In his distress Falco conceived and set about putting into practice a scheme such as he would never have thought of or entertained if he had been the man he was when he bought me. When he was himself he had been the reverse of dishonorable. He came to me and said:
"We are at the end of our tether, Pullanius and his gang will break off negotiations tomorrow if I can't get hold of Salinator. I have no hope of his arrival, he may have not yet sailed from Carthage; he may have changed his mind about coming at all. I am not willing to lose so brilliant a chance. I have thought of just what to do.
"You would look like a Roman if you had your beard trimmed and your hair cut and all that powder and paint and rouge washed off your face: I took you for a full-blooded Roman when I first set eyes on you. What is more you would look so utterly unlike what you look like in your fantastic fripperies that no one would even suspect you of being the same man. Anyhow, Pullanius and his crowd have never set eyes on you, not one of them.
"All you have to do is to have your beard cut to about the fashionable length and your hair trimmed to conform similarly with current fashions for Roman noblemen and get into full-dress shoes, a nobleman's tunic and toga, and you'll pass anywhere for a genuine, free-born, full-blooded Roman.
"I'll take you to Pullanius tomorrow and introduce you as Salsonius Salinator. I'll coach you carefully as to how to behave and what to say. You are clever enough to assume the natural Roman demeanor to a nicety: also to rise to any unexpected situations and act and talk precisely as would Salinator himself.
"It will be sharp practice, in a sense. But I know Salinator would say all I want him to say, all Pullanius requires him to say, and more, if he were actually here. He is as keen on closing this contract as I am. So I am not asking you to be a party to an actual fraud. You will only be bringing about what would come about without you if something unforeseen had not prevented Salinator from getting here in time."
Now I had often differed with Falco, argued with him, opposed him, refused requests of his, and he had acquiesced and had acted as if I were not his property, but a free man and his complete social equal. But this was a situation wholly different from any I had encountered before. When it came to gem-collecting or to anything which gave him or would give him or was expected to yield him surplus cash for buying more gems for his collection, Falco was a monomaniac. I dared not refuse, or oppose him or argue or show any hesitation. A master can change in a twinkling from an indulgent friend to an infuriated despot. In spite of the laws passed by Hadrian and his successors limiting the authority of masters over their slaves and giving slaves certain rights before magistrates, in practice an angry master can go to any length to coerce a recalcitrant slave. I saw not only privations, discomforts, hunger, confinement and chains threatening me, but scourging and torture.
I acquiesced.
Now I am not going into any details as to what I did and said to induce Pullanius and his associates to execute the desired contract. I acted the part of Salinator to perfection and my imposture succeeded completely.
But the negotiations dragged, for all that, and I had to impersonate Salsonius Salinator not only before Pullanius and his partners but generally all over Rome: had to submit to being shown the sights in my character of a provincial magnate in Rome for the first time; had to allow myself to be dragged to morning receptions of senators and wealthy noblemen and introduced to them; had to accept invitations to dinners given by noblemen and senators; even had to attend a public morning reception in the Audience Hall of the Palace. That I escaped undetected was more than miraculous; I could not believe it myself. But I did escape.