Cominia Gariliana was a freedwoman working at the new baths, outside the city wall, on the Campus Martius, and she loved her job. She’d come a long way, starting as a slave at a local third-class balneum in the Subura, where she even had to scrub the shithouse. Thinking back to that time still made her shudder. No, nowadays she didn’t dirty her hands anymore: she was in charge! At least in charge of all the household matters at Nero’s baths. Organizing everything; making sure there were always enough towels and that they smelled good; ditto for the bathing oils, which had to smell even better; that kind of thing. All the cleaning was done by slaves or by lowly freedwomen that she bought or recruited herself to work for her: let them do what she used to do.
And then: Nero’s baths! Top notch… the emperor had really made a splash! (“Pardon the pun,” Cominia thought wryly.) For the first time public baths had been put up on the scale of an imperial palace, rather than a patrician villa. Huge echoing halls, with swimming pools rather than mere bathtubs, following one another along a central line. Left and right you had changing rooms, palestrae for all kinds of sports, steam baths, and private meeting rooms. Everywhere you could enjoy the sight of friezes and frescoes on the walls, dedicated to Venus; all kinds of erotic scenes; nude couples or threesomes doing every trick imaginable, but very tasteful. Oh yes, and at the entrance you had this incredible fountain basin made from a huge, polished slab of porphyry—purple granite—from Egypt. Very classy!
Anyway. On that day, Cominia was busy in her storeroom, stacking clean towels on the shelves in her cupboards. She made sure to place enough lavender and rosemary pouches between the stacks to dispel the slight whiff of human pee the linen had when it came back from the launderers. Suddenly a man entered her domain, without knocking or saying a word. Cominia looked up in alarm, then relaxed: it was one of those wealthy regulars who rented a private meeting room and always behaved as if they owned the place. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of greying curls above a handsome-looking face, he stared at her with the cold eyes of a cobra ogling its prey. She knew the type: patricians, equestrians or senators; they always behaved as if they owned half of Rome, witch in a way they did. Filthy rich and mighty powerful.
“Do you know who I am, woman?”
“Yes, Sir,” Cominia answered with a slight bow of the head, “I am honoured to greet you, Praefect Rufrius Crispinus. What can I do for you, Sir?”
“You know that I entertain an informal little circle of friends in my private meeting room… I need a couple of slave girls to do some massage for us. Can you provide that? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Sure. But if you want them to tend to your pleasures, why not just go to a brothel and pick up a couple of girls you really like? I don’t know what you and your friends would fancy, and I guess a high turnover is always better for this kind of thing.”
“You misunderstand, woman. We really want only massage. But I want to buy a couple of competent slave masseuses from you, so I can kill them at my convenience, should one of my friends inadvertently reveal any state secrets, you know? Just as a precaution, so to speak.”
“I understand, Sir. But you do realize that killing a slave like that is illegal nowadays? Our emperor has recently made the laws a lot stricter that way.”
The man waved this off with a frown and a dismissive gesture of his hand. “Well, in that case I’ll just sell them on to someone in the provinces, you know, remove them far away from Rome: the effect would be the same.”
“Erm… I see, yes. But I have an even better offer, if you’ll allow me, Sir. I can hire two crippled young girls I happen to know, both experienced masseuses, but one of them is totally blind, the other one deaf and mute. They can do an excellent job serving you gentlemen, but they are so retarded, that even if the blind one should overhear any sensitive information, she wouldn’t have a clue of what you’re talking about… She hardly understands what’s going on around her… Pitiful little lambs, both of them.”
“Sounds good. You can bring them in. The sooner the better.”
Desi was fascinated by the stones, Feli knew. So that morning she led her up the Esquiline Hill, all the way to the Porta Esquilina, the gate in the old city wall, and then they ventured out on the Via Tiburtina, the main road to the town of Tibur. Right behind the gate the road was lined with graves, and where there are graves there are tombstones, and where there are tombstones there are inscriptions. They walked briskly along the road for a while, until Feli spotted exactly what she was looking for: a fresh grave. And a brand-new gravestone with a beautiful inscription.
The fresh grave was situated more than a hundred yards off the road, so they had to swerve through a thicket of older tombstones. Then at last Desi could start probing the inscription with rapid movements of her fingertips, spelling the letters one by one in her mind, reconstituting the words of each line.
N·QVINCTIVS·ↃↃ·L·COMICVS
SIBI·ET·QVINCTIAE·PRIMILLAE
COLLIBERTAE·ET·CONIVGI·SVAE
VIXI·CVM·EA·AN·XXX
When she was satisfied that she understood everything, she turned to Feli and started telling her what the stone said.
“It’s a man who writes comedies: you should like that. He used to be a slave, but he and his wife were set free by two women. Now the man’s wife died and he says that he lived with her for thirty years. That’s twice as long as you or me have been on this earth!”
Feli was mighty impressed. She knew the stones with the carved ‘letters’ could speak to Desi. Not only in the graveyards along the roads, but on every temple and monument in town as well. Only, in that case, most inscriptions where out of reach for her blind friend’s fingers, and sometimes Feli would painstakingly copy one of them on the PF’s wax tablets, if they could ‘borrow’ them, and Desi could ‘read’ from that, if Feli wrote large enough.
In this way they’d found out that there were quite a lot of houses with the inscription “Felicitas lives here” above the door. These were brothels, as Desi could hear plainly from all the panting and moaning coming from inside. She explained that the word Felicitas, above the door, was not only the name of her friend, but that it also meant “joy” or “bliss”.
“Yes, ‘bliss’, that’s me!”
“And it says ‘bliss lives here’ because it’s a place where men can pay for sex.”
“I know: there’s a big penis carved in stone left and right of the inscription.”
You also had many interesting graffiti written in charcoal on the walls in the back alleys of the Subura. Feli would take Desi’s forefinger and guide it along the letters, getting it all smudged with charcoal. But then Desi could tell her what the message said: “Caius is a big turd,” and Feli laughed out loud, barking a bit like a dog, which she rarely did, but there was nothing she enjoyed more than a good joke involving poo or pee.
In fact it had been Feli who had started the whole thing, many years back, when Desi had been eight or nine years old. One day she’d asked what all those ‘squiggles’ carved in stone were for. “They don’t seem to be of any use, so why do they bother to carve them everywhere?”
Desi had investigated, as soon as Feli had been able to lead her to an accessible inscription. And from that moment on, the blind girl had been fascinated and obsessed. She’d asked her mother what this was, and when she’d been told about reading and writing, she’d started to pester Mater and demanded to learn “the language of the stones”.
“You’d have to learn the alphabet first,” Claudia pleaded, “I don’t know how to teach you.”
“Yes, but if you know the language of the stones, how did you learn it?”
“I went to school for that.”
“School,” Desi told Feli, “don’t we have one of those a few streets off?” Yes, that was the place under the arches of a portico where you heard kids reciting their lessons all day long, under the severe tutelage of an old Greek slave they called a ‘teacher’. It didn’t sound very exciting, or even interesting, on the contrary, but if that was what it took, Desi was willing to try.
The Greek slave, Tassos, had been quite astonished. He knew the girls, of course, they were well-known in the neighbourhood, and he had already come to the conclusion that the blind one, at least, must be rather clever. But fancy her coming to him and demanding to learn to read! Apparently she’d figured out how to recognize carved inscriptions by touch. He explained that you had to pay for the teaching; that his master, the owner of the portico, collected the fee; that it was not free.
“I will pay you when I grow up, Tassos. Teach me!”
The old slave had sighed, and smiled inside his Greek beard. “Oh well, why not. But don’t tell anyone.”
And when his regular pupils went home, he’d taught the blind girl. It was Tassos who’d thought up the trick of writing the twenty-three letters of the alphabet on a couple of wax tablets. Desi had then learned to recite them in the correct order.
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z
And she’d learned that each letter in fact represented a sound, or two, and that all the sounds in a word were represented by the corresponding letters. Great invention! “Yes, a Greek invention,” Tassos claimed.
But then it had soon become clear that this system didn’t work for poor Feli. Of course she had to sit in on every lesson Tassos gave to her blind friend, and Desi fully expected her to participate in this new, exciting venture. So in the beginning she’d translated every word the teacher said for her deaf companion. But very soon she encountered an unsurmountable difficulty. The two had a sign for every word: like “early” was a certain flip of the hand, palm down, but only in a certain context; “late” was the same flip, palm up. In another context both signs could have several other meanings. And when Desi had shown Feli the written Latin words on her tablet: MATVRE, SERO, and explained their meaning, the deaf girl had argued, “Yes, but in what kind of story? You can’t just use a word on its own!” And that was when it dawned on Desi that Feli didn’t know Latin at all.
She could hardly believe it.
“What did you expect?” Tassos asked, “words are sounds, really, and that is why the deaf cannot speak.” He was intrigued by the strange sign language the two ten-year-old girls seemed to have invented for themselves, but he would never for the life of him have imagined that this could be anything more than mere playacting. He was firmly convinced that Feli was retarded, poor thing.
Desi carried on as long as it took, pestering her teacher, and then her parents at home, relentlessly, until she could read the stones on her own. Then she seemed to lose interest, but that was only to placate her deaf companion. In fact, Feli was sadly aware of the fact that reading was still one of Desi’s greatest passions.
That morning, by Primilla Quinctia’s grave, the blind girl brought up the subject once again.
“Why don’t you want to learn Latin, Feli? You could learn to read and write; I could teach you! You’re making such a big mountain out of this; I’m not saying it would be easy, but we could take one small step at a time and get there in the end.”
“You’re the one who is making a big mountain out of nothing. If I learn Latin, I can chat only with stones!”
“No! I’ll give you wax tablets and then you could write messages for other people to read.”
“I want to chat only with you.”
“But what if a flowerpot falls down from a windowsill on my head? I could be dead in a flash, at any moment, and then you’ll have no one else to chat with.”
Feli found this thought so disturbing that she changed the subject at once. “It’s strange that I don’t know Latin, by the way, because I learned our language from you when we were little. Why didn’t you teach me then, when you had the chance?”
“No, Feli, no! You taught me to use our signs!”
“Really? I can’t remember a thing about that; can you?”
“No, I was too young.”
“But I always thought that you taught me because you’re a few years older than me.”
“No! I always thought that you were the oldest!”
“Well maybe we’re the same age after all.”
Desi sighed. This conversation was going nowhere. Then suddenly a man was approaching among the gravestones. “Avē,” he said, “This is not a place for young girls to loiter. This is my wife’s grave.”
From his voice Desi could make out that he was an old man. “Salvē, freedman Quinctius. May I offer my sincere condolences for the death of your beloved Primilla? You lived with her for thirty years, that’s twice as long as I or my friend have been on this earth!”
“And who is offering her condolences?”
“I am Desiderata Pomponia, a free citizen’s daughter, and this is my slave Felicitas. She’s deaf.”
The old man eyed the girl’s worn tunica, which was no better than her slave’s, and he smiled. He knew the type: dirt-poor plebeians who clung desperately to the last shreds of dignity they had, to being free citizens and owning just that one mangy little slave.
“You are obviously blind, my young fellow-citizen, and I like the idea of a deaf slave guiding her blind mistress!”
“Yes, wouldn’t that be a nice subject for a comedy in verse?”
“Possibly. What would the story be?”
“Well, surely the faithful deaf slave would be manumitted in the end, and there would be joy, felicitas all around.”
“You like a happy ending, eh? But it doesn’t always work like that. Besides, I no longer write comedy, not since my master died. He used to sell my work as his own, but the theatre people just didn’t believe me when I told them that I could write more material for them. My career has ended with my master’s life.”
“That is really sad for you, but at least you had your wife.”
“Yes, and the master’s two sisters have been very kind to us.”
“I was fascinated by your story when I read your stone. I would like to do the same thing with mine, and Feli’s story. Is it expensive?”
“Very. And it’s very strange for a young girl like you to be thinking of her own tombstone… but tell me something: how did you manage to read the stone, if you’re blind and your slave can’t speak?”
Desi put her fingertips on the stone slab and explained she could read by touch alone. “Feli can’t read; I was just pestering her about teaching her, but she doesn’t want me to… All right, Quinctius, we’ll leave you alone now.”
The two girls went back to the road, manoeuvring among the graves, and by the roadside Desi started telling Feli what she and the man had just discussed. Feli said, “Maybe it would be cheaper if we only buy a marble slab, and then you can carve our story yourself.”
“Excellent idea!”
Numerius Quinctius watched the two girls from a distance, and he marvelled. “Oh Primilla, if only you could have seen this!”
When they got home at the end of the morning, they found Claudia spinning in the company of a few neighbours at their usual spot in the backcourt of the insula.
“Ah, there you are, Desi, right on time. Cominia Gariliana was here a while ago. She has a job for you and Feli. Do you remember Cominia, from our balneum?”
“Of course, dear Mater. She used to scold us so when we bombed the bathtub!”
“Well, she needs two young masseuses for some rich men, to rub them with oil and scrape them clean with a strigil. You two can do that, can’t you?”
“Of course!”
“I want you to go over to the new baths on the Campus Martius: Nero’s baths. Ask around if Feli can’t find them. You’re supposed to start this afternoon, and Cominia needs to show you the ropes, so off you go, and I mean right now!”
Desi smiled from ear to ear, delighted, flew into her mother’s arms and clung to her neck. “I’m on my way, sweet Mater! I’m so glad! I hope this is going to work out.”
Claudia gave her a few coins to buy something to eat on her way over and grumbled mock-angrily, “Your days of loitering in the streets are over, young lady.”
Desi understood all too well how grateful she should be for this job opportunity. It was the result of long and tense negotiations between her parents. As she and Feli set out for the new baths, she thought back to the dramatic scenes that had followed her father’s discovery of her covert career as a beggar. He had been furious. He’d lost all of his Roman cool and reserve. How could a daughter of his even contemplate taking money from strangers; had she no dignity?
“I give them what they pay for,” Desi had argued, “I’m blind, I’m worse off than all of them, and that’s why their gift buys them some sympathy from Asclepius.”
“You miserable girl, no true Roman buys or sells favours from the gods!” the PF had screamed.
Mater had been in a very difficult position. The PF was still not fully aware of the fact that she too made some money from her carding and spinning, and she wanted to keep it that way. But she’d argued that it would be a good thing if their daughter could find a suitable and honourable way to make a living. “Let’s not delude ourselves, Sextus: how are you ever going to find a husband for our poor Desi? And we’re not always going to be around to care for her.” She’d also pointed out that if Feli earned something extra on the side too, there would be nothing wrong with that for her masters. So in the end the PF had relented. Let the girls find some work, “but only as long as Desi is not married.”
At the baths they had an uneasy reunion with their old acquaintance Cominia. Desi remembered her from her childhood as a bad-tempered women who was always criticizing her when they went to the local balneum, where she was the care-taker. She also remembered that she’d often been scolded by her mother when she’d been disrespectful to old Cominia: Mater would not stand for that.
“So there you are, young Desiderata, none too soon… quite a lady now, eh? Good… good. I remember you as a very lively little girl, always causing trouble with your deaf sidekick here.”
She asked if they had any experience using a strigil. Desi said of course, she and Feli liked to do some wrestling at the balneum, and then cover their bodies with dust and scrape off the sweat and dirt. “We don’t have real strigils, but we use a couple of suitably curved sticks. And we do each other’s backside.”
“Good… good. This afternoon you can start doing the same for your new paymaster and his cronies. However, I want you to understand one thing, young Desi: I remember your sharp tongue… but from now on, never ever say a word to any of these gentlemen without being asked to speak. Not a word, you understand? And even then, answer with restraint. I told them you’re a bit retarded, so act the part. Got that?”
“Yes, yes, Cominia,” Desi said, starting to feel a great deal less enthusiastic about the job already, “they think I’m retarded… keep it that way.”
“Exactly! Now listen, Desi, I’m devoted to your mother. Matrona Claudia is the nicest woman in the world. Even when I was just a slave she was always nice to me. So don’t let me down; I don’t want to disappoint her.”
Hmm, that was easier said than done. They followed a routine that had been agreed on with Cominia. Desi and Feli stood by at the entrance of the meeting room, waiting, and when the men came in from the palestrae and took place on the massage benches, the deaf masseuse would lead the blind one to her first customer and take care of the next one herself. Then, as soon as they’d finished oiling and scraping the first pair of customers, Feli would bring Desi to another one, wherever he’d laid himself down. Or she’d take her back to their post by the door, waiting for further orders. When the men had taken a dive in one of the pools, they came back expecting their masseuses to dry and rub them down with a towel.
Cominia had recommended they should use their sign language as little as possible, so Desi had to let Feli take the lead. She had the feeling that Feli enjoyed bossing her around very much, as a matter of fact. Sometimes, when a man ordered Feli to rub him “here”, or “there”, she understood that without hearing, but when she was told, “I want a longer massage from you, girl,” Desi would signal discreetly, and her friend caught her drift with half a sign.
In the beginning some of their customers did some amusing little experiments on Feli to verify that she was really deaf, trying and failing to make her jump by yelling “Boo!” just behind her, for instance. And they commented derisively on Desi’s hollow eyes as if she were not even present. Both were used to this kind of thing; this was Rome after all; and the men soon tired of it.
So they were constantly on the alert, on the lookout, trying to anticipate all the whims and wishes of these men who hardly acknowledged their existence. And there was the rub. Desi was made to feel subservient, and she hated that. She also found her new job very boring, although she didn’t mind handling those male bodies at all. It was even nice to be using a real, spoon-like, brass strigil, sharp and smooth and elegantly curved. But it was the endless waiting in between the massage assignments that was aggravating. How much more fun she’d had as a beggar at the temple of Asclepius!
And she didn’t like this praefect Rufrius Crispinus and his friends one bit. He reminded her of her father’s patron, senator Canio, only she was not his client, more like his slave. But he and his cronies had the same kind of conversations as Canio and his followers. They complained all the time. It was clear from the outset that these wealthy and important men did not approve of “the young emperor” at all: everything had been much better in the good old days.
“To start with,” a man who sounded younger than the others grumbled, “Nero is not even of Julian stock, but an Ahenobarbus.”
“That’s right, Lucanus, and until now he has been too much under the influence of Seneca, and of Burrus when he was still alive. What can you expect when an emperor is being henpecked by a philosopher?”
“At any rate he has no personality of his own, no maturity. He has become the puppet of his own puppets.”
“Good point, Lucanus, a puppeteer entangled by the very strings he is pulling!”
“Huh?” Desi thought, “what on earth are they talking about?”
Then an older man with a forceful voice held forth about the military situation: “We lost Armenia, but instead of sending out more legions, the young fellow is trying to reach a peace settlement with the Parthians.”
“You’re right, Paetus, it is Rome’s destiny to keep expanding, to co