ODE TO A BANKER

She looked at me, wide-eyed, as if I ought to know. I had a bad

feeling. When she answered, it was not dispelled. `Why, the Aurelian Bank.'

XVIII

LATER, IN bed, I asked Helena, `Do you ever yearn to be a "woman of independence" like Junia?'

`Running a caupona?' she chuckled. `With the solemn approval of Gaius Baebius?'

I shifted my feet, with an effort. Nux, who was supposed to, sleep in our third room guarding Julia, liked to sneak in and lie on the foot of our bed. We sometimes sent her back, but more often Julia moutaineered her way out of the cradle and came toddling after the dog so we just gave in. `Running anything. You could certainly match Lysa and found your own bank.'

`We'll never have that much money, Marcus!'

'Ah, to quote an excellent Greek philosopher: "Why do bankers lack money, even though they have it? – They just have other people's!" That's Bion.'

`Naturally your favourite – Bion who said, "All men are bad". I'm not sure he was right about bankers lacking money… So – a little business of my own,' she mused. In the darkness I could not make out her expression. `No; I have a full life with your affairs to run.'

`That makes me sound like Pa, with a female secretary constantly keeping him where he ought to be.'

`Flora ran her own caupona at the same time. And not badly. You must admit, Marcus, it has its own gruesome character. It has lasted for years. People regularly return there.'

`Dogs like peeing on the same column.'

`Don't think your father fails to notice your orderly life,' Helena said, ignoring my uncouthness as if she knew informers were not worth chastising. `Even though you do your best to escape my efforts.'

`I'm just a lump of wet clay on your potter's wheel… What about Pa?'

`I went to see him today. He asked me to take over Flora's inventories and accounts. I said no – but it made me think of Maia. I didn't tell her that he had asked me first, because both of them will enjoy believing they took the initiative. Geminus won't reveal that he asked me; it's not his style. He is as devious as you are -' `Oh thanks!'

`Maia does not want to be the second runner in anything – in so far as even she knows what she wants.'

`What is she uncertain about? That sounds as if something is going

on?' Helena did not answer me. I tightened my grip on her. `I detect

a mystery. What has she told you in your girly chats?' `Nothing.'

`Nothing, eh?' Using my stylish knowledge of women, I made a note to look out for whatever it was. `And what do you want in life, fruit?' This was a serious question. Helena had deserted a world of senatorial luxury and ease to be with me; I never lost sight of that. `Apart from a handsome dog with poetic sensitivities, who is very good in bed?'

Then Helena Justina, refined daughter of the most noble Camillus, gave a loud snore and pretended my efforts at marital companionship had put her to sleep.

XIX

NEXT DAY my first stop was the Forum Romanum.

Avoiding the Clivus Publicius and the scriptorium for the moment, I went down off the Aventine by the Trigeminal Gate, then through the meat market and around the bottom of the Capitol. Leading up towards the Temple of Juno Moneta – Juno of the Mint – running parallel with the overspill Forum of Julius, was the Clivus Argentarius – Silver Street. I rarely walked that way. I loathed the smell of bastards making money out of other people's needs.

The Clivus Argentarius had the exchange tables, with the hunchbacked slaves who assayed currency on hand-held balances. They would rob you, though not as mercilessly as the eastern deviants away at the Greek end of the Mediterranean. It was enough for these Roman small-change fiddlers to prey gently on dopey provincials who did not know the difference between a dupondius and an as (both brass, but on a dupondius the Emperor wears a radiate crown instead of a wreath – of course you knew that!) The coin-biting practitioners changing staters and obols into decent denarii were not my real quarries, however. I was considering the world of heavy finance; I needed to be where the big backers and brokers lurk. Those who secretly fund city enterprises at enormous interest rates during civil wars. Shipping guarantors. Investors in luxury trades. Criminals' dinner guests and Senate facilitators.

Since Chrysippus was a supporter of the arts – and supposedly rolling in money – I was surprised to discover that he did trade under the sign of the Golden Horse, right here. His Aurelian Bank, which I naturally viewed as a serious inheritance issue, appeared no more than a modest currency exchange. It had the usual lopsided table where a hangdog in a dingy tunic presided over a few battered coin boxes, gloomily swinging his creaky hand-balance from one finger as he waited for custom.