Last seen in Massilia rsr-8

by Steven Saylor

  A moment later, the two slaves who had carried me, joined by two others from among the bearers, managed to carry Davus to the litter. I moved over and they deposited him beside me. He looked about, bleary-eyed.

  The stranger seemed to find us amusing. His thin lips curved into a smile and there was laughter in his dull gray eyes. "Welcome to Massilia, whoever you are!"

  He clapped his hands. The litter was hoisted aloft. I felt nauseous. Our host noticed my distress.

  "Go ahead and be sick if you need to," he said. "Try to do it outside the litter; but if you can't manage, don't worry. If you soil a few cushions, I'll simply throw them away."

  I swallowed hard. "It will pass."

  "Oh, don't hold it in!" he advised. "A man should never restrain his body's natural impulses. If nothing else, I've certainly learned that in the last few months."

  Beside me, Davus recovered his wits. He stirred and sat upright. "Father-in-law, where are we?"

  Our host answered. "You are in the most wicked city on earth, young man, and you've come at the most wicked time in her history. I should know; I was born here. And here I'll die. In between I've known wealth and poverty, joy and bitterness. Mostly poverty and mostly bitterness, to be honest. But now, in her final hour, my city forgives me and I forgive her. We exchange the only things we have to give, her final bounty for my final days."

  "Are you a philosopher?" asked Davus, frowning.

  The man laughed. It was like the sound of a scythe cutting thick grass. "My name is Hieronymus," he said, as if to change the subject. "And yours?"

  "Gordianus," I said.

  "Ah, a Roman, as the old men suspected."

  "And this is Davus."

  "A slave's name?"

  "A freedman; my son-in-law. Where are you taking us?"

  "To my tomb."

  "Your tomb?" I asked, thinking I had misunderstood his Greek.

  "Did I say that? I meant to say my home, of course. Now lie quietly and rest. You're safe with me."

  From time to time I stole a glance between the curtains that sealed the box. At first we kept to a wide, main road. Not a shop was open and the street was empty, allowing the bearers to make good time. Then we turned off the main way into a maze of lesser roads, each more narrow than the last. We began to ascend, gradually at first, then more sharply. The bearers did a good job of keeping the box level, but nothing could disguise the sharp turns as they went around switchbacks, taking us higher and higher.

  Finally the litter lurched to a halt. "Home!" declared Hieronymus. He folded his limbs and exited the box with the slow grace of an overfed stick insect. "Do you need assistance?" he called to me over his shoulder.

  "No," I said, stepping out of the box onto wobbly legs. Davus stepped out after me and laid a hand on my shoulder to steady us both.

  "However you came to be inside the city, it was clearly an ordeal for you both," said Hieronymus, looking us up and down.

  "What would comfort you? Food? Wine? Ah, from the look on your faces, I see it's the latter. Come, we shall drink together. And none of the local swill. We'll drink what they drink in Rome. I think I still have some of the good Falernian left."

  The house had been built along Roman lines, with a small foyer and an atrium that opened onto the rest of the dwelling. It was a rich man's house, with sumptuously painted walls and a fine mosaic of Neptune (or, since we were in a Greek city, Poseidon) in the atrium pool. Beyond a formal dining room, at the heart of the house, I glimpsed a garden surrounded by a peristyle of red and blue columns.

  "Shall we take our wine in the garden?" said Hieronymus. "No, on the rooftop, I think. I love to show off the view."

  We followed him up a flight of stairs to a rooftop terrace. Tall trees on either side of the house provided shade and seclusion, but the view toward the sea was clear. The house had been built on the crest of the ridge that ran through the city. Below us the ridge dropped off sharply, so that we looked down on rooftops that descended in steps toward the city walls. Beyond the walls, the sea extended to a horizon of scudding blue clouds. Off to the left, I could see a bit of the harbor and the rugged coastline beyond. Opposite the mouth of the harbor were the islands behind which Caesar's warships lay moored. Shielding my eyes against the lowering sun, I could see one of the ships peeking around the bend of the farthest island. The ship was tiny at such a distance, but the air was so clear I could make out long-shadowed sailors moving about the deck.

  Hieronymus followed my gaze. "Yes, there it is, Caesar's navy. They think they're hiding around the bend, but we can see them, can't we? Peek-a-boo!" He fluttered his fingers in a simpering wave and laughed at his own absurdity, as if aware that such childishness was at odds with the lines of ancient suffering that creased his face.

  "Were you hereabouts to witness the little naval battle we had a while back? No? It was something to see, I'll tell you. People lined the walls down there to watch, but I had the perfect vantage point right here. Catapults hurling missiles! Fire sweeping the decks! Blood on the water! Nine of our ships lost. Nine out of seventeen-a catastrophe! Some sunk, some captured by Caesar. What a humiliating day for Massilia that was. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it." He stared grimly at the now placid spot where the battle had taken place, then turned to me and brightened. "But I promised you wine! Here, sit. These chairs are made of imported terebinth. I'm told they shouldn't be left out of doors, but what do I care?"

  We sat in the full sunshine. A slave brought wine. I praised the vintage, which was unmistakably Falernian. Hieronymus insisted I drink more. Against my better judgment I did. After his second cup, Davus fell asleep in his chair.

  "The poor fellow must be exhausted," said Hieronymus. "We very nearly died today."

  "A good thing you didn't, or else I'd be drinking alone."

  I looked at him keenly, or as keenly as I could after a third cup of Falernian. So far he had asked not a single question about us-who we were, how we had entered the city, what we had come for. His lack of curiosity was puzzling. Perhaps, I thought, he was merely being patient, biding his time, allowing me to recover my wits.

  "Why did you come to our rescue?" I asked.

  "Mainly to spite those old men who hang about the market square, the ones who were kicking you and discussing you like a fish that needed gutting."

  "Do you know them?"

  He smiled ruefully. "Oh, yes, I've known them all my life. When I was a boy, they were men in their prime, very sure of themselves, full of their own importance. Now I'm a man and they're old, with nothing better to do than hang about the square all day, spreading slanders and commenting on everyone's business. The square is shut down now-there's nothing left to buy in the shops-but there they still go, day after day, haunting the place." He smiled. "I like to drop by in the litter every now and then just to taunt them."

  "Taunt them?"

  "They used to treat me rather badly, you see. The market square was where I used to spend my days, too… when I didn't have a roof over my head. That old coot Calamitos was the worst. He's gotten even crankier since the food shortages began. What a joy to see him so flustered he broke his cane! When I think of the times he struck me with it…

  "I don't understand. Who are you? I heard them call you `Scapegoat.' And the old man said he'd report you to the Timouchoi. Who are they?"

  He stared grimly at the sea for a long moment, then clapped his hands. "Slave! If I'm to tell the story, and if my new friend Gordianus is to hear it, we shall both require more wine."

  VII

  "What do you know about Massilia?" asked Hieronymus.

  "It's far, far from Rome," I said, feeling a stab of homesickness, thinking of Bethesda and Diana and my house on the Palatine Hill.

  "Not far enough!" said Hieronymus. "Caesar and Pompey have a brawl, and Massilia is close enough to take a blow. No, what I mean is, what do you know about the city itself-how it's organized, who runs it?"

  "Nothing, really. It's an old Greek colony, i
sn't it? A city-state. Here since the days of Hannibal."

  "Since long before that! Massilia was a bustling seaport when Romulus was living in a hut on the Tiber."

  "Ancient history." I shrugged. "I do know that Massilia sided with Rome against Carthage, and the two cities have been allies ever since." I frowned. "I know you don't have a king. I suppose the city's run by some sort of elected body. You Greeks invented democracy, didn't you?"

  "Invented it, yes, and quickly discarded it, for the most part. Massilia is run by a timocracy. Do you know what that means?"

  "Government by the wealthy." My Greek was coming back to me.

  "By, for, and of the wealthy. An aristocracy of money, not birth. Just what you might expect from a city founded by merchants."

  "Not a good place to be a poor man," I said.

  "No," said Hieronymus darkly. He stared intently into his wine cup. "Massilia is run by the Timouchoi, a body of six hundred members who hold office for life. Openings occur as members die; the Timouchoi themselves nominate and vote on replacement candidates."

  "Self-perpetuating." I nodded. "Very insular."

  "Oh, yes, within the Timouchoi the attitude is very much `us' and `them,' those on the inside and those on the outside. You see, a man must be wealthy to join the Timouchoi, but it takes more than just money. His family must have held Massilian citizenship for three generations, and he himself must have fathered children. Roots in the past, a stake in the future, and here in the present, a great deal of money."

  "Very conservative," I said. "No wonder the Massilian system is so famously admired by Cicero. But is there no people's assembly, as in Rome, where the commoners can make themselves heard? No way for ordinary folk to at least vent their frustrations?"

  Hieronymus shook his head. "Massilia is ruled by the Timouchoi alone. Of the six hundred, a rotating Council of Fifteen deal with general administration. Of those fifteen, three are responsible for the day-to-day running of the city. Of those three, one is selected First Timouchos, the closest thing we have to what you Romans call a `consul,' chief executive in times of peace and supreme military commander in times of war. The Timouchoi make the laws, keep order, organize the markets, regulate the banks, run the courts, hire mercenaries, equip the navy. Their grip on the city is absolute." As if to demonstrate, he tightened his fingers around the cup in his hand until his knuckles turned white. The look in his eyes made me shift uneasily.

  "And what is your place in this scheme of things?" I asked quietly.

  "A man like me has no place at all," he said dully. "Oh, now I do. I'm the scapegoat." He smiled, but his voice was bitter. Hieronymus called for more wine. More Falernian was brought. Such largesse in a city under siege seemed nothing less than profligate.

  "Let me explain," he said. "My father was one of the Timouchoi-the first of my family to rise so high. He was made a member just after my birth. A few years later, he was elevated to the Council of Fifteen, one of the youngest men ever elected to that body. He must have been a man of great ambition to rise so high, so fast, leapfrogging past men from richer, older families than ours. As you might imagine, there were those among the Timouchoi who were jealous of him, who believed that he had stolen honors properly due to them.

  "I was his only child. He raised me in a house not unlike this one, up here on the crest of the ridge where the old money lives. The view from our rooftop was even more spectacular than this; or perhaps my nostalgia embellishes it. We could see all Massilia below, the harbor filled with ships, the blue sea stretching on and on to the horizon. `All this will be yours,' he told me once. I must have been quite small because I remember that he picked me up, put me on his shoulders, and turned slowly about. `All this will be yours…' "

  "Where did his money come from?" I asked. "From the trade."

  "The trade?"

  "All wealth in Massilia comes from the slave and wine trade. The Gauls ship slaves down the Rhodanus River for sale to Italy; the Italians ship wine from Ostia and Neapolis to sell to the Gauls. Slaves for wine, wine for slaves, with Massilia in the middle, providing ships and taking her cut. That's the foundation of all wealth in Massilia. My great-grandfather began our fortune. My grandfather increased it. My father increased it more. He owned many ships.

  "Then the bad times came. I was still quite young-too young to know the details of my father's business. He told my mother that he had been betrayed by others, cheated by men among the Timouchoi whom he had considered his friends. He had to sell his ships, one by one, to pay his creditors. It wasn't enough. Then our warehouse near the harbor burned to the ground. My father's enemies accused him of setting the fire himself to destroy records and avoid debts. My father denied it." Hieronymus paused for a long moment. "If only I had been older, able to understand all that was happening. I'll never know the truth-whether my father was responsible for his own ruin, or whether others destroyed him. It's a painful thing, never to know the whole truth."

  "What became of him?"

  "He was suspended from the Council of Fifteen. The Timouchoi began proceedings to expel him."

  "Were there criminal charges?"

  "No! It was worse than that. He had lost all his money, don't you see? In Massilia there's no greater scandal. What matters to a Roman most?"

  "His dignity, I suppose."

  "Then imagine a Roman stripped completely of his dignity, and you may understand. Without wealth, a man in Massilia is nothing. To have possessed wealth and to have lost it-such a thing could happen only to the worst of men, men so vile they've offended the gods. A man like that must be shunned, despised, spat upon."

  "What became of him?"

  "We have a law in Massilia. I imagine it was devised for just such men as my father. Suicide is forbidden, with penalties exacted upon the suicide's family-unless a man applies to the Timouchoi for permission."

  "Permission to take one's own life?"

  "Yes. My father applied. The Timouchoi took up the matter as they might have taken up a trade bill. It saved them the embarrassment of expelling him, you see. The vote was unanimous. They were even so kind as to supply him with a dose of hemlock. But he didn't take it."

  "No?"

  "He chose the harder way. Down there, where the land meets the sea, do you see that finger of rock that juts up through the city wall, so massive they had to build the wall around it?"

  "Yes." The rock was naked of vegetation, its summit stark white against the blue sea.

  "Its official name is the Sacrifice Rock. Sometimes people call it Suicide Rock, or Scapegoat Rock. If you're agile enough, you can climb onto it from the battlements of the city wall. If you're fit enough, you can climb from the base to the top without using the walls at all. It's not as steep as it looks, and there are plenty of footholds. But once you reach the top, it's a frightening place. The view over the edge is dizzying-a long, sheer drop to the sea. When the wind is high at your back, it's all a man can do to keep from being blown off."

  "Your father jumped?"

  "I remember that morning vividly. It was the day after the Timouchoi approved his request. He dressed in black and left the house without a word. My mother wept and tore her hair, but she didn't try to follow him. I knew where he was headed. I went up on the roof and watched. I saw when he reached the foot of the rock. A crowd had gathered to watch him climb. He looked so small from our roof-a tiny black figure scaling a white finger of rock. When he reached the top, he didn't hesitate, not even for an instant. He stepped over the edge and vanished. One moment there, the next-gone. My mother was watching from a window below me. She let out a scream the moment he vanished."

  "How terrible," I said. From old habit, I sifted the unresolved details of his story. "What became of the hemlock?" As soon as I asked, I knew the answer.

  "Creditors came to drive us out of the house the next day. My mother could never have borne that. They found her in her bed, as peaceful as if she slept. She broke the law by drinking the hemlock provided for my father;
broke the law as well by mixing it with wine, because wine is strictly forbidden to women in Massilia. But no one sought to prosecute her. There was nothing left to confiscate, and no one left to punish but me. I suppose they thought I had already been punished enough for the sins of my parents." He took a deep breath. "I resent her, sometimes, for not staying with me. I resent him, as well. But I can't blame them. Their lives were over."

  "What became of you?"

  "For a while I was grudgingly passed from one relative to another. But they all considered me to be cursed. They didn't want me in their homes for fear that the curse would rub off. At the first sign of trouble-a fire in the kitchen, a sick child, a slump in the family business-I was tossed out. At last I ran out of relatives. I looked for work. My father had given me good tutors. I knew philosophy, mathematics, Latin. I probably knew more about the trade than I realized, having picked it up from my father. But no one among the Timouchoi would hire me. You might think one of these exiled Romans who keep popping up in Massilia would have found me useful, but not one of them would touch me for fear of offending the Timouchoi.

  "Now and again I found work as a common laborer. It's not easy for a free man to make a living by manual labor-too many slaves about who can do the same work for no wages. I can't say that I ever succeeded at anything except staying alive. Some years I barely managed that. I've worn other men's cast-off rags, eaten other men's garbage. I've swallowed my shame and begged for alms. For long periods I've had no roof over my head. Sun and wind turned my skin to leather. Just as well; a hard hide served me well when fellows like that old coot Calamitos took a cane to me, calling me a vagrant, a good-for-nothing, a parasite, the son of a cursed father and an impious mother."