The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  "I'll take it up," said Sollius, "and remain missing while I do so. That will at least keep the criminal worried. He'll know by now that I've escaped."

  "That fellow Cordus again, sir," said a soldier, entering. "Let him enter," ordered Licinius. "This is your case now, old friend. Ah, Cordus, come in!"

  "Any news for me, 0 Prefect? Am I to lose my property and no one suffer for it?"

  "This," said Licinius, "is one of my sharpest informers. He has your case in hand, he will do everything he can."

  "If only," sighed Cordus, "he were the Slave Detective! Is there no news either of the great Sollius?"

  Both Licinius and Sollius lugubriously shook their heads.

  "My poor, lovely farm!" burst out Cordus, obsessed by his own trouble. "It was so well sited between two woods, and a stream ran through its gardens. It was a site for a villa rather than a farm. I've had offers for the site—but I would never have sold my patrimony. But now it is gone — and no money for it!"

  Sollius then proceeded to ask some of the same questions which his pupil Lucius had put to the farmer before, and received the same answers. Finally he asked another which Lucius had not asked.

  "Did you recently turn away a beggar unsatisfied and who turned nasty?"

  "By the gods, but I did!" exclaimed Cordus. "A great, hulking fellow with a scar across his face — like a retired gladiator. Find that man, Prefect, and we'll have him whipped till he screams. I'm sure that's the man. There is no need for the Slave Detective after all! Find a gladiator who survived the arena, and you've the man!"

  He took his leave, grimly satisfied with the new chance of revenge. Immediately afterwards the same soldier came in again.

  "The noble Sergius Falba and the noble Terentius Cremutus wish to see you, sir," he announced.

  Licinius lifted an eyebrow towards the Slave Detective. "Do you wish to be 'found'?" he asked.

  "I think not yet. Can you hide me — and where, perhaps, I might hear?"

  "Step inside my scribe's room yonder. You'll hear there well enough. Show the two noble gentlemen in to me, soldier."

  When the two friends entered they found the Prefect alone.

  The preliminaries of the interview were curt and blunt.

  "We're not satisfied, Prefect, and my father Titius Sabinus is not satisfied, at the progress made towards the finding of our slave Sollius."

  "I am sorry," answered Licinius, "that the illustrious Sabinus feels I've been negligent in my duty. I assure you I've had all my men on the hunt for him."

  "It is certainly not enough, Prefect," said Cremutus, who seemed even more angry than his companion though Sollius was no slave of his.

  "He may already be dead," added Falba.

  "Then where is his body?" drily asked Licinius. "If dead his body would have been flung out to the crows — and so found."

  "We're not satisfied!" repeated Cremutus.

  "My friend has a plan," said Falba.

  "It is this," Cremutus explained. "We suggest enrolling a body of picked slaves from our two households and searching Rome thoroughly ourselves — but it needs your permission: it were a stupid folly, Prefect, for our men to be picked up by the Urban Cohorts as disturbers of the peace."

  "You may use your slaves so," replied Licinius stiffly. "It will do no harm, at least, to shake up the Subura. Our own nets, cast in after you, may draw in a few fish from the disturbed mud."

  "You take this very lightly, Prefect," said Falba. "The Emperor himself has expressed his concern in this disappearance to my father."

  "Also to me," equably answered Licinius. "His Divinity is continually informed of our progress."

  "Your progress!" snorted Cremutus. "Come, Sergius. We have our permission, and the sooner we pick our slaves the better. Good-day, Prefect."

  As soon as they had gone Sollius emerged from the scribe's room.

  "Did you hear?" smiled Licinius. "I shall be glad when I can produce you!"

  "I heard — and something more than I expected," Sollius answered, and he patted one of his ears as though he thoroughly approved of the accuracy of that organ. "Where does Cordus dwell? I must see him again. But lend me a centurion to go with me — and confirm who I am."

  Sollius and the centurion found Cordus in his cottage on the edge of his farmlands.

  "Have you laid hands on that broken gladiator?" he asked them.

  "Do you believe in him — on second thoughts?" retorted Sollius with a smile. "It was but a question I had to ask for the sake of the record. Have you told everything to the Prefect?"

  "Did I not tell you, Satrius my son, that only the Slave Detective could be trusted? And now he is dead," he said in a great gloom, and suddenly clapped his hands as though in a moment of illumination. "May it not be part of the plot against me: to kill him in order that he of all people should not look into our trouble?"

  "The Slave Detective," quietly answered Sollius, "is not dead. I am he!"

  Father and son stared at him incredulously.

  "This is Sollius the Slave Detective," confirmed the centurion.

  "Now I can believe again in the gods!" cried Cordus. "Why was I told you were missing?" he asked suspiciously.

  "I was missing; I was abducted — but escaped. No matter for that now!"

  "At last, father, we can dare speak out," said Satrius. "How 'dare' speak out?" asked Sollius, but he was smiling as though he knew very well.

  "Who but you," answered Cordus, "could accuse the powerful without a whipping? How I wished I could really have deceived myself over that suggested gladiator! But . . . I fear my enemy is a patrician."

  "Give me his name."

  "Neither my son nor I know it — or he would be dead. I have a daughter," he added, sighing, "and she has a dangerous beauty."

  "He came to the farm at night," interposed Satrius. "I

  nearly caught him once. But it was too dark to see his face, and he got swiftly away in a rich man's chariot with two spirited white horses. My sister will not give his name. Though infatuated, she fears him."

  "I would question her," said Sollius.

  "I have sent her to her uncle in Rhodes. He has an only son, and is a rich man. She may even come to good in the end. He will have burnt down my farm in revenge for my sending her out of his reach."

  "You should have told this to the Prefect," said the Slave Detective severely.

  "And had one patrician cover up for another? I know my Rome. The seducer of my daughter may even be in the circle of the new Emperor."

  "You should still have told the Prefect — and even I am afraid of Caracalla!"

  "You're afraid of no man," said Cordus, "or your fame is false. Get me but the man's name, and I'll kill him even at the Emperor's feet!"

  "And I will strike with you," cried Satrius. "I love my sister."

  "Come," said Cordus in a milder tone. "Let me show you my burnt-out farm, and you will know my double cause for hate . . ."

  He led the way. It was a walk of less than a quarter of a mile. They came to a scene of black destruction, desolate in spite of the Appian sunlight. Cordus suddenly gave an angry exclamation. A man was standing in the midst of the ruins, looking about him.

  "Who is this trespasser?" cried Cordus.

  "I think I recognize him," said Sollius. "It is Tranquillus, a lawyer."

  Cordus bristled, and went forwards.

  "What do you here?" he demanded.

  "You are the freedman Cordus?" was the polite inquiry. "What of it?"

  "I am a lawyer from Rome, Tranquillus. Ah, Slave Detective, so you are here, looking into the fire? Well, freedman, my presence is easy to explain. I have a business proposition for you from a client. He would buy the land on which your farm stood."

  "I shall not sell!" answered Cordus.

  "He offers a good sum," said Tranquillus, and he named a certain number of sesterces.

  "Even that is too cheap," replied Cordus contemptuously.

  "You haven't the capital to rebuil
d," said Tranquillus with a dry smile. "Why waste so fair a country prospect when you can sell it?"

  Cordus obstinately shook his head.

  "The land as it is now," the lawyer pursued, "is worth little or nothing to you. It might as well have been ploughed with salt. Sell when you can, my friend!"

  "At that low price? Never! At any price? Never!"

  "I can go a little higher . . ." and Tranquillus advanced the number of sesterces. "But my client will not barter. I can only strongly advise you. No one will give you more. Don't you agree, Sollius, that he will be a fool to refuse my client's offer?"

  "Who is that client?" brusquely snapped Cordus.

  "I speak for him. I have the money here. There is no need for a name where there is hard money, freedman. Let me pay you now. See, my slave yonder carries a large bag . . . filled with coin, 0 Cordus."

  "Take your slave and his bag away together, lawyer! I will not sell. Who is your client?" he repeated.

  "Since you refuse his offer, freedman, there is no need to name him," answered Tranquillus blandly; he saluted them, and turned away towards a waiting chariot.

  A puzzled Lucius, summoned peremptorily to the Prefect's quarters, found Sollius with the Prefect himself — and flinging up his hands in his amazed relief, he burst into tears.

  "Save your wonder!" smiled Sollius. "I will tell all of my adventures in time. But for now listen." He spoke quickly and concisely, and Lucius listened in growing surprise and excitement.

  "But aren't you coming home?" he asked. "Our master is truly in grief over you."

  "Leave me my love of cunning," Sollius laughed. "I shall come it may be at this very day's time of dusk, and you must be ready to help me over the wall behind the carp-pool. Now you, Licinius," he went on, turning to the Prefect briskly, "have you chosen your two soldiers?"

  "They are already wearing slaves' tunics, and have had your instructions."

  "Good," answered the Slave Detective, "let them be off on their missions now. By Apollo, I can lay a plot as well as unravel one!"

  At the time of dusk, as promised, Sollius was on the outer side of the wall of his master's house. More than once Lucius, crouching by the carp-pool, thought that he heard him, but now, he was certain.

  "Is that you?" he called softly.

  "Help me over," bade Sollius. "We can wait amongst these laurels."

  The Roman evening was fair and calm, and a star of sapphirine crystal was mirrored in the carp-pool.

  "What do you expect?" whispered a deeply puzzled Lucius, but before Sollius answered the figure of Sergius Falba came down a cypress avenue and stood silently, as though also waiting, by the pool.

  Presently a quick step was heard approaching down the same avenue, and another figure joined him.

  "What is this urgency, Sergius?" asked the voice of Terentius Cremutus. "What has happened that you sent a slave to me, making this secret appointment here?"

  "I sent a slave to you? It was you who sent a slave to me!"

  Though they could see only each other's outlines in the gathering dark they stared at one another with shocked intensity.

  "Someone," muttered Falba, "has done us an evil turn." "It will be your cunning Sollius," answered Cremutus. "Had we only caught him again after he escaped that fire at Natta's tavern! He must have been slyly watching us. I told you we should have killed him at first," he added fiercely.

  "That I would never have done," firmly said Falba. "I owe that to my father Sabinus. I was mad to do so much . . . and for nothing!"

  "For nothing, indeed, and for me, too," bitterly burst out Cremutus. "Where has that sly slave been hiding — and what does he know?"

  "His cunning is so," replied Falba, "that he may have us both."

  "Then why not come out from his hiding-place and accuse us to our faces? Can he be hiding in the house?"

  "Do you think I haven't secretly searched?"

  "If only," went on Cremutus through his teeth, "he weren't so incorruptible! A good bribe could save us. Gods, where is he?"

  "He is here," said Sollius, and stepped with Lucius out of the laurels.

  The shadows of Falba and Cremutus started convulsively against the darker shadows in the calm, round mirror of the carp-pool.

  "You terrible slave!" burst out Cremutus.

  "So you have come home!" said Falba, recovering himself. "My father has been much troubled for you."

  "You, lord, could have spared his white head!"

  "Do not be insolent!" cried Falba.

  "I am always ready to be insolent, lord, in the service of truth — and my master will uphold me. Answer not, lord, but listen. I have knowledge of two facts: the ignoble pursuit of a beautiful girl, and the burning down of a man's farm in the selfish desire to possess its site cheaply for the building there of an idle man's villa. But you are too incompetent for crime! You, Cremutus, should never have visited Natta's tavern while I was held there: I heard your voice — and again in the Prefect's office. And you, lord," he added, turning to Falba, "should not have driven your well-known white horses to a seduction. I have opened to the day too many conspiracies to miss such clues."

  "You are going to betray us?" asked Falba.

  "The girl is beyond your lust, lord, and I shall say nothing to my master — he is old and loves you. Let him think that I was captured by a gang of thieves who hated me. I have but one other price for silence. Let your friend pay Cordus sufficient compensation for his farm."

  "By Hecate, this is too much, you rascally slave," cried Cremutus.

  "Tranquillus, an honest lawyer, will tell the truth," said Sollius.

  Cremutus cursed by all the Nether Gods and stormed out. "We never intended to harm you . . . in time you would have been set free," murmured Falba awkwardly.

  But the Slave Detective made no answer and walked contemptuously away, returning to his own quarters in the house.

  The Malice of the Anicii[1] by Gillian Bradshaw

  It isn't often that I find a story works with footnotes, but the following won't work without them. It is told by Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330-395), Rome's last great historian, though much of his History of Rome, a continuation of that by Tacitus, is lost. Nevertheless what survives provides us with a rare glimpse into the last decades of the Eternal City. A classical scholar, and recipient of the Phillips Prize for Classical Greek (in 1975 and 1977), Gillian Bradshaw is a noted writer of both fantasy and historical fiction. Amongst her recent books, Cleopatra's Heir (2002) will be of especial interest to fans of ancient Rome.

  Concerning the idleness and profligacy of the Romans, I have amply written elsewhere. However, certain flatterers and sycophants have seen fit to rebuke me for it, saying that I, an Asiatic Greek, should not venture to criticize illustrious men whose names descend from the pristine age of the Roman state — believing, I suppose, that those who bear great names should be revered for the names' sake, even if they never by word or deed accomplish anything worthy of their great ancestors. Since, then, statements I have made in my history have been considered outrageous, let me here set out more fully an account of the conduct of some of those who are held in honour at Rome.

  I first came to the Eternal City after the death of Julian Augustus[2] in order to consult accounts written in Latin, for I intended to compose a history of the reign of that heroic emperor. I had a letter of introduction from my friend and countryman Libanius, that most renowned of orators, to Aurelius Symmachus, who is generally accounted the most cultured nobleman in Rome.

  Symmachus welcomed me very warmly; indeed, when I saw how much attention that wealthy and distinguished man lavished upon me I thought my fame and fortune were assured, and I regretted that I hadn't come to Rome years before. My pleasure was much abated the following day however, when, obedient to his urging, I called upon him again, only to find that he had completely forgotten who I was, and stood regarding me in doubt, wondering whether or not I might be one of his clients. In the end he did recognize me, and admitted me
to his circle and — what was more useful — to his library, yet, for all that I spent years assiduously waiting upon that blockhead, I never advanced any further in his friendship and received only scanty and unhelpful patronage for my history. On the occasion when a famine was feared and foreigners were compelled to leave the city, he interceded to secure the residency of his mistress's hairdresser, but extended no such assistance to me; and when I returned to Rome, after an interval of a year, he did not even notice that I had been away, or ask where I had gone. Such is the learned and eloquent Aurelius Symmachus.

  However, as a pigeon may appear outstanding for beauty and sweetness of voice if it struts among crows, so Symmachus appears pre-eminent for virtue and wisdom among the nobility of Rome. Many other men of illustrious ancestry care for nothing but gain, and, in the immortal words of Cicero, consider that nothing in human affairs is good unless it is profitable.[3] Some are so overborne by greed and ambition that their arrogance knows no bounds — and chief among them are the clan of the Anicii, whose name is famous throughout the whole world. It will suffice, in place of many examples of their conduct, to set down this one, to which I myself was a witness.

  I was in the Library of Trajan in Rome, devotedly handling one of the many books of Latin history, when Symmachus chanced to come in. On seeing me he exclaimed that good fortune must have guided our meeting. "For," he said, "your friend Eutherius has arrived in Rome, and I have invited him to dinner. I need one more guest to fill the lowest couch, and I believe he would be pleased to see you."

  I was normally spared attendance at my patron's gluttonous and unwholesome banquets, since his guests, when they were not senators and high officials, tended to be persons whose company senators and high officials find entertaining — that is, horse-breeders and experts at gambling. I was pleased to escape such company, and would have been pleased to escape Eutherius as well. A eunuch, he had been chamberlain to Constans Augustus and afterwards to Julian, and he had recently retired to Rome. Though I had some acquaintance with him — we both served Julian when he held the rank of Caesar in Gaul — I had never been his "friend"