The Testimonium

by Lewis Ben Smith

  “I think we are going to remove the oil lamp from its niche above the door,” said Josh. “That’s the only object left in the forward part of the chamber. It shouldn’t take long to analyze and photograph, then tomorrow we will have a clean slate to begin studying the items in the back of the chamber.”

  “And then I am going to bury myself in pollen analysis,” said Apriceno. “I don’t think there is any chance at all that this chamber has been opened in two thousand years, but I want to be positive that there is no possibility of any tampering. If there are further documents or artifacts inside the reliquary, or whatever it is, they could be very, very important to our understanding of the first century AD. No one is going to question their historical integrity if I have anything to do with it.”

  With that, like a medieval knight lowering the visor of his helmet to do battle, she pulled her mask and goggles into place and marched to the rear of the chamber, picking up the nozzle of the HEPA vacuum and aiming it at the back corner of the chamber. The whirring of the motor resumed, and Josh looked over at the Vatican archeologist next to him. “Remind me never to get on her bad side,” he said.

  MacDonald laughed. “The lass does build a full head of steam pretty quickly, doesn’t she?” he said. “Now be a good lad and fetch us each a pair of acid-free gloves, and a sanitary box to transport that lamp in.”

  Josh returned with the necessary equipment a few moments later, and they quickly lifted the ancient brass lamp from its centuries-old perch and lowered it into the box. They carried it to the mobile lab and set it on the photography table. The lamp was made of bronze, and not particularly remarkable except for the Roman eagle and familiar logo, SPQR, stamped onto one side. “Senatus Populare Quirites Romana,” Josh said to himself.

  “The Senate, People, and Citizens of Rome,” Professor MacDonald translated automatically. “You know, although they have been much maligned and looked down on, the Romans were, I think, the greatest governors of men this world has ever known. Look at how long their government lasted. Over five hundred years as a Republic, and another five hundred as an Empire!”

  “Not to mention the Eastern Empire that lasted another thousand years in Constantinople after the Empire in the West fell,” said Josh. “When you think about it, almost two thousand years is the greatest run by any government in the history of the world.”

  “No wonder the founders of your Republic drew so many examples from Rome,” Father MacDonald said. “They had a good template to draw from, all they had to do was make some tweaks to correct the most glaring flaws—separation of powers, checks and balances—things the Romans had but did not enforce.”

  “Do you think Caesar really meant to bring down the Republic when he crossed the Rubicon?” asked Josh as he focused the camera on the lamp, photographing it from every angle.

  “That’s a good question,” MacDonald said. “I think he knew that a civil war would ensue, but I don’t think he ever saw himself as the destroyer of the Republic. Frankly, I think Colleen McCullough’s portrayal of him got that bit right—he believed that Cato and Bibulus and their ilk were the ones who were going to destroy Rome if not stopped. Pompey was nothing but a tool in their hands.”

  “I’ve never understood the adoration of Cato as a hero,” said Josh. “He was dedicated to the Republic, to be sure, and scrupulously honest—but he was so stubborn and hidebound in his views that he would never tolerate changing anything at all. A government that ceases to innovate and evolve cannot endure. Change merely for the sake of change is not necessarily a good thing—I think our current President is living proof of that—but change to adapt to a radically evolving world is a necessity for survival.”

  They continued to discuss and debate the fall of the Republic and the responsibility for that calamity as they finished photographing, measuring, and cleaning the ancient lamp. It was a fairly pedestrian artifact, although the residual oil preserved in the bottom of it would have some interesting information to reveal about how the Romans illuminated their homes. That analysis would need to be done by a chemist, not an archeologist, however. They sealed the lamp in an acid-free bag and placed it in a storage cabinet next to the curule bench that had sat in front of the ancient writing desk. As they were putting it away, the door to the lab burst open and Dr. Apriceno came in, her face red with excitement.

  “You’re going to want to see this,” she said. Josh and Duncan looked at one another. “Hurry!” she snapped. The two archeologists followed her across the ancient flagstones as she explained. “I am down to the actual cabinet itself,” she said. “Or at least, I was about to be. I wanted to clean the ceiling, walls, and floor all around it first. I was working from top to bottom, going very carefully—I certainly don’t want to move or endanger anything that is not dust and pollen. The area above the reliquary was clean and free of any other objects, just masonry and stone blocks. Then I cleaned on the left-hand side of the reliquary—a space of about six inches between it and the side wall. Again, nothing but ancient dust and cobwebs. But then when I started to do the other side—well, remember how I said it appeared there might be something leaning against the wall?”

  By now they were inside the chamber, and she pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and trained it on the right rear corner of the chamber, where the gap was about a foot wide between the wall and the side of the reliquary. The bottom of the gap was still thickly coated with several inches of ancient stone dust and dirt, which reached to a height of about two feet. From the sloped ceiling down, the dust had been carefully vacuumed away, going right down the side of the chamber until—

  “Bloody hell!” gasped Father MacDonald, and then crossed himself as he realized he’d sworn.

  “Holy ancient metal, Batman!” said Josh.

  Leaning against the wall, its pommel and hilt ring revealed by the removal of the thick dust that had buried it, was a sword—a Roman gladius to be precise. The pommel was a polished, gleaming yellowish white that could only be antique ivory, and at the hilt was a golden crest that glittered in the harsh halogen light from Dr. Apriceno’s pocket torch. It was still sheathed in a leather scabbard that had faded to black with age. “I’ll get the camera,” said Josh.

  He ran back to the lab and grabbed the high-powered digital camera, which had already been used to document so much of the site. He switched to video mode and allowed Dr. Apriceno to explain how she had discovered the ancient weapon, then took a series of still shots close up. Most of the scabbard was still buried in the dust and rubble, so he focused on the pommel and hilt. After he finished, the team met outside.

  “What do you think?” said Simone.

  Josh nodded to Father MacDonald. “The Professor is the senior team member present,” he said. “I’ll let him make the call.”

  “I am going to recommend that you continue—very carefully—to remove the overburden of dust and rubble from the chamber and the objects in it,” he finally said to Apriceno. “The discovery is documented, and anyone can see that the sword could not have been placed there any more recently than the objects around it; you have left the dust coating completely in place for the entire length of the blade. No wonder we could not see it earlier; there must have been some sort of dirt slide in that corner. You need to take core dust samples, of course, from the area all around it before removing any more of the grime, however. Tomorrow we can show it to Isabella and see what she thinks. It’ll be a nice surprise for her when she comes back from the mainland.”

  The other two nodded their assent. “First, however,” he said, looking at his cell phone to check the time, “we all need a break. Simone, you have been working with hardly a stop since seven o’clock this morning, and it is five in the afternoon now. We have some security in place to guard the site; I am going to suggest that we seal the chamber, go down to Giuseppe’s house, and have that excellent supper that should be arriving there in about an hour.”

  Dr. Apriceno protested. “I am so close to being done,”
she said. “Another two hours and the reliquary and sword will be completely uncovered and ready for examination.”

  “Fatigue clouds judgment, dear lady,” said the cleric. “I’d hate to see you make a mistake and damage a priceless artifact because you insisted on pushing yourself too hard. You can come back up after supper and finish the job—Josh or I will be happy to come and help, in fact. And if you are bound and determined to do so, you can even stay the night up here on the mountain—my old bones will not protest a night in an actual bed. But right now, you need to eat, drink, and breathe some air that’s not full of two-thousand-year-old atomized concrete and limestone.”

  She threw up her hands in surrender, and Josh helped her zip up the plastic entrance over the chamber doorway while Dr. MacDonald went and explained to the security guards that the team was going to break for supper. Rigatorre, their leader, nodded his understanding and told the other two to take their posts on either side of the chamber entrance. The site secure, the weary archeologists began to trek down the Via Tiberio toward Rossini’s home.

  An hour later, they sat around the table digging into fresh-baked bread and buttery pasta with clam sauce, while Father MacDonald poured a glass of wine for himself and Apriceno. Josh sipped an ice cold Coke that he had purchased from the souvenir shop on the town plaza. Simone’s hair was still wet from the forty-minute shower she had taken while they set the table and laid out the food. For the first time in three days, she had no dust or cobwebs in her hair or on her skin, and felt like a new woman.

  “I always thought that we Southerners could outdo anyone in the world when it came to delicious, fattening foods,” said Josh. “But I must say the Italians give us a real run for our money.”

  “Italian cuisine is not necessarily that fattening,” said Apriceno. “True, we are fond of butter and bread and pasta, but we cook everything in olive oil, not the dreadful animal fats and hydrogenated vegetable oils you use in the States.”

  “It is mighty tasty,” Josh agreed, taking another bite. “But nothing in the world can equal good old bacon grease when it comes to flavor. After one of our Fifth Sunday ‘dinner on the grounds,’ you could lay back, close your eyes, and actually hear your arteries harden as your stomach groaned in gratitude.”

  “Did you really eat dinner off the ground?” the Italian botanist asked. “It sounds so unsanitary.”

  Josh laughed. “It’s a regional colloquialism,” he said. “It means that we would have a communal potluck dinner on the church grounds, after morning service, instead of going home to eat.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Like a Holy Day festival. I loved those when I was a young girl. Well, listen to me, Dr. Parker. Whenever this dig allows me an evening off, I will cook you a traditional Tuscan dinner, and your American Southern cooking will never taste the same again.”

  “But can it possibly match the flavor of a fresh boiled haggis?” asked the Scottish priest, and then laughed as he was pelted with dinner rolls from either side of the table.

  The food lasted longer than their appetites did, as hungry as they were, and Dr. Apriceno insisted they pack up the leftovers and take them to the security guards. “Are you sure that you don’t want one of us to stay on the mountain tonight and let you get a decent night’s sleep?” asked Josh as they made ready to head back up the old path.

  “After tonight, my fieldwork is done,” replied Apriceno. “From this point onward, I will be staring into a microscope in an air-conditioned lab while you fine gentlemen figure out how to get into that cabinet and what to do with its contents. I can sleep in a feather bed tomorrow night, but tonight I want to finish my job in that chamber and begin preparing all my slides for analysis.”

  “Suit yourself,” said the priest. “But we will escort you up and do some lab work while you get back to the chamber.”

  They made the hike quickly, and Apriceno sighed and ran a hand through her clean, graying hair before donning the dirty mask and goggles again. The other two handed off the food to the grateful guards and entered the lab. Josh plugged the digital camera into the computer and turned on the huge LED monitor that allowed for maximum magnification of the pictures. They looked quickly at the photographs they had taken in the lab of the curule bench and the lamp, and then pulled up the most recent set of images.

  “I wonder if this sword belonged to old Tiberius himself,” said the priest. “He was a legendary general long before he became emperor.”

  “Whoever owned it, it saw a great deal of use,” said Josh. “Look at the scratches on the pommel, and how dented and worn the grip is.”

  “Hold it,” said the priest, looking at the picture Josh had taken of the butt end of the grip. There was a golden eagle embossed there, and it was surrounded by Latin letters, nearly obscured by wear and scratches. Josh scrolled the mouse and pulled the letters in closer and larger. The inscription finally became clear: “Ferrum et honorem Iulii” was what they read.

  “The Blade and Honor of the Julii,” Josh translated.

  MacDonald let out a low whistle. “The sword of a Caesar!” he said.

  “But which one?” Josh asked.

  “Given that this chamber has been sealed since 37 AD,” said MacDonald, “there are only three candidates. Tiberius, Augustus, or the great Triumphator himself, Gaius Julius Caesar.”

  Josh’s mind reeled. This blade could have been carried in some of the greatest battles in history. “I think,” he said, “that Isabella is going to be very surprised when she returns.”

  “Of that you may be sure,” replied the priest. “I think I have had all the discovery I can take for one day,” he continued. “I’m about ready to close this place up for the night.”

  Outside, the last light of the day was fading from the sky. From the chamber, the whirr of the HEPA vacuum said that Dr. Apriceno was busy at work once more. The two archeologists bid her goodnight and strolled companionably down the mountainside.

  Caesar, I have stood in the presence of majesty on many occasions. I can remember your noble father, the Imperator Augustus, speaking before his armies when I was just a young military tribune, and you know that I fought as a legate under you in Germany as well, and saw the honor your legionaries rightly accorded you there. I have stood in the presence of many foreign potentates as well, from Herod to Mithridates. As you know, most Eastern monarchs are grasping, venal creatures whose only nobility lies in the trappings they cover themselves with. Trust me when I say that this bloodied and battered Galilean itinerant radiated as much honor and dignitas as any Roman patrician. But there was also something . . . alien about him. Otherworldly. His statement, as ridiculous as it no doubt sounds when I recount it, made perfect sense to me as I stood there looking into his eyes. But he was not done—he continued: “If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would be fighting to rescue me as we speak. As it is, my kingdom is not of this realm.”

  I asked the question more directly. “So you are a king, then?”

  He nodded, and replied: “You say correctly that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born, and come into this world, that I might testify to the truth. Everyone who welcomes truth will hear my voice.”

  I pondered his statement a moment, and I said out loud the thought that leaped into my mind. “Quid est veritas?” But I had heard all I needed for the moment, and did not wait for his answer. This man was no threat to Rome, I was convinced of that. I stepped out onto the balcony and addressed the mob below.

  “Absolvo!” I cried. “I find no guilt in this man!”

  The crowd exploded with rage.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Simone Apriceno rolled out of her sleeping bag and stretched luxuriously. Between collecting the dust core samples from the scabbard of the ancient gladius and then clearing the remainder of the dust from the back of the chamber, it was nearly midnight when she put away her equipment and sealed the chamber for the night. But the job was done, finally—the accumulated centuries of dust were gone, and the artifacts
in the chamber, without having been moved or shifted a millimeter, were exposed and revealed exactly as they had been left when the chamber was sealed. It was one of the most challenging tasks she’d ever been entrusted with, and she was proud of the way she had handled it. Every single surface in the room had a core sample of the dust and debris covering it collected from top layer to bottom, labeled and arranged with photographs of the surface before and after its collection. Unless something truly bizarre showed up in the pollen samples, no one would be able to question that the site had been undisturbed since the chamber was sealed. Now her colleagues could study and catalog the artifacts, removing them from the chamber if necessary, while she devoted herself to the microscope.

  She pulled on her boots over a pair of clean socks and buttoned a khaki shirt up over the Grateful Dead T-shirt she had slept in, and then brushed her teeth with water from a bottle she’d left by her bed for that purpose. It was 6:15 AM according to her watch. She walked over to the trailer and found a stale pastry from the previous day and bit into it while she started the coffee brewing. It was dry but still sweet and wholesome tasting. After the coffee was done brewing, she walked outside and talked to the two security guards.

  “Anything worth noting happen last night?” she asked.

  “Just some beautiful stars and a meteor shower after the moon finally set,” said al-Ghazi.

  “That, and I learned the entire history of this Moor’s family, going back to the fourteenth century,” said Giovanni.