Catilina's Riddle Read Free

many other wonderful possessions, which he settled among his blood relations.
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    I myself inherited his mother's jewelry and his town house on the Palatine Hill in the city. To you he gave his Etruscan farm. We have all reconciled ourselves to the fact."
    "I know that you have, Claudia, but I'm not so sure about your cousins."
    "Why? Have they been harassing you somehow?"
    "Not exactly. I haven't seen either Gnaeus or Manius since our day in court, but each of them sent a messenger to tell my foreman to be sure to keep my slaves off their property—that is, unless I cared to have a slave returned to me with a limb missing."
    Claudia frowned and shook her head. "Regrettable. How about Publius? He's the oldest and has always had a level head."
    "Actually, Publius and I may be going to court soon."
    "No! But why?"
    "There seems to be some disagreement about the stream that marks the boundary of our two farms. The deed I inherited from Lucius clearly indicates that I have the right to use the stream and anything in the stream as I wish, but Publius recently sent me a letter in which he claims that such rights belong to him exclusively."
    "Oh, dear!"
    "The lawyers will sort it out eventually. Meanwhile, yesterday some of my slaves were washing some clothes downstream from some of Publius's slaves, who deliberately stirred up the water so that it was full of mud, which prompted the women on my side to hurl insults at the women on the opposite bank, until more than insults were hurled. The two foremen finally arrived to stop the altercation, but not until one of my women had been struck on the head by a flying rock."
    "Was she seriously hurt?"
    "No, but there was plenty of blood, and the wound will leave a scar. If I had a litigious nature I'd demand that Publius buy me a replacement."
    Claudia slapped her hands on her knees. "Intolerable! I had no idea that such provocations were being imposed on you, Gordianus.
    Really, I will have a word with my dear relatives and see if I can't intervene on behalf of good neighborly relations, not to mention common sense and law and order!"
    She was so dramatically outraged that I laughed. "Your intervention on my behalf would be most appreciated, Claudia."
    "It's the least I can do. Really, constant litigation and neighborly ill will may be the rule in the city, but here in the country such unpleasantness has no place. Here, all should be tranquillity, fertility, and domesticity, as Lucius himself used to say."
    "Yes, I remember him using those very words once, when he was
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    making ready to leave the city for the farm." I glanced down at the stream and then above the treetops to the roof of Publius's house, felt a vague uneasiness, then looked away and resolved to think of something else. "You saw Lucius often when he visited the farm?"
    "Oh, I never missed seeing him whenever he came. Such a sweet man—but you know that. We would come and sit on this very ridgetop, on these very stumps, and gaze down on the farm, and make plans for the future. He was going to build a little mill house down by the stream.
    Did you know that?"
    "No."
    "Yes, with a great waterwheel, and one set of gears for grinding meal and another set for grinding stones dug out of Gnaeus's mine. It all sounded very ambitious and complex, but Lucius thought he could design the workings himself. A pity he died as he did, so suddenly."
    "Suddenly is best, I think. I've known many men who were less fortunate."
    "Yes, I suppose it would be worse to die slowly, or alone. . . . "
    "Instead, Lucius died very swiftly, with hundreds of people around—
    crossing the Forum, where he was known and liked by just about everyone.
    Laughing and joking with his entourage—so I was later told—when he suddenly gripped his chest and collapsed. He died almost at once; he suffered only a little. The funeral was quite an affair—so many loving friends, from all walks of life." I smiled, remembering. "He had put his will into the