her guests more like an old-time patrician matron than a notorious
modern concubine. Her notoriety, in fact, was due to Flavia Titiana,
rather than to any indiscretions of her own. To justify her
infidelities, which were a byword, Pertinax' lawful wife went to
ingenious lengths to blacken Cornificia's reputation, regaling all
society with her invented tales about the lewd attractions Cornificia
staged to keep Pertinax held in her toils.

That Cornificia did exercise a sway over the governor of Rome was
undeniable. He worshiped her and made no secret of it. But she held
him by a method diametrically contrary to that which rumor, stirred by
Flavia Titiana, indicated; Cornificia's house was a place where he
could lay aside the feverish activities of public life and revel in the
intellectual and philosophical amusements that he genuinely loved.

But Livius loathed her. Among other things, he suspected her of being
in league with Marcia to protect the Christians. To him she represented
the idealism that his cynicism bitterly rejected. The mere fact of her
unshakable fidelity to Pertinax was an offense in his eyes; she
presented what he considered an impudent pose of morality, more impudent
because it was sustained. He might have liked her well enough if she
had been a hypocrite, complaisant to himself.

She understood him perfectly--better, in fact, than she understood
Marcia, whose visits usually led to intricate entanglements for
Pertinax. When she had sent the slaves away and they four lay at ease
on couches in the shade of three exotic potted palms, she turned her
back toward Livius, suspecting he would bring his motives to the surface
if she gave him time; whereas Marcia would hide hers and employ a dozen
artifices to make them undiscoverable.