CHAPTER XXXII
PHORBAS
Olynthides had said to me:
"I make it a point always to forget the names of the slaves I buy for cashwithout any guarantees and resell the same way. I have as bad a memory fornames as any man alive and I help my bad memory to be as much worse as Ican. I'll forget your name in a few days. I am not sure I remember it now.What is it?"
I was ready for him, for I had made up my mind to change my name again andhad selected my new name.
"Phorbas" I answered.
"Oh, yes!" he ruminated, "Phorbas, to be sure. I should have said Florusor Foslius or something like that. Phorbas! I'll remember Phorbas tillafter you are sold and the cash in my hands and you and your new masterout of sight. Then I'll forget that too, like all the rest."
As Phorbas, Phorbas the Art Connoisseur, I began my life with Nonius. Hewas domiciled in a palace of a residence on the Carinae, which he hadleased for the short term of his proposed stay in Rome. There I was lodgedin a really magnificent apartment, with a private bath, a luxuriousbedroom, a smaller bedroom for the slave detailed to wait on me, a tiny_triclinium_ and a jewel of a sitting-room, gorgeous with statuettes andpaintings, crammed with objects of art and walled with a virtuoso'sselection of the best books of the best possible materials andworkmanship.
There I spent some happy days. Nonius had told me I might go out all Ipleased. I had replied that I preferred to remain indoors until we set outfor Carthage. He smiled, nodded and said:
"I understand: do as you like."
I passed my time most agreeably, except for several intrusions by Libo'swife, Rufia Clatenna. She was a tall, raw-boned, lean woman, withunmanageable hair which would not stay crimped, a hatchet face, too muchnose and too little chin, a stringy neck, very large, red, knuckly handsand big flat feet. She had a mania for economy and close bargains, seemedto regard her husband as an easy mark for swindlers and to be certain thathe had been cheated when he bought me. She thought herself an art-expert,whereas she had no sound knowledge of any branch of art, no memory forwhat she had heard and seen, and no taste whatever. To demonstrate thather husband had made a bad bargain when he bought me she bored me withendless questions concerning the contents of her domicile, of which sheunderstood almost nothing, and concerning famous composers, painters,sculptors and architects, as to whom she confused the few names, dates andworks she thought she knew about.
Nonius came on us in his atrium while she was putting me through aquestionnaire on every statue, painting and carving in it. The first timehe saw me alone he said, smiling:
"You mustn't mind her; I put up with her, you can, too."
When he came into my apartment and told me he meant to set off from Romenext day, I ventured to express my puzzlement that he had bought me andnever mentioned to me, since I came into his possession, any of thesubjects on which he had questioned me and for knowledge of which he had,presumably, wanted me.
"Oh," he said, "I didn't buy you for myself. I know very little about artand music and am no connoisseur at all. I bought you for my cousinPomponius Falco. He is as much interested in such matters as any man inAfrica. He is richer than I and you'll find him the best possible master.He'll be at Carthage when we get there and I'll resell you to him soonafter we land."
Nonius and Clatenna had no children, but doted on her sister's son, a ladof not much over twenty, lean as his aunt, but small boned and notunshapely. He was not, however, handsome, for he had a pasty, grayishcomplexion, thin lank hair, almost no beard, and a long nose suggesting aproboscis. His name was Rufius Libo, and he was Nonius Libo's heir. In hisfavor Nonius made a will a few days before we left Rome, leaving him hisentire estate except a jointure to Clatenna, endowments to some municipalinstitutions in his home towns, legacies to various friends andmanumission to faithful slaves. Of this will he had several duplicatesmade and properly witnessed and sealed. One of these he left on deposit inRome; another he despatched to Carthage by a special messenger by way ofRhegium, Messana, the length of Sicily to Lilybaeum and thence by sea toCarthage; and he gave one each to Clatenna and to Rufius.
When he gave orders for the despatch of the copy of his will by thespecial messenger I was astonished, as I assumed that we were to travel bythe same route. But I found that he meant to sail all the way from theTiberside water-front of Rome to Carthage. This amazed me. And notunnaturally. For we Romans generally dislike or even abhor the sea andsail it as little as possible, making our journeys as much as we can byland and as little as may be by water, choosing any detour by land whichwill shorten what crossings of the sea cannot be avoided.
Among the few Romans whom I have known who enjoy sea voyages I countmyself. Of all of them Nonius outclassed the rest. He worshiped the waterand was happiest when afloat and well out to sea. He told me that he hadspent more money on his private yacht than on any of his residences, and,when I saw her, I believed him. A larger, better designed, betterequipped, better manned, better supplied, better appointed private yacht Inever beheld. His rowers kept perfect time and made top speed all down theTiber, her crew set sail like man-of-warsmen, her officers were patternseamen and got the very most speed on their way from every condition ofwind and weather. Rufius and Clatenna, while not as good sailors as Noniusand I, were notably good sailors and we had a very pleasant voyage untilwe were almost in sight of Carthage. Then we encountered a really terrificstorm.
Now I am not going into any details of our disaster. I do not know whetherall writers of memoirs get shipwrecked or all survivors of shipwreckswrite reminiscences, but I am certain that of all the countless memoirs Ihave read in the course of my life, ninety-nine out of every hundredcontained one or more accounts of shipwrecks, narrated with the minutestdetail and dwelling on the horrors, agonies, miseries, fears, discomfortsand uncertainties of the survivors and narrators with every circumstancecalculated to harrow up their readers' feelings. I could write a similarmeticulous narrative of my only shipwreck, and it was sufficientlyuncomfortable, terrifying, ghastly and hideous to glut a reader as greedyof horrors as could be, but I am going to pass over it as lightly aspossible and summarize it as briefly as I may.
Suffice it to set down here that we were not driven on any rock or reef orshoal nor did we collide with any other ship. Laboring heavily in the opensea, straining on the crests and wallowing in the troughs of thestupendous billows, the yacht, even as carefully built a yacht as Libo's,began to leak appallingly, the inrush of the water surpassed the utmostcapacity of the pumps and the most frantic efforts of the men at them; thevessel settled lower and lower, labored more and more heavily and wasmanifestly about to founder.
The officers were capable men, the small boats sturdy and their crews andsteersmen skillful and confident. Clatenna was brave and Libo magnificent.He kept his head, dominated his officers, and insisted that Rufius and Ishould embark in a different boat from that to which he and Clatennatrusted themselves. He personally saw to it that Clatenna and Rufius had,on their persons, each their copy of his will.
Both boats were successfully launched, and, as we drew away from thedoomed ship, we saw a third and fourth put off with other valued membersof his household. While a fifth and sixth were being swung overboard wesaw, from the top of a huge swell, the yacht go under and vanish; saw,when we next rose on the chine of a billow, the water dotted with spars,wreckage and swimmers; saw, five or six times more, the three other boats:and then many times, high on a vast wave, beheld only the waste oflifeless waters, without boat or swimmer.
All night we floated and, not long after sunrise, we were seen and rescuedby a trading ship from Carales in Sardinia, bound for Carthage.
At Carthage we were soon in the palace formerly Libo's and now theproperty of Rufius. He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at oncerewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we hadbeen saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, ifthe others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not haveperished by so deplorable and s
o untimely a death.
Within a few days he, now my owner by inheritance, sold me to PomponiusFalco, as Nonius had intended to do himself.
Falco liked me at first sight and I him. He was a man between thirty-fiveand forty years of age, a natural born bachelor and art connoisseur. Hewas of medium height, of stout build, with curly black hair and a curlyblack beard, a swarthy complexion, a bullet head, a bull neck, a hugechest and plump arms and legs. He was by no means unhandsome in appearanceand very jovial, good-humored, and good-natured; manifestly fond of allthe good things of life and able to discriminate and appreciate the best.
For several days after I came into his possession I was his dearest toy.He spent most of his waking hours conversing with me about music andmusicians, poetry and poets, literature and authors, paintings andpainters, statuary and sculptors, architecture and architects, gems,ivories, embroideries, textiles, furniture, pottery and even autographsand autograph collecting. He seemed to appraise me an expert on all suchlines and to be well pleased with his purchase.
Certainly I was as well clothed, fed, lodged and attended as if I had beenhis twin-brother.
Before he had owned me many days Falco said to me:
"Phorbas, I've been puzzling about you. You are a slave and you were soldto poor Libo and by Rufius to me as a Greek. Yet you have none of theappearance nor behavior of a Greek nor yet of a slave. You look and actand talk like a freeman born and a full-blooded Roman, and a noble atthat. Please explain."
Now, of course, in imagining all the forms in which I might be assaultedby the perils which beset me, I had foreseen just such a query as thisutterance of Falco's involved and I had pondered and rehearsed my answer.I realized that I must be ready with a reply wholly plausible becauseentirely consonant with the facts of our social life, as they existed, sothat no one could take any exception to it. I thought I had framed such areply.
"You know how it is," I answered easily. "A Roman master buys a young andcomely Greek handmaid. In due course she has a daughter, legally also aslave and nominally a Greek, yet half Roman. When she is grown, if shehappens to be comely and the property of a master like most masters, shehas a daughter, a slave and spoken of as a Greek, yet only a quarterGreek. If she has a similar daughter, that daughter, a slave and called aGreek, is only one-eighth Greek. I conceive, from all I know, that mygreat grandmother, grandmother and mother were such slave women. I, aslave and ostensibly a Greek, am fifteen-sixteenths Roman noble, byancestry, according to my reckoning. No wonder my descent shows in mybearing, manner and conversation."
This answer was, actually, not so far from the facts, my mother,grandmother and great-grandmother had, certainly, been Roman noblewomen,daughters indeed, each of one of the oldest and longest-lineaged houses ofour nobility; and, like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather, mygreat-great-grandfather had been a Roman nobleman. But his father, mygreat-great-great-grandfather, had been a freed-man, manumitted in thedays of Nero, acquiring great wealth, attaining equestrian rank during thelast years of Nero's reign, and vastly enriched during the confusion ofthe civil wars, marrying a young and wealthy widow after Vespasian wasfirmly established at Rome by the crushing of the insurrection of ClaudiusCivilis.
Probably the general consonance of my answer with the facts made myutterance of it more convincing. Certainly it appealed to Falco.
"Just about what I conjectured," he said, smiling. "And will you tell mein what part of Italy and on what estate you were born and how you came byyour air of aristocratic culture and by your marvellous dilettantism?"
"I know what I know and am what I am," I replied, "because I was, fromchildhood, treated just as if a son instead of a slave; pampered, indulgedand made much of. That lasted till I was more than full-grown.
"The misfortunes of the family to which I belonged came so suddenly that Iwas not manumitted, as I should have been had my master had so much as aday's warning of his downfall. I was sold to a fool and a brute, as youhave probably inferred from my back. The marks of his barbarity which Ibear, and my lasting grief for the calamity of the household in which Iwas born, make me unwilling to tell you anything of my past previous to mypurchase from Olynthides by Nonius Libo."
"Well," he said, "your feeling is natural and I shall not urge mycuriosity on you. I mean to indulge you and even pamper you; mean toendeavor to indulge you and pamper you so you will feel more indulged andpampered than ever in your life, I'll make a new will, at once, leavingyou your freedom and a handsome property. I expect to live out a longlife, all my kin have been healthy and long-lived. But one can never becertain of living and I mean to run no risks of your having any moretroubles. You deserve ease and comfort. And you shall have them if I canarrange it. I love you like a born brother and mean to treat you as wellas if you were my twin."
The year in which Commodus killed the two lions, each with one blow of histrifling-looking little palm-wood club, in which year I was sold out ofthe Choragium, and purchased by Nonius, in which I crossed the sea, waswrecked and saved and resold to Falco, was the nine hundred and forty-first year of the City [Footnote: 188 A.D.] and the ninth of the reign ofCommodus, the year in which the consuls were Allius Fuscianus and DuilliusSilanus, each for the second time. In Africa, with Falco, I spent that andthe following year very comfortably and happily, for I was as wellclothed, fed, lodged and tended as Falco himself. I liked him, even lovedhim, and I felt perfectly safe.
The climate of Africa agreed with me, and I liked the fare, especially themany kinds of fruit which we seldom see in Rome and then not in their bestcondition, and some of which we never see in Italy at all. I admired thescenery, and I delighted in the cities, not only Carthage and Utica, butboth Hippo Regius and Hippo Diarrhytus, and also Hadrumetum, Tacape, Cirtaand Theveste, and even such mere towns as Lambaesis and Thysdrus, whichlast has an amphitheater second only to the Colosseum itself. They all hadfine amphitheaters, magnificent circuses, gorgeous theaters and sumptuouspublic hot baths. Not one but had a fine library, a creditable publicpicture-gallery, and many noble groups of statuary, with countless finestatues adorning the public buildings, streets and parks. The society ofall these places was delightfully cultured, easy and unaffected. Irevelled in it and could not have been happier except that I never heardfrom Vedia or Tanno, let alone had a letter from either. And I wrote toboth and sent off letter after letter to one or the other. For it seemedto me that a letter in this form could not excite any suspicion.
"Phorbas gives greeting to Opsitius, and informs him that after he had been sold by Olynthides to Nonius Libo, he survived the sinking of his owner's yacht and was sold by Libo's heir to Pomponius Falco, in whose retinue he now is. Farewell."
I sent off, at least once a season, a letter like this to both Tanno andVedia. No word from either ever reached me. I could but conjecture thatall my letters had miscarried.
Meanwhile, besides being reminded of it each time I wrote to Tanno orVedia, I did not forget that I was a proscribed fugitive, my life forfeitif I were detected. I conceived that my best disguise was to dress, actand talk as much as possible in the character of dilettante art expert andmusic-lover, which I had assumed. Falco treated me, as he had prophesied,almost as a brother. I had a luxurious apartment in each of his townresidences and country villas, and a retinue of servants: valet, bath-attendant, room-keeper, masseur, reader, messenger, runner and a litterwith three shifts of powerful bearers. Everything Falco could think of inthe way of clothing, furniture and art objects was showered on me and myslightest hint of a wish was quickly gratified. Also Falco supplied me alavish allowance of cash. Therefore I could gratify any whim. Besides, myamulet-bag was intact and had in it all the gems which Agathemer hadoriginally placed there, except only the emerald Bulla had sold for me.
I thought up everything I could do to make myself look completely a Greekvirtuoso and as un-Roman-looking as possible. I patronized everycomplexion-specialist, friseur, perukier, manicurist and fashionablebarber in that part of the world. I b
ought every hair tonic for sale inthe colony. Between lotions and expert manipulation I succeeded in growinga thick curly beard, covering my chest as far as the lower end of mybreast-bone and a thick head of hair so long that, even when elaboratelyfrizzed and curled, my oiled and scented locks fell as far down my back asmy beard spread on my bosom. Nothing could have made me look moreCorinthian and less Roman.
I wore the gaudiest clothing I could find; tunics and cloaks of pure silkand of the brightest or most effeminate hues; crimson, emerald-green,peacock-green, grass-green, apple-green, sea-green, sapphire-blue, sky-blue, turquoise-blue, saffron, orange, amethystine, violet and any andevery unusual tint; boots of glazed kidskin or of dull finish soft skin,of hues like my silk garments, always with the edges of the soles heavilygilded. And, for my shoes as well as for my garments, I chose particoloredmaterials with the most startling or languorous combinations of unusualdyes. All my boots and shoes were embroidered in silver thread or goldthread, all my outer garments embroidered in crimson, deep green, deepblue, gold or silver, in big, striking, conspicuous patterns. I hadelephants, lions, antelopes, horses, cattle, sheep, stags, goats, storks,cranes, even fish embroidered on my outer garments amid trees, vines, andflowers; roses, lilies, violets, poppies and others uncountable. I spenton such gewgaws a considerable part of my allowance, yet never exhaustedFalco's lavish provision for me.
I also went in for jewelry, loading my fingers with flashy rings, wearingbracelets on both wrists, two or three on each, always two necklaces andeven earrings, for which I had my ears pierced, like a Lydian.
When I conned myself in my dressing-room mirror, arrayed in such asuperfluity of decorations and fripperies, I felt sure that no one wouldtake me for a Roman.
In these apparently natural vanities and vagaries Falco humored me,enquiring of his friends concerning friseurs of acclaimed reputation,buying me any gaudy fabrics he saw, also presenting me with caskets ofnecklaces, amulets, bracelets, finger-rings and earrings. He rallied me onmy oriental tastes, but aided me to gratify them.
He even came to feel his interest in jewelry and gems enhanced by my fadfor them. He took to purchasing antiques in jewelry and rare and unusualgems and his hoard grew into a notable collection.
By the end of my second winter with Falco I had come to know intimatelyall his town and country palaces and all his dilettanti friends and hadenjoyed to the full the many delights of the colony, not only its climateand fruits, its scenery and cities, its statuary and pictures, itslibraries and public-baths, but its excellent performances of tragediesand comedies, and its spectacles creditable, not only as to chariot-racingbut also as to beast-fights and exhibitions of gladiators. I found life inAfrica extremely agreeable and looked forward to any length of it withcontentment.
I may remark that during this time Cleander came to the end of his periodof unlimited wealth, power and misrule. I was thus out of Rome at the timeof his downfall and death and while the Praetorium had a score of Prefectsin rapid succession.
In the spring of the nine hundred and forty-third year of the city,[Footnote: A.D. 190.] and the eleventh of the reign of Commodus, the yearin which he was nominally consul for the sixth time, along with PetroniusSeptimianus, Falco startled me, while we were dining alone together, asAgathemer and I had used to dine together, by saying:
"Phorbas, you talk of Rome differently from any other man I ever heardtalk of it. I have meditated over the quality of what you say of Rome, butI cannot analyze it or describe it accurately. Yet I may say that otherstalk of Rome as holy ground, but you alone make me feel that the soilinside the Pomoerium is holy ground: others talk of the grandeur of Rome;you make me realize its grandeur: others prate of their love for Rome:you, saying little, make me tingle with a subtly communicated sense of howyou love Rome: others babble of how life away from Rome is not life, butmerely existence; of how any dwelling out of Rome is exile, of how theylong for Rome; you, by some sorcery, make me not only feel how you longfor Rome, but have awakened in me a longing for Rome. I have never beenout of this colony of Africa, not even into Mauretania. A man as rich as Iand of equestrian rank can afford to travel, to visit all the interestingparts of the Empire, to live where he likes, anywhere in Italy or even inRome.
"I have never wanted to leave this colony: I love every bit of it andespecially my residences and estates. I have been satisfied here. When myfriends argued with me and tried to persuade me to travel and especiallyto visit Rome, I never was convinced by their arguments. I have a dread ofsea-voyaging, a dread accentuated by the death of poor Libo. who was anenthusiastic voyager and had a yacht as staunch and a crew as capable asskill could produce, money buy and judgment collect. Yet he perished. Idid not need the warning of his fate to keep me ashore. Then again, Iprefer to be a big frog in a small pond to being a small frog in a bigpond, I am one of the most important men in this colony and, here inAfrica, I am always somebody. In Rome I should be nobody.
"Yet, without my realizing it and later against my will, yourconversation, in some subtle way, has so infected me with the desire tosee Rome that I am going to brave the terrors of the seas, am going tosink myself into insignificance among the scores of richer and moreinfluential men who cluster about Caesar. I am even going to put at themercy of the sea my precious collection of gems, which I now value morethan you and myself together and twice over.
"I have made all my arrangements. I have put my affairs in order, madesure that my estates will be properly managed in my absence, bought thebest yacht to be had in the harbor of Carthage, and that is saying a greatdeal for its excellence, and I have ordered coffers in which to pack mybeloved gems.
"Prepare to accompany me; within ten days we set off for Rome."
I knew Falco. Easy-going as he was, when he had taken a notion to buy andindulge a connoisseur-slave, collect gems or visit Rome, opposition,arguments, artfulness or stratagems were alike useless. I resigned myselfto my fate.
I meditated over this fifth fulfillment of the prophecy of the AemilianSibyl.
Since I had been with Falco and practically a free and rich man, I hadmade handsome sacrifices at Mercury's Temples in all the cities we visitedwhich had temples to Mercury. The morning after Falco announced hisintentions to go to Rome I went out alone and unattended; myself, in themarket place of Carthage, bought two white hens; myself carried them tothe Temple of Mercury and myself had them offered to the god.
Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Page 33
