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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Not any more of a bumpkin than I or any of the rest of us here. You are too high and mighty, Opsitius. It is true that in our countryside the only senators are Aemilius, Vedius and Satronius, and that in our immediate vicinity Hirnio and Hedulio are the only proprietors of equestrian rank but we commoners here are no bumpkins or clodhoppers." "I apologize," Tanno spoke conciliatingly.
Where am I and how can I reach the Via Salaria?" "You are not far from it," Hirnio told him. "We are bound for Rome and if you join us you can reach Via Salaria with us by the road on which we are going.
"Three of them," I explained, "are on the Vedian side, three on the Satronian side, though they are always polite to each other. But it is a frigid politeness and I was anticipating the dinner tonight as a frightful trial. I fancy your presence will ensure its passing off comfortably. Entedius Hirnio will be here, too.
Hirnio asked him: "Are you in any way related to Murmex Frugi?" "He was my father," Murmex replied, simply. "Was!" Hirnio repeated. "The word strikes ominously on my ear. Someone from this neighborhood, I forget who, was in Nersae since the roads became fit for travelling this spring and returned from there, or perhaps some wayfarer from Nersae stopped with someone hereabouts.
"I do know," Tanno grunted, "and I'm not fool enough to blurt it out on a country road, either. Let's be off. Attention! Form ranks! Ready! Forward! March!" Off we set, ordering our caravan as at first, except that Agathemer rode by me, with Hirnio and Murmex in advance.
"When Hedulio and I were hardly more than boys," Hirnio began, "we bird- nested and fished and hunted and roamed the woods like any pair of country lads. Parts of our woodland hereabouts are wilder than anything on the Aemilian estate, and we liked the wildest parts best.
But to anybody not a Sabine it is amazing to see a lover postponing prayers to Lord Cupid until he has finished the last detail of his ceremonial duties to Chief Cash, Greatest and Best." Just then Tanno caught sight of a horseman approaching up the valley. I looked where he pointed. "That will be Entedius Hirnio," I said.
What next? I gather that all of you, Satronians, Vedians and outsiders, have your estates parcelled out among free tenant farmers. Am I right?" Hirnio, Seclator and the rest assured him that he was right. "Well, then," he said, "tenant farming must be a subject perfectly safe for all persons present. Let's talk about it.
"Very distant," Hirnio replied, "very distant indeed: too far for us to call each other 'cousin. When I am in Rome I always call on her; once in a while she invites me to one of her very big dinners; otherwise we never see each other."
I explained all the circumstances, narrated Tanno's unexpected arrival, his quizzical bantering of the persons whom he encountered on the road, my tenants' petition, my agreement with Marcus Martins, the accretion of Hirnio and Murmex to our party, Tanno's insistence on reaching the Salarian Highway through Vediamnum, and all the other trivial factors which had conspired to my undoing; I described the affray in Vediamnum, both as I had seen it and as Tanno and Agathemer had told me of it; similarly the fight below Villa Satronia.
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