Free John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.5] - An Academic Question by John Maddox Roberts Page B

said, 'we have devoted many centuries to cultivating excellence in all things.'
    'Well, you've been successful in most areas,' I admitted. 'Too bad you couldn't add politics and military affairs to the lot.'
    'Rome's excellence in these areas,' he said drily, 'makes up for many shortcomings.'
    I deserved that. I should not have been so belittling. It just seemed unfair that any people should possess so much beauty in one small place.
    My attention was drawn toward a patch of shade in a corner of the exercise yard. In an alcove formed by a half-circle of olive trees a truly spectacular youth sat playing the lyre, surrounded by admirers, most of them older men but a few about his own age.
    He was fairer of hair than most Greeks, his features so perfectly cut that he could have made a living posing for sculptors as one of the better-looking gods. His physique was superb, but I could detect no scars, so the wonderfully proportioned muscles were all for show. He had never stood in the battle line and, Greek military activity being what it was by that time, was unlikely to.
    Androcles caught the direction of my gaze. 'Ah, the incomparable Isaeus is here. You are lucky, Senator. He does not come here often.'
    'Well, I wouldn't have made a special trip just to get a look at him but he is striking. Who are those men admiring him? Other than the usual gaggle of pederasts, I mean?'
    'These are connoisseurs of art as well as of beauty. The tall man with the near-white beard is Rhoecus. He is a very rich man who sponsors plays at the great festivals. The burly man with the short brown beard is Agesander the sculptor. Some judge him to be the finest of this generation. His
Diomedes and Odysseus
, dedicated at Delphi by the Thebans, is wonderful to behold. The bald one is Neacles, famed teacher of the lyre. Isaeus is his student.'
    'Teaches him for free, I'll bet. Who are the younger ones?' I cannot say why I was so curious, except that this scene, civilised as it was, was so far from anything you could expect to encounter in Rome.
    'That superb one, only slightly less beautiful than Isaeus himself, is Melanthus, his rival in almost everything. They are close companions, despite the fact that Melanthus comes in second in everything.' This youth, perhaps a year or two older than Isaeus, had features as fine and a body as perfect, but his hair was dark and his complexion a commonplace olive. In truth he was no less handsome than his friend, just less striking.
    'The younger boy is Amyntas, the son of Rhoecus, a very promising athlete who displays poetic talent as well.' This lad had curly brown hair and an agreeable, snub-nosed face. He displayed some dark down on his chin and upper lip, but was a year or so from his first shave.
    'The rest, young and old, are simply admirers, people of taste but no reputation.' And every damned one of them, of whatever age or station, was mooning over that boy like Paris panting over Helen. Well, they were Greeks.
    'Would you like to meet him?' Androcles asked.
    'Decidedly,' I said, 'just so I can brag about it when I get back home.'
    Isaeus paused in his song at our approach. His eyes widened to take in my plain woollen tunic with its senator's stripe, the military boots and belt that proclaimed my warlike status, and last of all my typically Roman face with its numerous scars and long, Metellan nose. To his credit, he did not recoil in horror.
    'Isaeus, gentlemen,' Androcles proclaimed, 'allow me to introduce a distinguished visitor. This is the noble Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, lately Urban Aedile of Rome, now on his way to Cyprus to crush the pirates in the eastern sea.' One by one they were introduced, took my hand and murmured polite inanities.
    We Romans are quite aware that nobody loves us. Greeks, in particular, have had to swallow a lot of pride in bending their necks to the Roman yoke. But the better educated among them, like those men present upon this occasion, knew perfectly