spectre-like sound which seemed to whip horses, causing them to flee away in terror. Didn’ t you know that story?

Yes, some blurred  memory sprang in my mind . Perhaps it had been my  father who had told me about it. They must have certainly become useless in front of roaring catapults and assault towers.

–What are you insinuating , Cornelia? I should have proposed that myself, though not being the hostess here. –Her closed lips gave us a silent smiley that was kept for some time. –Well, my ladies.... 

She and her twinkling jewellery rose up and went to a cupboard out of which she produced some kind of big unvarnished wooden lyre. It was a dull sort of wood that is different from the one which is used for carving here in Rome. On its surface you could find geometrical patterns which may have been made by her . Both wood and cords smelt of a scent in which I alternatively recognized mint, clove, verbena, rosemary and other flowers and herbs I could not identify at once. They seemed to have been perfumed very recently since the odour was deep , invading our nostrils , merging into that subtle waving voice, maybe so similar to many you may have had the occasion of listening to there in Gaul. Yes, though nobody revealed that it was too obvious for me not to ignore that. Maybe another golden-scarlet mass of hair like this, from which there flowed some kind of brittle vibrating singing , modulated like no other I may ever have heard before . Maybe similar fingers, pale and exquisite, enable to extract  a similar tide of crystal-like notes, dazzling , unique...which would intertwine together  in a rising rhythm driving you out of control... Oh Gods......... Goddesses. Was this perhaps the face of Bona Dea, who was immolated by her own husband? ... Mother Goddess, one of the faces of the Supreme female force? . The one who fertilizes the earth. Which is really a part of Herself .... Mother... Why did I silently call for that one, my true mother ,who lay, bodiless, within the mists that cannot be perceived by our senses? Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, you know him well, refused to inflict a stepmother on me before I could channel my adult life ... Calpurnia... Perhaps the act of being frequently elected as an augur was due to this gift of his, such a personal intuition which enabled him to interpret the position of stars.  Maybe helped by someone who was very close to him, even beloved? I had once overheard that it might be so because a little bit of his blood was alien to common human beings’. This had made me laugh. I remembered you and your ancestry who claimed to have descended from Venus herself . But Gens Calpurnia is not Gens Iulia. Not even Gens Calpurnia,  which, however ancient and illustrious it might be, has never claimed any kind of divine ancestry. Despite all that, I was gradually returning to my memories. No, perhaps it was also a sensation that Marcia and Portia also shared.

–What a beautiful music....

Marcia was looking at something invisible imprecise. Yes no doubt... She, too..

–My beautiful lady, thank you....

The foreign priestess smiled, pleased by our sweet Marcia’s usual tenderness. Absolutely unsweeet Portia, however, watched her friend with sympathy, somehow moved...  Blodwynn set her eyes on me for a long time, as if trying to activate some kind of reaction that I should express through words. I had perceived, beyond my silence, something that the other women had not grasped. The cold twinkle of those transparent pupils –Did I happen to see your eyes in hers? –was slightly whirling me...as if into a light flash . Didn`t the spiced wine really have anything to do with all this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter IV

IV

Calpurnia… Calpurnia.. I can feel your voice, heavy with pain, too lonely after so many months… even years. Which would your job be except helping Lucius Calpurnius Piso as the instrument for a great allegiance with the future… Roman king? You did not grudge me any pleasure, my little girl, all those scarce nights we shared together. What would my sweet Cornelia Cinna have made about it? What would she have thought, watching her own brother hammering  that dagger into the man she so tenderly loved? My sweet beautiful Calpurnia, loyal, little Calpurnilla . What’s the use of comparing you to…? Why should I mention that name? Could it be that….? No, it certainly was… some kind of possessive  heatwave, desperately alive, getting hold of every skinpore, each part of my yearning virility. Servilia…. She, however, was never able to transform herself into relaxing tenderness, so cosy as yours. I’ve hungered for it, day after day, in my tent, even on the eve of a battle, beyond all those shrieks and the outburst of blood and torn flesh…. My sweet beautiful Calpurnia…..

My lord, why are you still hovering over me…. Or maybe is it just your eager shadow?

 

 

Chapter III

III

It was Cornelia who brought the subject up that day. That issue which should never be spoken of among us. Those stories in which our ancestors used to believe and were forbidden to patricians as they were considered too primitive. Those strong forces that had their command over fountains, ponds, roads, the air, trees, flowers… Animated, lively… There sprung that subject which related to those lands on the other side of  our  world, where you had been campaigning for a long time, overseas, . Over there those powers were widely  worshipped , not being reduced to a vulgus, still anchored to archaic Italic beliefs. These peoples overseas still kept their faith, proudly loyal to their identity.

- They say that rivers and fountains are not governed by Carmenta or the Nymphs but by ethereal living beings that can even adopt certain shapes, mainly female figures. It is thought that there appear translucid maidens who can become huge, blinding, with either golden or red-golden hair – I smiled : Cornelia’s rebellious hair was also reddish and fair – and rare, widest, green eyes… an unreal shade of green … that of emeralds. Able to ravish any man’s senses –no matter how reticent he might tend to be- and drag him to the bosom of the waters; mainly if these are enemies to the natives . a magnificent weapon, against Caesar’s legions-she might have noticed my restless look- No, my dear. You may not have had enough time to get to know your husband. He is not that kind of mettle, believe me. Neither was my father, no matter what you have been told about him. The spirits who dwell in the forests are like our goddesses Pomona, flora, Adolenda and Comolenda. They are called white and green ladies. Tall, transparent visions. Our Epona is the White Mare. Hekate and Laverna’s realm is that of the Crow Goddess, the Sorceress, the Guardian of Wisdom…. Yes, there is such a perfect coincidence. All in all, it is based on the worshipping of a goddess like Old Tello, a fruitful Mother Goddess. … and who helps mothers like Iuno Sospita or Bona Dea herself…. – I had another sip of wine, mixed with mint water, like Cornelia herself had taught me to prepare it : it would be of no use to Calpurnia’s husband, alien to a single drop of wine since his earliest memories. Yes, my lord, she was the one who opened  up new paths to me, far beyond what you or your own mother could have imagined…. Aurelia….

That happened to be an early dinner at the beginning of summer. It was still sunny and damp heat was heavily felt throughout the triclinium . We went out into the wide peristilus that your mother had decorated by mixing palm trees brought by you from the Eastern provinces and all those cypresses and pine trees without whose perfume she could not certainly do. She often told me how good it had been for you in your insula suburana , protecting you from serious health problems related to lungs, those you nephew seems to have inherited . That wine had  begun to take hold of our veins and perception… or maybe was it Cornelia’s prodigious capacity to evoke?

- Who keeps you so well-informed, my dear? Why on earth are you interested in convincing us of those Barbarians’ wonderful virtues?

Sulla’s daughter laughed. She still kept all her teeth , with no need of having them enamelled . I think she is even older than you. It might be true, after all, that story about the Gallic slave she had at her permanent service… for anything she could fancy.

- You forget that my father lived within a Gallic tribe for a long time, pretending to be one of them. Learning not only about their military strategy  but their lifestyle as well. . It quite impressed him how deep that was, the influence of the sacred in each particle of the world . Nothing to do with our ancient vegetation myths. He even took one of their women as his wife and left his own offspring there, as I later came to know. They might be about my age. Who knows, Calpurnia! Even your husband may have met them.

- Once again, Cornelia… why such an immense interest? – Marcia, as it was usual about her, let herself be driven by her intuition. Like me, she lacked that deep intellectual education which Marcus Portius had given to his daughter – You know her husband’s comments on Gallic priests and priestesses in his letters.

- Yes, like all Romans do. Though not even having seen their portraits. Those hags with grey, untangled hair and mad-like eyes, dressed in white, animal skulls hanging off their waists… you must consider that they don’ t differ much from our ancient sybils . There are women who, since their teens, have been eating hallucinogenic fungi and endured hardest fasting in order to stimulate their senses and , therefore, develop their inner sight. If you add the fact of living in isolation from a refined world as ours, alien to luxury, the importance of keeping a good look, cultivating friendship and enjoying good conversation…. Then it is clear to see. You cannot compared them to us, noble Roman ladies.

- …. Furthermore…. – Portia was alert – Do you think Caesar…. is being wholly frank in his depictions. Though being  his wife, Calpurnia,  you know what he is like. Any information from him will always be focused on making us see that those people really are Rome’s enemies. Your husband is a real strategist and a skilful manipulator of Romans’ will. You cannot deny that… -“Unlike my father”, I felt her think . Marcia also seemed to have the same view. Then I got aware that , for  a few seconds, both of them had remembered each of the confrontations between Marius and you. Cornelia, such a clever negotiator family heritage, no doubt – grasped that tense atmosphere that had unexpectedly sprung up among us

-My dear Calpurnia. Sure, I don´t mean to distort what your husband lets us know . I just… wanted to make you see that there is so much in common between those peoples’ way of… fearing, waiting… living… and ours. Anyway, those were our primitive roots , the farmers’. Remember that part of Italy has belonged to the Gaul for many, many years. Do not discard that our dear Pompeius Magnus may have some Gallic traces within his lineage.

Cornelia’s clear, cat-like eyes danced, set within her almost transparent lashes- they were said to be her father’s – No doubt there was much more running through her thoughts.

-But, Calpurnia…. Aren’t you the Pontifex Maximus’wife… and anything that may suit the legions’ will and his own ambition? Aren`t you aware that you must play a role beyond remaining here, resigned to be sat among the Vestals, even when your husband is back? - Not even could Portia and Marcia’s terrified, confused looks stop her- Girl… I do not intend to be too explicit. Just  remember that you have no children yet.. – What Cornelia was trying not to mention started to beat heavily inside my chest. Everything that had been told about Servilia…. I recalled that cold disdain I used to see in those eyes whenever I caught her look , that hurting humiliation…. All that in front of your mother Aurelia, perhaps not so alien to it all. I firmly looked within those clear, penetrating eyes. Cornelia swallowed. I held her look to force her to go on.

- You know what happened to Pompeius, my child. And… what about my own father? You have to build up a position for yourself, desperately seek for a solid role that really belongs to you alone, making you capable to indelibly stamp a trace, just like your husband’s. Do not let yourself end up like….my father …. Or my stepmother. You know that he will not grudge it to you. He is friendly and perfectly knows that you will never be able to compete with him. It is obvious that you must never act in public. You are bound to a private, silent ….hidden work. Have you ever heard about an ancient tradition which is still kept by some peoples… that of the royal priestesses and healing queens?

The three of us watched her in horror.

- Rome stopped being a monarchy more than four hundred years ago!!! – Portia’s burning eyes pointed at me – What does your husband really intend ?

- He has never mentioned what you mean, Portia. It’s only your father and the optimates’ obsessive fears.

- Calpurnia…. – Cornelia had softened her voice, somehow trying to comfort me. – My father…. He would constantly repeat it .” In this man there are many Marii “ Yes, we should also remember that your own mother-in-law used that there were many Sullae  within her son. That is what keeps me particularly sensitive about that.

- Cornelia… to which extent … did you love or hate your father?

No doubt, I caught her defenceless. Her eyes seemed to look beyond us.

- He was …. So uniquely beautiful … and, if it pleased him, ready to fully assume his role as a paterfamilias , owner of the existence of each of us . He was even compared to Apollo , which was no wrong view at all. By the time your father, Portia,  and our husbands met him , his look had already turn into a ruin. But your husband, Calpurnia, did have the opportunity of watching him  in his prime . Didn’t your mother in law tell you about him?  …. Yes, I am sure that she must certainly have depthened into this subject . He was not human; he could not have been a common human being. There was something grand, a touch of brilliantly calculated ambition, even some pitiless force… alien to whatever you may expect of anybody you know. Including your own husband, Calpurnia. Caius has a merciful human self which my father almost lacked.

- Cornelia, did you even know… ? Did you remember anything about your grandmother? His mother, I mean… - Cornelia’s look suddenly grew into some sort of ferocious, intense, devouring brightness. Might they have been her father’s eyes, responding to an unconscious spell ?

- Of course , I didn`t …. – It was a profound, controlled voice, deprived of any previous casual undertone – I doubt that he could remember her …. Or that he was even willing to it. As for my aunt, his sister, I hardly ever saw her (You know my father’s ways) But what most of you ignore is his wisdom, his eagerness to learn, his brilliant mind… Yes, no-one speaks a single word on his writings or his deep love for theatre and music.

I could read it clearly, all that irony in Portia’s half-closed eyes. Like most Romans aristocrats and members of the political class, she knew quite a lot about Lucius Cornelius’ crush on actors and male dancers. Anyway, I always had the idea that, like many other historical celebrities, Sulla’s memory had remained darkened by all those supposed proscriptions that had been made when he appointed himself as a dictator  after his return, and, therefore, the immense wealth all of it  meant for many  antimariani – What wouldn`t your dilected foster-son have done about it, my husband!. Another element had been  that unexpected profit, which, at the age of thirty-something, allowed him to  him start a political career . Such a suspicious stroke of luck! All these things  blurred away all his efforts – that you know well I cannot deny- to recover a strong Republic and restore Roman patricians’ honour after brilliant, courageous but ambitious upstarts like Caius Marius had been on the verge of ending up with it. Both you and I have even heard your mother speaking about it. You cannot hide that, my lord. Obviously, she would have never revealed that in front of our lady-friends. Moreover, she had passed away a long time before . Therefore, it would not have been proper of me to add anything to that story, spread by her own slaves throughout Subura. Of course it was diffused silently, fully aware of the person that was involved in it and what his reaction would be like if he ever came to know about it. I guess she would not tell you much on this subject, either. Though you really owe him to be able to grow up and become the man who, at that time, was beginning to be the talk of the town and even worry the Senate.

- Cornelia…. What does it all have to do , this stuff about natural forces and the fact that I might have an influential role of my own but in my husband’s shadow?

Some kind of slight, rosy, reddish, golden veil started to spread all over the tops of the pines and cypresses, whose green was gradually getting dark. The damp airstream  coming from Ostia was beginning to be felt through the palla into my arm skin while I was trying to find out the answer in those eyes- almost as transparent as yours, my husband – twinkling within the growing  sunset gloom.

-Your father, Lucius Calpurnius Piso , has frequently acted as an augur. !- I nodded – He possess a remarkable ability ;I bet it is a natural gift, the capacity to study and interpret the movement of stars. … and this is usually transmitted through blood, Calpurnia…

-Many Roman noblemen have been augurs, Cornelia… -  I clearly saw that this was no more than an excuse, hiding another reason. But, how on earth were you able to know about that…? An old shiver returned to my bone marrow.

-What I meant was that, like those queens from ancient times who were also priestesses and healing ladies, you could silently start performing some kind of similar role in order to restore the link between Rome and those forgotten natural forces . Calpurnia… this is all about the possibility for roman patrician women to recover their role as life bestowers, channelling that force beating inside . There might come a time when not even Juno Sospita or Venus’ diverse faces will be meaningful for us anymore. We cannot forget those who have sustained Rome’s life from the very beginning …. And who may have made an important contribution to develop its power so far.

I think the three of us ignored to what extent Cornelia might be impressed by anything imprecise, some kind of powerful, crucially magic-like stuff . Might there really be some sort of archaic telluric forces beyond our limits?  I had never listened to such a bold speech of hers in front of you mother Aurelia. No doubt  Cornelia would have considered that such an  utterly improper  thing to do

- My dear Cornelia, were it  as you say, how could I carry it out, anyway? Should I send for the Vestals and inform them about my plans of creating a new kind of female priesthood, led by someone who is neither a vestal or a maiden? Sometimes I even think that it is you that ought to be here in my place, not only because your age is similar to my husband’s. Yes, it should have been you instead of Pompeia from the very beginning…

I instinctively bit my tongue. Cornelia’s sharp, brilliant eyes turned dull and began wandering around. Her jaw unwillingly started to quiver slightly. She would not lead the conversation anymore during the rest of the evening

 

 

 

 

                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter II

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 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…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

Calpurnia, daughter to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a consul during that year in which, still almost a child ... – At least she would feel like that. Calpurnia.. I wonder how it feels to call a wife the same name as a friend’s . A friend? Just call him a collaborator . I know how tenderly fond you were of my father, to the same extend as you loved Marcus Licinius. No, certainly it was not the same amount of denarii. Thanks to me, Calpurnius Piso , in whom you saw my reflection, reached the Consulate and, therefore, the imperium, those twenty-four lictores and being appointed as the Governor of Macedonia. Lucius Calpurnius... Was it true, that story about this bust which portrays me , that you had it carved,  making sure that mine were also those limpid, wide eyes  and that ample, full-lipped mouth? Even now my breath and heartbeat speed up whenever all that story about you and Nicomedes returns to my memories. But my nipples get hardened and I still feel like opening up. I was never fully conscious of  how violently my thoughts would tremble while my skin panted in those scarce nights your pale patrician hands would soften that strength with which you used to brandish your sword so that they and your  wet full lips could worship  every curve of my yearning womanhood, filling me up with a plenitude ...  which finally turned out to be ephemeral, which  would never get embodied into a new life growing up in my blood.. Domine

Notwithstanding all this, I still call you that name. Maybe, after all that time, all I have been for you is  a sort of  Vestal girl, like “your little girls” , as you mother used to tell me -Ecastor! I do really miss her, despite it all – the same little child-like  priestesses that I will not see anymore in two or three days. Strange, not to hear or feel them again. It now seems absurd to me , the fact of living day after day without this huge marble staircase, without this scenery in front or the gallery of ancient Vestals that you had paid for. I will have to get accustomed to that peristilus far from here, so tiny and narrow. Yes, I know that anytime I wish I could return to Pater ‘s house .But... No, by no means could a matron of my dignity play the role of an ageing maiden. I will always have Marcia. Marcia, my sweet,beautiful, sisterly Marcia, with no man, either, even when he was alive. I could never understood that, that someone so vehemently adored by my friends could be  so pitiless detested by you. Yes, after all he was your political enemy. How often your mother and I would see you desperate, imitating the screams he used to deliver in the Senate House against the enemies of Roman Republic! Sure, Portia would constantly defend him, her eyes shining out of worship, which  even  embarrassed me. My poor good Portia! How can anyone commit suicide by swallowing burning charcoal? I never believed that. In the same way as I did never accept that Brutus could have been a murderer. I am unwilling to accept that. This good man, so sweet and  easy to use by any wicked person. Like Marcus Portius, he also used to believe in all that we had been taught  in our families. We are the Keepers of that good old Rome. Even though you defended all those newcomers from the provinces.. According to Portia,  her father maintained that you used to do it so as  to get some profit, since he saw another  Publius Clodius in you an did not discard that you would end up just as he did. No, I can´t let my tears spoil this papirus  I have here  in front. My  expenses are really limited thanks to your generosity to Roma people and also to your nephew’s  rapacity.... Or maybe should I call him.... your son? No doubt, you did choose a fine late son, my husband, this sickly scheming guy, who does not lack either talent or your beautiful chiselled face . Marcia, by the way, told me about that rumour running around the Palatine, concerning Brutus’ distant relative, this lady from the Livian-Drusian line who constantly purs, kitty-like, around your boy, despite her big pregnancy. Why should it amaze you? It runs in the family;  you know that better than anyone else. The same snake –like, feline instinct.  Though I never had the chance to speak to you  about it – was there any time for that, anyway? – I had to tolerate her before me every afternoon. She was your mother’s close friend . There was nothing I could do about it. Her haughty, bottomless, dark eyes behind that pretended kindness. “What’s the use of being her official wife?” They would mutely warn me “  He’s my bedmate here in Rome... and you don´t even show a hint of  fertility”. A death-like blast takes hold of me while remembering your nephew’s face. Hasn´t he got your poise, your shapely,solid body.... your glassy, lion-like , cold eyes which  could devastate everyone’s will? My lord, why should you go on hovering, winged and chilly, over my yearning breasts, blowing around my defeated thighs, filling me up, once again as you used to,  making me howl, quenched by that flow of ravishing, lucid virility? Domine.... my lord