Mirrors Read Free Page B

and, if lucky, pursued successful careers in politics, which they undertook in the service of their creditors.
    The sale of sexual favors was a reliable source of wealth. So was the sale of political or bureaucratic favors. These activities shared a single name. Pimps and lobbyists were both called proxenetas .

JULIUS CAESAR

    They called him “the bald whorer,” said he was the husband of every woman and the wife of every man.
    Those in the know contend he spent several months in Cleopatra’s bedroom without even peeking out.
    He returned to Rome from Alexandria with her, his trophy. Crowning his victorious campaigns in Europe and Africa, he paid homage to his own glory by ordering a multitude of gladiators to fight to the death, and by showing off the giraffes and other rarities Cleopatra had given him.
    Rome dressed him in the only purple toga in the entire empire, and wrapped his forehead in a laurel wreath. And Virgil, the official poet, celebrated his divine lineage, descending from Aeneas, Mars, and Venus.
    Not long after, from the height of heights, he proclaimed himself dictator for life and announced reforms that threatened the sacrosanct privileges of his own class.
    And his people, the patricians, decided that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.
    Marked for death, all-powerful Caesar was surrounded by his intimates, and his beloved Brutus, who may have been his son, embraced him first and plunged the first knife into his back.
    Other knives riddled him and were raised, red, to the heavens. And there he lay on the stone floor. Not even his slaves dared to touch him.

SALT OF THE EMPIRE

    In the year 31 before Christ, Rome went to war against Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, inheritor of Caesar’s fame and Caesar’s dame.
    That was when Emperor Augustus bought popularity by handing out salt.
    The patricians had already given the lower orders the right to salt, but Augustus increased the ration.
    Rome loved salt. There was always salt, either rock salt or sea salt, near the cities the Romans founded.
    “Via Salaria” was the name of the first imperial road, built to bring salt from the beach at Ostia, and the word “salary” comes from the payment in salt, which the legionaries received during military campaigns.

CLEOPATRA

    Her courtiers bathe her in donkey’s milk and honey.
    After anointing her with nectar of jasmine, lily, and honeysuckle, they place her naked body on silk pillows filled with feathers.
    On her closed eyelids lie thinly sliced discs of aloe. On her face and neck, plasters made of ox bile, ostrich eggs, and beeswax.
    When she awakens from her nap, the moon is high in the sky.
    The courtiers impregnate her hands with essence of roses and perfume her feet with elixirs of almonds and orange blossoms. Her nostrils exhale fragrances of lime and cinnamon, while dates from the desert sweeten her hair, shining with walnut oil.
    And the time for makeup arrives. Beetle dust colors her cheeks and lips. Antimony dust outlines her eyebrows. Lapis lazuli and malachite paint a veil of blue and green shadows around her eyes.
    In her palace at Alexandria, Cleopatra begins her final night.
    The last of the pharaohs,
who was not as beautiful as they say,
who was a better queen than they say,
who spoke several languages and understood economics and other
male mysteries,
who astonished Rome,
who challenged Rome,
who shared bed and power with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony,
now dresses in her most outlandish outfit and slowly sits down on
her throne, while the Roman troops advance against her.
    Julius Caesar is dead, Mark Anthony is dead.
    The Egyptian defenses crumble.
    Cleopatra orders the straw basket opened.
    The rattle resounds.
    The serpent slithers.
    And the queen of the Nile opens her tunic and offers it her bare breasts, shining with gold dust.

CONTRACEPTIVE METHODS OF PROVEN EFFECTIVENESS

    In Rome, many women avoided having children by sneezing immediately after making love, but the