Free The Catiline Conspiracy by John Maddox Roberts Page A

"Speaking that way about the man whose wine you are drinking."
    "When Alexander was romping all the way to India," I said, "Rome was a little Italian town fighting other Italian towns. Now we're master of the world, and we didn't need any boyish god-king to accomplish it, either."
    She took my arm and steered me toward the dining room. "It's time to get some food into you, Decius. I believe I hear dinner being announced."
    That sounded good to me. All this learned discourse had sharpened my appetite. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, but something nibbled at the edges of my admittedly sodden consciousness like a mouse nibbling a crust of bread. It was something Postumus had said, but I could not bring it into full clarity. The party was too full of attractions to let it bother me for long.

----
Chapter III

    I woke the next morning with a ringing head and a mouth that told me the final course in last night's banquet must have been Egyptian mummy. My aged slaves, Cato (no relation to the Senator) and Cassandra, were not sympathetic. They never were when it came to my excesses, and I could not explain to them that I had only been pursuing my public duties.
    We have a tradition of allowing ourselves to be tyrannized and bullied by old domestics. It is certain that I got no respect from these two. Having raised me from infancy, they had no illusions about me. They stoutly refused to accept manumission. They could no more have fended for themselves than a pair of old plow-oxen, but as long as they could make my life miserable, they had a purpose.
    "That's what you get, master!" Cato shouted cheerily, throwing open the shutter and letting in a horrid, searing beam of morning sunlight, the vengeance of Apollo. "That's what you get for being out to all hours, carousing with those foreigners, then coming home to wake your poor old retainers that have given up their whole lives to your service and acting as if they didn't deserve a little rest."
    "Peace, Cato," I croaked. "I am going to die soon, and then what will you do?
Go back to my father? If he could stand to have you around, he wouldn't have
given you to me in the first place." Suppressing a groan, I lurched to my feet,
steadying myself on the little writing-table by my bed. Something unfamiliar
shifted on it and I saw that it was a roll of something white. Then I remembered accepting my guest-gift before leaving the previous night's banquet. Lisas, knowing that I was a public official with much correspondence to carry out, had given me a truly useful gift. It was a great scroll of the very finest Egyptian papyrus. For a fat Alexandrian pervert, Lisas was a most thoughtful man.
    "Are my clients outside?" I asked.
    "Already gone, master," Cato said, "and it's been ages since you paid your morning call on your father."
    "He does not require that duty while I am in office," I reminded him.
    "Yes, but today is a market day," Cato reminded me. "Official business is forbidden, and it should be only good manners to pay your
salutatio
when you don't have to go to the temple. Too late now, though."
    "A market day?" I said, cheering up a little. That meant a chance to prowl the city and see what I might turn up. Rome was the mistress of the world, but it was still, in most aspects, a small Italian hill-town. It thrived on gossip and market days were relished almost as much as public holidays. I splashed water in my face, threw on my third-best toga and left my house, not bothering with breakfast, which I could not have faced.
    At that time, markets were still held in the
forum boarium
, the ancient cattle-market. It was in full roar when I arrived, with farmers' stalls everywhere. The larger livestock were no longer sold there, but poultry, rabbits and pigs were slaughtered on the spot for customers, and they were raising their usual clamor. The farming season had been exceptional, so that even this late in the year the stalls were heaped with fresh produce.
    Besides the