A Gladiator Dies Only Once by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online Page B

see.”
    “Now, Gordianus, really! How can you walk into a house you’ve never entered before and declare that things are missing? I can see into the surrounding rooms as well as you, and they all look adequately furnished.”
    “Precisely; the furnishings are adequate. I should expect something more than that from the man who built this house and commissioned those wall paintings and mosaics. Where is the finely wrought furniture? Everything I see looks like the common stuff that anyone can buy ready-made down in the Street of the Woodworkers. Where are the paintings, the portable ones in frames, the portraits and bucolic scenes that are so fashionable nowadays?”
    “What makes you think that cousin Gaius ever collected such works?”
    “Because I can see the discolored rectangles on the wall where they used to hang! And surely a rather substantial statue once filled that empty spot atop the pedestal in the middle of the fountain. Let me guess: Diana with her bow, or perhaps a discus-thrower?”
    “A rather good drunken Hercules, actually.”
    “Such valuables don’t vanish from a patrician household without good reason. This house is like a bare cupboard, or a fine Roman matron without her jewelry. Where are the urns, the vases, the precious little things one expects to see in the house of a wealthy old senator? Auctioned off to pay the bill-collector, I presume. When did your cousin sell them?”
    “Over the last few years,” admitted Lucius with a sigh, “bit by bit. I suppose the mosaics and wall paintings would be gone by now as well, except that they’re part of the house and can’t be disposed of piecemeal. The Civil War was very hard on cousin Gaius.”
    “He backed the wrong side?”
    “Quite the opposite! Gaius was a staunch supporter of Sulla. But his only son, who was my age, had married into a family that sided with Marius, and was contaminated by his wife’s connections; he was beheaded when Sulla became dictator. He did leave an heir, however—Gaius’s grandson, a boy named Mamercus, who is now not quite twenty. Gaius took custody of his grandson, but also had to assume his dead son’s debts, which were crushing. Poor cousin Gaius! The Civil War tore his family apart, took his only son, and left him virtually bankrupt.”
    I looked around. “The house itself looks valuable enough.”
    “I’m sure it is, but it’s all that Gaius has left. The wealth has all fled. And so has young Mamercus, I fear.”
    “The grandson?”
    “Gone to Spain! It’s broken his grandfather’s heart.”
    “Spain? Ah, so that’s why you mentioned Sertorius on the walk here. . . “
    The Civil War had been over for six years. Marius had lost. Sulla had won, and had made himself dictator. He disposed of his enemies, reordered the state, and then retired, leaving his chosen successors in firm control of the senate and the magistracies. The Marians—those who had survived the proscriptions and still had their heads—were lying low. But in Spain, the last embers of resistance still smoldered in the person of Quintus Sertorius. The renegade general not only refused to surrender, but had declared himself to be the head of the legitimate Roman state. Disgruntled Marian military men and desperate anti-Sullan senators had fled from Rome to join Sertorius’s government-in-exile. In addition to his own legions, Sertorius had succeeded in rallying the native population to his side. Altogether, Sertorius and his forces in Spain constituted a considerable power that the Roman Senate could not ignore and had not yet been able to stamp out.
    “Are you saying that young Mamercus has run off to join Sertonus:
    “So it appears,” said Lucius, shaking his head. He leaned over to sniff a rose. “This smells very sweet!”
    “So young Mamercus rejected his grandfather’s Sullan politics and remained loyal to his mother’s side of the family?”
    “So it appears. Gaius is quite distraught. The folly of youth! There’s