The Venus Throw (4 page)

“Perhaps they are both witches,” said Trygonion.

“Enough of your rudeness,” growled Dio. “These galli think they can say anything and behave however they choose, under anyone’s roof. They have no shame.”

“That’s not all we lack,” said Trygonion with a straight face.

Whatever the source of her insight, Diana had also put her finger on the more perplexing mystery that lay beyond the thin disguises of my guests: what were they doing together? It was clear that they had no love for each other.

“If you’ve had enough wine,” I said, knowing that Trygonion
had drunk more than his share while Dio had barely touched his cup, “and if we’ve talked enough of your disguises, perhaps we should speak of more serious things. Why have you come to me, Teacher, and what do you want from me?”

Dio cleared his throat. “You spoke a moment ago of what you Romans call ‘the Egyptian situation.’ I take it, then, that you know of the false will of King Alexander, the schemes of Caesar and Pompey to get their hands on the wealth of Egypt, the wholesale murder of my colleagues who have come to seek justice from the Senate of Rome—”

I raised my hand. “Perhaps you should begin at the beginning and explain to me each step that brought you to my door. But to start, I want only the simplest answers to two simple questions. First: why have you come to me?”

Dio looked at me for a long moment, then gazed into the flames of the brazier. His voice trembled. “I have come to you because there is no one else in all Rome to whom I can turn for help, no one else I can trust—if indeed I can trust even you.”

I nodded. “And second: what do you want from me, Teacher?”

“I want you to help me to—” He choked on the words. He turned his gaze from the brazier to me, so that I saw the flames dancing in his eyes. His jaw quivered and the fleshy folds of his neck shook as he swallowed hard. “Help me. Please! I want you to help me to . . .”

“To help you do what?”

“Stay alive!”

W
ith his great mane of dark hair, his towering physique (not yet gone to fat), and his amiable manner, the philosopher Dio had been a conspicuous figure in the Alexandria of my youth. Like most of the upper class of Egypt, Dio was of Greek blood—with a touch of the Scythian, he had claimed, to account for his height, and a bit of the Ethiop to account for his dark complexion. He had been a familiar sight on the steps of the library attached to the Temple of Serapis, where philosophers met to debate one another and instruct their pupils.

As a young man I had ended up in Alexandria after a long journey and had decided to stay there for a while. That was where I met my future wife, Bethesda, or more precisely, where I purchased her; she was a slave offered for sale at the great slave market, very young and very beautiful. (And a troublemaker, the auctioneer had begrudgingly admitted, which was why I was able to afford her; but if what she gave me was trouble, I only craved more of it.) Thus I passed the hot Alexandrian nights in a haze of lust; and during the day, while Bethesda kept herself busy in my shabby little apartment or went to the market, I gravitated to the library steps and sought out Dio. I was no student of philosophy—I lacked the money for formal education—but it was a
tradition among Alexandrian philosophers to engage common men in conversation from time to time, at no charge.

Now, thirty years later, I could recall only bits and pieces of those conversations, but I vividly remembered how Dio had fanned my youthful passion for truth into white-hot flames with his rhetorical conundrums, just as Bethesda had fanned my other passions. In those days I had everything I needed, which for a young man is not much: an unfamiliar city to explore, a partner in my bed, and a mentor. We do not forget the cities, or the lovers, or the teachers of our youth.

Dio was attached to the Academic school. His mentor was Antiochus of Ascalon, who in a few years would become the head of the. Academy; Dio was one of the great philosopher’s leading protégés. In my ignorance I once asked Dio where the Academy was, and he laughed, explaining that white the name originated from a specific site—a grove near Athens where Plato taught—it applied nowadays not to any particular place or building, but to a discipline, a school of thought. The Academy transcended borders; kings might be its patrons, but they had no hegemony over it. The Academy transcended language (though of course all great works of philosophy, including those of the Academics, are written in Greek). The Academy embraced all men, and yet belonged to none. How could it be otherwise with an institution dedicated to discovering fundamental truths?

How does a, man know what he knows? How can he be sure of his own perceptions, let alone those of others? Do the gods exist? Can their existence be proven? What is their form and their nature, and how can men discern their will? How can we determine right and wrong? Can right action lead to an evil result, or wrong action to a good outcome?

To a young Roman, barely twenty, in an exotic, teeming metropolis like Alexandria, these were heady questions. Dio had studied them all, and his quest for knowledge was a profound inspiration to me. Dio was hardly more than ten
years my senior, but to me he seemed infinitely wise and worldly. In his presence I felt quite out of my depth, and I was immensely flattered that he would take the time and effort to explain his ideas to me. Sitting on the steps of the library while his slaves shaded us with parasols, we would discuss the differences between intellect and sensation, range the senses in order of reliability, and consider the specific ways that men depend upon logic, smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch to make sense of the world.

Thirty years had passed. Dio had changed, of course. He had seemed old to me then, but now he truly was old. The mane of dark hair had turned to silver. His belly had grown big and his skin had grown loose and wrinkled. But his broad back was unstooped. Unused to having his arms covered, he pulled up the sleeves of his stola to reveal a pair of muscular forearms as brown and weathered as his hands. He looked as healthy as myself, and given his size and robustness, he was probably stronger.

You’d be a hard man to forget
, I had told him. Now, as he implored me to help him stay alive, I almost said,
You look like you’d be a hard man to kill
.

Instead, after a considerable pause, I changed the subject. “What I find surprising, Teacher, is that you should remember
me
after all these years. I was your pupil only in the most casual way, and my time in Alexandria was relatively brief. After I left, I heard that your mentor Antiochus succeeded Philo as head of the Academy; your life must have become very busy after that, conversing with kings, playing host to diplomats, advising the great and powerful. How curious, that you should remember making the acquaintance of a footloose young Roman who liked to loiter on the library steps, eavesdropping on the discourses of his elders and occasionally daring to converse with them.”

“You were something more than that,” Dio said. “You say that you would be a poor Finder if you could not deduce the identity of a visitor like myself. Well then, what sort of
philosopher would I be, if I could not recognize and remember a kindred spirit when I met one?”

“You flatter me, Teacher.”

“I most certainly do not. I never flatter anyone, not even kings. Not even King Ptolemy! Which is one reason I find myself in this terrible state.” He smiled weakly, but in his eyes I saw the haunted look of a man oppressed by constant fear. He stood and began to pace nervously around the small room, hugging his arms to his chest and shaking his head. Trygonion sat with folded hands and watched him with a curious expression, content to be silent.

“Do you remember the things we used to talk about on the library steps, Gordianus?”

“Only bits and pieces, I’m afraid. But I remember your eloquence when you spoke of perception and truth, of how the teachings of Plato and the Stoics had been clarified rather than refuted by the Academy—”

“Is that what you remember? How strange! That’s not at all what I recall of our conversations.”

“But what else was there, except talk of philosophy?”

Dio shook his head. “I don’t remember talking of philosophy with you, though I suppose I must have. All those abstract fancies and high-minded ramblings—how pompous I must have seemed to you!”

“Not at all—”

“No, what I remember are the stories
you
told, Gordianus.”

“What stories?”

“About your adventures out in the great world! About your long, roundabout journey from Rome to Egypt, and your visits to the Seven Wonders along the way, and your exploits in Alexandria. How dull my own life seemed by comparison. How old you made me feel, as if life had passed me by! While my colleagues and I lounged under parasols, debating good and evil, you were out in the streets, encountering good and evil in the flesh, taking part in the whirling
drama of life and death. Who was I to speak of discerning truth from falsehood, when sitting beside me on the steps of the library was the young Roman who had solved the riddle of the cat murdered in the Rhakotis district, which caused half the populace of the city to riot?”

“You remember that story?” I said, amazed.

“I have never forgotten it! Even now I can close my eyes and hear you telling the tale while philosophers and shopkeepers gathered around to listen in awe.”

“The killing of a mere
cat
caused the city to riot?” Trygonion turned a heavy-lidded, dubious gaze at each of us in turn.

“You obviously have never been to Alexandria, where cats are gods,” said Dio curtly. “Only a few years ago a similar incident occurred. The culprit was a Roman, or so they said. But given the political climate in Alexandria these days, any pretext will do to stir up the mob to chase a Roman through the streets, cat killer or not.” He stopped his pacing and took a halting breath, then another. “Do you think we could retire to another room? The brazier is too hot. The air grows stuffy.”

“I could call Belbo to unshutter another window,” I suggested.

“No, no, perhaps we could step outside for a moment?”

“As you like.”

I led them into the garden. Trygonion made a show of shivering and hugging himself, flapping the folds of his toga in an undignified, decidedly un-Roman fashion. Dio studied the fishpond with an abstracted air, then gazed up at the darkening sky, took several deep breaths and resumed his pacing, which brought him to a startled halt before the statue of Minerva. The virgin goddess held an upright spear in one hand and clutched a shield in the other. An owl perched on her shoulder and a snake coiled at her feet. The whole statue was painted in such lifelike color that the goddess seemed
to breathe and gaze down on us from beneath the visor of her crested helmet.

“Magnificent,” he whispered. Trygonion, loyal to the Great Mother, gave the goddess of wisdom only a cursory glance.

I stepped alongside Dio and gazed up at the statue’s familiar face. “The only female in the place who never talks back to me. But then, she never seems to listen to me, either”

“She must have cost a small fortune.”

“Probably, though I can’t tell you the cost. I gained her by inheritance, more or less, like the rest of this house. The tale of how that came to pass would fill a book.”
*

Dio surveyed the portico that surrounded the garden, clearly impressed. “Those multicolored tiles above the doorways—”

“Fired by artisans in Arretium. So my late benefactor Lucius Claudius once told me, when I was merely a visitor here.”

“And all these finely carved columns—”

“Salvaged and brought up with great difficulty, so I was told, from an old villa at Baiae, as was the statue of Minerva. All are of Greek design and workmanship. Lucius Claudius had impeccable taste and considerable resources.”

“And now all this is yours? You’ve done well for yourself, Gordianus. Very well, indeed. When they said that you lived in a fine house here on the Palatine, I wondered if it could be the same man who’d led a wanderer’s life in Alexandria, living from hand to mouth.”

I shrugged. “I may have been a wanderer, but I always had the humble house of my father to come back to here in Rome on the Esquiline Hill.”

“But surely that couldn’t be as fine as this. You have prospered remarkably. You see, I judged you rightly when
I met you long ago in Alexandria. I have known many wise men, philosophers who crave knowledge as other men crave fine wines or sumptuous clothing or a beautiful slave—as a glittering possession that will bring them comfort and earn other men’s esteem. But you sought after truth as if you wished to marry her. You yearned for truth, Gordianus, as if you could not live without breathing her perfume every morning and night. You loved all her mysteries in equal measure—the great mysteries of philosophy as well as the practical mystery of discovering the killer of an Alexandrian cat. To search for truth is virtue. For your virtue the gods have rewarded you.”

I could think of no response but a shrug. In the thirty years since I had last seen Dio I easily could have died a hundred times, for my labors had often brought me into danger, or I could have fallen into min like so many other men. Instead I owned a fine house on the Palatine and counted senators and wealthy merchants among my neighbors. Dio’s explanation of my good luck was as reasonable as any other, though it seems to me that even philosophers cannot say what causes Fortune to smile on one man and show spite to another. Watching him resume his fitful pacing, I couldn’t help thinking that Dio, for all his years of devotion to finding the truth, had the haggard look of a man whom Fortune had abandoned.