? ? ?
Over the next few weeks, Glycon began spending every midday meal with Apicius and sometimes in the evening he would be invited to dine on our couch. I took on extra students to help raise more revenue to keep the school afloat, so when I wasn’t helping Apicius manage his clients or working with Timon on plans for a banquet, I was at the school teaching. I had two motives: to stay as far away from Glycon as I could, and to raise enough money to purchase Passia.
One morning after the salutatio, Sotas—who had a rare day off—walked with me to the market even though the brothel was his ultimate destination.
“What did Glycon mean when he said you were marked by a golden goddess?” I asked. It had been bothering me since that first day when the astrologer had become ensconced in the household.
Sotas looked at me, eyes wide, which prevented him from seeing the branch in his path. He stumbled. I caught him by the arm to steady him. “It’s the biggest ones who fall the hardest.”
That earned a hearty guffaw from Sotas. He became more serious. “You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
Few ever took Sotas by surprise. “He was right?” I asked.
“The astrologer was referring to something no one knows about,” Sotas said in a voice unusually quiet for him.
Curiosity overrode my decorum. “Something from your childhood?”
Sotas hesitated, which filled me with shame. If he had never discussed it before, why assume he would share the secret with me?
“I was fourteen.” Sotas kicked a stone with his sandal and it skittered ahead. “Marcus Gavius Rutilus had just purchased me for Apicius. On the second day of my new service Rutilus took me to the temple of Fides on the Capitoline. When we arrived we first went to make a sacrifice, but as we knelt at the altar, a priest tapped me on the shoulder. He told me the goddess wanted to speak to me.”
I almost laughed aloud but saw how solemn Sotas was and bit my tongue.
“I followed him and he brought me to the goddess’s chamber and told me to wait. I knelt on the mat in the center of the room. I have never known such fear as I did that day.”
“I can imagine,” I said, hoping I sounded sincere.
Sotas slowed his pace. We were nearing the stairs that led down toward the Forum Boarium at the base of the Palatine Hill. I could hear the lowing of cattle and the sounds of the auctioneers rattling off the prices of the livestock.
He kept his eyes averted as he continued, instead looking out over the market below. “I waited for a long time. When I thought I could wait no longer, a bright light appeared at the top of the stairs behind the throne of the goddess at the far end of the chamber. A door opened and sunlight poured in, temporarily blinding me. When I could see again, the figure of a woman was coming down the stairs and across the chamber toward me. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even more beautiful than my mother. She seemed to shine like gold in the sunlight coming from the doorway and the tiny windows around the room.”
I knew what was coming. Stories like this were common, yet Sotas was so wrapped in this memory, so full of reverence, I dared not burst his bubble.
“She came to me and blessed me with a kiss to my lips. I thought I would faint. She told me I had one task in life—that she had gifted my life in service to Master Apicius, and if I served him well in my life I would be rewarded richly when I went to Elysium.”
Inwardly, I sighed. It wasn’t a common practice so it didn’t surprise me that Sotas had not discovered the deceit. He was in such earnest I could not tell him that meeting Fides was likely a sham, a result of a contract between Apicius’s father, Gavius Rutilus, and the temple. Sometimes if a slave owner wanted to deeply embed loyalty or fear into a young and impressionable slave, he would pay for one of the priests to appear as the god delivering a message. When Maximus owned me, I once overheard a priest of Juno telling the story of how they performed this service—at great cost—to willing patrons.
It explained a lot to me about Sotas, in particular, why he rarely expressed a negative opinion about Apicius. I had asked him before but he would always divert the conversation. I never understood. Other body-slaves I knew were not so content in the service of their owners. Rutilus was a shrewd man, gifting Apicius with a slave who would be loyal to him until the day he died.
“How did Glycon know?” I wondered aloud.
“Maybe there is more to the stars than we thought.” Sotas began the descent into the market. I followed, musing to myself about the more likely possibility that Glycon knew about the ritual.
? ? ?
For the first time in many weeks there were no guests at cena. I was pleased; the quiet family meals were the ones I tended to enjoy best. Timon made our favorite dishes, which somehow were always the ones that were most simple. That night it was fig cakes, sweet wine biscuits, Parthian chicken, lamb and almond meatballs, and soft plaited bread made from olive oil and goat milk. Aelia was unusually lively, clearly delighted to have us to herself. Sotas was the only figure missing for me. Instead, another of Apicius’s bodyguards took his place while he enjoyed the night off.
When the first course was being cleared, Glycon strolled in casually as though he had lived in the villa forever and need not attend the dining table unless it suited him. He lay down on the couch next to me and took up a strand of grapes in one hand. “Don’t let me interrupt the conversation, please,” he said with a wave of his hand. The mood of the table immediately soured.
Apicius was even more irritated than Aelia and I were. “Need I remind you, Glycon, that you are under my pay, under my roof, eating my food, and subject to my rules and invitations? And I do not recall extending an invitation to you for dinner tonight, or for last night, or for the night before. At least, if you have the audacity to crash my dinners, you do so on time.”
Glycon’s mouth opened in shock. Clearly he thought he held the upper hand. He set the grapes down. “My apologies, Apicius. I did not mean to be late.”
“I’m starting to tire of his nonchalance, husband.” Aelia’s voice was as cold as water in winter.
Apicius picked up his glass of absinthe, fresh from a batch I had made the previous weekend. “Tell me, Glycon, what do the stars tell you today? Make yourself useful if you plan on being here tonight.”
Aelia and I exchanged a glance. I suspected she was fuming as much as I was—Apicius was never so lenient with slaves, clients, or his freedmen. If I had strolled in late for cena he would have kicked me out of the room in a heartbeat, and I was one of the closest people to him.
“It’s good you asked, Apicius. It’s why I was tardy this evening, in fact.” Glycon picked up the grapes again, his confidence visibly returning.