Under Vesuvius

by John Maddox Roberts

  “The scents thus falsified include those known as Pharaoh’s Delight, Babylonian Lilac, Tears of the Moon, Zoroaster’s Rapture, Milk from Aphrodite’s Breast, Gardens of Ninevah, Illyrian Blossom,—”

  “Enough,” I told him. “We don’t need a whole roster of the smells that drive us poor husbands to bankruptcy. Why do you believe that Diogenes has been counterfeiting these fragrances, which, I hear, are largely made of things like whale vomit and afterbirths and anal glands and other revolting substances.”

  He rerolled his papyrus with a frown. “Sir, that is base calumny. Ambergris, for instance, has almost no scent of its own. It merely stabilizes—”

  “I don’t want to hear perfumer’s shoptalk!” I barked. “I want to hear evidence!”

  “Well, then. Certain persons in my employ have told me that, secretly, Diogenes buys up great loads of flower petals, lemon peel, cedar oil, and other fragrant but common substances and in a kitchen of his manufactory blends them with distilled wine and pure oil until he achieves an approximation of the great perfumes, at least close enough to deceive the nose of one unskilled in perfumery.”

  “And who told you this?” I demanded.

  “Certain persons employed in this nefarious process.”

  Silva leapt to his feet. “Praetor, I object! The word of suborned slaves is worthless!”

  “Sit down,” I said. “You shall have your turn presently. Celsius, the word of suborned slaves is worthless. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  He sputtered. “What sort of evidence would satisfy you, Praetor?”

  “You don’t have to satisfy me,” I told him, “but you must satisfy this jury.” I waved a hand toward the eighty or ninety men who sat on benches looking bored. Under the Sullan constitution these were all equites with a minimum property assessment of four hundred thousand sesterces. In reality, I suspected that they would rather see a bribe than evidence, but I wasn’t going to let it be that way.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “you might produce some of this fake perfume and explain to us how it differs from the real thing.”

  “I—I did not come prepared for this!”

  “That was thoughtless of you.”

  “Besides, Praetor, you are not a perfumer. How would you know the difference?”

  “If it takes a professional to tell the difference between real and fake,” I demanded, “why are we paying so much money for this stuff?”

  He almost yelled an answer, caught himself, then went on in a reasonable tone. “Praetor, we have wandered rather far from the matter of this lawsuit.”

  “I suppose so,” I admitted. “I could bring my wife. She has an infallible nose for perfume.”

  “Praetor—” Just then the ball fell into the dish with a resounding clang. “This is not just!” he squawked. “I did not get to present my case!”

  “We’ll let Diogenes have his say anyway,” I said. “If you’re in luck, he’ll bungle it worse than you did. Silva, have you engaged an advocate?”

  He stood and adjusted his toga grandly. “Hardly necessary, Praetor. If it meets with your approval, I shall speak on behalf of my friend Diogenes.”

  “You don’t need my approval. If you are prepared, speak up.” I nodded to the timekeeper and he restarted the water clock.

  “First, Praetor, judges of Baiae, and good men of the jury, allow me to point out that this man Celsius is a jealous business rival of Diogenes, so his testimony is suspect from the first word. Why would he bring suit against Diogenes unless he was losing business to my friend?

  “The truth is that Diogenes offers these famous perfumes to the public not at an inflated price but rather at a lower price than other perfumers can profitably accept. They imagine that he can do this only by counterfeiting, but in fact it is because he is a far better businessman than they.”

  He made an expansive gesture toward the audience. “While these men sit here in Baiae, overseeing their slaves and enjoying the comforts of our lovely city, Diogenes spends a full half of every year in perilous travel, braving the wine-dark sea, the wind-driven sands of Ethiopia and Arabia, the savage inhabitants of far-flung lands, all to seek out the best purveyors of rare and costly perfumes and those obscure ingredients that go into the scents we blend, quite openly and honestly, for our domestic production.

  “By thus taking the dangers, privations, and hardships upon himself, by not trusting middlemen and not paying their exorbitant fees, he is able to effect a considerable saving in each year’s outlay, savings he is able to express in lower prices for his wares. Is this dishonest? No, the dishonesty is in the envy and resentment of his rivals and these, Romans all, hope to sway the jury by attacking his Cretan origins. But I know that my fellow citizens are not persuaded by this calumnious slander.

  “And as for those ‘persons in his employ,’ as he so delicately puts it, will a slave not lie for a few coins? Will a slave not sell out his master if offered the chance? Does the old saying not warn us, ‘You have as many enemies as you have slaves’? That Celsius even stoops to such a practice is proof of his villainy!”

  With the last word the ball clanged into the dish and the audience applauded, jury included. He’d done extremely well. I might have been persuaded myself, had they not already tried to bribe me.

  “There we have it,” I announced. “There is no solid evidence in this case, just the arguments of two business rivals. Diogenes may be guilty of counterfeiting, but to this I say, what of it? As far as I am concerned, if you can’t tell the difference between one scent and another, and you pay an exorbitant price just for its name, then you’re an idiot and deserve to be fleeced.

  “As for Celsius, any Roman citizen who can’t outwit a Cretan is a poor credit to the descendants of Romulus. All in all, this whole case is an unworthy waste of time. That’s just my opinion, though. The decision rests with you worthy equites of Baiae, who, I am certain, will render judgment in the highest traditions of Roman justice. Do keep in mind that, if Diogenes has tried to bribe you with samples of his perfume, he may have used counterfeit.”

  With this I sat back in my curule chair while everyone gaped, then chattered in low voices. Apparently I had satisfied nobody, and that suited me perfectly. I affected nonchalance while the local magistrates coached the jury and all the rest babbled among themselves. I wondered whether the scents I had been given were real or fake. If fake, Julia was going to be infuriated. The five thousand sesterces had been real, though. I suspected that Diogenes and Silva were wondering whether it had been well spent.

  The jury retired into the basilica to debate and, no doubt, to compare bribes. I passed the time in idle conversation with the city magistrates and my own legal experts. My stomach was grumbling, but it would have created a public scandal for a praetor sitting on his curule chair to have lunch right in front of everybody. Sometimes, I think, we carry gravitas too far.

  Where, I wondered, had Hermes got to? He shouldn’t have trouble finding one of the district’s most prominent, if somewhat notorious, inhabitants.

  In time, the jury returned and the bailiff recited a few of the hallowed judicial formulae concerning justice and truthfulness before the gods, then the eldest juror handed him the ballot jar. The bailiff dumped the marked tesserae on his table, and he and his assistants counted them out, ballots for innocent to go in one pile, guilty in another. At the end of it, all the ballots were in a single pile.

  “The jury finds unanimously for the defendant,” he announced. “Diogenes of Crete is innocent.” The audience cheered or made rude noises as their sympathies lay.

  “So much for that, then,” I said. “This court is adjourned. Let’s get some lunch.”

  Manius Silva came up to me, fury in his face. “The verdict was just, but it came no thanks to you, Praetor!”

  “What of it? Is it my task to guarantee a favorable verdict here?”

  “It is when you’ve accepted—” I gave him a stern look and he paused. The men of my party gave him s
tern looks. My lictors gave him stern looks, fingering the edges of their axe heads.

  “You were saying, Manius Silva?” I asked.

  “Nothing, Praetor. Thank you for conducting so fair a court.” He whirled and stalked off.

  In truth, I was happy that Diogenes had been found innocent. I didn’t care about his business practices, and the man had been good company. As far as I was concerned, a fine judge of fighting men was far preferable to some disgruntled scent merchant.

  There came a clatter of hoofs and I saw Hermes and a couple of the young bloods of my party ride into the forum. Indignant looks went their way, for mounted and wheeled traffic were forbidden during the daylight hours, but as special assistants to the praetor they had a dispensation. Hermes slid off his mount and strode to the judicial platform.

  “Have you found him?” I demanded.

  “I did. He’s dead, Praetor. Murdered.”

  7

  My litter carried me to the edge of the town, where my horse was waiting, saddled. I got out of the litter, tossed my toga into it, and ordered the bearers to return to the villa. Mounted and free of the cumbersome garment, I felt invigorated, even younger. Boredom and the trappings of power can be a deadly combination. I was eager for some excitement and I was getting it.

  “How?” I demanded as we rode.

  “You’ll have to see for yourself,” Hermes shouted above the clatter of our horses. The splendid road was smoothly paved, lined with imposing tombs and stately shade trees. It led along the shore and featured frequent rest areas where travelers could picnic. Each of these featured a fine view of the picturesque bay and had its own bubbling fountain and marble latrine. They left nothing to chance in Baiae.

  Hermes led us onto a side road that descended a gentle bluff to the shore. At the end of it was an extensive villa that included many large outbuildings, almost a small village in itself. From the house stretched a stone jetty. It extended into water deep enough to anchor a sizable ship. There were some small boats tied up to it, and nets hung drying from racks along its sides.

  We’d picked up an escort of town guardsmen. These were men in whom I reposed no confidence. They wore gilded armor that looked like something an actor would wear onstage, they were in poor physical condition, and their officer was a wellborn young lout who avoided service in the legions by performing this “essential” civic duty.

  I dismounted at the entrance to the compound and began to bark orders. “You lot,” I shouted to the guards, “secure all the approaches to this place. Let no one enter or leave!” They saluted and bustled to obey me. That disposed of them. I was perfectly confident that they would accomplish nothing.

  For a moment I stood surveying the place. It entirely lacked the stench that so often hangs over a slave compound like a noxious fog. This place was well run, at least. “Marcus,” I said, “get me the steward. He should be here to meet us. If he’s fled, I’ll have him hunted down and killed.”

  “He’s here,” Hermes said, nodding toward the barred gate. A man with a pale, worried face was hustling from the main house with a ring of massive keys in one hand. He was accompanied by a pair of guards who wore leather harness and were armed with whips and bronze-studded clubs of olive wood. Not Numidians this time. These looked like Sicilians.

  The man unlocked the gate with shaky, sweating hands. The guards tugged it open, and we passed inside.

  “What kept you?” I said.

  “Your pardon, Praetor. We have been making an inventory of the staff and the sale slaves to make sure that all were accounted for. Your man ordered this.”

  “I did,” Hermes affirmed. “Is the count complete?”

  “Yes. All are here save the young master and his tribal guards. We have not seen them since the—the arrest.”

  “What about the lady of the house?” I asked.

  “The master’s junior wife and her girls have been resident in the town house for several days, sir.”

  “And who might you be?” I demanded.

  “Oh. Sorry, Praetor. I am Archias, steward to Gaeto. I trust you will pardon my distress. First the young master arrested for murder, now the master—”

  “Perhaps it is time that I see your late employer. You are to stay close. I will wish to have a tour of the establishment when I have viewed the body.”

  “Of course, Praetor. Please come with me.” We followed him to the main house. It looked much like any fine country house in this district except for the activities. In the distance I could hear a Greek palaestra master calling out exercise commands. Occasionally the crack of a whip sounded above the mutter of the several hundred inhabitants.

  “How did you discover him?” I asked as we passed inside the house. The atrium was spacious and blessedly without the pretentious portrait busts with which so many social climbers seek to ape the ancestry of the nobility. The impluvium was splendid and decorated in fine taste, but once again without pretension.

  “I must confess it, sir,” said Archias, “I went to seek him when your man came this morning to demand an audience.”

  “He was summoning your master to me,” I told the man. “Kings have audiences, not slave merchants.”

  “Of course, sir,” he said stiffly. I was being deliberately rude. You often get a better degree of truth from people who are upset and off guard. “In any case,” he went on, “it was far later than he usually rises, and I got no answer to my knock. He was in here.”

  He had stopped before a door that opened off the impluvium, the most common location for bedrooms in Roman houses—and Gaeto seemed to have gone entirely Roman in his domestic habits, save his supernumerary spouse. Beside the door were two Egyptian slaves dressed in stiff, white linen kilts and formal wigs. They didn’t look like guards.

  The steward swung the door open. I saw that it was fitted with a heavy bolt that could be fastened from the inside. One rarely sees lockable doors within a house, except on storerooms and wine cellars. But this was a sensible precaution for a man who dealt in human livestock and dwelled in the midst of his merchandise.

  Gaeto lay on the floor beside his bed, fully clothed. His eyes were open, his head drawn back as if he had been observing the heavens for omens when he died. There was no blood staining his clothing nor on the floor.

  “How did he die?” I asked. I scanned the room. There were no displaced or broken furnishings, no sign of a struggle.

  The steward summoned the two Egyptians and they entered. At his direction they lifted the body gently and turned it over. “These men are undertakers, Praetor,” said Archias. “Skilled Egyptians are much in demand in Italian funeral establishments.”

  No wonder these two had no qualms about handling the dead. Unlike Roman libitinarii they did not wear masks or gloves, but men raised in an Egyptian House of the Dead are not likely to be squeamish. Their craft involves handling the internal organs as well.

  “Ah, now I understand,” I said.

  Protruding from the back of Gaeto’s neck, driven upward into the base of the skull, was a small dagger, buried hilt deep. It was an extremely clever method of assassination. Paralysis would have been instant, death following in mere seconds. The man would have been unable to cry out and no blood escaped.

  “His hands show no sign that he tried to defend himself,” Hermes noted. “He must have been taken completely unawares.”

  “So it would seem,” I agreed. “Archias, who was in here with your master last night?”

  “Sir, last night, just after dinner, I was dismissed with the rest of the staff. We live in other houses within the compound. Only the immediate family and their personal body servants live in the great house.”

  “Then who was with him last night?” I asked him.

  “Nobody. The gate was secured and there were no callers until your man arrived this morning.”

  “Then he was killed by someone already here,” I said, “and that could prove very bad for all of you.”

  He went even paler. “Prae
tor, that could not have happened!”

  “Then what did happen?” I demanded, indicating the corpse. “Does this look like suicide to you?”

  He stammered, then said, “Someone must have come in over the wall.”

  “I’ll want to talk to whoever guarded the gate last night,” I told him. I looked around the room and saw that there was nothing to be learned from it or from the body. I had rarely seen a murder site so devoid of usable evidence. Only inference was of any use. “Now give me a tour of the establishment.”

  We followed the steward outside, and I drew young Marcus near me. “Marcus, ride back to the villa and find Regilius, the horse master. Tell him to ride here immediately and scout the ground around this estate, paying particular attention to the part of the outer wall nearest the main house. He’ll know what I want.” The boy was clearly mystified, but he did not waste my time with questions; he merely said, “At once, Praetor,” and ran for his horse. That boy had a promising future.

  “From the wharf”—Archias indicated the jetty visible through the main gate—“the merchandise is brought within the walls and taken to the great compound. Please come this way.” He was talking like a tour guide, probably to help get over his jitters. I could sympathize. I had the feeling that he gave this tour often, probably to prospective investors and big-scale buyers. We went into a large courtyard faced by a quadrangle of two-story barracks. The severity of the design was relieved by bright paint, a shady portico, and many fine trees and shrubs planted in huge jars around the perimeter. Lest anyone be too allayed by the pleasant prospect, in the center was a frame to which a number of slaves could be triced for whipping.

  Next to the main entrance was a huge signboard of white-painted wood. On it in large, black letters were written the rules of the establishment and a list of punishments for infractions. On the left it was written in Latin, then repeated in Greek, Punic, Aramaic, Syrian, and demotic Egyptian.