MATRONS' HOUR

Interviewer: Welcome to the latest in our series of Classic Interviews. After last year's discussion with Marcus Didius Falco, we are delighted that Helena Justina has agreed to make a rare public appearance, to give us her version of their unusual partnership. Helena Justina, you are the daughter of highly-placed patricians, Camillus Verus and Julia Justa. Your father is a friend of the Emperor Vespasian. Your upbringing must have been comfortable. Did you expect that your life would be conventional?

Helena: Staying at home, spinning wool in the atrium, visited only by modestly veiled married women, or perhaps honoured sometimes by a social call from a Vestal Virgin... Yes, I was a gloomy young girl, with all the normal hopes.

Interviewer: Your first marriage presumably fitted that patern. Your husband was an aedile, Gnacus Atius Pertinax, ambitious and from a very wealthy background. You lived in a luxurious home on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. After four years, it was your choice to divorce. Why did that, happen? And how did you feel about it?

Helena: It was an empty partnership. Pertinax gave himself up to racehorses and politics. We hardly saw each other and, when we did, we had nothing to say. Even so, when I decided to terminate the marriage, I experienced a deep sense of failure. It made me extremely unhappy - yet it was the right decision. Companionship is essential.

Interviewer: You must always have been a girl with her own ideas, some of them awkward. Still, you cannot have dreamed of finding companionship with an informer?

Helena: Whom I met in Britain! No.

Interviewer: Falco was a tough, streetwise, loner from the opposite end of society. Surely very different from most of your social circle.

Helena: We hated each other when we met. He saw me as a snooty, snobbish girl who interfered too much, while I believed he had caused the death of someone close to me. It did us both good to be proved wrong.

Interviewer:What attracted you to him?

Helena: Under the gruff exterior he started to seem more human, in ways other people rarely matched. I was feeling crushed myself and I liked his strength. During that mission in Britain, he was terribly mistreated and I happen to see it, but even when be was filthy, half starved, and in pain from broken bones, he refused to give way. He was still making me laugh and insulting me.

Interviewer: Is it true you rescued him?

Helena: I helped extract him from some danger, I felt proud of that. Later we travelled all across Europe together and stayed friends; that's a true test of a relationship.

Interviewer: When you returned to Rome, quite obviously much in love, were people around you very shocked?

Helena: I'm afraid that may be part of his attraction.

lnterviewer: Did you shock yourself as well?

Helena: No, I felt as if I had finally discovered myself.

Interviewer: There has been other gossip. Your name has been "romantically linked" with someone at much higher level.

Helena: Not by me! It would be wrong for me to comment, but this makes me very angry.

Interviewer: The fact that you and Falco have never been formally married with a ceremony may fuel the rumours.

Helena: Roman marriage is simply the decision by two people to live "together as man and wife. Falco would like a wedding, but of course as a man he is much more romantic than me. You don't need a ceremony to be miserable - or happy. You only need a contract if you intend separate.

Interviewer: And are you surprised to hear people say 'A senator's daughter would never give up her cosseted existence and live with a plebian"?

Helena: Obviously they don't read the gossip columns of the 'Daily Gazette'! What about Eppia, the senator's wife - not even divorced, like me - who sailed off to Egypt with the gladiator she was smitten with? A clapped out, elderly gladiator, at that. At least Falco was in the prime of life and gave every hint he would be good in bed.

Interviewer: Dare I ask if that was true?

Helena: You can ask. No modest matron would answer.

Interviewer: Well, I can report that Helena Justina looks extremely happy and fulfilled! In fact, that's despite what is to date a very spartan lifestyle?

Helena: Love conquers all... though it doesn't put sardines in your fish kettle.

Interviewer: You have inherited wealth of your own, which would purchase quite a few sardines. Clearly differences in status never bothered you, but does this money matter?

Helena: Having a financial buffer for emergencies has probably saved many marriages. We both try to ignore it otherwise. If one party has much more than another, that may affect their relationship. Being magnanimous brings out the worst in people - and having to be too grateful does no-one any good either.

Interviewer: It could look as if the situation suits Falco more than you?

Helena: Feeling guilty is men's natural state But I don't think what you say is true.

Interviewer: Are you then an equal partnership?

Helena: Yes.

Interviewer: That's definite! Now he has been elevated to the middle rank; he has a position in the state religion and you are about to move house - so do you expect changes?

Helena: I think Falco will never change. He took up work that people despised because be was drawn to it by nature; when he sees any kind of outrage or injustice he will always want to investigate. As for me, the enormous change in my life has already happened, when I found him.

Interviewer: You do in fact share his work. That's unusual". You frequently help in his investigations; sometimes you actually identify villains successfully. Tell us about this.

Helena: Of course I am guided by my husband as to what is socially appropriate... No Roman woman of status can involve herself in visiting strangers, especially where there may be danger. But if you believe that a wife should be her husband's true confidant, the only person to whom he entrusts his most private thoughts, then what I do is nothing strange. Falco and I discuss what is on his mind; I make suggestions. If he is visited by clients or witnesses at our home, I may be present - and we still travel a lot, which I enjoy.

Interviewer: What about when you accompany, Falco to interviews? You even ask the questions, sometimes?

Helena: A useful ruse. Suspects probably think any part I play cannot be serious.

Interviewer: That's modest - though I suspect you art aware of your worth.

Helena: And I like to keep an eye on the female witnesses.

Interviewer:. You mentioned danger. You do take risks. You have been tied up and threatened, nearly killed by a scorpion bite, and you have even had thugs terrorise you at home. Falco is a great fighter, when necessary, but what about you? Are you "streetwise" ? Could you get physical?

Helena: Certainly not ... although faced with a threatening bully, I regard it as a challenge to see if I can surprise him with a well-aimed skillet.

Interviewer: Falco originally viewed you as rather superior. Like him, I think many people meeting you for the first time would be surprised how much you, laugh.

Helena: I say that is because being with Falco is a big joke - though to do it, frankly, you have to be extremely serious.

Interviewer: Has having children changed you?

Helena: It's too exhausting to notice. It is a cliché to say children make you slow down and place more value on life - in fact, you're too busy keeping them quiet before your neighbours complain, cleaning them up, and worrying about their illnesses.

Interviewer: You yourself must have been nurtured by whole batches of slaves, nurses and tutors. Have you considered this for your children?

Helena: I believe it is the mother's duty to educate and set an example - but I also believe it's her duty to have enough free time to keep herself sane, ready for when the children are in real trouble. So yes, once we have room, we shall have help in the house. At that Point, unfortunately, the mother has to educate and set an example to the nursemaid too. It is folly to take someone, usually very young, underprivileged, inexperienced, and from another culture, then give them sole charge of a tiny child, without direct supervision and support.

Interviewer: So you end up with double the work?

Helena: Afraid so.

Interviewer:: But with occasional free moments?

Helena: I cling feebly to that hope.

Interviewer: What are your relations with your own parents?

Helena: I was extremely fortunate Both my parents managed to be tolerant and affectionate - with each other, and with their children.

Interviewer: You have had family difficulties?

Helena: Which are a matter for our private family councils.

Interviewer: Who takes the lead in those - your, father or Falco as patriarchs?

Helena: I always saw my mother Play a full patient at my father's side - and I do the same in my own home.

Interviewer:: Your mother was a strong influence.

Helena: And my father too.

Interviewer: Would you have liked to be a man?

Helena: Critics probably say that is how I already behave.

Interviewer: Do you measure yourself against men?

Helena: All the time; that's a good way for any girl to cheer herself up.

Interviewer: What do you wish for your daughters?

Helena: Security; self-contentment; and most of all, friendship.

Interviewer: And what practical advice would you give to them?

Helena:Get enough sleep; avoid hard women and handsome men; and never eat meat rissoles from street vendors.

Interviewer: Useful for all of us! Justina, thank you very much for joining us.