ODE TO A BANKER

'Who knows? They always share the best bargains with their own people. They glue themselves together. They go off into corners to eat pastries, and it's anyone's guess if they are conspiring or just talking about their families. Geminus can cope with honest crooks, but you can't tell with Chrysippus whether he's a crook or not. Why are you interested, Falco?'

'He offered to publish some work of mine.'

'Watch your back,' advised Gornia. It was how I felt myself. On the other hand, I might have felt the same about all scroll-sellers. 'So how come he got his claws into you, Falco?'

'Heard me reading my stuff in public.'

'Oh bullock's balls!' I was astonished by the porter's fury. 'There's too much of that,' he ranted. I stepped back nervously. 'You can't move these days without some oaf unravelling a scroll at you – under the arches with some rehashed legal speech or grabbing a crowd while they are queuing for the public convenience. I was having a quiet drink the other day and a literary halfwit started disturbing the peace, reciting a crappy eulogy he had read at his grandmother's funeral as if it were high art -'

'My recital was invitation only, and Domitian Caesar attended it,' I answered in a huff.

Then I left.

VII

PA'S DISARRAY was something I needed to think about. The most satisfactory solution was to forget it by doing something else. I decided after all that I would present myself at the Chrysippus scriptorium and size up the outfit. From Pa's place at Saepta Julia back to the Aventine could easily involve a short detour through the Forum. I could pop in at the select gymnasium I patronised and be battered in a workout with my trainer; then when Glaucus had finished toughening up my body, I could follow through with intellectual pursuits.

Afterwards, since Glaucus' gym was at the back of the Temple of Castor, I walked past the famous old establishment of the brothers Sosii, who had sold the works of Horace, to see what a decent scrollseller looked like.

Lucky old Horace. Maecenas for patron; free gift of a Sabine farm (I owned one, but I had paid through the nose for it); reputation and readership. And when the Sosii promised Horace to sell his works from a prime position, they were talking about a corner of the Vicus Tuscus on the edge of the Forum Romanum. Abutted by the Basilica, at the heart of public life, it was a famous street packed with expensive shops, down which paraded regular festival processions as they moved from the Capitol to the Games. Their passing trade must have been real, unlike the markets that Aurelius Chrysippus was allegedly wooing on the wrong side of the Circus. The faded sign showed that the scroll-shop of the Sosii had been a fixture for generations, and a dip in the doorstep evidenced just how many buyers' feet had passed that way.

When I finally ventured on a recce to the Clivus Publicius, the only pedestrians who passed me there were an old lady struggling home with a heavy shopping basket and a group of teenage boys who were loitering on the lookout for some doddery victim they could rush, knock down, and steal from. When I appeared they vanished surreptitiously. The decrepit grandma had no idea I had saved her from a mugging; she muttered with hostility and set off again, wobbling up the street.

The Clivus Publicius starts as a tough slope leading at an angle up the north flank of the Aventine from near the end of the Circus. As it climbs and flattens out, it hooks round a couple of corners, before losing itself at a quiet summit piazza. It has always been a secluded neighbourhood – too far from the Forum to attract outsiders' interest. From one side of the street are little-known but fabulous views over the valley of the Circus Maximus. When I looked around there were a few lock-up shops, whose trade must be desultory, and beyond them I glimpsed trees in the gardens of what must be carefully discreet big houses. It was a backwater. The Clivus was a public road, yet possessed a sense of isolation that was rare.

If you live on the Aventine, the long valley of the Circus Maximus obstructs you almost every time you set out walking to some other part of Rome. I must have walked down the Clivus Publicius hundreds of times. I had passed the Chrysippus scroll-shop, but never thought it worth my notice, although I loved reading. I knew the neat, quiet frontage of old, but the staff tended to lurk on the doorstep like off-putting waiters at harbourside cauponas where the fish has been casseroling far too long. Preferring to browse at dealers (and to sneak free reads on the days when I had no money) I had only ever glanced inside this shop to where the scrolls for sale were visible in uneven piles on solid old shelves. Now when I did venture in, I found there were also boxes, presumably of better works, stored on the floor beneath the shelves. There was a tall stool and a counter on which to lean your elbows while you sampled the wares.