The next day we departed for Herculaneum. It took us two days with one stopover at a roadside inn. I had guards keep watch to make sure we were not followed by Sejanus’s men. We saw no one on the way, nor did we receive word of any trouble.
As soon as we arrived, Apicius sent Sotas to all his clients in the area, inviting them for dinner. I cursed when I heard the news. Although I had purchased an experienced cook for the kitchen, I always felt like I needed to be the overseer for such events. We decided to make it an evening highlighting the bounty of the sea, with an overabundance of oysters, mussels, sea urchins, prawns, lobsters, and little fishes. I sent some of the new kitchen boys to the shore to pick up seashells to adorn the flower wreaths and, if large enough, to serve as small plates.
After a long, tiring morning of travel and an afternoon of preparation, I finally fetched Passia for dinner. She looked radiant, as always, dressed in a pale green stola adorned with an elegant gold pin in the shape of a dolphin that Apicata had given her for Saturnalia the previous year.
“The sea suits you,” I murmured, pulling her close and nuzzling her neck with my lips.
“I have missed the sea,” she admitted. “Everything is freer here. Rome is such a den of vipers.”
? ? ?
The viper den was our main topic of conversation at dinner. Everyone had heard the news of Livia’s death and everyone had an opinion.
“What sort of man doesn’t come back for his mother’s funeral?” one patrician raved.
“A man who hated his mother,” another said.
One of the men, a rich local merchant, popped a plump mussel into his mouth. “Did you hear about Agrippina? The first thing Tiberius did when Livia died was to send guards to arrest her and her sons for treason.”
Agrippina was Tiberius’s niece and the widow of the great general Germanicus. She had been very vocal against Sejanus of late and seemed to disagree with much of Tiberius’s politics.
“Livia hated the woman—arresting her seems to be Caesar’s parting gift to his mother. Word is they will banish her,” said the merchant.
“I doubt they will banish her sons.” Apicius dipped a prawn in the thick sauce on the seashell plate before him. “Likely they will just kill them. Though Tiberius seems to have taken a liking to Caligula. It’s possible he will escape prison.”
“Sejanus is behind this. Once he found out Agrippina had joined with the senators opposing him, he started to get scared. She has become popular since Germanicus died and Sejanus fears her influence. I’m sure that he asked Tiberius to arrest her.” The merchant said the words others were thinking but not sure if they should say them aloud. Sejanus had become a powerful man and Tiberius had given him great leeway to run much of the Empire. It was thought he had spies everywhere.
“There are new gilded statues of Sejanus all over the Roman Forum,” Apicata said, wiping her mouth with her napkin. She had said little that evening. I knew the conversation was distasteful to her in every way but she was ever the dutiful daughter and Apicius wanted her there.
I posited the question that had been bothering me for many months. “Do you think Tiberius will finally appoint him heir?” I couldn’t imagine the world with such an evil man ruling the Empire.
The merchant grunted. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he will come to his senses and realize Sejanus is overstepping his bounds.”
Apicata stood and surveyed the diners. “He grows stronger every day. He will not stop until he is Caesar.” She put her hand on Apicius’s shoulder. “Father, I am tired from the journey. Please excuse me.”
He patted her hand and smiled. “Yes, yes. Rest up. I thought to buy a boat tomorrow. We can go sailing.”
Apicata only sighed.
PART XI
31 C.E. to 38 C.E.
PIGLET IN SILPHIUM SAUCE
Pound in a mortar pepper, lovage, caraway; mix in a little cumin, fresh silphium, silphium root; pour on vinegar, add pine nuts, dates, honey, vinegar, liquamen, prepared mustard. Blend all these with oil and pour on.
—From the Extracts of Apicius by Vindarius 30 recipes collected by a man in Imperial service, separate from the book Apicius, but with recipes that still bear his name On Cookery, Apicius
CHAPTER 28
Sejanus kept his word. While he was ruthless and cruel to senators, patricians, and anyone who crossed him or spoke out against him, he left Apicius and Apicata alone. Earlier that year Tiberius had appointed him joint consul, rendering him even more powerful to do whatever he wanted in Rome. Most lived in fear of finding out what that might be.
Passia and Junius remained on the coast, spending their time in Apicius’s villa in Herculaneum. I visited them as often as I could. Yet with Apicius as my son’s adoptive father, and my friend, I didn’t want to leave him, especially as his moods and manners changed with melancholy, age, and time. He grew stubborn and refused to leave Rome entirely, so I stayed with him. Apicata avoided Rome, returning only when an event required her presence. She rarely saw her own sons.
The fateful night when everything began to unravel centered on an elaborate cena. Apicius, emboldened by Sejanus’s seeming lack of interest in him, had started spending more and more money on parties he threw for guests and this time was no exception. It began with the gifts, elaborate toga pins of ruby-studded gold and finely inlaid wooden boxes filled with pepper or dried apricots, a fruit still new to Rome. The most precious gifts of all were the intricately woven, self-cleaning asbestos napkins. You simply threw them into the fire and all the particles of food burned off, leaving the surface clean and white. Apicius loved showing guests how they worked. I didn’t love the price tag; each napkin cost half as much as a young goat.
The meal itself was equally elaborate and expensive. It began with sea hedgehogs, fresh oysters, mussels, and asparagus with mustard sauce. There were fattened fowl: roasted duck and chicken, stuffed pheasant, flamingo steaks, boiled teals, ostrich meatballs, fried songbirds, and roasted peacock presented with its feathers rearranged in full display. Apicius also had me arrange another gift: slave girls adorned only in a small swath of fabric, white feather headdresses, and draped luxuriously with golden chains. Their sole task during the meal was to gingerly place food in the mouths of the men who wished to partake of such intimate service.