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in the festivities, saying little and eating nothing. The old man appeared restless and distracted, giving a start whenever there was a peal of thunder. Light rain occasionally swept across the garden, and gusts of wind fanned the braziers that were lit as darkness fell. Hardly an hour after sundown, with several courses yet to be served, Augustusstrode to the center of the garden, where all the guests could see him, bade his fellow augurs good night, and excused himself.
    With the host gone, the atmosphere became noticeably more relaxed. A few guests dared to drink their wine without water, but no one got drunk. After a final course of carrots in a thick garum sauce, the guests begins to disperse, paying their respects to the new inductees before departing. Lucius’s father was the last to leave.
    “You’re not coming with me, son?”
    “Claudius has invited me to take a stroll to the Temple of Apollo.”
    “In this weather?”
    “The temple is only a few steps away. And it’s not raining now.”
    “The sky could open at any moment.”
    “If the storm grows worse, Lucius c-c-can spend the night here in my quarters,” offered Claudius.
    “I suppose I can hardly object,” said the elder Pinarius, looking at once pleased and anxious that his son should become a welcome guest in the house of Augustus.

    The Temple of Apollo was surrounded by an ornate colonnade directly adjoining the imperial residence, perched on the crest of the Palatine Hill, directly above the Circus Maximus. Of all Augustus’s new constructions, the Temple of Apollo was the most magnificent. Lit by flickering braziers from the surrounding colonnade, with a light mist descending, the temple appeared even more spectacular by night. The glistening walls were made of solid blocks of white Luna marble, and the gilded chariot of the sun atop the roof seemed to be made of flame. Dominating the square in front of the entrance, a marble statue of Apollo loomed above an altar flanked by four bronze oxen. In the flickering light, the oxen seemed almost to be alive. When Lucius said so to Claudius, his friend explained that they were hundreds of years old, the creations of the great Myron, famed for his much-copied statue of the Discus Thrower.
    At the top of the steps, past the towering columns, they came to two massive doors, each decorated with reliefs in ivory. By flashes of lightning,Lucius gazed at a fabulously detailed panel, a riot of figures in violent motion—young men and women running this way and that in a great panic, some pierced by arrows, and in the sky above them, each wielding a bow, the divine siblings Apollo and Artemis.
    “The slaying of the Niobids of Thebes,” Claudius explained. “When their mother Niobe boasted of having more offspring than Leto, the goddess’s children took offense and slew them, every one. Apollo shot the sons; Artemis shot the daughters. Niobe committed hubris—overweening mortal pride—and her children paid the price for it. The d-d-descendants of powerful mortals often seem to pay a price, simply for existing.” Claudius looked thoughtful, then turned and pointed with his lituus to the rectangle of sky framed by the nearest columns. “The lightning seems to be drawing closer. Look at that thunderbolt! Have you ever seen one like that? The magister says that every possible manifestation of lightning has been cataloged and categorized over the years, but that implies that lightning repeats itself, as letters and words in a language repeat; but I sometimes wonder if every thunderbolt is not unique to itself. Of course, if that were so, there could be no meaning in lightning at all, or none that men could make sense of.”
    A great blackness, darker than all the rest of the sky and filled with flashes of lightning, was sweeping toward them from the southwest. It was over the Tiber now, its fury reflected on the water’s turbulent face.
    Lucius felt steeped in privilege, to be standing with his friend, a