“Decius,” Milo began, “word has reached me that you are looking into the doings of the publicani, specifically those in the construction business.”
“Word does get around,” I said.
“Then it’s true? I feared so. Decius, perhaps you don’t understand this, but you could end up attacking some of the most important men in Rome.”
“People have been dropping heavy hints to me all day,” I told him, “most notably Sallustius Crispus.”
“That little rat. Well, even a rat can be right upon occasion, and this is one of them.”
“Why so?” An unwelcome suspicion dawned on me. “My old friend, I do hope that you are not involved in this murderous trade?”
“Not personally, but I have clients who are, and some of them have already approached me about this matter. They do not want an aedilician investigation.”
I stopped and faced him. “They do not, eh? Well, I’ve never hauled a felon into court who wanted to be put on trial for his life or freedom. I will prosecute those who violate the laws enforced by my office, however highly placed they may be. And for every client in the building trades, you have a hundred who live in those insulae that keep falling at such an alarming rate.”
“Have you consulted with your family?” he asked.
“Not yet. What do you mean?”
“Talk this over with old Cut Nose and Scipio and Nepos. They may have some cautious advice for you.”
This made no sense. “Just yesterday Scipio was ready to give the case to his son for prosecution.”
“See if he feels the same way today.”
He was making me angry, but I felt a chill from my scalp to my toes. “Titus, what is going on?”
“Our political situation, you may have noticed, has been fiuid.”
“Chaotic is the word I would have used, but I suppose ‘fluid’ is a reasonable euphemism. What of it?”
He fiexed his big hands. “Just what is it that keeps us functioning at all, lacking as we do the institutions of monarchy?”
“We have our ancient customs,” I said, “our republican tradition, the citizen’s respect for office-” I trailed off. It was a good question. Just what did keep us going? “And I suppose the gods help out from time to time.”
He nodded solemnly. “In other words, we have absolutely nothing we can count on.”
“I’ll grant you it doesn’t work very well, but it works, after a fashion. What would you have us do, go back to kings?”
“Not me. A man of my birth would have little chance to rise in a monarchy. But it’s not all that easy to do it here, either. Look, Decius, for centuries the Senate has drawn its members from a few families, families like your own. You are the landed gentry. Any citizen may stand for office, but there’s little point in it for most people.”
“Certainly,” I said, wondering where this was leading. “Public office is notoriously expensive. We spend years serving the State, and we aren’t paid for it. On the contrary. Only in the propraetorian and proconsular positions do you ever have a chance of enriching yourself. Maybe one senator in ten ever makes it to praetor. Even then riches are not assured, unless you draw a rich province to govern or a profitable war. And you’d better win your wars. It’s foolish to aspire to office unless you have landed wealth.”
There were exceptions to this, of course. Caius Marius had soldiered hard as a young man, making himself a popular hero as well as attracting the patronage of wealthy men. When the time came to stand for higher office, the money and the votes were there for him. Cicero, from the same obscure town as Marius, had made his reputation as a lawyer beyond peer. It was, of course, unlawful for a lawyer to accept fees, but his grateful clients always gave him lavish Saturnalia gifts. It didn’t hurt that grateful provincials remembered his honest administration fondly and sent him plenty of business.
But even acknowledging these exceptions, the general rule held that it was futile to aspire to office without the resources of a wealthy family. Thus the Senate was full of equites who had been willing to undertake the onerous but relatively cheap office of quaestor in order to enter the Senate and share in its prestige. This, under the constitution Sulla had given us, was the minimum necessary for admission to that august body.
“The connection with falling buildings still eludes me.”
“There was a time when only patricians could be senators. They lost that privilege long ago, but they set the fashion. They were the nobles, they derived their incomes from the land, and they decreed that income from any other source was dishonorable.”
“It seems to me I had this same conversation just a little while ago with Sallustius.”
“Then the little toad, as usual, was talking in hints and innuendoes. Let me give it to you straight. The patricians are nearly extinct. The old families have been dying out generation by generation. How many are left? The Cornelians, the Scipios, the Claudians, the Caesars, maybe ten others at most, and the bulk of them are so obscure that you never hear of them anymore. In another generation they’ll be all but gone. Yet we follow their ancient customs as if they were decreed by the gods.”
This was an incredibly long speech for the usually reticent Milo. Clearly, this was something he felt deeply about, but he still hadn’t made his point. I followed an equally uncharacteristic path and kept my mouth shut.
“Who owns all that land now? A handful of great magnates, most of them living down in the southern part of the peninsula, who take little interest in State politics. The land the patrician families still cling to doesn’t produce a third of what it used to now that it’s worked by slaves instead of industrious peasants. And yet, as you’ve pointed out, public office is expensive. Where does our money come from, Decius?” He did not wait for me to answer. “It comes from the equites and the resident alien merchants. From the businessmen!”
This last word was a legitimate one, but it seemed somehow foreign and distasteful. In polite society, words such as “merchant” and “businessman” have always been pejorative. Buying and selling for profit have always been activities perceived as fit only for foreigners and freedmen: enormously profitable, perhaps, but dishonorable. Lowest of all were bankers and auctioneers, who made money without actually producing anything-activities that, to right-thinking people, had the aspect of a species of magic.
“I follow you so far,” I told him.
“There are three major businesses, Decius: import-export, the slave trade, and construction. Import-export is mainly owned by foreigners, usually operating here with Roman citizen partners; the slave trade is greatly depressed because of all the foreign wars; but the City is booming. Construction is the most profitable business here by a huge margin.”
“So,” I said, “there can be very few men in public life who are not beholden to these builders?”
“And none more so than the aediles and, every five years, the censors.”
“They haven’t approached me with bribes,” I protested. “I’m sure I would remember.”
He smiled wryly. “You’ve acquired a reputation for-I won’t say incorruptibility. It is more that you have an eccentric interpretation of what constitutes corruption along with your unswerving adherence to duty.”
“I suppose there are worse reputations to have. I’d hate to be thought another Cato.”
He laughed aloud this time. His men laughed too, although they couldn’t hear what we were saying. “Nobody thinks that, never fear. But most of your colleagues in the Senate have far fewer scruples.”
“I’ve always known that. Are you saying they’ll unite against me if I prosecute the crooked contractors?”
“When do they ever unite for anything? No, but there will be a few who see their own fortunes threatened. It doesn’t take many of them.”
“Clodius?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Much as I hate to absolve him of anything, the infiuence of the builders is not enough to move him. He has plenty of other sources of wealth, and Caes
ar has instructed him to leave you alone. He won’t endanger his alliance with your uncle-by-marriage.”
“Who am I to watch out for?” I asked him.
“I’ll compile a list of names and send them to you. Keep in mind that I don’t know all of them. I think you should leave this matter alone.”
“This isn’t just theft, Milo, it’s murder. I can’t overlook it.”
He sighed. “When did you ever accept good advice?” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go discuss the upcoming fights.”
An hour later, Hermes and I were on our way back into the City proper. The messenger from the Temple of Aesculapius caught us crossing the bridge. “Aedile,” he said, “the physician Harmodias sends me to tell you that the slave from the insula of Lucius Folius has died.”
I performed a colorful, multilingual curse for the edification of all within earshot. “Did he speak?”
“Harmodias has charged me to tell you that he made no coherent statement before he expired.”
That seemed an odd way to put it. “Where is the body?”
“I am instructed to tell you that the temple will take care of its disposal.”
It all sounded very wrong, but I wasn’t going to discuss it with a temple slave. “Come on, Hermes, let’s go back to the Island.”
“What is it?” he asked. “He was the only survivor from the ground fioor. It’s no surprise that he croaked as well.”
“I’m more interested in why they are so anxious to take charge of the body,” I said.
We hurried to the Island. It was getting late, but I was in no mood to quit for the evening. The eyes of Harmodias widened to see me back.
“Aedile, you honor us again. Is anything wrong?”
“A number of things. For one, I was looking forward to what that slave had to say.”
“Alas,” he said, spreading his hands, “some things are beyond our power. The man died without regaining consciousness. He spoke no understandable words, merely mumbling in terminal delirium. He died perhaps two hours ago.”
“I want to see the body,” I said.
“The body of a slave dead in an accident? Why?”
“That is my business. Where is it?”
“I am afraid it has already been taken away for burial.”
I knew it. Something was wrong here. “Isn’t it customary to wait long enough for someone to claim the body?”
He assumed the prissy, fastidious air we expect from physicians. “Sometimes, but not when the corpse is that of an inferior slave following a disaster in which mortality has been high. And, as I understand it, Aedile, there has been some difficulty in finding a responsible person to claim the bodies of the owners. Had you wished to retain the corpse, you should have issued orders to that effect before you left.”
I felt the blood mounting to my face. “I gave instructions to exactly that effect, you fool!”
“As I recall your words, Aedile, you said that, should he regain consciousness, I was to assure him that you would give him a decent funeral, that he might be rendered more cooperative. But the occasion never arose.”
This was useless. He had been bribed or intimidated. “Who took the body?”
“It was turned over for interment in the usual place to a teamster driving one of the carrion wagons.”
As I stalked out, he showed not the least distress that he was losing the gratuity I would surely have rewarded him for efficient service. That clinched it. He had been bribed.
“Come along, Hermes,” I said. “He has been taken to ‘the usual place.’ I want a look at him. If we hurry, we can get there before it’s too dark to see anything.”
“Not there!” Hermes said, horrified.
“It’s not so bad,” I assured him. “You can just hold your nose.”
“But it’s such a long walk!”
He was right on that point. From the river to the Esquiline Gate, we had to traverse the whole width of the City. No burials were allowed within the City. The better sort were cremated and had their ashes decently interred within the many tombs lining the highways that led from Rome in all directions. For the rest-the paupers, the least valuable slaves, foreigners who had not made other arrangements, dead animals, and all others who were not considered worth the firewood it would take to incinerate them-we had that fine old Roman institution, the euphoniously named Puticuli or “putrid pits.”
In the pits, the corpses were tossed into excavations and sprinkled with quicklime to hurry the process of dissolution. On a hot summer day, an unfortunate wind blowing across the City from that direction was staggering. This archaic practice was a disgrace to Rome, and every Roman owes a debt of thanks to Maecenas, who a few years later was to buy up that ground, cover the pits under countless tons of soil, and turn the whole area into a beautiful public garden. Every time I walk there, I praise his name, even if he is one of the First Citizen’s closest friends.
The sun was setting as we passed through the Esquiline Gate and turned left. To our right lay the Necropolis, where the modest tombs of the poorer people lay. These humble monuments were mostly erected and maintained by Rome’s many funeral clubs. Most free workmen and many slaves belonged to these societies. They all paid a small annual fee into the general fund, which paid for a monument and the hire of professional mourners. When a member died, they all attended the funeral, so even a poor man could have a decent send-off.
Not everyone was so fortunate, and soon we passed the Necropolis and came to the final resting place of the others, although I, for one, could not find much rest among the corpses of, not only my social inferiors, but animals of nearly every sort. These included dead horses; animals rendered inedible because of disease or because they had been sacrificed and their livers or other organs had carried ill auspices; work oxen too old, tough, and stringy to be used as food; and dogs. We had few cats in Rome in those days.
The slaves who toiled in this place were little better off than old Charon in his sewer barge. It was decidedly unpleasant work; but by way of compensation, they got to keep whatever they could scavenge from the corpses. Usually this consisted of whatever rags of clothing they were wearing, but coins and even jewels were sometimes discovered in various bodily orifices, and there was a thriving if illegal trade in body parts, mostly sold to practitioners of magic.
I accosted one such slave, a dull-eyed lout dressed in a black tunic, his arms and legs smeared with some sort of indescribable filth. I stood well back from him as I asked him where the latest batch of carrion from the City had been deposited. He pointed a blackened claw toward the northeast.
“The new pit’s that way, sir. Been maybe forty wagons unloaded there today. There’ll be a lot of workmen around it. Can’t miss it.”
It was incredibly true that the new pit couldn’t be missed. Apparently the designation “new” meant that it had been collecting corpses only for the past year or so. The excavation was a circular crater that would have done a volcano proud. The slaves around its perimeter were shoveling corrosive lime onto the day’s accumulation of corpses, bipedal and quadrupedal. At our approach, the work crew’s overseer came to us. He was distinguishable from the others by his relative lack of filth. He was no prettier, though, bearing an oddly deformed head and limping on a clubfoot.
“May I help you, sir?”
“I am the Aedile Metellus. I need to see the body of a slave who was brought here probably in the last two hours.”
“There’s been quite a few, what with the usual death toll, plus that insula collapse yesterday.”
“He was a big, black-bearded fellow, brought here from the Temple of Aesculapius on the Island.”
“Probably still warm, too,” Hermes added helpfully, his voice sounding odd because he was pinching his nostrils shut.
The overseer scratched his shaven, malformed head. “Vulpus usually takes deliveries in that district. His wagon was here just a little while ago. Over here, I think-” We followed him around the rim of the e
xcavation to its northern quadrant. Inside the pit was an unbelievably ghastly mess of putrescence: bodies and pieces of bodies in many stages of bloat and decay. Some were as dessicated as Egyptian mummies, some looked like infiated pig’s bladders, while yet others, more recently expired, looked as if they could get up and walk out of the pit. The legs of dead horses thrust upward like ship’s masts in a harbor.
What made it all the more horrible, if anything could, was that the weight of the relatively whole corpses on top pressed down on the semiliquid mass of decayed fiesh mixed with lime below, forcing a disgusting, bubbling stew of putrefaction to the surface. The resulting mixture of slimy fiuid, recognizable human fragments and patches of fur all mixed together looked like the primal soup from which all life had been created.
The air was full of fine, powdered lime. This kept us continually coughing, which made it all but impossible to breathe through our mouths. The hideous stench was unavoidable.
“Is it always as bad as this?” I asked, just to be saying something. My wits were addled with disgust.
“This is just the usual. You get so you don’t notice it after a while. You should’ve been here right after Pompey’s triumphal Games. We had dead elephants in the pits, then.”
Hermes and I jumped involuntarily when the relative quiet of the ugly scene was disturbed. First came a faint rumble that seemed to come from beneath our feet. Then there was a roar as of a powerful, subterranean wind as, a hundred paces away, a fissure appeared in the ground and a plume of dirt and lime dust shot into the air.
“Demons are escaping from the underworld!” I cried, my nerves already unsteadied by the infernal scene.
“Just gas venting from an old pit,” the overseer assured me, as the pall of stench from the fissure beggared all that we had smelled thus far. “They’ll keep farting like that for years. Pay no mind.”
He called to a little group of pit slaves, and they talked for a while in the shortened, simplified Latin spoken by the lowest of Rome’s poor. It sounded like something dogs would use to communicate among themselves and is a foreign language to most of us. Four of them descended into the pit, and the overseer came back to us.
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