Читать книгу A Friend of Caesar - William Stearns Davis - Страница 9

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It was very early in the morning. From the streets, far below, a dull rumbling was drifting in at the small, dim windows. On the couch, behind some faded curtains, a man turned and yawned, grunted and rubbed his eyes. The noise of the heavy timber, stone, and merchandise wagons hastening out of the city before daybreak,[25] jarred the room, and made sleep almost impossible. The person awakened swore quietly to himself in Greek.

[25] No teaming was allowed in Rome by day.

"Heracles! Was ever one in such a city! What malevolent spirit brought me here? Throat-cutting on the streets at night; highwaymen in every foul alley; unsafe to stir at evening without an armed band! No police worth mentioning; freshets every now and then; fires every day or else a building tumbles down. And then they must wake me up at an unearthly hour in the morning. Curses on me for ever coming near the place!" And the speaker rolled over on the bed, and shook himself, preparatory to getting up.

"Bah! Can these Roman dogs never learn that power is to be used, not abused? Why don't they spend some of their revenues to level these seven hills that shut off the light, and straighten and widen their abominable, ill-paved streets, and keep houses from piling up as if to storm Olympus? Pshaw, I had better stop croaking, and be up and about."

The speaker sat up in bed, and clapped his hands. Into the ill- lighted and unpretentiously furnished room came a tall, bony, ebon-skinned old Ethiopian, very scantily attired, who awaited the wishes of his master.

"Come, Sesostris," said the latter, "get out my best himation[26]— the one with the azure tint. Give me a clean chiton,[27] and help me dress."

[26] Greek outer mantle.

[27] Greek under garment.

And while the servant bustled briskly about his work, Pratinas, for such was his lord's name, continued his monologue, ignoring the presence of his attendant. "Not so bad with me after all. Six years ago to-day it was I came to Rome, with barely an obol of ready money, to make my fortune by my wits. Zeus! But I can't but say I've succeeded. A thousand sesterces here and five hundred there, and now and then a better stroke of fortune—politics, intrigues, gambling; all to the same end. And now?—oh, yes, my 'friends' would say I am very respectable, but quite poor—but they don't know how I have economized, and how my account stands with Sosthenes the banker at Alexandria. My old acquaintance with Lucius Domitius was of some use. A few more months of this life and I am away from this beastly Rome, to enjoy myself among civilized people."

Pratinas went over to a large wooden chest with iron clasps, unlocked it, and gazed for a moment inside with evident satisfaction. "There are six good talents in there," he remarked to himself, "and then there is Artemisia."

He had barely concluded this last, hardly intelligible assertion, when the curtain of the room was pushed aside, and in came a short, plump, rosy- faced little maiden of twelve, with a clearly chiselled Greek profile and lips as red as a cherry. Her white chiton was mussed and a trifle soiled; and her thick black hair was tied back in a low knot, so as to cover what were two very shapely little ears. All in all, she presented a very pretty picture, as the sunlight streamed over her, when she drew back the hangings at the window.

"Good morning, Uncle Pratinas," she said sweetly.

"Good morning, Artemisia, my dear," replied the other, giving her round neck a kiss, and a playful pinch. "You will practise on your lyre, and let Sesostris teach you to sing. You know we shall go back to Alexandria very soon; and it is pleasant there to have some accomplishments."

"And must you go out so early, uncle?" said the girl. "Can't you stay with me any part of the day? Sometimes I get very lonely."

"Ah! my dear," said Pratinas, smoothly, "if I could do what I wished, I would never leave you. But business cannot wait. I must go and see the noble Lucius Calatinus on some very important political matters, which you could not understand. Now run away like a good girl, and don't become doleful."

Artemisia left the room, and Pratinas busied himself about the fine touches of his toilet. When he held the silver mirror up to his face, he remarked to himself that he was not an unhandsome man. "If I did not have to play the philosopher, and wear this thick, hot beard,[28] I would not be ashamed to show my head anywhere." Then while he perfumed himself with oil of saffron out of a little onyx bottle, he went on:—

[28] At an age when respectable men were almost invariably smooth shaven, the philosophers wore flowing beards, as a sort of professional badge.

"What dogs and gluttons these Romans are! They have no real taste for art, for beauty. They cannot even conduct a murder, save in a bungling way. They have to call in us Hellenes to help them. Ha! ha! this is the vengeance for Hellas, for the sack and razing of Corinth and all the other atrocities! Rome can conquer with the sword; but we Greeks, though conquered, can, unarmed, conquer Rome. How these Italians can waste their money! Villas, statues, pretty slaves, costly vases, and tables of mottled cypress,[29] oysters worth their weight in gold, and I know not what else! And I, poor Pratinas, the Greek, who lives in an upper floor of a Subura house at only two thousand sesterces rental, find in these noble Roman lords only so much plunder. Ha! ha! Hellas, thou art avenged!"

[29] A "fad" of this time. Such tables often cost $20,000.

And gathering his mantle about him, he went down the several flights of very rickety stairs, and found himself in the buzzing street.