"Actually, Caelius and Clodia are no longer lovers, and Caelius isn't on such good terms with Clodius anymore," said Bethesda.

"How could you possibly know that?" I shook my head in wonder. "You haven't been slinking off to some of these wild Palatine Hill parties, mixing with the sophisticated young set in my absence, have you?"

"No." She leaned back on her couch with a smile and luxuriously stretched her arms above her head. The gesture was unabashedly sensual, evoking memories of the night's pleasures, as if to demonstrate that despite my teasing she would indeed fit in quite well at a Palatine Hill debauch, were she not so acutely aware and protective of her hard-won role as a respectable Roman matron.

"Or has young Caelius been confessing the secrets of his love life whenever the two of you happen to meet in the street?" I said.

"Not that either. But we have ways of sharing what we know."

"We'?"

"We women," said Bethesda with a shrug. She was always vague about her network of informants, even to me. I had spent a lifetime ferreting out secrets, but Bethesda could sometimes make me feel like an amateur.

"What caused the parting of the ways," I asked. "Surely sophisticated lovers like Clodia and Caelius don't abandon each other over trifles like infidelity or a bit of incest."

"No, they say it was-" Bethesda abruptly frowned and creased her

brow.

She was teasing me again, I thought, trying to add suspense to the

telling. "Well?" I finally said.

"Politics, or something like that," she said hastily. "A falling out between Clodius and Caelius, and then trouble between Caelius and

Clodia."

"You're well on the way to making a poem, like the mob in the Forum: Clodius and Caelius, and Caelius and Clodia. You need only insert a few obscene verbs. What sort of falling out? Over what?"

She shrugged. "You know I don't follow politics," she said, suddenly fascinated by her fingernails.

"Unless there's a good story involved. Come, wife, you know more than you're telling. Must I remind you that it's your duty, indeed your obligation under the law, to tell your husband everything you know? I command you to speak!" I spoke playfully, making a joke of it, but Bethesda was not amused.

"All right, then," she said. "I think it was something to do with what you call the Egyptian situation. Some falling-out between Clodius and Caelius. How should I know anything about the private dealings of men like that? And who should be surprised if an aging whore like Clodia suddenly loses her charms for a handsome young man like Caelius?"

I had long ago learned to weather Bethesda's moods, as one must weather sudden squalls at sea, but I had never quite learned to comprehend them. Something had set her on edge, but what? I tried to recollect the phrase or topic that had offended her, but the sudden chill in the room numbed my mind. I decided to change the subject.

"Who cares about such people, anyway?" I picked up my empty cup, twisted my wrist to set the dregs aswirl, and stared into the vortex. "I was just wondering a moment ago, about those odd visitors I had on the day before my trip."

Bethesda looked at me blankly.

"It was only a month ago. You must remember-the little gallus and the old Alexandrian philosopher, Dio. He came seeking help, but I wasn't able to help him, at least not then. Did he come calling again while I was gone?"

I waited for an answer, but when I looked up from my cup I saw that Bethesda was looking elsewhere.

"It's a simple enough question," I said mildly. "Did the old philosopher come asking for me while I was gone?"

"No," she said.

"That's odd. I thought that he would; he was so distraught. I worried about him while I was away. Perhaps he didn't need my help after all. Have you heard any news of him, through your vast network of spies and informants?"

"Yes," she said.

"And? What news?"

"He's dead," said Bethesda. "Murdered, I believe, in the house where he was staying. That's all I know."

The swirling dregs in my wine cup slowed to a stop, the porridge in my stomach turned to stone, and in my mouth I tasted ashes.

It was not until several days after my return to Rome that I found time to write a letter to Meto. I recounted to him the events which had transpired in my absence – Cicero defeating Caelius in the trial of Bestia despite the accusation of "the guilty finger" (the perfect anecdote for Meto to share with his tentmates!), Pompey's embarrassment on his way to Milo's trial, the obscene chant about Clodius and Clodia.

Since I had made such a story of Trygonion's and Dio's visit when I saw Meto in Illyria, I felt I should let him know what had become of the philosopher. Merely a matter of keeping him informed, I told myself, as I began setting down the words. But as I wrote, I began to realize that telling the tale was in fact my chief reason for writing the letter. Dio's murder had left me with a nagging sense of guilt, and writing down the gory facts for Meto's perusal, painful though it was, somehow eased my conscience, as if describing an event could mitigate its awfulness.

When it comes to correspondence, I am not Meto; my prose will never capture great Caesar's admiration. Nonetheless, I will copy down a bit of what I wrote to Meto on that last day of Februarius:

Also, son, you will probably remember the tale I told you about my visit from Dio, the philosopher I once knew in Alexandria, and the little gallus named Trygonion. You laughed when I described to you their absurd disguises-Dio dressed like a woman, and the eunuch in a toga trying to pass himself off as a Roman.

The sequel, I fear, is quite the opposite of funny.

What Dio dreaded came to pass, only hours after he left me. That very night, as I was making ready for my journey to see you, Dio was being viciously murdered in the house of his host, Titus Coponius.

I learned the bare fact that Dio had been murdered from Bethesda on the morning after my return to Rome. She claimed to know no details at all. Bethesda took a disliking to Dio the instant she laid eyes on him, and you know how she is-from that moment on he might as well not have existed; even her appetite for gossip seems unstirred by his murder. I had to discover the details for myself, posing discreet questions in the proper quarters. This was not difficult, though it took some time.

It seems that there had been a previous, failed attempt to poison Dio. He mentioned this to me himself on the night of his visit. Apparently some slaves of his previous host, Lucius Lucceius, were suborned (doubtless by agents of King Ptolemy) to poison Dio's food, but succeeded instead in killing his sole remaining slave, who had taken on the role of food taster. Dio fled from Lucceius's house to that of Coponius.

It was from the house of Coponius that Dio came to call on me, and to ask for my help. If only I had offered to let him spend the night in my house! But then his assassins might have done their bloody work here, under my roof. I think of Bethesda and particularly of Diana and I shudder at the thought.

Poison having failed, Dio's enemies resorted to less subtle means. After leaving my house, Dio returned to Coponius's as quickly as he could-darkness had fallen and Dio feared the streets, even disguised as he was and with Belbo along for protection. As for Trygonion, Belbo says that he went along as far as Coponius's door and then went his own way, perhaps returning to the House of the Galli, which is also here on the Palatine, close by the temple of Cybele. No one seems to know much about this gallus, and no one can explain to me his relationship to Dio.

What follows is secondhand information, some of it thirdhand-which makes it gossip, really-but I think it's reliable.