SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengeance

by John Maddox Roberts

  When the wharfmaster Ogulnius had spoken of Folius’s barges transporting building materials from sources down-river, it had never occurred to me that my family could be involved because we owned no land in that direction. I had forgotten that the Scipios held extensive lands between Rome and Ostia.

  There was nothing to be gained by lamenting this unwelcome turn. What I needed, as usual, was information.

  Julia and Fausta were still admiring the statue. They had the crate and padding completely cleared away, and the slaves were levering it about so that the two women could examine how the light fell upon it from different directions.

  “Do either of you know of a senator named Aulus Lucilius? He was plebeian aedile a couple of years ago, while I was still in Gaul.”

  “The name seems familiar,” Julia said. Then, to Fausta, “Wasn’t there some sort of scandal?”

  “Isn’t there always? Yes, the man’s dead. He was murdered in a lupanar down by the wharves, one of the really low dives that the bargemen frequent. You know, I’ve always wanted to see the inside of one of those places. Decius, could you arrange it? You aediles are in charge of the whorehouses, I understand.”

  “Was he still aedile when he was killed?” I asked, ignoring the rest.

  “Let’s see,” she pondered, “it was after the first of the year, I recall, so he must have just stepped down from office. There’s usually a much bigger fuss when an officeholder is killed. Gossip had it that he was discovered in a crib with his throat cut, and the girl fied.” She put a finger to her chin. “At least I’d assumed it was a girl. Now that I think of it, it might have been a boy. That sort of thing is becoming more and more popular even in fashionable circles.”

  “Did he leave a family behind?” I asked.

  “Why do you need to know about him?” Julia demanded.

  “It might mean something with regard to an investigation I am working on,” I said stiffiy. I didn’t want Fausta thinking too hard about this. She might talk about it later among Milo’s friends, and then it would be all over the City before I was ready.

  “His wife was a sister of Curio’s,” Fausta said. “The house they lived in was hers, and last I heard she still lived there and hasn’t remarried. It’s not far from here, up on the Esquiline across from that old Temple of Hercules—the one with the statue of the infant Hercules strangling the serpents, by Myron.”

  I knew the one she meant. “I’ll be back later,” I said to Julia.

  “Wait!” she called, catching up with me in the atrium. “Where are you going? You said yourself the streets are very dangerous for you now.”

  “They are, but I must question someone.” I started to walk around her, but her outstretched arm stopped me.

  “Not so fast. You are an official, not some low-level fiunky! Send one of your clients; that is what they’re for. You have dozens of capable men who yearn to earn your gratitude, so use them!”

  “Some things I must do myself, dear. Have no fear, I’m perfectly safe. I’ll take Hermes along with me.” I went into my study and tucked my weapons away out of sight.

  “Perfectly safe?” she said. “Is that why you’re wearing that ratty old toga?”

  “It will be dark before long. It’s easy to ruin a good toga stumbling around in filthy alleys in the dark.” I kissed her and then pushed past, bellowing for Hermes.

  “At least take some of Fausta’s thugs with you!” she called, but I was already out the door, with Hermes close on my heels.

  “Where to now?” he asked. He carried a two-foot stick of olive wood, capped at both ends with bronze and banded with that metal at intervals along its length. It was perfectly legal, and he could perform fearful damage with it.

  “We’re going to pay a visit to a widow,” I informed him.

  The streets were still chaotic and got no less so as we trudged up the slope of the Esquiline. There were many fine houses on its upper slopes, and people seeking escape from the coming fiood were milling about everywhere, trying to find wealthy patrons to take them in or good spots in the occasional public gardens.

  As it happened, I knew the widow’s brother, Curio. He was one of the more scandalous members of the young nobility, a great friend of Antony’s and renowned throughout society for his loose living, his extravagant debts, and his many love affairs. Needless to say, he was great company, and I had always found him a most congenial carousing companion. His father had disowned him, and he spent much of his time cadging meals and accommodations from friends and had put the arm on me more than once. Curious to say, he was also an energetic and effective senator and had recently become an adherent of Caesar. Rumor had it that Caesar had cleared all of Curio’s debts.

  The house of the late Aulus Lucilius was not hard to find. Situated directly across the street from the dilapidated old Temple of Hercules, its gate was wide open and a small crowd filled its atrium and courtyard. It seemed that a good many clients or poor relations from the lower parts of the City were imposing upon the widow for accommodations wherein to wait out the fiood.

  I left Hermes in the atrium and found the lady herself in the courtyard, assigning places to the petitioners and discussing their rationing with her steward. She was doing this very efficiently, and I got the feeling she had done it before, many times. I stepped up to her and waited until she glanced my way.

  “Have I the privilege of addressing the widow of the aedile Aulus Lucilius?” I asked.

  The steward looked at me disdainfully, giving undue attention to my shabby toga. “I can imagine what a privilege it must be for you,” the man said.

  “Now, Priam, none of that,” the woman chided gently. “This is a senator, and he has the look of one of my brother’s friends, so we shouldn’t be too hard on him. If you are looking for a dry place to sit out the next few days, I may be able to find a corner of my roof for you, although the larder is already strained.”

  “Most generous and I thank you,” I said, having heard far worse in my disreputable life. “As it occurs, I have a roof to shelter me. I am the plebeian aedile Decius Caecilius Metellus.”

  Her eyes widened. They were very attractive eyes. “You’re a serving official? I would think you were in mourning, but you look as if you shaved this morning.”

  “Service of the Senate and People have reduced me to a beggar,” I said. “I am sorry to bother you at so busy a time. And as it happens, I am a friend of your brother’s.”

  Her mouth bent almost into a smile. “Well, that last is no recommendation. What sort of business could an aedile have with me?”

  “I must ask you some questions concerning your late husband,” I told her.

  The smile died before it could blossom. “Official interest after all this time? I find that peculiar. I certainly could get no action, or even interest, when he was murdered.”

  “I am sorry. I was with the legions when it happened. Recently I have been looking into some serious violations of the law. I suspect Aulus Lucilius was investigating the same thing, and this is what brought about his murder.”

  “Priam, see to these people. We can take in no more than three or four more adults, then close the gate. I will be in the green room, conferring with the Aedile Metellus.”

  “It is most generous of you to give shelter to so many of your clients,” I commended her, as I followed her through her crowded courtyard.

  “Obligations are not to be ignored,” she said, “and the condition of the City is a disgrace. People are helpless when a natural disaster strikes.”

  “I could not agree more.” She led me into a small room painted pale green, its walls decorated with twining vines painted in a darker shade of the same color. Besides two chairs and a small table between them, it had a desk and a large wall case holding dozens of scrolls.

  The woman beckoned to a serving girl. “Thisbe, bring wine and—”

  “No,” I said, holding up a hand. “It would be criminal of me to impose on your stores just now.”

&n
bsp; She nodded. “That is thoughtful. How may I help you?”

  I took out the little scroll and handed it to her. “Read this.”

  She took it and her face turned pale upon seeing her dead husband’s handwriting. She read it through and put it on the table.

  “I remember that investigation. It is one of a good many he conducted that year. He said to me many times that the theater of Aemilius Scaurus was the greatest hazard to public safety since Catilina’s arsonists, and that Scaurus was a thief with aspirations to mass murder.”

  “What about the censor’s appended comments? Was your husband a political enemy of Scaurus and Pompey?”

  “He was an enemy of anyone who fiagrantly endangered the public good for private profit, and Scaurus certainly qualified on that account. I understand the Sardinians have good cause to think so, too. As for Pompey, that remark makes no sense. He usually voted on Pompey’s side in the Senate.”

  “Did he mention any specific threats from builders or dealers in building materials?”

  Her lovely eyes darkened. “A number of them. It followed the usual pattern of such things: first excuses, then offers of bribes, then veiled threats, then open threats of violence. My husband was a proud man. Everyone assumed that he would jump at a chance to enrich himself since his office was so costly.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about that.”

  “I suppose not. Anyway, he was contemplating years of penury, but he would countenance no corrupt offers. He even tried to bring charges against those who tried to suborn him.”

  “That is not easy to do,” I told her. “Of all the magistrates of my acquaintance, only Cato has made such charges stick.”

  She nodded sadly. “So we found it to be. In any case, he grew disgusted with the censors, the consuls, and his fellow aediles. He decided to go directly to the Plebeian Assembly. He was sure that at least two or three of the tribunes would be willing to demand reform legislation and special courts to prosecute the builders.”

  “Then he had greater faith in those demagogues than I have,” I said. “What happened?”

  “He never got the chance. The night before he was to address the College of Tribunes in the Circus Flaminius he was murdered.” She said this dry-eyed, as a Roman noblewoman should, but a lifetime of dealing with people of my own class had taught me the little signals of body and facial expression, the tones and cadences of speech that serve us to express those feelings we think it unfitting to display before strangers. This woman still grieved for her husband, and she raged at his murderer.

  “And”—I began, wondering how to put this delicately— “might you be able to tell me how he came to be—”

  “Murdered in a whorehouse?” she said forthrightly. “As you are no doubt aware, regulation of those establishments falls under the purview of the plebeian aediles.”

  “People never fail to remind me of the fact,” I acknowledged.

  She managed another, even fainter, smile. “Aulus complained of the same thing. Well, this had nothing to do with his duties. He had just stepped down from office anyway, and he was hoping that the new year’s crop of tribunes would take up his cause before the bribery could take hold.”

  I made sympathetic noises. I found it hard to believe that the man had spent so many years in politics without understanding that most officials get their biggest bribes before they actually take office. Doubtless he had been putting a rosy interpretation on the matter for his wife’s sake. He must have been growing quite discouraged by that time.

  “In any case,” she went on, “on that evening, while he was preparing his presentation to the Tribunate, a messenger arrived. My husband received him and a short time later told me that he had to go out and confer with a man who was to present him with important evidence, evidence conclusive to his case. I urged him to take some slaves for an escort because it would soon be dark. He said that he would hire a torchbearer to see him home; that it was possible it might be dawn before he returned in any case. That was the last time I saw him.”

  “Did he tell you who this person might be?”

  “No, only that this was important, and the matter would brook no waiting.”

  This was frustrating, but I knew that I was amazingly fortunate to have learned this much from her. Most Roman officials tell their wives absolutely nothing about their business. The usual explanation is that it is unfitting for a woman to take an interest in such things, that breeding children and conducting a household are their only proper concerns. The truth is that they seldom trust their wives, and for good reason. One of the reasons for Caesar’s great success was that he conducted continuous affairs with the wives of his rivals and was thus always able to anticipate their husbands’ maneuvers against him and take preemptive action.

  “And what was the, ah, the establishment in which he was found?”

  She lowered her eyelids in token of distaste. “It is called the Labyrinth.”

  I couldn’t stop myself in time. “He was found in that place?”

  She looked severely pained. “I was given to understand that it is rather notorious.”

  “Scarcely the word for it,” I muttered, trying to retrieve my aplomb. Hastily, I said, “Did he by any chance leave behind the address he was preparing for the tribunes?”

  “Some pages of notes only. It was his custom to organize his thoughts in this way, then to deliver his oration, and afterward, with his secretary, to write down the speech and publish it.”

  This was a standard practice among Roman lawyers of the time. Cicero made a minor literary form of it. Instead of speaking from a prepared text (and there were lawyers of the old school who thought it unfitting even to use notes), the speaker orated from his rough notes, fine-tuned his presentation as he gauged audience reaction, and then published the speech in its corrected and polished form. Often as not, the published form differed noticeably from the speech itself.

  “Might I have a look at his notes?”

  She rose and went to the desk with its honeycomb of scrolls. After a bit of searching, she unrolled a scroll and took from it a few sheets that had been stuck into it for safekeeping. These she handed to me. At a glance I spotted a few familiar names among some verbiage that told me he planned to make his oration in the fiorid Asiatic style, then going out of fashion but still practiced. This was going to take some work.

  “Might I take these with me?” I asked her. “I will return them as soon as possible. I know you want to preserve your husband’s papers for your sons.”

  “I have no sons,” she said, standing, this interview at an end. “If you can bring his murderers to justice, you may burn his whole library on their funeral pyres for all I care.”

  She saw me to the door through the crowd of refuge seekers, and I took a hasty leave. It was almost dark as Hermes and I found ourselves on the thronged street outside.

  “Back home?” Hermes said.

  “Not yet.” He put on an exaggerated look of fatigue so I told him, “You’re going to like our next visit.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To a whorehouse.”

  His face split in a broad grin. “It’s about time!”

  10

  IT WAS TIME FOR ANOTHER long walk; and while the hour was late and the time of year dismal, it might as well have been Saturnalia. The push to high ground was in full force, but there was no panic. It takes a great deal to panic Romans, and a mere fiood was not among the things that upset them greatly. Even an approaching enemy only makes them a little nervous. A big fire or an earthquake will unnerve them completely, but little else. They do riot from time to time out of anger. At least they used to, before the First Citizen made things so tame.

  But this time there was an odd, almost festive atmosphere to the dislocated populace. Whatever damage and devastation the event might portend, it was a break in routine, and such a break puts most people in a giddy mood. Men knew they would not have to go to their work tomorrow, if they had any. Thei
r wives knew that they would not have to make the long trudge to the fountain for water, then carry the heavy jar up the steep stairs of the insula. Children knew that there would be no schoolmaster to face in the morning.

  Perhaps there would be no home to return to afterward, but that was a worry for later on. For now they were doing something different, seeing friends and relatives they hadn’t seen in a while, maybe spending a few days in a garden or on a rooftop with strangers. There would be gambling and storytelling to pass the time. Perhaps the men would be drafted into work gangs to stave off damage or clear rubble. It would be something different in their otherwise dull lives.

  The best thing about a fiood was that, unlike a fire or an earthquake, it killed few people outright. It was easy to get out of the way of rising water. Mortality would come later, from exposure and disease and, I greatly feared, contaminated water. Those clogged, backed-up drains, now overfiowing, would spread filth throughout the City. Anyone who has ever endured a siege knows that filth and pollution breed disease. This may be because, as some believe, evil spirits inhabit foul-smelling things or because uncleanliness angers the gods or for some reason entirely unrelated to the supernatural world; but it is irrefutable. It is well that these people are enjoying themselves, I thought, because many of them are going to die in the weeks and months to come.

  The crowd thinned as we crossed the Forum. This, as I have mentioned, was once a swampy area, and already I saw murky, brown water bubbling from the street drains and a foul odor suffused the splendid place. Idly, I wondered what had become of old Charon and his boat. Doubtless, I thought, he had a refuge. He must have endured many fioods in his long years below the City.

  The Forum Boarium and the area near the Circus Maximus were getting decidedly damp, and I was glad to climb the embankment and walk out onto the Sublician Bridge, which would remain well above the waterline throughout the fiood. The bridge was lined with gawkers, observing and commenting importantly upon the progress of Father Tiber’s rampage.

  There was something unreal about the scene, and it wasn’t just the incongruously festive attitude of the citizens. I decided that it was the juxtaposition of the rising river with the clear sky and the unseasonable warmth. We always associate fioods with heavy rain. It was hard to believe that this was all the result of a wind from Africa and melting snow in mountains far away.