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"Now that Cornificia has come, not even Sextus need worry about our behavior!" said Galen, and everybody except Sextus grinned. It was notorious that Cornificia refined and restrained Pertinax, whereas his lawful wife Flavia Titiana merely drove him to extremes. This Roman Aspasia had an almost Grecian face, beneath a coiled extravagance of dark brown hair.
Her woman had tried to dress her hair on the way in the litter; one long coil of it was tumbling on her shoulder. She looked almost drunken. "Where is Flavia Titiana?" she demanded. "Out," said Pertinax and shut his lips. He never let himself discuss his wife's activities. The peasant in him, and the orthodox grammarian, preferred less scandalous subjects.
The formalities of greeting were observed as elegantly, and with far more evident sincerity, in Cornificia's house than in Caesar's palace. Cornificia, dressed in white and wearing very little jewelry, received 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.
I have listened to too much of it. I am as guilty as the others. But when it comes to slaying Commodus and standing in his shoes " Marcia interrupted. "By the great Twin Brethren, Pertinax! Who can be surprised that Flavia Titiana seeks amusement in the arms of other men! Does Cornificia endure such peasant talk? Or do you keep it to impose on us as a relief from her more noble conversation?
In all ways, in fact, she was the opposite of Flavia Titiana it was hard to tell whether from natural preference or because the contrast to his wife's extremes of noisy gaiety and shameless license gave her a stronger hold on Pertinax. Rome's readiest slanderers had nothing scandalous to tell of Cornificia, whereas Flavia Titiana's inconstancies were a by-word.
"That I should serve Rome and receive ingratitude. What else does any man receive who serves Rome? They who cheat her are the ones who prosper!" "Send for Cornificia," said Marcia. "She keeps your resolution. Let her come and loose it!" Pertinax turned sharply on her. "Flavia Titiana shall not suffer that indignity. Cornificia can not enter this house."
Cornificia whispered to Galen: "If the truth were known, he is afraid of Flavia Titiana. As a wife she is bad enough, but as an empress " Galen nodded. "If you love your Pertinax," he answered, "keep him off the throne! He has too many scruples." She frowned, having few, which were firm and entirely devoted to Pertinax' fortune. "Love him?
"He has served us well. If I had let them catch and crucify him as Maternus, we would have had no one to keep us informed of all these cross-conspiracies. But are you sure he favors Pertinax?" "Quite sure. He even risked an interview with Flavia Titiana, to implore her influence with her husband.
If you and I had risen from the charcoal- burning to be consul twice and a grammarian and the friend of Marcus Aurelius; if you and I were as handsome as he is, and had experienced a triumph after restoring discipline in Britain and conducting two or three successful wars; and if either of us had such a wife as Flavia Titiana, I believe we could besmirch ourselves more constantly than Pertinax does!
It is not that he delights in women so much as that he thinks debauch is aristocratic. Flavia Titiana is unfaithful to him. She is also a patrician and unusually clever. He has never understood her, but she is witty, so he thinks her wonderful and tries to imitate her immorality.
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