by Ken Parejko
Fortunately there was a public latrine just inside the Eumachia. Except for an attendant who boorishly watched me as I fumbled in the loincloth under my toga the latrine was empty. My urine splashed into the basin. The latrine was cleaner than most but in the hot summer morning swarmed with flies.
The urine I was donating would eventually be bucketed up out of its reservoir and used in the Eumachia for the mordanting of wool. I replaced my loincloth and straightened my toga. I remembered an old saying I’d put into the Natural History, that urine cured gout, a disease wool fullers, it was claimed, did not suffer from.
So I turned to the attendant. “I’ve heard it said that fullers don’t suffer from gout. Is that true?”
“Gout?” the attendant asked, then spat. “Not me. Never met the fellow.”
“And the fullers?”
The attendant swatted at a cloud of flies with a dirty rag and shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I thought gout was more a friend of your class.” My toga, with its narrow purple stripe, and the gold equite’s ring I wore advertised me as a knight. The man was right. And of course no one in the wealthier classes, who tended to overeat and drink, worked in the fuller’s trade.
“I should charge you for it,” I joked. The urine, I meant, a resource to the wool-makers.
"Everyone says that," the attendant remarked gruffly, turning to wiping the walls.
"Do they?" I responded as I turned to leave. "Yes, I suppose they do."
"The emperor taxes it," the attendant added. He was right, of course. While setting up some of Rome’s first public latrines Vespasian had instituted a very unpopular urine-tax, taxing its end-users. I'd been against it. Then why not tax their shit, too, I’d joked. Vespasian’s eyebrows rose as he seemed to give the idea serious thought. But we don’t have a use for it like we do piss, he said. We’d have to tax the producer. I pointed out that since the wealthy were often constipated while the poor seemed forever beset with diarrhea, it would be a regressive tax. I left the restroom and made my way directly into the Imperial temple, now dedicated to the very emperor I’d just been remembering. The temple adjoined and shared a wall with the Eumachia and like the fuller's building had been damaged in the earthquake. In the last years of his life Nero had little money to repair the damage, and only perfunctory sacrifices were made in his name among the fallen busts and tilted columns. But on Vespasian’s accession and the wave of optimism which followed, Imperial temples all over the empire had been spruced-up.
The cool marble-floored temple courtyard was quieter than the forum. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and sat for a bit on a bench just inside the temple doorway. In front of me rose the columns of the sanctuary, themselves topped with acanthus-adorned Corinthian capitals, and from within the sanctuary I could see the statue of the seated Vespasian. I hadn’t yet adjusted to the idea that my old friend had been declared a god. I smiled wryly to myself over the silliness of the idea, and remembered Titus’ letter describing the politics behind it. Now seated, I breathed more easily. A priest appeared and set an oil lamp on the altar.
As the priest turned to leave he noticed me sitting by the doorway. His face lit up and he came my way, his toga flowing behind him.
"Why Pliny," he said. "How good to see you." I studied his face; knew I knew him, but not how.
“Gavium Pansam, don’t you remember, old friend?” he said with a thick Oscan accent, then put his hand on my shoulder.
“Of course,” I said, embarrassed by the uncharacteristic slip of memory. Pansam was a centurion under my command long ago at Vetera, a good solid man. We'd met again several years ago, at a dinner in Rome.
“My dear Pansam,” I replied. “I had no idea you were a priest."
"Yes. After I retired.”
“Twenty-five years? Is it possible?”
“Yes. All twenty-five. Soon as I got my diploma, my severance pay and the savings I’d set aside I moved back home and took up the priesthood.”
“Home?” He seemed to glow with the pleasure of seeing me again.
“I was born part way up the mountain.” He pointed in the direction of Vesuvius. “My father and grandpa were shepherds.”
“Ah. So you have family here?”
“Yes. The gens still haunts the old grounds. My father's gone, but my mother lives with me, here in Pompeii. I’ve bought a house, and enough land up the mountainside for a little flock. I’ve got three shepherds working for me,” he added proudly. “But I've heard you've become admiral.”
“Yes. Silly isn't it, a cavalry officer becoming admiral...”
“Not silly at all. I could tell when we first met that you were going places,” Pansam answered affectionately. “What brings you to Pompeii?”
“Business. A shipment of grain that hasn't arrived.”
“Ah. Well, will you stop by sometime? I'm just up the road, a little place on the Via Augustali. Just ask.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Can I get you something? A cool drink, perhaps?”
“Yes, that would be good,” I admitted. He hurried behind the sanctuary and returned in a few moments with cool water just raised from the well. I drank it gratefully.
“It’s getting hot again,” he observed. “A lovely city, but too hot, in the summer. I’m thinking of throwing up a little place -- not a villa, just a hut -- on my holdings up on the mountain, where it’s cooler. How is it at Misenum?”
“Much nicer. On the cape, always a nice breeze. I couldn’t stand it here. Maybe when I was younger...”
I handed the cup back to him, stood up, creaked my joints. “And the temple business?”
“As long as we have an emperor, I’ll have a job,” Pansam remarked. He glanced at the bust of Vespasian. “A friend of yours, wasn’t he? What was he really like?”
I thought a moment. “No different from you or me. Just trying to do, with the time the gods gave him, a bit of good for his country and its people.”
“Well, I’ll bless him thrice for that,” Pansam effused. “He did do a lot of good, and it seems Fortune’s favored us with his son, too.”
“We'll have to see.” As I turned to leave I dropped a coin in the collection box then slipped out of the quiet refuge of the temple once again into the stream of people hustling their way through the forum. It certainly was a busy morning.
Next to the Imperial temple was the smaller and more rustic temple of the public lares, built after the earthquake to expiate the gods of the underworld and, it was hoped, stave off any plans they might have of once again shaking up the city. A half dozen priests lazed about the entrance, watching in boredom as the city’s business flowed past.
Farther along was the macellum, the fish and meat market, seething with activity. I thought I might have a look for fresh mullets. Mullets had been nearly fished out along the coast, and these the most delicate of the sea-fish had become quite dear. It was said that in Rome especially fine mullet would bring their weight in gold. Here they were a little more affordable. If they looked good I might treat himself to one or two.
Just inside the doorway of the macellum I merged again with a busy crowd. Though the high walls of the market were brightly painted with street-scenes done in perspective, the illusion of size was just an illusion: I faced wall to wall shoppers. Along the near sides of the macellum were various shops and tabernae, while the meat and fish stalls took up the bigger part of an acre, tucked into the market’s far corner. As I approached them the smell of the fish shops met me first, a rich watery smell equally repulsive and attractive. My greatest weakness for food was for the fruits of the sea. The Sicilians, I recalled, called her our sweet mother sea, who lay such delicacies at our table. The fish-stalls were crowded with servants and housemaids busily shopping for the best, freshest bargains for dinner. I slipped among the shoppers jostling around huge eels and a dozen different varieties of fish, from tiny anchovies no larger than my thumb to huge specimens which could feed a dozen hungry guests. The seafood was arranged on the t
ables roughly by price, the cheaper kinds at the nearer end. Here the poorer citizens of the city argued with the vendors over a few pennies’ worth of dried or salted sprats and tiny bite-size squid. I moved past them to the fresher and larger specimens: the eels and tuna, the sea bass, dog-fish and prawns. Just looking at them was making me hungry.
Many of my colleagues had their own pools dug into caves in the sea for keeping and raising fish; many also had dormice barrels, where the little mice were fattened on bran and nuts before being skinned and roasted, and many too had snail ponds. I’d thought of building a nook in the backyard of the admiralty where the stone wall shaded a cool and damp corner, and having a small pond dug for snails. I stood in front of a table laden with some of the biggest snails I’d ever seen, likely from Illyricum. They looked fresh, and I came near to buying some for dinner.
But what I really wanted more than anything else was a good, fresh mullet. At the farthest corner of the fish market, beside a little sanctuary dedicated to the imperial family -- there was no escaping Vespasian or Titus, even here in the recesses of the market -- I found a large vase containing seawater and live red mullets. These, I knew, would be the most expensive, sold to the city’s wealthiest citizens -- the Scauri, the Vettii, the Proculii, and successful bankers like Jucundus. I asked the vendor how much the live mullet were, then shook my head in dismay.
On the marble counter beside the swimming mullet lay a large wrasse. The soft and delicate flesh of the wrasse, said to live on sea-grass, was preferred by some to mullets. During Tiberius” reign my predecessor in the admiralty, a man named Optatus, brought hundreds of wrasse from the Carpathian Sea and released them up and down the coast from the mouth of the Tiber down to Misenum. Since then a small but very profitable wrasse fishery had arisen. Out of curiosity I asked where the wrasse was taken, but the old man selling it claimed not to know.
The wrasse, like the live mullets, were too dear. But next to the wrasse were a dozen scaled mullet, all lined up in a row. Their bright red color told me they'd been scaled alive, and recently. These were the finest mullets, called shoe-mullets because of their shape, and tasted rather like oysters. I asked how much they were, which was less than half the live fish. I had some time to waste yet before doing my business. The vendor promised to hold two of them for me and keep them damp and cool. I opened my purse to pay him. A coin slipped out of my hands onto the floor. I seemed to be dropping things more often than I used to. As I bent to pick it up I noticed a familiar-looking face staring at me from a nearby counter.
I handed the coins to the fishmonger and promised to return in an hour or so. The woman I thought I recognized lifted a hand and waved delicately at me. I wondered who she was. She was well-dressed, a higher class than one usually saw here in the market. For a moment I thought she might be Agrippa’s sister Drusilla. What an odd thing, I thought, to be running into her here in the macellum. My eyesight had been failing me of late. I didn’t trust myself. Must be someone else, I thought. But I'd soon find out. She was heading straight towards me.
“My dear Pliny,” she said, taking my hand. “How good it is to see you again.”
“Drusilla!” So, my eyes and memory hadn’t failed me.“
“So you remember me,” she smiled. She’d chosen to speak to me in Greek. I remembered, from long ago in Caesarea how she liked walking outside the bounds. She was still a beautiful woman. Her long tunic was delicately-dyed silk, of a subtle light blue; around her neck she wore an opulent emerald necklace. Several gold bracelets and armbands adorned each arm, and her fingers were heavy with rings. Her eyes were lively, and seemed to reap a rich harvest from her surroundings; yet behind that liveliness I could see the cynicism so common in the wealthier classes.
“Of course I remember you. So, what brings you to Pompeii?”
“My son, Antonius,” she replied. “He lives here now.”
I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. I wanted to accept her at face value; but how long it had been, how many years, since I could simply accept what people said? Only in the company of good friends like Vespasian -- and I was learning day by day just how much I would miss him -- could I relax and accept what was said at face value. Out here, in the larger world, rife with conspiracy and intrigue, one walked on a slippery surface under which the truth was often well hidden. And the reputation of the woman who now smiled up at me was of the kind who eat their mates, an Agrippina. It was said her men, who thought they could handle her, ended up clay in her hands. On the other hand who could blame her? What a curse, to be born into a woman's body. Was she still married to Felix? I couldn't recall.
“Your son?” I said, hoping to learn more.
“Yes. He's studying at the military academy. Or anyway, he was. Now he wants to be an actor. The joys of motherhood, my friend. And what brings you to Pompeii?”
As we spoke the ground shifted slightly beneath us, the stalls and shoppers swaying a moment. She slipped toward me, catching herself on my arm.
“Campania,” I said, as the ground stopped moving, “is so close to paradise the gods must remind us now and then that it is not.”
“It does add some excitement,” she said. “I don’t think I’d enjoy paradise.”
I was going to protest. I had a different view of danger than she. A soldier faces death too often to be sentimental about danger.
“Did you buy some fish?” she asked.
“A few mullets. There are live ones.” I pointed to a vase over which an attendant hovered.
“Too dear for me,” she confessed.
“They have wrasse.”
“Oh? Are they giving them away?” she asked, smiling. “If they are, I’ll take a dozen.”
“No, definitely not giving them away.” Though I knew enough of Drusilla”s history of broken marriages that I ought really to be treating her like a week-old wrasse found on the beach, I found myself instead strangely attracted to her. Perhaps she was like nature’s little phenomena -- an outbreak of locusts, thousands of tiny young toads hatching together at the edge of a lake, a tree growing miraculously out of a rock -- which I found so fascinating. She had seen so much, from the decrepit villages of Judea, to a life in Herod’s Caesarean palace, to Rome and Alexandria and who knew what else. I’d seen a lot, too, but I knew that as a man the halls of power were open to me in ways they weren’t to a woman. I alternately loathed and in a certain sense admired women who prospered in the hard ground of their lives. In a certain way, I saw in her the lion I’d encountered beneath the Puteoli amphitheater: a wild creature which lived by its own rules, ever trying to break out from its cage.
There hovered about her a sense of the unexplored, the unknown. In her you could see, could taste, almost, a direct line to the ancient female powers. To me, hovering about her was also some thin connection to the woman who kept showing up in my dreams. It was beyond explaining, really, and that in itself was interesting. Of all the worlds I'd written of and explored, it was woman’s world I knew the least.
“Look, dear Pliny,” she offered, “Antonius is giving his very first public performance during the Augustalia. He's practicing soon, within the hour, at the theater. I'm going to watch. Why don't you join me? He’s a remarkable actor. I’m sure you’d enjoy it."
I paused a moment. Two flies lifted themselves off a filet of sea-bass and buzzing at one another, whether fighting or courting I could not be sure, flew between us. “Well, I have some business at hand, but I do have some free time.”
“Perfect then. I'll be at the theater, waiting for you. Practice starts at the fourth hour.”
“All right. If I have time.”
“Okay. If you have time,” she agreed. She leaned toward me and lightly placed a kiss on my cheek.
I squeezed her hand, then watched her disappear among the crowd. I reminded the fishmonger that I’d be back to pick up the mullets and left the busy hustle of the market for the bright light of the forum. I hurried to the grain market, where there was a
chance of finding Pollo. My mind was unusually rattled. Instead of the grain market, I found myself in the weight commissioner's room, standing stupidly before the long table of official weights by which the measure of produce was checked for accuracy. .I wheeled back out the door and slipped into the grain market, which was refreshingly quiet, and cool. I looked up and down, but there was no Pollo. What to do next? I could return to the basilica and wait there, though there was no telling when Pollo would return. Or I could wait to pounce on him here, in case he showed up, but that seemed tedious and futile.
I left the grain-market and started down the Via dell’ Abbondanza toward the looming mass of Vesuvius. This was one of Pompeii's busiest streets, a crowded thoroughfare, wide enough for two chariots to pass unimpeded, a bubbling stream of children, dogs, cats, men and women. Dogs barked at me from inside cool houses. I glanced into one as I passed and saw a mosaic floor of a boor being attacked by dogs. I stopped at the fountain for which the street was named, a marble bust of a woman with a cornucopia. I had a long drink of the cool, refreshing water, and splashed some on my face and neck. This was the epitome of our civilization: a chance, anywhere, to drink cool, clean water brought by aqueducts from miles away. It was an engineering marvel. But another hallmark of my countrymen was the profusion of superstitions which I despised, in evidence all around. Cross-roads and street-corners, thought to be especially vulnerable to evil spirits, sported large red-painted phalli, shrines to obscure gods, and little statues of famous gladiators, naively erected in the hope their skills in the arena would frighten away evil spirits.
It was too early for a bath; besides, the Stabian baths, I'd been told, were out of order. I was a bit hungry, so I stopped at a taberna for a glass of cool wine and a bread and cheese. The place was doing a lively business. Though wine at these little tabernae was often barely drinkable and badly watered-down, this hole in the wall prospered for good reason. The wine was good, the cheese delicious. I made a mental note to remember it.
