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a guest. Caius thought of this as he was rubbed dry; in the old times, as he had been taught, there was a world full of petty princelings, little kingdoms and dukedoms, but few of them would have been able to live or entertain in the style of Antonius Caius, a not too powerful or important landholder and a citizen of the Republic. Say what you would, the Roman way of life was a reflection of those most fit and most able to rule.

    “I have never quite gotten used to being dressed and handled by women,” said Crassus. “Do you like it?”

    “I never gave it much thought,” answered Caius, which was not entirely true, for there was a definite pleasure and excitement in being handled by slave women. His own father did not allow it, and in certain circles, it was frowned upon; but in the past five or six years, the attitude toward slaves had altered considerably, and Caius, like so many of his friends, had divested them of most elements of humanity. It was a subtle conditioning. At this moment, he did not actually know what these three women in attendance looked like, and if he had been asked abruptly, he could not have described them. The general’s question made him observe them. They were out of some tribe or part of Spain, young, small in bone, not uncomely in their dark, silent way. Barefoot, they were dressed in short, plain tunics, and their dresses were damp from the steam of the bath and spotted with perspiration from their efforts. They excited him only a little in terms of his own nakedness, but Crassus drew one of them to him, handling her oafishly and smiling down at her, while she cringed against him but made no resistance.

    It embarrassed Caius enormously; he felt a sudden contempt for this great general who was fumbling around a bath house girl; he didn’t want to watch. It seemed to him small and dirty, and it divested Crassus of dignity, and Caius also felt that when Crassus remembered it later he would hold it against Caius that he had been present.

    He walked to the rubbing table and lay down, and a moment later Crassus joined him. “A pretty little piece,” said Crassus. Was the man a complete idiot in terms of women, Caius wondered? But Crassus was not perturbed. “Spartacus,” he said, picking up the thread of his conversation before, “was as much of an enigma to me as he is to you. I never saw him—with all the devil’s dance he led me.”

    “You never saw him?”

    “Never did, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t know him. Piece by piece, I composed him. I like that. Other people composed music or art. I composed a picture of Spartacus.”

    Crassus stretched and luxuriated under the clever, kneading fingers of the masseuse. One woman held a little pitcher of scented oil, pouring a constant, careful lubrication under the fingers of the masseuse, who flexed the tension out of muscle after muscle. Crassus twisted like a great cat being stroked, sighing with pleasure.

    “What was he like—your picture, I mean?” asked Caius.

    “I often wonder what I was like in his mind,” grinned Crassus. “He called to me in the end. Or so they say. I can’t swear that I heard him, but they say he sang out, Crassus—wait for me, you bastard! Or something like that. He wasn’t more than forty or fifty yards from me, and he began to cut his way to me. It was an astonishing thing. He wasn’t a very big man—not a very powerful man either, but he had a fury. That’s the word, precisely. When he fought with his own arms, it was like that, a fury, an anger. And he actually cut his way half the distance to me. He must have killed at least ten or eleven men in that last wild rush of his, and he wasn’t stopped until we cut him to pieces.”

    “Then it’s true that his body was never found?” asked Caius.

    “That’s right. He was cut to pieces, and there was just nothing left to find. Do you know how a battlefield is? There is meat and blood, and whose meat and whose blood, it is very