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Updated: July 4, 2025
"What do you think, Asper?" I asked Agathemer. "Felix," said he, "I wouldn't bet a copper that the occupant of the throne is not Commodus. But I'll wager my amulet-bag and all it contains that Palus is not Ducconius Furfur." He said it under his breath, that I alone might hear. "My idea, precisely, Asper," I replied.
When Ligo paused, old Chryseros Philargyrus, his wiry leanness manifest even in the moonlight, although he was well muffled up against the dampness of the night, pushed himself to the front and said that he claimed that, in any such competition, he ought to stand on a level with my eight other tenants, even if they had been life-long tenants of the estate, whereas he, like his father and grandfather, had paid rent to Ducconius Furfur.
How could Furfur be coerced or persuaded to such an imposture? How could he be domiciled in the Palace along with Marcia and Commodus and the deception maintained? How could the three personally endure or even sustain the difficulties of the situation?"
"How could I forget her after the way she led my uncle by the nose, had half the countryside mad for her, set us all by the ears, rebuffed Ducconius Furfur, and married Marcus Martius? "If I had never known her before I'd be bound to recall the creature who embroiled me with you. My! You were in a wax!" "I certainly was," she whispered, "and I thought I had reason to be indignant.
If we both were garbed as Emperor, Laetus wouldn't know which to obey. And if my wife and most loyal servant cannot tell which is which when we are side by side and habited alike, who will ever suspect that Furfur is not I when I am out of the way, far off, living as Palus the Swordsman, never alongside the Emperor or in sight at the same time? The plan cannot miscarry."
I felt emboldened and began with an explanation of the feud between the Satronians and the Vedians, of the lawsuit between Ducconius Furfur and my uncle, and of his purchase of Marcia from Ummidius Quadratus and his manumission of her. After these preliminaries I launched into my story. He listened attentively and with every indication of lively interest, with few interruptions.
After his victim was indubitably dead and past any possibility of reviving he summoned his accomplices and, when Marcia shrieked and fainted, for the first time realized his blunder. Then, frantic, he seized Furfur and strangled him to death long before Eclectus had revived Marcia from her swoon.
After I had finished reading, dead silence reigned in the triclinium; even Tanno was too dumbfounded to utter any sound. Hirnio spoke first. "Gentlemen," he said, "I beg of you to hear me out with attention. Like our Caius here and like his hereditary antagonist, Ducconius Furfur, I have never taken sides in our age-long local feud.
Agathemer handed me the note. At sight of it I recognized the handwriting of Vedius Caspo. Of course, like my uncle before me, I always invited to any of my formal entertainments all my neighbors except Ducconius Furfur, our enemy, and the only neighbor with whom we were not on good terms. The thread was too strong for me to break.
Hardly was old Ducconius buried when young Furfur lost his head completely and fell madly in love with Marcia. She could have married him easily; in fact, he offered marriage, not only to her in private, but before witnesses. She, for some reason, would not hear of marrying him. In fact, Furfur, it seems, was the only bachelor hereabouts whom she was unwilling to marry.
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