Solar Wind. Book one - страница 18

“Not less, but more!” Baebius Longus stomped his foot.

“Of course, more!” Fuscianus supported him.

“I think so well.” Victorinus did not retreat. “I can swear by all the gods that I am right, and you are wrong.”

“Do you want to swear? Really, Gaius?” Marcus came up to him and looked into his eyes.

“Yes, I'm ready!”

“If you swear, it's like Mucius Scaevola,29 as otherwise, we won't believe your oath. Hey, Cleont,” he ordered the slave, “bring the brazier!”

Hearing this sentence, Victorinus turned pale, but the young stubbornness made him stand his ground.

“Bring it to me!” he supported Marcus.

Alarmed by these preparations, Fuscianus and Longus came closer, they wanted to calm the debaters.

“Okay, Marcus,” Longus said conciliatorily, “let him swear by Hercules. That's enough!”

Marcus turned away, stepped aside. His big eyes darkened, and his face became sullen.

“I don't like liars!” he said passionately. “Everyone should be responsible for their words, as the teacher Diognetus said.”

“But, Marcus, listen,” Ceius Fuscianus tried to stand up for his friend, “Gaius just wants to swear, to turn to the gods. He didn't commit a crime.”

Ever since childhood, his father took Fuscianus to the courts, so that his son would listen, watch how justice was carried out. The eloquence of judicial lawyers, of which there were many in Rome, made a proper impression on the boy. And now, as a lawyer, he was putting his foot to the side, taking a steady position; he raised his right hand and began gesticulating with it.

Marcus went even further, to where oaks, pines, and myrtles grew, in the shadow of the thick foliage. He leaned his back against the oak tree, feeling the power of the tree, the humming of the trunk, as if he was chasing excited blood through the veins. The foliage above his head rustled restlessly, as if wanting to hide the feelings raging in Marcus's soul.

He did not want to harm Victorinus, though he understood that the flaming roaster would cripple his hand. But deep-down Marcus, as inside the roaster, blazed destructive passions, which still had to be curbed. It is hard to take yourself in hand; it is difficult to control every step when the intention to force, humiliate, and crush drives one crazy.

How to learn to own yourself, if the innocent lying of Victorinus, his friend, a good Gaius, in general, caused in him such cruel and brutal desires? Isn't that what Emperor Hadrian warned him about, saying that Caesar should not be a slave to pernicious passions. He whispered in his ear, tickling his beard, “Let yourself go! Let yourself go!”

But Hadrian, a paradoxical man, meant the opposite by this: you need to let go of yourself so as not to plunge into passions, but to rise above them, subject them to reason. Hadrian as if to say that this is how Caesar should rule, supporting the stoics, who saw in uncontrollable passions only a source of evil.

Meanwhile, two slaves dragged a low iron roaster and, kneeling, began to fan the fire.

“The boys play for a long time,” said Domitia Lucilla.

She stood with Regin under the canopy of a small portico and looked into the garden, where the tunics of the young men were white. Behind the backs of Domitia and Regin along the marble columns froze silent and significant busts of seven Greek sages, so revered Roman nobility. Bearded philosophers Thales of Miletus, Solon, Pittacus and others listened carefully, as if they wanted to understand the essence of their conversation and give the right advice.