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into the
triclinium
. One of them was none other than Marcus Licinius Crassus. Milo sprang to his feet.
    “Consul, welcome! You do my house honor!” He rushed tothe old man’s side and led him to the place of honor with his own hand.
    “Nonsense, Praetor Urbanus,” Crassus said, apparently in high good humor. “I’m just making a few calls after dinner with the Pontifical College. We’ve been meeting all day, and I’m bored out of my mind. I can only stay a short while.”
    “Stay until you depart for the East. My house is yours,” Milo said, magnanimously. He clapped his hands, and the consul’s place was immediately loaded with sweetmeats and iced wine. If Milo was being more than correct in receiving a consul, Fausta was not. She looked on with a coolness bordering contempt.
    For my own part, I was shocked. This was the first close look I’d had of Crassus since returning to Rome, and the deterioration since I had last beheld him was marked. His color was high, but only in the cheeks and nose, and that only from the wine. Otherwise, his complexion was gray and deeply lined. His white hair was falling out in patches, and the cords of his neck stood out beneath his chin wattles like lyre strings. The neck itself was scrawny, and upon it his head wobbled like a ball floating upon agitated water.
    “Won’t be long now,” Crassus said. “My legions will drive King Orodes of Parthea and his cowardly, savage horsemen to ground, and we’ll bag the lot! Takes more than arrows to frighten Roman soldiers, eh?”
    “Of course, you have our heartiest wishes for a swift victory, Consul,” Milo said warmly, managing to keep his smile intact. Most of us shouted traditional congratulations. Even I managed a weak cheer.
    Crassus contrived a lopsided, fatuous smile, as if he’d already won. “I’ll bring Orodes home in golden chains and give Rome such a triumph as will make everyone forget Pompey and Lucullus and all the rest!” He raised his cup, slopping wine over his beringed hand. “Death to the Parthians!”
    We returned the toast as if we meant it, covering our embarrassment with a lot of old battle slogans. Crassus seemed satisfied with this and nodded away as a slave dried off his hand.
    “Jupiter protect us!” I whispered. “Is this really what we are going to send to command an army?”
    “I’m afraid so,” said Messius in a voice as low. “At least, he will if he ever leaves the City.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve heard that a number of influential men have sworn to prevent him from going to join his army when he steps down from office. They say they’ll restrain him by force if need be.”
    “I won’t say it’s a bad idea,” I told him, “but I don’t see how they can do that lawfully.”
    “People who fear a catastrophe don’t worry much about fine points of law. They may whip up the Plebeian Assembly to stop him by mob action.”
    He was speaking of the tribunes, of course. They were the ones who had the greatest influence with that body, and of all the year’s officials, Gallus and Ateius were the most venomously opposed to the Parthian war. This could mean blood on the streets again.
    “What about that other one who got the law passed giving Crassus the command? Was it Trebonius?” I asked.
    Messius nodded. “He was the only one among the tribunes who was really for the war, but with Crassus’s money and Pompey’s prestige behind him, one was enough. He managed to line up all the other tribunes except the two who’re in the Forum every day. All the rest are a pack of timeservers who’ve spent the year dawdling over the minutiae of Caesar’s agrarian laws and the doings of the land commissioners.” He was referring to one of the burning issues of the day: a series of proposed reforms that were unendingly controversial at the time but are incredibly boring even to think about now.
    Crassus chatted with Milo, and the rest of us returned to our small talk. When the dinner