“They cannot sue. You have broken no law.”
“Since when has that meant anything to rich men faced with the prospect of growing less rich? They want to hurl me from the Tarpeian Rock then drag me on a hook down the Tiber steps! There is no greater crime than costing rich men money!”
“They’ll make it all back in the next year,” Caesar insisted.
“They don’t understand that! Our old calendar was unwieldy and difficult to understand, but it was customary and people were used to it. Now they have to learn something new. People hate to have to learn something new.”
“All too true,” Caesar sighed. “A new calendar, a new constitution, a new vision of Rome and the world, people balk at these things. They must be guided by those of us who have vision.”
“You’re getting philosophical again,” I warned. “They don’t want philosophy. They want their money and their amusements. Withhold these things from them and they withhold their favor, and that is something even a dictator must avoid.”
He sighed. “Send the worst cases to me. I will somehow find time to hear their complaints and satisfy them. I have truly momentous matters demanding my attention, but I suppose I must deal with these people, if you can’t.”
If this last was supposed to shame me, it was one of Caesar’s rare failures. I didn’t care in the least if he considered me incapable. The less work he saddled me with the better, as far as I was concerned. Of course, he’d just find something else for me to do.
Senators had little rest during Caesar’s dictatorship. He thought an idle Senate was a breeding ground for plotters and that senators owed Rome service in return for their privileged status. In truth, the Senate had grown disgracefully lethargic in the previous years. Except for occasional military or governing duties, both of which were expected to be profitable, few senators felt inclined to bestir themselves on behalf of the state.
With Caesar in charge, we were allowed no such lassitude. Every man who wore the senator’s stripe had to be ready at all times to undertake demanding duties and to travel to any part of our empire to perform them. From overseeing repair work on the roads of Italy to curbing the behavior of a client king to planning a giant banquet for the whole citizenry, we had to be ready to carry out his orders at once. The senators didn’t like it, but they also disliked the prospect of being dead, which was a distinctly likely alternative.
So I continued to press the advantages of the new calendar upon a sullen public, and Caesar was able to placate or intimidate the worst complainers. I thought the worst was over when, on the first day of the new year and the new calendar, Hermes came to me with distressing news.
“There’s been a murder,” he said without preamble.
“I believe there is a court to handle just such cases.”
“It’s a dead foreigner.”
“That narrows it. Let the praetor peregrinus handle it.”
“A dead foreign astronomer,” he told me.
I knew things were going too well. “Which one?”
“Demades.”
I sighed mournfully. “Well, he’s too old for it to be an aggrieved husband. I don’t suppose he just wandered into the wrong alley and got his throat cut for whatever was in his purse?”
“I think we’d better go look,” he said.
“It’s the first day of the year,” I told him. “I should go sacrifice at the Temple of Janus.”
“You never bothered to before,” he pointed out.
“That’s irrelevant. Today I’d rather sacrifice than go see some old dead Greek.”
“You want to wait until Caesar orders you to?”
He was right. Caesar held those astronomers in high esteem and would take the murder of one as a personal affront. “Oh, well. I suppose I must. Who brought the news?”
He called in a slave from the Temple of Aesculapius, identifiable by the little serpent-wound staff he carried as a sign that he had permission to leave the temple enclosure. I questioned him but the man knew only that Demades was dead and he had been sent to summon me. He insisted that there was no slave gossip about the matter. I sent him back with word that I would be there soon and turned to Hermes.
“How is it possible there’s no slave gossip? Slaves gossip about everything.”
“Either he’s keeping quiet about it, or the body was somehow discovered before the slaves found out about it and the high priest has kept anyone from seeing anything.”
“That’s not good,” I said. “I’m hoping for a simple, casual murder. I may be disappointed. Well, I’m often disappointed, I should be used to it. Come on, let’s go have a look.”
So we left the house and made our way through the City and across the Forum. This being the first of January, the new magistrates would be taking office. In ordinary years, this was a rather festive occasion, but since the new officeholders were for all practical purposes Caesar’s appointees, there wasn’t much excitement.
We went down the Vicus Tuscus toward the river and passed the Temple of Janus, god of beginnings and endings, busy with the usual sacrifices and ceremonies of the new year. I learned that the ceremonies were rather confused since the previous year had ended so abruptly and the priests had not even had time to conclude the year-end ceremonies. I decided that it would be a bad idea to present myself at the Temple of Janus that day after all.
Then we passed the City end of the Aemilian Bridge and through a vegetable market, all but empty at that time of year, and out the Flumentana Gate in the ancient wall and up the Vicus Aesculeti along the river bank to the Fabrician Bridge and across it to the Tiber Island. The high priest of the temple came to meet us, with Sosigenes right behind him.
“Senator,” the priest began, “the sacred precincts of Aesculapius have been polluted by blood! I cannot express my outrage!”
“What’s so outrageous?” I asked him. “Aesculapius is the god of healing. People bleed here all the time.”
“But they are not attacked and killed here!” he cried, still in high dudgeon.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? Anyway, it wasn’t one of your priests or your staff who died, so I hear. It was a foreigner.”
“There is some solace in that,” he agreed.
“Senator,” said Sosigenes, “my friend, Demades, whom you know, is the victim.”
“So I understand. Please accept my condolences. Now, if you would be so good, please lead me to the murder site. I wish to view the body.”
So we walked down toward the “stern” of the island, where I had first met the astronomers in conclave. There we found a little group of men clustered around a recumbent body, which had been decently covered with a white sheet. Most of the men were astronomers, but I recognized some who were not, including a senator whose presence surprised me: Cassius Longinus.
“I didn’t expect to find you here, Cassius,” I said.
“Hello, Decius Caecilius,” he said. “I take it Caesar has appointed you to investigate this matter?”
“I came before he had the chance.” I had known Cassius for some time. We were on friendly terms, though we had never been close. He detested the dictatorship of Caesar and made no attempt to hide it. “What brings you here to the Island?” I asked him. “No illness in the family, I hope?”
“No, as a matter of fact I came here this morning to consult with Polasser of Kish.” He nodded toward the man in Babylonian attire, who bowed back. “He is the most distinguished astrologer now in Rome and has been casting a horoscope for me.” I caught the faint expression of derision on the face of Sosigenes. He considered the whole Babylonian astrology business to be fraudulent.
I squatted by the body. “A good thing Demades wasn’t your astrologer. Has the purification been performed?”
“It has,” Sosigenes said. “There are priests here qualified to purify the dead.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “People do tend to die here. Hermes, remove this shroud.” He grimaced with distaste, b
ut complied. For such a bloody-minded wretch, Hermes was finicky about touching the dead.
Poor old Demades was not looking his best, which is often true of the dead. He was all but unmarked, but his head lay at an odd angle. Somehow, his neck had been cleanly snapped. I could see no other wound, and he had the waxy pallor of one who has been dead for several hours.
“Hermes,” I said, “go get Asklepiodes. He should be in town.” Hermes hurried off, eager as always to visit the gladiatorial school where my old physician friend lived. There was something about that broken neck that bothered me.
“Might this have been an accident?” I said.
“A fall severe enough to have broken his neck should have left him badly bloodied.” Cassius said. He gestured around us. “And there’s no place to fall from around here. I suppose a strong wrestler could have done it easily enough.” Although still young, Cassius had seen enough slaughter not to be disturbed by a common murder. He had seen an entire Roman army exterminated at Carrhae and had barely escaped with his life. “What do you think, Archelaus?” He addressed thus a man who stood near him, a tall, saturnine specimen whose dress and grooming were Roman despite his Greek name.
“I’ve seen necks broken that way with the edge of a shield, and once in Ephesus I saw a pankration where a man broke his opponent’s neck with a blow from the edge of the hand.” He spoke of the roughest of all the Greek unarmed combative sports, in which the fighters are permitted to kick, gouge, and bite.
“Decius,” Cassius said, “this is Archelaus, a grandson of Nicomedes of Bithynia. He is here in Rome on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Parthia.”
I took the man’s hand. “Good luck. Caesar has every intention of resuming the war with Parthia.” The man’s status was clear to me now. He was a nobleman of a Roman province that had been an independent kingdom under his grandfather. The king of Parthia would not wish to send a deputation of his countrymen, who would be treated with hostility in Rome, so he sent a professional diplomat instead, one conversant with Roman customs. I had known others like him.
“I have every hope of effecting a reconciliation,” he said, his expression belying his words. Rome did not forgive a military defeat, and a humiliation like Carrhae could not be wiped out with words and treaties. Rather than speak of this hopeless subject I turned back to Cassius.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a follower of the astrologers.” Cassius was as old-fashioned a Roman as you could ask for, and among our class we believed the gods spoke in lightning and thunder and the flight of birds and the entrails of sacrificial animals. Astrology and other forms of fortune-telling were the province of bored, high-born ladies.
He looked sheepish, an oddity on his scarred, craggy face. “Actually, this is not for me. A certain high-placed Roman who must remain nameless sent me to consult with Polasser of Kish.”
“Not—” but I knew better than to pronounce the name. It made a sort of sense. Caesar believed all sorts of odd things and he was obsessed by what he thought of as his destiny. He wanted to put Alexander in the shade and he wanted assurance of that from the gods. Sometimes, he came dangerously close to counting himself among their number.
“Why have you sent for this Asklepiodes?” Archelaus wanted to know.
“He is the foremost authority in the world on wounds,” I told him. “I am hoping he can enlighten me on how this man met his death.” I hadn’t given up on the hope that it might prove to be an accident. It would make my life so much simpler. By now all the other astronomers had assembled around the corpse of their colleague and I addressed them. “Does anyone here know if Demades had an enemy or anyone with ill will toward him?”
To my surprise, the yellow-turbanned Indian cleared his throat. “I know of no one who bore him personal enmity, Senator,” he said, speaking Greek in an odd, singsong accent, “but he was rather vehement in his denunciations of the astrologers, of whom there are a number here.”
“This was a mere academic dispute,” Sosigenes objected. “If scholars settled their arguments with violence there would be none left in the world. We argue endlessly about our own fields of study.”
“I’ve known men to murder one another for the most trifling of reasons,” I informed them. “I have been charged with this case and I may wish to question each of you separately or severally. Please do not be offended if I ask that you all stay where I can find you. I should take it very ill should anyone be seized with a need to visit Alexandria or Antioch. I should hate to have to dispatch a naval vessel to fetch you back at public expense.”
“I assure you, Senator,” said Sosigenes, “no one here has anything to hide.”
“If only I had a denarius for every time I’ve heard that assurance,” I muttered.
“Did you say something, Senator?” Sosigenes asked.
“Just that I am so glad to know that nobody here could be responsible.”
“Decius,” Cassius said, “I have other things to attend to. If I may borrow Polasser for a short while, I will leave you to your duties.”
“By all means,” I told him. The three men went off together and I returned my attention to the corpse. Shortly after this, Asklepiodes arrived on a litter accompanied as always by his silent Egyptian servants. Hermes walked behind the litter. The little Greek took me by the hands, smiling broadly.
“A lovely day for a murder, is it not?” he said. Over the years he had become increasingly morbid. I suppose his calling demanded it.
“But is it a murder?” I asked. “It is for this very reason I’ve asked for your help once more. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this man came by his death.”
“Well, let’s have a look at him.” He examined the dead man for a while. “Poor Demades. I knew him slightly. We attended some of the same affairs and lectures.” This came as no surprise. The members of Rome’s small Greek intellectual community all knew each other.
“When you saw him did he mention enemies or any particular fears he might have had?” I asked.
“No. He scarcely spoke at all and when he did it was of astronomical matters. These people are very tightly focused and take little note of anything outside their particular field of study. He would take offense if someone asked him to cast a horoscope and complained that few understood the distinction between astronomy and astrology.”
“Yes, I understand that to be the source of raging controversy hereabouts. Do you think he may have met with an accidental death?” I asked hopefully.
He gestured for his servants to turn the body over. He examined the back of the neck and felt the severed bones, frowning. At last he straightened. “I do not think it was an accident, but I must confess the nature of this injury has me mystified. I have never seen anything quite like it.” This must have been a painful admission for Asklepiodes, who seemed to know everything about the human body and how it might be injured.
I told him of the speculations of Cassius and Archelaus. “Do you think there might be anything to that? Might the murderer be a professional lurking at the Statilian school?”
He shook his head. “A wrestler’s hands would have left distinctive marks on the neck. Likewise, a shield edge would have marked the back of the neck. As to the blow with the edge of the hand”—he wafted his own hand in a gesture of uncertainty—“I think not. It is more plausible than the other two, but the displacement of the vertebrae in this case is of a different nature. Somehow the vertebrae just below the skull have been offset from right to left. These small marks”—he touched two roundish red marks above the break, and two identical marks below it—“I have never seen anything like them. I fear I must ponder this for a while.”
“Please do. Caesar is going to be terribly vexed that someone has done away with one of his pet astronomers. Do you think there is anything further to be learned from the corpse?”
“The only evidence is the injury to the spinal cord, and now I have seen that, there is no further need for examination.”
“Then
I will turn him over to his companions.” I turned to Sosigenes, who still stood by with a few of the Alexandrians and Greeks. “Will you undertake his rites?”
“Of course. He has no family here, so we will perform the ceremonies and cremation today. I shall have his ashes sent to his family in Alexandria.”
“Very well then.” I cast a last look at the late astronomer. “Why couldn’t you have been killed in some routine fashion?” I asked him. Sensibly, he remained silent on the matter.
* * *
That evening I described the day’s events to Julia.
“It was probably a foreigner,” she said.
“Why?”
“Romans kill each other all the time, but they use the simplest means: a sword or dagger, a club, something crude and basic. Women sometimes employ poison. You’ve investigated scores of murders. How often were you unable to understand how the victim had died?”
“Only a few times, and usually that was because I was overlooking something obvious. If an expert like Asklepiodes is stymied, what hope have I?”
“None,” she said succinctly. “So for the moment you must forget about how and apply yourself to why. Why would someone want to kill a man like Demades, who from all appearances was a harmless astronomer?”
“That’s exactly what I have been asking myself. By the way, there was another curious matter on the island this morning.” I told her about Cassius and his odd errand and his diplomat friend.
“I do not understand why Caesar lets that man run around loose,” she said. “He is rabidly anti-Caesarian and does not care who knows it.” One of the few faults she would acknowledge in her uncle was his misplaced leniency.
“Maybe he’d rather have his enemies right where he can see them, not behind him professing friendship while they sharpen their knives for him.”
“Perhaps so, but the men he has pardoned and called back from exile! Any other man would have had the lot of them executed.”
“Maybe he wants a reputation for kinglike clemency.”
“Now you’re talking like them,” Julia said ominously. “They’re always saying Caesar wants to make himself king of Rome. They even interpret his mercy toward themselves as evidence of royal ambition.”
SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion Page 3