SPQR V: Saturnalia

by John Maddox Roberts

  She got up laughing. Then she took my arm and led me from the room. “Decius, you are not as adept at striking down your enemies as a hero should be. But you may just outlive them all.”

  Hermes met me at the door and an aged janitor let us out. Apparently the beautiful youth was just for show. This one wore a plain bronze neck ring and wasn’t even chained to the doorpost. As usual I refused a torch, and we stood outside for a few minutes, allowing our eyes to adjust. In a sense, Clodia’s words have proven to be prophetic. I have outlived all of my enemies but one. The problem is, I outlived all my friends but one as well.

  “Did you learn anything?” I asked Hermes as we made our way back toward the Subura.

  “There’s hardly a slave in the place who was there when Celer died. Clodia didn’t like his slaves because they weren’t pretty enough, and she sent them off to his country estates. Most of them she bought since he died. Some of her personal slaves were there at the time, but it was like the two of them lived in different houses and their staffs didn’t mix much.”

  “Well, you can’t expect slaves to speak readily about a murder in the house.”

  “Can you blame them?” Hermes asked. “I think they’re happy that Clodia is the suspect, because if she weren’t, it might be one of them. Then every slave in the house might be crucified.”

  Rome has some truly barbarous laws, and that is one of them.

  The moonlight was tolerable and the route was familiar. We would simply work our way downhill to the Suburan Street and thence continue downhill into the valley between the Esquiline and the Viminal, where my house lay. I was steady enough, having moderated my intake of wine for a change. In such a place and in such company I knew better than to incapacitate myself. I wasn’t truly worried about being poisoned, not much.

  It was not terribly late. Here and there people wended their way home from late parties, their torches winking like lost spirits among the narrow alleys and tall apartment buildings. A fat man passed by us, weaving, supported on each side by a slave boy. An ivy wreath sat askew on his bald head, and he sang an old Sabine drinking song. I envied someone who could carouse so carelessly these days.

  An odd religious procession passed by, with much wailing and clashing of cymbals and tootling of flutes. It might have been a wedding or a funeral or a premature celebration of the coming solstice. Rome is full of foreign religions and strange little cults.

  Everywhere people were working late into the night decorating their houses and public squares for Saturnalia, hanging wreaths, painting over the malediction graffiti on the walls, and replacing them with good-wish slogans, heaping small offerings before neighborhood shrines, even washing down the streets.

  “That’s a marvel worth traveling all the way from Rhodes to see,” I commented.

  “The decorations?” Hermes asked.

  “No. Clean streets in Rome. I …” That was when I noticed we had followers.

  “Well, it’s only for one day.” Back then, Saturnalia was celebrated for only a single day, not for three, as recently decreed by the First Citizen. “I’m looking forward to … what’s wrong?”

  “Eyes front, keep on walking as you were,” I ordered him. “We’ve acquired some admirers.” My hand went inside my tunic and gripped my dagger. I chided myself for not carrying my caestus as well. A metal-reinforced punch is a great help in a street fight, and it is always unexpected.

  The question was: What did these men want? I knew there were at least two. Did they want to rob me? Kill me? Or were they just out for some fun? All three were reasonable expectations. Any well-dressed man was a target for thieves, especially after dark. I was engaged in a rather murky investigation involving a number of people who seldom hesitated to kill anyone they found inconvenient. And there were always those amusement seekers who found the sight of blood and teeth on the street infinitely pleasing. Ordinarily, thieves and bullies were easily discouraged by the prospect of armed resistance. Hired killers might take more persuading.

  “I see two,” I remarked. “Do you see any more?”

  Furtively, Hermes glanced around. “Not much light. It’s the two behind us, isn’t it? The ones pretending to be drunk?”

  “That’s right.” Somehow, sober men can seldom imitate drunks convincingly, unless they are trained mimes.

  “No, I don’t see any others.”

  “Good.” We were nearing my home. “When we get to the shrine of Ops on the corner, I want you to dash ahead and get the gate open. Be ready to shut and bar it behind me when I come through.”

  “Right,” he said, relieved that I wasn’t asking him to stand and fight.

  As we neared my house the two “drunks” behind us began to walk more quickly, losing their wobbly gait in the process. The moment we passed the corner shrine, Hermes broke into a sprint and I hurried after him, considerably hampered by my toga. I would have cast it aside, but a good toga is ruinously expensive. Besides, the cumbersome garment is not without its uses in a brawl. I almost made it to my gate before they caught up to me. When I sensed they were within arm’s reach, I whirled, unwilling to risk a knife in my back as I went through the gate.

  My move was unexpected and they checked their pursuit, almost skidding on the cobbles. Even so, the one on the right barely escaped impaling himself on the dagger I held out at full extension. Both men had knives in their hands, short sicas curved like the tusk of a boar. While the two stood disconcerted, I whipped off my toga and whirled it, wrapping my left forearm with a thick pad and leaving a couple of feet of it dangling below.

  “What will it be, citizens?” I asked. “Shall we play or would you rather walk away in one piece?” As usual, frustration and puzzlement had put me in just the right mood for a brawl. Sometimes I am amazed that I survived those days.

  They hadn’t been expecting this, which meant they didn’t know my reputation. Both men wore short tunics, the exomis that leaves one shoulder and half the chest bare. Both had identical scrubby beards and pointed, brimmed felt caps. In a word: peasants.

  “Leave off this snooping, Metellus,” said the one on the right, waving his blade at me.

  “Get out of Rome and leave be,” said the other. They had an accent I had heard before but could not quite place. But then, every village in Latium, even those within a few miles of Rome, spoke its own distinctly accented brand of Latin.

  “Who sent you?” I asked. The one on the left tried to slide in, but I snapped a corner of my toga at his eyes and took advantage of the distraction to cut the other one, nicking him lightly on the hand. The left-hand peasant got over his surprise and took a cut at me. He was creditably skillful but not quite fast enough. I blocked with my impromptu shield and punched him in the nose with my wool-wrapped fist. The other slashed toward my flank, but I jumped back and evaded the stroke. They weren’t as unskilled as their appearance suggested. If they got their attack coordinated, I knew, they would get to me soon.

  “Back off, you louts!” The cry came from behind me and a second later Hermes was beside me, my army gladius in his right hand, the moonlight gleaming along its lethal edges. “You two may be terrors in your home village, but you’re in the big city now!” He grinned and twirled the sword in his hand, an excellent act, considering he had no slightest knowledge of swordplay. But he loved to hang around Milo’s thugs, and he knew their moves.

  Now thoroughly disconcerted, the two backed away. “Stop poking into things as don’t concern you, Metellus,” said one of the rustic gemini. “If you don’t, there’ll be more of us back soon. Leave Rome now, if you want to live.” With that, the two backed to the end of the block, then turned and darted around the corner and were gone.

  “That was well done, Hermes,” I said, as we walked the few steps to my gate. “I really must get you enrolled in the ludus. I think you’ll do well.”

  “When I saw it was just a couple of bumpkins that had ridden into town on a turnip wagon, I ran to get your sword,” Hermes said. “What was that a
ll about?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” I told him. “Clodius would have sent trained killers. Clodia would have poisoned me. All my enemies have competent murderers for their dirty work. Who sends hayseed bullies from the hills?”

  We went inside and barred the gate. Cato and Cassandra stood there, blinking, wakened by the commotion from a sound sleep. “What is it, Master?” Cato asked shakily.

  “A couple of cutthroats,” I told him, holding my toga out to Cassandra. “There may be some cuts in need of reweaving.”

  She took it, yawning. “I hope there aren’t any bloodstains this time. That’s always the hard part, getting the blood out.”

  “None of mine,” I assured her. “But I punched one of them in the nose and he may have bled on it.”

  “Who cares whose blood it is?” she grumbled. “Blood’s blood.”

  Yes, my tearful welcome home was definitely a thing of the past.

  7

  MY CLIENTS SHOWED UP THE next morning. Word had gotten out. Burrus, my old soldier, was there. So were several others I knew well, along with quite a few that I didn’t. Celer had died childless, and it seemed that his clients had been divided among the rest of the family. There were so many of us that none was burdened with too many of them, but it seemed to me that, as the most penurious of the lot, I should have inherited no more than two or three. Instead, I had eight of them, almost doubling my crowd. I suppose I should have been flattered. It meant that my family believed I had a political future, if they thought I would need so many.

  After a lot of greeting and learning of names, I had a sudden thought and took Burrus aside.

  “Burrus, it occurs to me that you’ve been over much of Italy on maneuvers and military operations. Have you ever heard this accent?” Here I spoke a few words in the fashion of my attackers. I had been particularly struck by the odd way they used p for c and placed strong emphasis on dipthongs. Burrus frowned at my amateurish recital, but he also showed recognition.

  “If anyone talks that way, it’s the Marsi, up around Lake Fucinus. We did a lot of fighting in that area in the Social War. I was with Pompeius Strabo’s army in that one. It was my first war and bloodier than any I ever saw afterward. Strabo was a hard one. Why, in one day we executed so many prisoners that …”

  “Yes, yes,” I interrupted, knowing he could go on all morning. “Strabo was a savage of the old school. But have you heard anyone talking like that lately?”

  He shrugged. “Just about every day. The Sabellian lands aren’t far from here, and they bring their livestock and produce to the markets in Rome all the time. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I had a few words with some men who spoke that way recently and I was curious.” The market was probably where I had heard the dialect, among a score of others. Like most Romans I separated accents into “City” and “country” and seldom drew further distinction. The Sabellians were among the many ancient races of Italy, their most prominent people being the Marsi, with whom we had fought a terrible war thirty years before over the demands of the Marsi and other peoples to have their rights as Rome’s allies acknowledged. They were ruthlessly put down, and then, in an almost whimsical fashion, almost all of their demands were granted. Now they were full citizens and an invaluable well of manpower for our legions.

  I needed to be able to move about freely that day so I dismissed my clients, reminding them that I would require them all to attend me for the upcoming rites at the Temple of Saturn. Then, with Hermes at my heels, I went out for my morning shave and a walk to the Forum.

  The whole month of December is sacred to Saturn, so very little official business is transacted in that month. There are no Senate meetings unless there is an emergency; there are few trials or other judicial proceedings. The outgoing officials are wrapping up their affairs and preparing to be sued for their actions in office, and the incoming ones are preparing for a year of unrelenting toil. December is Rome’s breathing space. In the old days, it was a time of recovery from the sheer physical exhaustion of the harvest and the vintage. Now slaves do most of that work. At least they get a holiday on Saturnalia, although not for the whole month of December.

  The Forum was filled with citizenry, many of them putting up decorations, the rest gawking at those doing the work. Everywhere there were sheaves of grain and quaint figures made of plaited corn stalks. Wreaths and garlands of vine leaves were draped from all of the Forum’s many points of attachment. Marquees, stalls, and booths were being set up, bright with dyed awnings and new paint. For the holiday, most restrictions on vending in the Forum were relaxed. Most of the booths would be hawking food, but many would sell masks, wreaths, and chaplets. Others sold the wax candles and the little earthenware figurines that were the traditional Saturnalia gifts.

  “Hermes,” I said as we surveyed the preparations, “I plan to be in the archive for a while. I want you to wander among these vendors and keep your ears open. You remember how those two louts last night sounded?”

  “I’m not likely to forget”

  “Find out if there are many speakers of that Marsian dialect in town selling their wares. If you see those two, come running to get me.”

  “The light wasn’t very good last night,” he said doubtfully. “I’m not sure I’d recognize them if I saw them. Peasants mostly look alike.”

  “Do your best.” I went to the tabularium, trudging up the lower slope of the Capitoline, where the temples clustered thick on our most sacred ground. The state archive was housed in a huge, sprawling building graced with rows of imposing arches and columns and statues on the side overlooking the Forum. The rest of it was as undecorated, inside and out, as a warehouse.

  And warehouse it was, after a fashion. In it reposed all the records of state that were not kept by ancient tradition in one of the temples. There were various religious explanations given why the treasury records were in the Temple of Saturn and the archive of the aediles was in the Temple of Ceres and so forth, but I think it was just so that we wouldn’t lose all our records in a single fire. The walls of the tabularium were lined with shelves and honeycombed with cubbyholes containing documents in every conceivable form: Scrolls predominated, but there were wooden tablets, parchments, even foreign treaties written on palm leaves. Those of a more grandiose frame of mind left tablets inscribed on sheets of lead, impressed on slabs of baked clay and carved in stone. Those wishing special magnificence for their documents had them carved on polished marble.

  Much of this was an exercise in futility. Personally, I think the clay slabs will last the longest. Lead melts at a low temperature, and many people are unaware of how easily marble is damaged by fire. Not that much of the stuff cluttering the tabularium would be missed anyway, however it might perish.

  On the second floor, on the airy side facing the Forum, was the Hall of Court Documents. Like the rest of the establishment, this division was presided over by state freedman and slaves. They were all experts in the sole task of storing and caring for the documents and memorizing where everything was. At the time the freedman in charge was one Ulpius, a man of dry and musty manner, no doubt absorbed from his surroundings.

  “How may I help you, Senator?” he asked. His Latin had the faintest Spanish tinge, although he must have come to Rome as a child.

  “My friend, I need information about one Harmodia.” I smiled at him benevolently. It is customary to be chummy with slaves and freedmen around Saturnalia.

  He blinked, not buying it. “Harmodia? Is this a woman?”

  “The form of the name makes this the logical conclusion,” I said. “I am looking for any court records concerning a woman named Harmodia.”

  “I see. And you have no information concerning this woman save her name?”

  “That is correct,” I told him happily.

  “Hm. It might help to know if she is slave, freedwoman, or freeborn.”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

  “Living or dead, perhaps?”
<
br />   “Wouldn’t have the foggiest.”

  “Have you considered consulting the Cumaean sibyl?” Still dusty dry, but with a definite edge of sarcasm.

  “Listen,” I told him, “I am engaged upon an important investigation …”

  “For which consul, praetor, tribune, iudex, investigative committee, or other authorized person or body? Or have you, perhaps, a special commission from the Senate?”

  Trust a fussy bureaucrat like Ulpius to ask questions like that. I was so accustomed to talking my way around such embarrassing inquiries that I had to think for a moment before I remembered that I actually had official backing, of a sort.

  “I am acting for the tribune Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica”—ah, that great, thumping name—“… and the tribune-elect Publius Clodius Pulcher.”

  “I see,” Ulpius said, sighing, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to turn me away with a few withering words. “But I have very little hope of assisting you if you have nothing but a name.”

  “As I was about to say, one of my informants in this investigation mentioned a Harmodia who may have met with a lamentable fate. I think it must have been within recent weeks.”

  “Anything else that might narrow the field, as it were?”

  “She was probably from the countryside or the nearby villages, and I think she may have been an herb seller.”

  “I suppose that helps,” he said, gloomily. “It would help further if we knew what district the woman is, or was, from. That would at least tell us whether a case involving her was brought before the praetor peregrinus or one of the others.” He turned and snapped his fingers. Immediately, six men sprang forward. He reeled off instructions, as if they were needed. Of course, all of them had been listening. They went to their shelves and began sifting the documents with amazing speed and efficiency. This called for prodigious feats of memory, because there was very little system in the way the documents were filed. Each slave or freedman and his apprentice simply had to keep a mental picture of everything in his area.