Dear and Glorious Physician

by Taylor Caldwell

  “May Mercury curse your physician!” said Diodorus. He flung himself into his chair and began to wipe his streaming forehead with his hands. When the senator offered him his own perfumed kerchief for the task, Diodorus rejected it with an oath. The senator laughed. “It must have been an exciting day at the Hall of Justice,” he remarked, helping himself to a coarse sweetmeat from the silver plate beside him on the table. He looked about for a servant. It was too much to expect that a servant would be on hand in this barbarous household, so the senator poured some wine for the tribune and handed it to him with a bow. Diodorus wanted to refuse it, but his mouth was dry and parched with dust and fever, so he snatched the goblet and emptied its contents in one long swallow. Now he began to feel embarrassed that he had insulted a guest, even if that guest was only his brother-in-law. He sat, knees aspraddle, and his strong and sinewy body bent forward, his head dropped slightly. He stared at the interior of the empty goblet and said somberly, “I am one festering sore.”

  Carvilius Ulpian wondered where his own servants were. The plebeian looseness and ease in this household had no doubt infected them and the rascals were probably cavorting with the other slaves. However, he relaxed. He found the air of Syria to be quite salubrious and pleasantly warm, for he was a thin-blooded man.

  The senator understood that Diodorus was less apologizing to him than being sullenly resentful that he had committed a gross breach of good manners, gross even for a soldier. He settled his aristocratic features into a pleasant and comprehending expression, and his small pale eyes, of no particular color, took on the benign look he reserved for his clients, particularly large landowners who wanted favors for a respectable fee.

  The tribune stood up and stripped his breastplate from him, loosened his leather girdle and his short sword, and threw them onto a chair. He stood revealed in his homespun linen tunic the color of red earth, which the industrious Aurelia had spun, woven and sewn for him. His sturdy legs and arms and chest were covered with bristling black hair, and he exuded strength, masculinity and sweat to such an extent that the senator closed his delicate eyes. Soldiers, he reflected, were inevitably violent and stupid, and Diodorus was no exception. Though Cornelia, that simple woman, protested that the books the senator was constantly compelled to send to Antioch were for Diodorus’ own use, the senator did not believe it. A Vandal. He and his father and all their ancestors had a reputation of absolute integrity and honor and soldierly qualities and virtue in Rome. That, the senator considered, was the quality of them, unimaginative, boorish and unintelligent. Still, though the Augustales laughed at Diodorus, and even cold-faced Tiberius Caesar smiled at the mention of his name, he had influence among those in Rome like him, and one never underestimated the power of tribunes and the military, mindless though they were.

  Diodorus filled his goblet again, some of the wine falling on his hands. The red sunlight splashed on the white walls of the house, and made rosy columns of the pillars. A warm sweet scent drifted from the gardens at the rear of the house, and palms chattered. It was quiet and peaceful, and good for the nerves of a gentleman lately from Rome, where the very air reeked with intrigue. Diodorus sat down. He repeated in a less sullen but in a harder tone, “I am one festering sore.”

  The senator sighed, looked at his jeweled hands pensively. It could not be escaped. But he tried. “Surely not,” he said, “in all this pleasantness, and in the power you hold in the province. Caesar is much pleased with you. He said to me just before I left, ‘My greetings to our good Diodorus, and tell him I know of no other province or country so well governed’.”

  “He means,” said Diodorus ruthlessly, “that I am not a thief or a liar, and I send him his taxes promptly, and that I deal as justly as possible so that Syria will cause him little trouble.”

  The senator sighed again. He had a narrow head of sleek dark hair. His mouth was slightly effeminate, and a trifle too full and red for a man. Diodorus went on, and now his voice trembled a little. “I remember my old comrade in arms, Gaius Octavius, whom you delicates called Augustus. When you wrote me he had died at Nola, his father’s old home, in the arms of his wife, my heart broke. I do not recognize his successor as my Caesar, not in my heart, even though you speak of him as a divinity. Divinity!”

  The senator looked about him quickly. He hoped there was no one spying, one who could repeat such treasonable statements. He coughed, and murmured, “A man should be discreet. Do not look so irate, my Diodorus. If I remember rightly, you complained in letters to me that your ‘old comrade in arms’ had finally destroyed the Republic and extinguished political liberty. I burned your letters, of course, as they were dangerous.”

  “Nonsense,” said Diodorus, with ire, and full of umbrage. “I wrote him a letter to that effect myself. Old friends, old soldiers, are honest with each other. I was like a son to him. We quarreled about the honors he had accepted, and my father quarreled with him on the same account. Yes, the Republic died with him, and it was not entirely his fault, but he was a good soldier, better, in my opinion, than Julius Caesar himself. One forgives a good soldier many things, though not, of course, usurpation of power, and so I chided him frequently, and he said to me, when he was an old wise man, ‘Corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die’.”

  In spite of himself the senator was surprised, and he felt his first respect for Diodorus, who could scold Caesar with impunity and receive an apologetic reply.

  “This rascal, now crowned with oak leaves, and a cold-blooded person, may technically be my Emperor, and I serve him as a soldier, as my father served Gaius Octavius, but I do not have to pretend to adore him and regard him as one of the gods.” Diodorus shifted in his chair wrathfully. “And I want to go to my farm near Rome and forget your accursed mobs, and all your politics and depravity, and be with my family under my fruitful trees.”

  “And also forget that you are a soldier, my fiery Mars?”

  Diodorus hesitated. “If Rome needs me as a soldier, then I must respond. I am not needed in Syria. Send one of your scoundrels here instead; he will be more fitting in this damnable place than I.” He heaved a tremendous sigh. “At least my Caesar was virtuous, and his wife was his beloved until his death, for a whole fifty years. Tell me: Is Tiberius such a man?”

  The senator rubbed his chin and his eyes darted about the portico and through the open door. He said tactfully, “I am a man who is not quarrelsome, and my business is politics, and though I see Caesar often we discuss nothing controversial!”

  “In other words, Tiberius has ignored my letters, and you have not discussed them with him.” Diodorus’ vehement eyes sparkled.

  “Patience, patience,” murmured the senator, and wondered when dinner would be served. He was beginning to get a headache himself. He said, hopefully, “There will be guests for dinner?” Guests would possibly have a quieting effect on this rambunctious soldier.

  “Guests!” exclaimed Diodorus. “No. Do I invite inferiors to my house? You do not know Antioch. I tell you, I fester here! If I did not visit the procurator in Judea once a year or so I should expire of boredom and rage. Did you expect a banqueting such as you are accustomed to in Rome with Tiberius?”

  Oh, gods, thought the senator in dismay. He said reasonably, “Why do you so resent Tiberius? After all, he is a magnificent soldier, has lightened taxation when he could, in the name of economy, is a comparatively honest and honorable gentleman, is just in his dealings with the provinces, and has consolidated the Empire. As for banquets, as a soldier Tiberius does not enjoy them. Did you think him a Bacchus?”

  “I was with him on one campaign,” said Diodorus, gloomily, and rubbing his aching forehead. “He could not compare with Gaius Octavius,” he added defensively. “But he is a silent, cold-spirited man. He defers too much to you senators — he permits too many loose tongues to wag, and that is not the way of an emperor. No discipline — ”

  “Nevertheless, unlike your beloved Oc
tavius, he is a Roman of your own kidney. When he mounted the throne there were less than one hundred million sesterces in the Treasury. Now the amount grows month by month. He is frugal.”

  “Nevertheless, he uses vicious spies and informers, as no soldier should do,” said Diodorus. “When a man is afraid of his compatriots and fears assassination, one should examine the man.” Again he regarded the senator with ire. “Why does he not answer my letters?”

  “Because you are administering this province to his approval. If you were not, he would recall you abruptly. I tell you, Tiberius and you are of the same kidney.”

  “That does not flatter me,” said Diodorus. He stood up. “If I were Caesar I would put you senators in your places.”

  “In other words, you would be a tyrant,” said the senator, smiling. “I would have discipline,” said Diodorus, pulling up his tunic belt. “I would encourage the ‘new’ men, the middle class, in Rome, the country squires, the merchants, the shopkeepers, the traders, the lawyers, the physicians, the builders. I understand that they are not patricians, but neither am I! Many of them are of ancient Etrurian families.” His eye kindled. “So far as I am concerned, we can give Italy back to the Etruscans, and let them, and the Roman ‘new men’, deal with the Roman rabble, not cater to them as you senators do for their filthy favors. Nor would I fill my chambers with gladiators and scoundrels and freedmen and call them my clients. Rabble!”

  The senator was slightly amused again. “Tiberius is no Catiline, and, so far as I know, the ‘new men’ have not as yet produced another Cicero.”

  Diodorus began to stamp away, grunting in disdain. Then he stopped. “You will remember, my good Carvilius, that we dine when the gong sounds. In the meanwhile I will wash some of the stinking dust of Antioch from my hands and face.”

  The senator was left alone in the swift and purpling twilight, and he leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly. A few days more would relieve his nervousness. This house, though barbarous, and containing little furniture of any luxury and distinction, and practically no ivory, no murrhine glass, few excellent statues even of the gods, and no Corinthian bronze candelabra, and no paintings of any merit, and though the bedrooms were mere holes fashioned only for plain animal sleep and not pleasure, it had a certain simple repose. Best of all, no one expected favors from him, and there was no need for him to be on guard. The barbarians, he reflected, could be admired at times. He also reflected that it did him no harm in Rome to be allied by marriage to the respected ‘old Roman’ family of Diodorus. Even Tiberius would smile on Carvilius Ulpian more often than he smiled at his colleagues, and if that smile was invariably thin and acid at least it was a smile. And he would often inquire of Diodorus.

  The fountains in the garden behind the house sounded clear and musical in the silent dusk, and the birds chorused the music. Stretching in pleasure, the senator stood up and paced towards the gardens. He had an estate of his own, outside the gates of Rome, but he could not recall that it was as peaceful as this, nor did the fountains murmur and splash with such harmony to the golden curve of a rising moon. The west had become a series of small lakes of fire surrounded by a pellucid and haunting green, like celestial verdure. The white columns of the house, simple and Ionian, and the unfretted colonnades, resembled carved snow, dappled, here and there, with the last deep crimson of the sun.

  The senator reached the gardens. The whole enclosure drifted with heliotrope light, hushed and secret, but the water in the fountains gleamed like silver. The scent of jasmine blew on the wings of a soft evening wind, and the palms fluttered their fans against a darkening sky the color of amethysts. He looked about him with pleasure, rejoicing again in the silence broken only by the sound of water and the languorous voices of birds. Then he started.

  He had never noticed that beautiful, life-sized statue of a woman before, standing near the center fountain, one snowy arm extended so that the fingers might touch the faintly sparkling waters in the marble bowl. Where had Diodorus, who never appreciated works of art, ever obtained such a marvelous creation? The senator seethed with envy. From Sicily, perhaps. The Sicilians colored their statues, and sometimes with delicacy. The statue had golden hair, dressed in the Grecian fashion, and the lovely, brooding profile was so expertly touched with rose that one would swear it was living flesh. The alabaster chiton draped a most perfect and divinely beautiful bosom, which almost seemed to breathe in that drifting and mysterious light, and the folds of the chiton, simple and noble, fell from a waist as slender as a wand, and molded itself over the gleaming thighs. Never had the senator seen anything so adorable. Praxiteles had never fashioned so glorious a form and of such exquisite perfection.

  Then, to the terror of the superstitious Augustale, who did not believe in the gods but only feared them, the statue swayed a little and moved. He retreated a step, moistening his lips. It would not have surprised him if the moving statue had lifted an argent bow and had turned to him, aiming an arrow at his heart for presuming to look upon Artemis in her virginity. It was then that he saw Diodorus, standing in an arch of the colonnades, unaware of his guest in that deepening purple shadow. Diodorus was looking at the stately girl, who, head bent low, was slowly gliding away to the garden gate.

  The tribune’s absolute stillness caught the senator’s quick attention. He saw the face of Diodorus, and its dark intensity could be seen even in that dusk. He saw his profile, contorted with some heavy pain and desperate longing. The girl, not noticing the presence of the two men, reached the gate, opened it, and disappeared as into mist.

  Now, by Jove, thought the senator, intrigued by the attitude and the expression of his host. He is not so invulnerable after all. That is not the expression of a virtuous husband and oblivious soldier. He is a man in love, nor do I blame him. That slave would excite Jupiter himself to ecstasies.

  He heard Diodorus sigh, and it was a short and somewhat terrible sound in the dusk, and the tribune’s hairy hands knotted at his sides. More intrigued than ever, the senator coughed, then approached the tribune. Diodorus started, and looked at his guest blankly, the pain only slowly washing away from his fierce eyes. He did not seem to see the senator for a moment or two.

  “Now,” said Carvilius Ulpian, with genial congratulation, “that is the most beautiful slave I have ever seen. I thought for a moment that she was a statue, and that I would purchase her from you. In truth, my offer stands.”

  Diodorus said nothing; in fact, it seemed that he was temporarily incapable of speech. He could only stare with that strange blankness at the senator, as though he had been profoundly shocked. Carvilius Ulpian tapped him affectionately on the shoulder.

  “Aphrodite was never clothed in such beauty,” he said. “What merchant sold you such merchandise, and where is this paragon? Does he have similar delights? Has he a stable of such Eurydices, of such bewitching forms and Olympian faces?” He delicately smacked his lips. He was suffused with desire and envy. The senator continued, “Though it is possible she has lost her virginity,” and he coughed, “I am prepared, my Diodorus, to make you a splendid offer for her.”

  He was aghast at the face Diodorus turned on him, a face of such wild rage and suffering and affront that the senator stepped back precipitously and wondered if he was confronting a madman. But when Diodorus spoke, it was in a low hoarse voice, as though stifling.

  “You are mistaken. That woman is not a slave. She is my freed-woman.”

  “You freed so glorious a creature?” asked the senator, his trepidation overcome by his astonishment.

  “She was to my mother as a daughter,” said Diodorus, his voice still muffled. “She is not a girl. She is a woman almost thirty, and the wife of my accounts keeper, Aeneas, a freedman.” He breathed heavily. “Moreover, she is the mother of my protege, Lucanus, whom I am educating as a physician.”

  The senator, disappointed and chagrined, shook his head. “I would swear she was a young virgin. It is a calamity that she is free. She would bring a fort
une to her master.” He tapped his chin artlessly with a polished fingernail. “Was she waiting for you by any chance, my Diodorus, and did I disturb you?”

  Diodorus said, almost in a whisper, “No. She did not know I was here. It is evident that she was delayed.”

  His eyes took on the dull shine of grief, and he turned away and vanished into the house. At that moment the gong rang, and the senator, trying heroically to swallow his annoyance at the rudeness of his host in preceding him without a word, followed him in his quiet elegance.

  Chapter Eight

  There was actually some Cephalonian wine for dinner. But this could not divert the dainty palate of Carvilius Ulpian. Apicius, whose cookbook was used in the very kitchens of Tiberius, had written of seventy-five ways to prepare beans, each delectable. But Aurelia and her cooks apparently knew only one, and that the grossest, fit only for galley slaves. The patrician senator looked at the dish of beans, well flavored with garlic, in which had been stewed some doubtful meat, either goat flesh or the less desirable sections of pork. The bread was coarse, the vegetables flaccid, and the only dish which did not revolt the fastidiousness of Carvilius Ulpian was the little salt black olives from Judea. He had forgotten how revolting the meals were in this house. Diodorus watched him ironically in the feeble light of the smoking lamps, which were of pewter, not silver. The tribune touched the base of one of them and said, “You seem distressed, my brother. I am sorry that these lamps are not of Alexandrian glass. If they were, you could see your dinner more distinctly.”