He had only just missed her. Her girls, who were called Phania and Melpomene, thought she was dropping in at the Library of Octavia on her way home for lunch with Antonia; afterward her nap, of course (Oh, of course!), then probably to the baths to meet her friend. Phania and Melpomene related all this, without giggling, even though they realized that this must be the man who wrote to Caenis from Crete. Hoping to discover secrets, they offered to take a message; they offered to let him leave a note. He thanked them, but declined both offers, and he was still frowning as he collected his escort and left.

* * *

Rome had its quiet places.

He stepped from the pushing turmoil of the street into one of the dusty gardens that were open to the public, where the street traders' cries immediately dropped to a distant background hum as if a giant door curtain had just swung closed across the garden gate. Even in Rome a man could stand and think.

Then, forcing a path along the Via Triumphalis—the same way he had once strolled to the Theater of Balbus with Caenis at his heels—he came to the great open spaces of the Ninth District, where no one was allowed to live except the caretakers of the public buildings and the priests at the temples and monuments. Plenty of people came this way, but once past the elegant Theater of Marcellus this was another area where the noise dimmed and the pace of daily life pleasantly slowed. On the Field of Mars, returning armies traditionally rested and polished up their trophies before their triumphal entry into Rome. The princes of the Empire and their chief men had established their memorial buildings here: the Theater of Pompey, the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, and the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Here too, in a muted corner of the city between that curve in the river and the dominating double heights of Capitol Hill, stood a series of monumental enclosures, the Porticoes.