Death in the Ashes

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  The prostitutes were the biggest distraction, though. With their breasts bared and their cheeks and nipples rouged, they leaned out the second-story windows of their lupanar, singing songs I’m sure no Siren ever dreamed of—or perhaps they were the very songs that lured ships onto the rocks. One raised her gown and thrust her hips toward us. A few of my clients looked like they were eager to be drawn in. Whores can be found all over Rome, but none as brazen as those in the Subura. Our progress slowed. I wished I could plug my clients’ ears with wax.

  One of them held up his money pouch and jingled it in the direction of a window full of women. It made a substantial noise because I had been especially generous to them this morning to insure their most enthusiastic support in court.

  Phineas jerked the man’s arm down. “Don’t do that, you fool.”

  “Watch your tongue, lad! Your master hears you talking like that to a free man and a client of his, he’ll take the whip to your scrawny back.”

  I grabbed the man by the shoulder of his tunic. “If you don’t put that money away, you’ll be no client of mine. You might as well wave raw meat in front of a wolf.” I raised my voice to address all of my clientela. “Our destination is the Forum, not a brothel! Let’s keep moving.”

  “Yes, sir,” they groused, bumping into one another as they tried to walk with their necks craned upward.

  “But after you’ve applauded my speech, you’re free to go where you please.”

  “Thank you, sir!” They waved to the prostitutes, who waved back. One of the women gave a long, piercing whistle which seemed to echo or to be answered by someone up ahead.

  As we rounded a bend in the street I could see some sort of obstacle in the next block. It looked like scaffolding had collapsed where someone was working on a building. A large crowd had gathered between us and the scaffolding, but they faced us and not the heap of wood. Our way was completely blocked. I sensed, rather than saw, people filling in the road behind us.

  “We can turn left here, my lord,” Phineas said, glancing to each side, “and make our way around it.”

  I was reluctant to leave the Argiletum. Once off the main road, I was afraid we would find ourselves in a labyrinth with a Minotaur at every turn.

  “How well do you know this area?” I asked Phineas.

  “This is where my synagogue is, my lord. We go down this street for a block, make a couple of turns that I can show you, and we’ll be back on our way.”

  By now we had no choice. The crowds in front of and behind us were growing larger with each moment we hesitated. My clients were already outnumbered. Turning around was out of the question. My case would be called at the Basilica Julia in less than an hour, by my best estimate. Phineas did come down here regularly. I had to trust him.

  I touched the Tyche ring in my toga’s sinus. “All right, let’s go. Every­one stay together and keep moving!”

  The street onto which we turned was narrower, but there were no obstacles between us and the next corner. We reached it and turned onto a block entirely taken up on one side by a two-story building with what looked like one large commercial area on the ground floor—it had only one door—and apartments above it. Several men with beards sat in the doorway, one reading from a scroll as the others listened. There was something odd about the picture, but it took me a moment to realize that the reader was unrolling the scroll from the back. He looked up at us and I thought I caught an exchange of glances of recognition between him and Phineas.

  “Do you know him?” I asked Phineas.

  “Yes, my lord. This is my synagogue. He’s the rabbi, our teacher and leader.”

  Before Phineas could say any more, one of my clients cried out in pain. I turned to see him crumble to the ground, struck in the head by a roof tile. Another quickly followed him. Pieces of tile and brick rained down on us from the roof of the building across the street. We instinctively pulled our togas over our heads and crouched down. Bystanders scurried for cover. The bearded Jews gathered up their scrolls, in no particular hurry. They must have known the attack posed no danger to them.

  Phineas broke through my wall of retainers. I thought he was going to try to save himself, but he shouted something I couldn’t understand to the man who’d been reading the scroll. The man nodded and opened the door behind him.

  “Hurry, my lord!” Phineas shouted. “Get everyone inside.”

  We picked up our wounded and scrambled to enter the synagogue as the gang of Subura thugs rushed up the street toward us. Two of the bearded men closed the heavy doors and barred them. I suddenly knew what Odysseus must have felt like when the Cyclops rolled the stone over the entrance to his cave. Would we ever get out of here alive?

  II

  The synagogue echoed with the angry pounding of fists on the doors.

  “My clients and I are in your debt, sir,” I said to the man Phineas had identified as the rabbi. He had deep-set eyes in a long, mournful face. I wondered if he would have opened the door without Phineas’ intervention, but some questions are best left unasked. The man looked at me without comprehension until Phineas translated my Latin gratitude into something he could understand.

  “You welcome stay until danger pass,” he replied in choppy, heavily accented Greek.

  I shifted to that language and spoke more slowly. “I hope we don’t defile your holy place.” My comment was sincere but ironic. This place didn’t look any holier from the inside than it did from the street, but gods don’t like to have their territory invaded by people they don’t recognize. Or so I’m told. On the far wall one small section was enclosed by a railing and something in a niche behind it was covered. I might have suspected it was a cult image, but I know that Jews don’t make images of their god.

  Aside from that niche I had the feeling I was in a lecture hall, the sort of place one could rent for a literary reading. It had benches arranged in rows, with an aisle down the center, and a speaker’s platform. Only this one was much plainer than most such places, the walls decorated only with geometric patterns in subdued colors.

  I surveyed the injuries among my clients as they huddled together as far from the door as they could get. One man had a severe gash on his head. Two others had less serious cuts. I found the man with the cleanest tunic in the crowd and told him to tear some strips off it and bandage the wounds. “Your toga will cover the damage and I’ll replace the tunic when we get out of here.”

  “Wait.” The bearded man who had let us in said something to Phineas, who translated. “He’s sent someone upstairs to get supplies to treat the injured.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I am Gaius Pliny. Phineas said you are a…rabbi?”

  His face gave me the impression I was talking too fast for him. “Yes. Teacher of our laws. My name is Malachi.”

  “Is this a temple?” I asked.

  “It’s not a temple, my lord,” Phineas said. “For us Jews there is—or was—only one temple. We meet here to encourage one another and to keep our knowledge of our holy books alive.”

  “So this rabbi is your priest?”

  “Not exactly, my lord.”

  “How can one be ‘not exactly’ a priest?”

  “Our priesthood was tied to the Temple.” Phineas struck me as impertinent, but in this place, I realized, he didn’t think of himself as a slave. And his Greek was better than Malachi’s. “A rabbi helps us to observe our laws, but this is not a holy place in the sense that the Temple was. Your presence poses no problem for us.”

  “That is true,” Malachi said. “On all our sabbaths we have in here goyim.”

  “ ‘Goyim’?” My tongue could hardly shape the ungainly word.

  “That’s what we call non-Jews in Hebrew,” Phineas said. “It’s like the Greeks calling non-Greeks barbarians.”

  I knew I needed to get out of here quickly, but the pounding on the door told me I would not be going out that way any time soon. As long as we were safe and as long as I was losing Pompeia’s case in absentia, I
might as well take advantage of this opportunity to try to understand my mother’s interest in these people and this place. Malachi seemed to be the only one of the men who was willing to talk with me. The others who had been listening to him read appeared to have duties to attend to. One crossed the building and came back to whisper something in Phineas’ ear.

  “Why do non-Jews come here?” I asked.

  “Many Greeks, many Romans, they like our way to live,” Malachi said, looking to Phineas to expand on what he said.

  “We call them ‘God-fearers,’ ” Phineas explained. “Like your mother, my lord.”

  Malachi’s face brightened as he made a connection. “You are son of lady Plinia? Of course. She is wonderful woman, most generous. She gave us this Menorah.” He pointed to a large, multi-branched candlestick like the small one Mother had given Naomi as a Saturnalia gift.

  My mother has her own money, inherited from her husband and her brother. She does not have to account to me for how she spends it, but I planned to have a conversation on this subject when I returned home.

  “Is there any way out of here, other than through that door?” I asked Malachi.

  I must have been talking too fast for his limited comprehension of Greek. When he squinted in confusion, Phineas stepped in with the answer.

  “There is a back way.” He pointed to the opposite side of the building. “But they’ve got someone watching it, too. They’re trying to keep themselves hidden, but Barak spotted them.”

  “Then we need a distraction that will draw everyone to this door. Money is what they’re after, so we’ll give it to them.” I went over to where my clients were huddled—as afraid of the strangeness of the place, I suspected, as of the mob outside.

  “Give me your money.” Their apprehensive looks almost made me laugh. I must have sounded like one of the thieves outside. I waved my hands at them impatiently. “Give it to me. I’ll reimburse you when we get home. And this is the only way we’re going to get home.”

  A patron is supposed to protect his clients. My decision to walk through the Subura had undermined their confidence in me. I had led them straight into an ambush and several were injured. I could see on their faces that they were unsure whether they owed me any further loyalty, but they grudgingly complied with my demand. When I had half a dozen money pouches, I picked the smallest of my clients, Marcus Fulvius. He wouldn’t be of any use in a fight in the streets, but he might be able to help me avert one. “Come with me.”

  We walked over to Malachi and Phineas.

  “My lord, what—” the scribe started to ask.

  “You said you can get to the second floor of this building?”

  “Yes, we can, but—”

  “This is Fulvius. He’s going to throw money out of a window on this side of the building—a few coins at a time. While the mob is fighting over them, we’re going to make our escape out the back.”

  My client’s eyes grew big. “But, sir, what will happen to me?”

  “After things settle down I’m sure Malachi can provide an escort for you, at least to a safe spot out of the Subura.” Phineas translated all of that for the priest, who nodded. “And,” I added, “I’ll make sure you get an extra donative tomorrow—quite a large one.”

  Fulvius’ expression told me he wasn’t sure he would live long enough to receive the money, no matter the amount. But I knew he was a heavy gambler, and gamblers can be bought more easily than most men. I hoped the odds didn’t seem prohibitive to him.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “The crowd is just trying to frighten us. They don’t want blood. They want money. Once they’ve got it, they’ll go away.” At least that was my plan for them.

  Fulvius took the money bags and I clapped him on the back.

  “Good man. Remember, only a few coins at a time. Make them last as long as you can. Throw them toward the north end of the building.”

  Malachi picked Barak to take Fulvius to the upper floor.

  “All right,” I told my other clients, “we are going to move toward the back door and be ready to leave on a moment’s notice.”

  Because of the slope of the ground the back door of the building, on the south end, was on a lower level than the floor we were on. We grouped ourselves at the stairs leading down to the door and listened intently. From the excitement of the crowd at the front door we could tell when the money started raining from the sky. Caligula used to stand on the balcony of his house, Tacitus tells me, and throw gold coins to the crowd in the street below him. Although it looked like an act of generosity, he just enjoyed watching people trample one another in the fight for the coins. It sounded like our money was having a similar effect. A shout went up from the street and we could hear people running away from the door. A few voices were raised outside the back door and then they, too, faded away.

  Phineas opened the back door and looked in both directions. He waved for us to go.

  “Stay together,” I said. “It’s our only hope. Walk fast but don’t run.”

  I managed to keep the group together for the first block. We heard nothing behind us. Then someone shouted from a window above us, in a language I didn’t recognize. The sound scattered my clients like a flock of birds startled by the snap of a dry stick. I grabbed the two men closest to me and, with the promise of a reward, made them stay with me. Phineas, of course, remained steadfast. Him and his mother, Naomi, I count among my most trustworthy servants.

  The shout from the window, it turned out, was a warning from a woman about to empty her family’s chamber pots. She must have had one in each hand because the first load hit me and the second one simultaneously hit the man on my left. Phineas and my other client were splattered as well. By the time I could look up she was gone.

  “You’ll be richly rewarded tomorrow,” was all I could promise. “And I’ll buy you each a new toga and tunic.” And Martial will probably write a poem about this, I thought.

  Martial would certainly know about it. All of Rome would hear about it because I had to go to the Basilica Julia in this condition. There was no time to go home and clean myself up.

  †

  My pitiful entourage had no trouble clearing a path the rest of the way into the Forum. No one wanted to stand in our way. We entered through the open space between the Forum of Vespasian and that of Augustus. Domitian has announced plans for yet another forum to fill that space. The Cloaca Maxima, Rome’s largest sewer, runs directly under it. We looked and smelled like we had been for a swim in the cloaca. People stepped away from us, gagging and laughing at the same time.

  Tacitus must have been looking for me. He saw us as soon as we entered the Forum and got as close as he dared. “Please forgive me, Gaius Pliny, if I don’t greet you as a friend should.”

  I held my arms out as though I would embrace him. He stepped back in horror.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I wouldn’t touch my worst enemy right now.”

  “Speaking of Regulus, he’s in the basilica.”

  “I wonder which case he’s involved in. But first I have to put things right with Pompeia.”

  My prospective mother-in-law was waiting for me on the steps of the basilica. Her eyes widened and she put her hand over her mouth as I drew near. “Gaius Pliny! By the gods. What happened?”

  Her question must have been rhetorical. What I had experienced was not a unique event. Most people in Rome have had it happen to them or knew someone who had. “I’m sorry, Pompeia. Let me see if the court will give me a few minutes—”

  “The court is already hearing the next case,” she said sharply.

  “Without a decision in your case?”

  “Unfortunately not. My spokesman wasn’t here, so I forfeited my case. Your friend Cornelius Tacitus offered to step in, but I knew he was not familiar enough with the details and I did not wish to have an enemy of Domitian speaking on my behalf. I have lost the chance to recover a great deal of money this morning.”

  The first thought in my mi
nd was that she might decide to cancel the engagement, but I knew my mother would be determined to keep the arrangement in place. I would probably have to make up Pompeia’s loss from my own funds to placate both women.

  “As you can see, dear lady, my absence was not voluntary or intentional.” I flapped my toga in her direction to give her a good whiff. “Let me go in and talk to someone.”

  With Tacitus alongside me I trotted up the steps to the central entrance of the basilica, stepping over the idlers who were playing games on the “boards” scratched into the steps. A case was being heard outdoors to my right. To judge from the applause I was hearing, the speaker had brought an impressive group of clients. Inside another case was in progress. When the building isn’t divided by curtains, a speaker whose voice makes the chamber resonate can draw an audience on the main floor and in the balconies that run around the second floor.

  The man holding forth was Marcus Aper, one of the foremost jurists of our day, a man under whom Tacitus had studied. He seldom appears in court now because of his age. I couldn’t help but look and listen as I hurried across the vast floor of the basilica. Everything Tacitus had told me about him was true—the power and sweep of his voice, his economical but effective gestures.

  “He’s a majestic figure,” I said.

  “I’ll bet he wins this case,” Tacitus replied. “I’d vote for him and I don’t even know what it’s about.”

  The Centumviral Court, in spite of its name, is made up of 180 members, who divide into four panels to hear cases that are mostly financial in nature. Disputed inheritances are a common topic here. The entire court is presided over by a praetor, and that was the man I was looking for now. “Who is the praetor?” I asked Tacitus. This was the first time I had appeared in this court this year.

  “It’s Larcius Macedo. He’s over there.” Tacitus pointed me in the right direction and the crowd began to divide in front of me like water yielding to the prow of a boat.