SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Asklepiodes says it would leave unmistakable marks.”

  “I am sure that I heard Demades mention a person or persons with whom he was in dispute, but it doesn’t stick in my memory because I was far more interested in his teachings and discoveries than in his conflicts, which I assumed to be of an academic nature, not something that might cause his murder.”

  “Some people take academic matters seriously,” I said, “but I agree that the killer was proficient in more than the studies of Archimedes and the lectures of Plato.”

  “Actually, Plato was better known for his dialogues.”

  “Well, whatever it was those philosophical buggers did. I think the killer was more likely a professional assassin.”

  “Probably hired, then. He would be the most dangerous sort of assassin, too.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “You can’t disarm such a man by searching him for weapons, can you? It looks as if he doesn’t use any. He could get close to his victims unsuspected. If I were a person of power who feared for his life, it would make me most uncomfortable to know such an assassin was at large.”

  “That is an excellent point,” I conceded. “I am not certain that it is germane to this particular case, but I would think that a man like this could be very unsettling, indeed. Of course, killing your victim is only half the job. Getting away alive presents special challenges if you’ve just killed a king.”

  “Be sure to let me know when you have this man in custody,” Brutus said. “If you don’t find it necessary to kill him upon apprehension, I would like to interview him. I think he must be a very interesting sort of person.”

  “I will be most happy to gratify your wish, should he survive. Should I survive, for that matter. Killers often object to being taken into custody, in my experience.”

  “Well, take care. I can lend you a few good bullies should you require a little muscle power.”

  “Thank you. I have some of my own. Everyone needs them from time to time.” I rose. “Do send word should you remember any names Demades might have mentioned that I might find interesting.”

  He stood and took my hand. “I shall be sure to do so. Good luck, and I wish I could be more helpful. And I do apologize for my mother’s behavior. She hasn’t been the same since Caesar returned.”

  “None of us have, I fear.”

  Back out on the street I tossed some new thoughts around in my mind as I made my leisurely way toward the Forum. Now I had yet another factor to consider: a professional killer loose in Rome who was far more dangerous than the usual, common murderer. He had a way of killing that was unknown in Rome and could foil most precautions taken by those who had reason to fear assassination.

  We Romans of the political classes had always disdained extraordinary precautions against attack. It smacked of unmanliness. We are a martial people and a grown Roman was expected to be able to take care of himself. You were a poor prospect for the legions if you couldn’t. Bodyguards weren’t considered a sign of timidity. It just meant that an attempt on your life would mean a street fight and we always enjoyed street fights.

  Assassination of the sort that we associated with the Orient was a different matter. We have always had a horror of poisoning, which is associated in Roman law with witchcraft. We reserve some of our most savage punishments for poisoners, who are usually women who wish to eliminate rivals or objectionable husbands. The idea of a professional with an exotic means of killing was repugnant to the Roman mentality.

  The question of the dead Greeks was almost driven from my mind by this new possibility. Maybe this assassin was in Rome for something far different. Maybe the astronomers were a ruse. Maybe this man had been brought to Rome to hunt far bigger game. There was only one victim I could imagine being important enough for such a plot.

  * * *

  I found him in his new basilica, going over some huge drawings spread on a table. “Ah, Decius Caecilius, come here and tell me what you think.”

  “Caesar, I—”

  “In a moment. First take a look at this.”

  I went to the table and studied the drawings. They seemed to be the plan of a city, one with broad avenues and generous open spaces. It was on a river and I saw the unmistakable outline of the Circus Maximus. “Surely this can’t be Rome!”

  “Why not?” Caesar said. “This is Rome as it ought to be, not the overgrown, overcrowded, chaotic village we inhabit. I am going to rebuild the city with streets as wide as Alexandria’s and temples worthy of our gods. It will no longer be subject to disastrous fires and will be a much more healthful place to live.”

  “But what will you do with the Rome that is already here?” I asked him.

  “Much of it will have to be demolished, of course. I am sure there will be objections at first.”

  “I can promise you that. Everyone will have to be relocated. It will be like being transported to an alien city.”

  “But a much finer city.”

  “That will not matter. Romans love the Rome they know, filthy and chaotic firetrap that she is.”

  “They will get used to it,” he maintained imperturbably. “Now, you had something for me?”

  “Caius Julius, I think there is an assassin in the city who has come here with the intention of murdering you.”

  “Is that all?” He did not look up from his plan, to which he was adding notes and sketches with a reed pen.

  “Isn’t it enough?”

  “People have been trying to kill me for a long time. None has succeeded.”

  “But this man is subtle. He is the one who murdered the astronomers and he is skilled at killing swiftly and without weapons. Guards will turn up nothing by searching him.”

  “I have never had anyone searched before coming into my presence, you know that. I am going to widen the open area around the Temple of Vesta and plant a grove there.”

  “Very pleasing, I’m sure, but I think you are in serious danger.”

  “When the gods decree that I shall die, then I shall die. In the meantime I have much to accomplish.”

  “Now you sound like Cleopatra,” I said.

  “The queen of Egypt and I have much in common. A sense of personal destiny is one of them. It ill behooves us to fret over things like danger and death. The best thing to do with this assassin is to catch him first. I was rather hoping you could take care of that.”

  “I am striving to do so. It is just that I had thought his crimes to be more limited in scope, and I thought you should know about it.”

  “I am touched by your concern, Decius. Now be about your duties.”

  I walked away fuming. The man just didn’t appreciate either his own danger or my value. He dismissed first-class investigative work as if it were some sort of clerk’s function. I was about ready to join the crowd of anti-Caesarians, but then I reminded myself where the real power lay and what a pack of second-raters they all were. I could swallow a little pride if I had to.

  Once again I checked my roster of criminals and lowlifes. Who in Rome might have an idea of where I could find a foreign assassin? Back when my friend Titus Milo was the most prominent gang-leader in Rome he could have turned the man up for me within hours. But Milo was long dead and my own influence was lamentably low these days. Then I remembered Ariston. I headed toward the river port.

  Ariston was an ex-pirate who had been of great help to me a few years before, when I was playing admiral and putting down a resurgence by some of his former colleagues. When Pompey had suppressed the pirates in his great campaign, those who wanted to live had surrendered and vowed to move inland and never go to sea again. Ariston had violated this agreement by taking up the sailor’s life once more and had been liable to execution, but with Pompey dead I had secured his pardon. Now he was a more or less a legitimate importer and occasional merchant captain. I hoped he was in his place of business and not sailing to Trapezus or some such faraway place.

  The port was always a bustling, smelly place
where you could hear every language in the world and see some very odd people indeed. The wharfs were stacked with bales and amphorae and ingots of metal. That day an endless string of barges were being unloaded, their cargo nothing but fabulous marble for Caesar’s endless building projects.

  Ariston was in his warehouse, a long, rambling building that fronted on the river with a tile roof and no wall on the river side. He was a big man with a scarred and battered face. He was burned dark brown from constant exposure, which made his blond hair and bright blue eyes even more striking. He grinned when he saw me.

  “Senator! You don’t come down here very often. I haven’t seen your accountant lately. Has this new calendar affected our agreement?” As his patron I naturally received a small percentage of his profits every year.

  “Not at all. I came to consult with you.” I took his hand.

  “Any way I can help. Are you planning a voyage?”

  I shuddered. “No, for which I thank all the gods.… It’s a rather sensitive matter.… I’m starving. Let’s find a tavern and get something to eat.”

  “I know just the place.” He gave some orders to his slaves and we went a block cityward and into a low-ceilinged dive that had a distinctively smoky aroma. We sat at a table and a server brought the usual bread and oil along with a bowl of roasted and salted peas and another of tiny smoked fish and smoked sausages. That explained the smell of the place. They had big, brick smokers in the back. I took a handful of the crunchy, salted peas, then a few of the fish. The rough red wine common to such places was the perfect accompaniment. “This is excellent,” I told him. “Is the cook a Spaniard?”

  “The cook, the owner, his wife, and most of the servers. They brought their smoking process from Cartago Nova.”

  I tore off a piece of the tough brown bread and dipped it in oil. “Ariston, I am trying to find a foreigner. He is very dangerous. He’s already killed two men I know about, and I suspect he is not done. Within the last few days he murdered two of the Alexandrian astronomers who have been staying on the Tiber Island.”

  “Why do you think it’s a foreigner?”

  I told him about the distinctive method of homicide. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve known men who could break necks bare handed, but it wouldn’t leave marks like that. It may be something oriental, maybe Egyptian. Those people would rather kill a man in some complicated fashion than step right up and stab him, like we would. I’ll ask around. If he’s a professional far from home, he’ll probably be offering his services for pay. You don’t do that right out in the Forum. You go the taverns and brothels and drop a few hints. Sooner or later someone will find you and make an offer.”

  “Do that. You’ll do very well out of it if you can help me find him.” I reached into my purse to pay for our lunch and came out with the strange brass coin. I handed it to Ariston. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  He glanced at both sides. “You see them all the time in the Red Sea trade. They’re from India.” He tossed it back, and I caught it and tucked it back.

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I found it near the quarters of the Indian astronomer. He must have dropped it. I was hoping it might be something significant. What do the Indians trade for?”

  “Spices, dyestuffs, but mainly frankincense. It’s as important in their temples and ceremonies as ours. Speaking of which, I have a line on a cargo that includes some chests of the white Ethiopian frankincense, the most valuable kind. I can get you some cheap.”

  “Cheap because it was smuggled or cheap because it was pirated?” I asked.

  “Now, Senator,” he chided, “there are some questions you don’t ask.”

  “I’ll pass. If you get this cargo, please don’t tell me about it. Sometimes the less I know the better.”

  He grinned again. “As you like it, Senator. Your wife wouldn’t mind a gift of white frankincense next Saturnalia though, would she?”

  “I don’t see why she should,” I said. There is such a thing as carrying incorruptibility too far, after all.

  I left him and trudged back toward the Forum. His remark about Egyptians had set me to thinking. It would not be unlike Cleopatra to have an assassin in her employ. In many quarters, such a specialist is considered merely a tool of statecraft, but she was the one person in Rome I could not suspect of plotting Caesar’s death. What reason would she have for killing her own astronomers? Of course, an Egyptian assassin living at the old embassy could well hire himself out secretly, just to keep in practice. I also had not forgotten that I had almost lost my nose to a pygmy’s arrow in Cleopatra’s house.

  Still, there were other easterners in Rome, and among them there was the envoy sent by King Phraates of Parthia. The envoy Caesar had so publicly humiliated just days before.

  8

  The first time I had seen Archelaus he had been with Cassius. The second time he was in the company of Hyrcanus’s ambassador. I had no idea where he lived. Unlike Egypt, Parthia had never maintained a permanent residence for its embassy. The Parthians sent embassies whenever there was something to discuss or settle with Rome.

  Hyrcanus’s ambassador had a house on the Germalus, just a few doors up the Clivus Victoriae from the house where Clodius and his sisters had once lived. It was a very fashionable neighborhood, unlike the Subura, where I lived. The Subura was full of the poorest Romans and many foreigners, but I preferred it.

  Some years before, there had been a dispute between princes over succession to the throne of Judea, a not uncommon occurrence in that part of the world. One of the brothers, Hyrcanus, had appealed to Pompey for aid that Pompey had supplied gladly. He was always looking to enlarge his clientela and loved to boast that he had kings among his clients. Now Pompey was dead and Hyrcanus had transferred his allegiance to Caesar. Hyrcanus was a weak man and the real power was his chief advisor, a man named Antipater.

  I knew Herod, son of Antipater, from the time of Caesar’s eastern campaigns. The family was of Idumaean Arab origin, and they wore their Jewish religion lightly. Antipater was an enlightened man who selected the best aspects of Hellenistic culture and managed to reconcile them with the beliefs of Hyrcanus’s always recalcitrant and often violently reactionary subjects.

  Herod was a man very different from his father. He shared many characteristics with Sulla. He was brilliant and fierce. He combined great personal beauty with a ruthlessness that chilled the hardest of men.

  Like Cleopatra, Antipater saw clearly that Rome was the future, and Caesar was the man of the hour, and he guided Hyrcanus wisely. Naturally, he and Cleopatra hated one another with a blind passion.

  I had gotten along well with Herod and had ridden with him on bandit-hunting expeditions, which he practiced with the fervor that most eastern monarchs devote to hunting beasts. He and Antonius had become great friends as well.

  The ambassador at that time was a Hellenized Jew named Isaac bar Isaac. He was a courtly man and he received me with great courtesy. His hair, beard and clothing were Greek. His Latin was excellent, with only the slightest accent.

  “Senator, what a pleasure this is. Do you bring requests from Caesar? Caesar knows that my king is his friend and wishes to put his kingdom at Caesar’s disposal.”

  This took me a bit off guard. “Eh? Why, no, I come on another matter entirely. Were you expecting requests from Caesar?”

  “Certainly. Caesar will go to war with Parthia. It is only natural that he will wish aid from his ally, King Hyrcanus, in the form of ships, supplies, troops, and so forth, all of which my king is most anxious to provide.”

  “Yes, it’s good to have friends like Hyrcanus,” I said. “I take it that he approves of this war?”

  He made an eloquent gesture of hands and shoulders. “How not? Parthia is an expanding power and casts envious eyes on Judea. Phraates would very much like to have our fertile lands, our city of Jerusalem and especially our seaports.”

  This was ne
ws to me but it sounded likely enough. I never heard of a king who thought he had enough land, and since all land is claimed, the only way to get it is to take it from your neighbors. We Romans have taken quite a bit of it that way, though we usually had a good excuse.

  “I am sure that Caesar appreciates King Hyrcanus’s manifest friendship with Rome.”

  “Excellent. Now, how may I be of help to you?”

  “A few days ago I saw Archelaus, the envoy from Phraates, in your company at the house of Queen Cleopatra.”

  “Ah, yes,” he sighed. “Both Egypt and Judea are allies of Rome, and Archelaus had hopes of convincing us to intercede with Caesar and avert the war that must come. The queen was most tactful, but she made it plain that Caesar’s will was her own, and that it was futile to expect Egypt to take a separate course.”

  “At least she and King Hyrcanus have one thing in common,” I said.

  He sighed again. “I do wish that this enmity did not lie between the two monarchs. Yet I must represent my king, and he refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Cleopatra’s claim to the throne of Egypt.”

  “Caesar may wish to have a few words with your king concerning that matter.” I had some vague memory that Hyrcanus had supported the claim of one of Cleopatra’s sisters and the sister’s husband to the throne of Ptolemy, but I did not care to get entangled in the affairs of the benighted land of Egypt and its equally benighted neighbors. They might resent it, but most people were far better off just doing as Rome told them rather than trying to manage their own affairs.

  “I was wondering,” I said, “if you might be able to tell me where Archelaus is staying here in Rome.”

  “But of course. He has taken a house not far from here, just off the Forum Boarium, on the street called Harness Makers.”