SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengeance

by John Maddox Roberts

  “The whole City is my concern, and I never rest in the service of Senate and People. I was about to pay a visit to the temple, and who should I find but the lady second in esteem only to the wife of the Flamen Dialis and the Virgo Maxima, accompanied by one of her eunuchs.” But there was no chance I would have mistaken the blocky, shaven head of her companion with its furious face. “Why, excuse me, Marcus Porcius, I thought you were one of the temple drones! Well met, indeed! You are just the man I need to talk to.”

  “Metellus,” Cato said, or rather growled, “if you have any ambitions to live until sunrise, you’d better take care!” Cornelia put a hand on his arm, and he quieted like an unruly dog who calms at its master’s touch. This was a night for revelations.

  “Decius Caecilius,” Cornelia said, in an entirely new voice, “how may I help you?”

  “Oh, as it happens, I can’t go home tonight, and I’m sure all my friends are putting up clients from the lower parts of the City, so I thought I’d just go to the office of the plebeian aediles and curl up in a corner.”

  “By no means,” she said. “Just tell the slaves to take you to the guest quarters. They are quite well appointed. Tell the slaves that they must render you every service or risk my severe displeasure.”

  “Why, that is most kind of you, my lady. And Cato, I need to confer with you at first light tomorrow.”

  “Why should I—”

  “It’s about that matter we discussed earlier today.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ve learned something, eh?”

  “A great deal. You will like this. And there may be some violent action very soon.”

  He jerked his blocky head in an emphatic nod. “I’ll be here if I have to swim!”

  “You haven’t been out on that water yet. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”

  I helped Cornelia aboard. “Decius,” she whispered, “you have the reputation of a man who can keep his own counsel. They say that is why Caesar trusts you with important matters. May I also rely on your discretion?”

  I placed a hand over my heart. “To the grave, beauteous Cornelia.”

  The boatman poled them away toward the Palatine, and I laughed as Hermes and I strolled up toward the lovely temple. “Cato and Cornelia! Who would have imagined it? The most reptilian man in the Senate, and the most fearsome dragon this side of Caesar’s mother! Cato has a human weakness after all!”

  “It’s not his only weakness,” Hermes said. “He drinks too much; everyone knows that.”

  “That is not a weakness,” I pointed out, “it is a mark of character. Well, I don’t think it makes me like him any more, but perhaps it makes me detest him just a little bit less.” I held my thumb and forefinger a trifiing distance apart to show him just how little that was. We climbed the temple steps. “We’re in luck, Hermes! I had no idea the Temple of Ceres even had guest quarters!”

  As it turned out, the temple had very fine guest quarters indeed; and when I’d rousted the slaves from their rest and threatened them with Cornelia’s wrath, they led us there and saw to our comfort.

  “Oh, yes sir!” twittered the head eunuch as he proudly displayed the suite that lay behind the splendid nave. “We often entertain the high priestesses and chamberlains of the great temples in Greece and Magna Graecia, where Ceres is worshipped as Demeter.”

  I studied the sumptuous rooms. “Kept this all to themselves, eh? While we poor aediles sweated away in tiny little offices downstairs! Well, no more of that! Bring us whatever food you have handy and some decent wine. No! Make that the best!”

  The half man bowed obsequiously. “At once, Aedile!”

  Within minutes we were tearing into some of the best cold food to be had in Rome that night. We had dined earlier that evening, but we ate like starving men anyway. A soldier knows that he has to fill up when he has the chance because the next meal may be days away and plenty of fighting to be had in the meantime. I had a strong feeling that things were going to be moving very fast, very soon, and I had better be fortified for it.

  I took the time to wonder if what we were eating was the remains of a dinner prepared for the incongruous couple and almost choked on my wine at the thought.

  Soon I was replete, and Hermes looked like a calf stunned by the slaughterman’s hammer, reeling where he sat. The hour was late, but I did not feel ready to sleep on the heavily cushioned couch.

  “Come, Hermes,” I said, rising. “Let’s get a little air before we turn in.”

  “If you say so,” he said, rising. We walked out through the nave, past the statue of the stately, seated goddess. A single slave tended the lamps that burned before the goddess and along the walls, all the rest of the staff having gone back to their beds. We walked out onto the porch and looked out over the City. The sight was breathtaking in the bright moonlight, with water glimmering where ordinarily there would be only murky gloom. On the hills, there burned far more torches than usual, where people had gathered in open places and on rooftops. Looking to the west, the river seemed impossibly wide.

  “You think you can get out of this?” Hermes asked as we sat on the top step. He set a pitcher and a pair of cups between us.

  “I have to,” I told him. “It’s not only desirable to stay alive, but I have to get this business out of the way quickly. I have far too much work to do, and this is absorbing all of my attention. As soon as it’s light in the morning, I want you to dash to the house with a message for Julia.”

  “I’m sure she must be worried about you.”

  “Yes, yes, but this is urgent. I want that statue boxed up and out of the City immediately. She’ll have to hire a cart and get it sent to the country estate. It’ll have to be hidden there until all this blows over.”

  “Hidden?” he said. “The Venus? Why?”

  “Because it’s a bribe.”

  “And a handsome one, too. What were you bribed to do?”

  “Nothing, Idiot! I’ve never taken a bribe in my life! No large ones, anyway. Not for anything important, at any rate.”

  He looked into the bottom of his cup. “The wine must be making me slow. What are you talking about?”

  “I should have seen it immediately, but this business of the insula has kept me too distracted. Look, Hermes, I’ve taught you how officeholding works: I can’t be sued or charged with a crime while I hold office, right?”

  “I understand that much.”

  “But the minute I step down, I can be charged. It’s practically customary. A political opponent, personal enemy, or young lawyer will accuse you of something, and you’ll have to defend yourself. The charges are usually bribery or extortion, but it can be anything. When Caesar was starting out, he charged old Rubirius with a murder committed twenty-?ve years before!” I held out my cup, and Hermes refilled it. “The important thing is, the charge can be completely false. It all depends on how clever and forceful the lawyers are. Evidence is secondary.

  “But consider this: Suddenly, I am in possession of a great masterpiece, an original Venus by whatever-his-nameis. This is a treasure I could never afford by myself, even throwing in Julia’s dowry. Where did this thing come from? I would bet on Messala or Scaurus. They’re both rich, and they’ve governed provinces where such items are to be squeezed from the locals.”

  “Why a statue?” Hermes wanted to know. “Why not money?”

  “Money is easy to hide; it can be explained away; it’s anonymous. But you saw the fuss Julia and Fausta—no, you were on the roof, weren’t you? Well, they were cooing over the thing as if it were a team of first-rank chariot horses. Whoever sent it knew that we’d be showing it off to everyone we know. If it weren’t for this fiood, Julia would already be inviting everyone who counts for anything in Rome to a big party so they could all gawk at it! I’ll be charged with selling out my office, and it will look credible. I know I’d have trouble explaining it.”

  “Maybe we should just smash it up and hide the pieces,” Hermes suggested.

 
; “No, Julia would never forgive me. Besides, it’s too valuable. We’ll just send it out to the country estate, hide it in a goatherd’s hut, or something.”

  “You’re going to keep it?”

  “Of course I’m going to keep it! Do you think I’m a fool? In two or three years, we can take it out and put it in the shrine Julia wants to build for it. All this will have been long forgotten; there will be new scandals and crimes to divert everyone. There’s no dishonor in accepting a bribe that didn’t buy anything.”

  “Is that in the law tables?”

  “I think so. I’ll look it up. Now get to bed. I want my writing materials ready at first light; I have a letter to write to Caesar. And find out which of the aedilician messengers is the best rider.”

  He got to his feet. “I’ll get it done. You’d better get some sleep, too. If tomorrow is going to be as long and exciting as the last few, you’ll need rest.”

  “I will be in shortly,” I told him. He nodded and went back into the temple. He really was maturing well and showed a lot of promise for a conniving young thief.

  I needed a little time to myself to get my thoughts in order. He was right when he said that I faced a full day on the morrow. I had made light of it, but I fully expected that at least one attempt would be made on my life, perhaps several, and any of them might be successful.

  It seemed to me that never before had I been called upon to deal with a problem that arose so suddenly, involved a business of which I was so ignorant and persons with whom I had not the slightest acquaintance. I was used to having my life threatened over politics or wealth or women. Never had I expected to be fighting for my life on account of lumber. Yet this seemingly trivial matter had caused the deaths of hundreds of Romans as surely as if they had been slaughtered by a foreign army. I was a plebeian aedile, and it was my job to see that justice was done and there was no avoiding it.

  Satisfied, I got up and followed Hermes back into the temple. Ceres didn’t look as if she cared about my problems, but she wasn’t really a Roman goddess anyway. I might have appealed to Juno or Minerva, but Ceres was from Greece.

  I slept very well in her guest chamber.

  12

  EVEN BEFORE THE SUN ROSE, the morning was one of furious activity.

  I was somewhat surprised to see the other aediles arrive in the early gray light, accompanied by their slaves and their crowds of clients. It transpired that almost all parts of Rome were readily accessible if you didn’t mind taking a circuitous route or using a boat. As they gathered, I was sitting at a table outside the temple, scribbling away on my message to Caesar by the light of several lamps I had dragged outside.

  Since I was writing to Caesar in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus, arbiter of all matters concerning Roman religious practice, and since I intended for this letter to be read by the Senate and the various priestly colleges, I wrote in a far more formal style than I usually employed. I found it no easy task to remember all those obscure cases and tenses that had been drilled into me as a boy, many of them leftovers from archaic Latin and never used except in religious matters and in certain types of poetry.

  When I finished what seemed to me a creditable document, I handed it to my staff of secretaries and ordered them to make copies of it until I ordered them to stop. They had arrived only minutes before, still yawning and scratching.

  “Jupiter protect us!” wailed a voice in the dimness. “Metellus is toiling by lamplight! Surely this is an omen sent by the gods!” This was the occasion of much raucous laughter. The speaker was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the curule aedile. He walked up to my desk, followed by his own pack of fiunkies.

  “Why, Lepidus, I hardly recognized you without your fat backside planted in your folding chair.”

  “No markets today,” he said, beaming. “I decided to come lend a hand to you poor, sweating drudges. Surely you were expecting me.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t a Senate messenger call on you last night?”

  “I’ve been here all night.”

  “Decius! This devotion to duty is astounding! Anyway, the interrex has summoned an emergency meeting of the Senate to be held in the Temple of Jupiter tonight before sundown. All the aediles are to assess the condition of the City and submit a report.”

  “Fine idea,” I said, “but you can just about see it all from here.” I was thinking that a Senate meeting was just what I wanted.

  “Odd sort of fiood, isn’t it?” Lepidus said. The growing light was making the spectacle visible. “All that water just sitting there, more like a lake than a rampaging river. I’ve seen fioods that tore whole buildings from their foundations. I don’t think this one is going to be so bad. Maybe the water will just recede and there will just be some mopping and bailing to do.”

  “This fiood,” I told him, “has turned the entire lower part of Rome into a vast chamber pot. And it’s going to stay right there until Helios dries it up.”

  “Is that true? Well, my house is right on top of the Quirinal, well away from it all.”

  “Lepidus, civic virtue like yours is what made Rome the greatest power in the world.”

  “Here comes Cato,” he said, ignoring me. “This should be fun. What do you think he’s here for?”

  “He’s here to confer with me,” I told him.

  Again I received a stare of round-eyed wonder. “Cato conferring with you? Truly, this is a day for miracles! Let it not be an omen!” He accompanied this old formula against evil with an elaborate traditional hand gesture. There was more laughter from his stooges.

  Cato had indeed arrived, and he was not alone. He had at least twenty men with him, most of them young equites or junior senators. I recognized few of them by sight for they were not members of the set with whom I socialized most. They were all stern-faced men with close-cropped or shaven scalps. Ancestor worshippers to a man, I thought; stoics and defenders of old Roman virtue. Their sour faces were scarred and graced with gaps where teeth had been knocked out, and their knuckles were swollen and broken. These were men who trained hard on the Campus Martius and brawled hard in the streets. I might not invite them to my parties, but they were just the sort of men I wanted at my back that day.

  Cato shouldered Lepidus aside. “Hail, Aedile!” he shouted. Lepidus and his lackeys strolled off, smirking and tapping their temples to indicate what they thought of Cato’s soundness of mind.

  “I have to get this message off right away, Cato. Give me your opinion.” Baldly, I told him of the condition of the sewers and how I was going to use their horrid state to convene a religious court.

  “Unsanctified corpses in the sewers! Infamous!” Cato yelled. “No wonder the gods have forsaken us!” Then, in a quieter voice, “So you are going to prosecute them for sacrilege if you can’t get them for corruption? That is most ingenious, Decius Caecilius.”

  “I have my moments. What do you think of this letter?” I handed him a copy, and he began to mumble, reading the words to himself. He had gotten no more than halfway through it before he threw it down. “You moron! Did you learn absolutely nothing from your teachers of style and composition?”

  “Better men than you have praised my prose style!” I said, offended.

  “This is not some trivial, chatty missive full of gossip and politics! This is a document touching sacerdotal matters to be read by the Pontifex Maximus! You’d better let me show you how this is done.” He slapped the table with a calloused palm, producing a sound like a snapping board. Cato practiced hard with sword, shield, and spear almost every day. “Attend me!” he bellowed to the scribes. “Set this down exactly as I dictate, or I’ll have the hides off your backs!” They jumped at the noise, grabbed fresh sheets, dipped their reed pens, and watched him with rapt, worshipful attention. They never behaved that way with me.

  In a slow, sonorous voice, Cato began to translate my letter into the old-fashioned Latin he adored, using forms that had been ancient in the days of Numa Pompilius, the rolling vowels and
clanging consonants sounding like a battle hymn. The crowd gathered around the temple silenced to hear the performance, even the ones who didn’t know what it was about and scarcely understood the archaic words. It was almost worth getting up early to hear, and he received a handsome round of applause when he had finished.

  We quickly scanned the copies for mistakes; then I sealed the best of them into a copper message tube and handed it to the horse messenger, bidding him ride like the wind for Caesar’s winter camp in Gaul, where I judged Caesar and his army would be for at least another ten days, if I knew Gaulish weather. With luck, decent road conditions, and good, grain-fed horses, he could be back with Caesar’s reply in eight days. Caesar’s system of relay stations was incredibly quick and efficient. This was not so that he could keep in contact with the Senate, which he despised and ignored, but so that he could trumpet the news of his latest victories in the Forum.

  We then dispatched foot messengers with copies to the heads of the various priestly colleges, to the tribune of the people, and one to the interrex. I would have given much to see Scipio’s face when he read it.

  “Now you must read this. It was among the records I took from the Tabularium two days ago. I only found it late yesterday afternoon, and I’ve discovered quite a bit since then. Do you remember an aedile named Lucilius?”

  He took the rolled up papyrus. “Quite well. I thought the man very promising, the sort of conscientious official we rarely see any more. He disappointed me, though. Died quite squalidly.” He began to read loudly, but his voice lowered as consternation replaced his usual expression. He handed it back. “All right. Tell me about this.”

  Then Cato sat by me, and we began some serious plotting. I gave him a quick account of my findings of the past few days. He said nothing while I spoke, but I could tell by his various nods and snarls at events and names that he was paying attention and had deep feelings about at least some of it.

  “It may not have been such a good idea to send Metellus Scipio a copy of the letter,” he said, when I was finished. “Not only is he implicated in this, but he is interrex. The powers of that office are not entirely clear. They are certainly not those of a dictator, he has no imperium, and he can’t command armies and won’t go out to govern a province; but in civil matters he is in a better position than any pair of consuls. He has no colleague to obstruct him, and some authorities maintain that an interrex can even override a tribunician veto. He might take action against you.”