this drapery and fastening. I’d always had slave girls around me. Finally with two undertunics and a long, fine red stola, I snatched up a silk palla, a very large one, fringed and decorated all over with gold.
I put on rings, bracelets. But I intended to hide under this mantle as much as possible. I could remember my Father cursing every day of his life that he had to wear the toga, the official outer garment of the highborn Roman male. Well, only prostitutes wore togas. At least I didn’t have to cope with that.
I headed straight for the slave markets.
Jacob was right about the population here. The city was filled with men and women of all nations. Many women walked in pairs, arm in arm.
Loose Greek cloaks were entirely acceptable here, and so were long exotic Phoenician or Babylonian gowns, both for men and women. Long hair among the men was common, as were heavy beards. Some women went about in tunics no longer than a man’s. Others were completely veiled, revealing only the eyes, as they walked, accompanied by guards and servants.
The streets were cleaner than they might have been in Rome, the sewage flowing to wider gutters in the center and more swiftly to its destination.
Long before I reached the Forum, or the central plaza, I had passed three different doors in which rich courtesans stood arguing sarcastically over price with wealthy young Greeks and Romans.
One said, as I passed, to a handsome young man, “You want me in bed? You’re dreaming. Any of the girls you can have, as I told you. If you want me, go home and sell everything you own!”
Rich Romans in their full togas stood at the corner wine shops, and respected my quick glance away with a simple nod as I passed.
Pray none of them would recognize me! It was not a likely thing, by any means, and we were so far from Rome, and I had lived so long in my Father’s house, happily reprieved by him from banquets and suppers, and even ceremonial gatherings.
The Forum was far larger than I had remembered from my brief glimpse. When I came to the edge of it and beheld the huge square flooded with sun, flanked on all sides with porticoes or Temples or Imperial buildings, I was amazed.
In the canopied markets, everything was for sale, silversmiths grouped together, the weavers in their own place, the silk merchants in a row, and I could see down the side street that came in to my right that it was dedicated to the sale of slaves—the better slaves, who might never have to go to an auction block.
Far away I saw the high masts of the ships. I could smell the river. There stood the Temple of Augustus, its fires burning, its uniformed Legionnaires in lazy readiness.
I was hot and anxious, because my mantle kept slipping, in fact, all this silk seemed to slip and to slide, and mere were many open wine gardens where women gathered in groups, chatting. I could have found a place near enough to someone to have a drink.
But I had to have a household. I had to have loyal slaves.
Now, in Rome, of course I had never gone to a slave market. I would never have had to do such a thing. Besides, we had so many families of slaves on our land in Tuscany and in Rome that we seldom if ever bought a new slave. On the contrary, my Father had a habit of inheriting the decrepit and wise from his friends, and we had often teased my Father about the Academy, which did nothing in the slaves’ garden but argue about history.
But now I had to act the shrewd woman of the world. I inspected every quality household slave on display, quickly settled upon a pair of sisters, very young and very frightened that they were going to be auctioned at noon and go to a brothel. I sent for stools and we sat together.
We talked.
They came from a small fine family household in Tyre; they’d been born slaves. They knew Greek and Latin well. They spoke Aramaic. They were angelic in their sweetness.
They had immaculate hands. They demonstrated every skill I required. They knew how to dress hair, paint a face, cook food. They rattled off recipes for Eastern dishes of which I’d never heard; they named different pomades, rouges. One of them flushed with fear, and then said, “Madam, I can paint your