SPQR V: Saturnalia

by John Maddox Roberts

  Leaving my house, we made our slow way down to the Subura Street and thence toward the Forum, our progress paralytically slow because every last inhabitant of Rome who was not on his deathbed was out in the streets, greeting and dancing and making noise. The wine sellers had clearly been doing a great business, and most of the flutes were being played by persons of no musical talent.

  In time we merged with the crowd coming down the Via Sacra, then past the basilicas and porticoes until we all stood before the great Temple of Saturn. The lictors and the temple slaves were there in force, ushering people into their proper places. Here I left my clients and took my place with the rest of the Senate on the steps of the temple, where, as a very junior member of the body, I stood in the back row. Still, this gave me a vantage point, and I could see all the most important members of the state who were in Rome at the time.

  In the places of highest honor, near the altar that stood before the entrance, were the vestals, including my Aunt Caecilia, the flamines (we had no Flamen Dialis that year), the pontifices, and all the serving magistrates. Among the aediles I saw Calpurnius Bestia, and I tried to figure out which of his colleagues was Murena, but without success. I saw Metellus Scipio among the tribunes and Clodius with the tribunes-elect. The consul Bibulus had finally come out of his house for this one ritual, which required all officials holding imperium. He looked like a man who had eaten too many green peaches.

  Looking down and to my left, I saw the patrician families standing in the first ranks at the bottom of the steps. From my vantage point it was shockingly plain how thin were those lines. Once the great power in the state, the patricians had grown so few that there was no longer any particular advantage to belonging to one, save prestige. There were about fourteen patrician families left at the time, and some of these, such as the Julii, were minuscule. Perhaps most numerous were the Cornelians, and even their numbers were much reduced.

  Among them I saw Clodia, Fausta, and Fulvia standing in a group. Once I had spotted the Julii, it was easy to find Julia. She caught my eye and smiled broadly. I smiled back. But, then, everyone was smiling. We all get a little silly at Saturnalia.

  Behind the patricians stood the order of the equites, far more numerous and collectively the most important of the classes, since it was property qualification, not birth, that gave an eques his status.

  This rigid partitioning by rank was symbolic, for at the end of the ceremony all classes would mingle freely in memory of the Golden Age of Saturnus commemorated in this yearly rite. Unlike all other sacrificial ceremonies, no one, man or woman, slave or free, wore a head covering, for all such solemnity was banished from the happiest ritual of the year.

  When all were assembled, the augurs came forward, standing near the altar, watching the sky for omens. Among them was Pompey, dressed like the others in a striped robe, holding in his right hand the crook-topped staff. The populace scarcely breathed for the next few minutes. The evening was a fine one and there was no thunder; no birds of ill omen appeared. They announced that the gods were favorable to continuing the ceremony.

  Now Caesar made his grand entrance, striding from inside the temple through its great doorway. There was no ceremonial reason for a consul to arrive on the scene thus, but then, that was Caesar. Here he was doubly important; as consul and as pontifex maximus, the supreme arbiter of all matters touching the state religion. He halted by the altar and made a half-turn, gesturing grandly like the great actor he was.

  Through the doorway we could just see the huge, ancient, age-blackened image of the god, his pruning knife in his hand. Ceremoniously, the priest and his attendants removed the bands of woolen cloth that wound around the god’s legs and lower body. In the dim past we had captured Saturn from a neighboring town, so his feet were bound to keep him from leaving Roman territory. Only on his festival was he loosed. A collective sigh came from the people as the last of the wrappings fell away.

  Caesar watched the horizon and the setting of the sun, as if he were personally responsible for it. Since the portico of the temple faced northeast, this was no easy task. When the last gleam disappeared from the gilded pediment of the Curia Hostilia, ancient meetinghouse of the Senate, he gestured again, and the sacrifice was brought forward.

  Since Saturn is primarily a god of the netherworld, his rites take place in the evening. For the same reason, his sacrifice was a black bull instead of a white one. The beast led up the steps by the attendants was a magnificent animal, dark as the nighttime sky, his horns gilded, draped all over with garlands. The crowd watched anxiously, for if the animal balked or made loud noises, it would be a bad omen.

  But the bull made it to the altar with perfect equanimity and stood patiently, waiting for the rest of the ceremony. The priest and his attendants came forth to stand by the bull with their various emblems of office, and the heart of the ritual commenced. One attendant held up the tablet bearing the written prayer, and the priest began to chant it in a loud voice. Like all such ancient prayers it is in language so archaic that nobody knows what it really means, but it must be recited precisely, hence the tablet. Behind him a flute player blasted away for all he was worth, so the priest would not be distracted by an unseemly sound like a sneeze or cough. Getting the entire population of Rome to stand still for the duration of a lengthy prayer without sneezing or coughing is a marvel in itself.

  We all stood with our arms slightly extended, our hands at waist level, palms facing downward, as is proper when addressing a deity of the underworld. The prayer ended, the attendant swung his great hammer, and the bull collapsed to its knees without a sound, already dead when the priest cut its throat. Other attendants caught the gushing blood in golden bowls and carried it to the channel before the altar and poured it in, to drain away through a hole that led to the earth beneath the temple. For a sky god, the blood is poured over the altar.

  Now the haruspices came forward in their Etruscan robes, chanting their Etruscan chants. They slit open the bull’s belly and the entrails tumbled out. They examined the intestines and lungs, then conferred for a while over the liver, turning it this way and that, inspecting its crevices, looking for lumps, malformations, discolorations, or other oddities to interpret, for each part of a liver has a specific significance concerning the will of the gods in particular matters. They said something to the priest, and he spoke to the chief of the Herald’s Guild, who stood beside him.

  Solemnly and with great dignity, the head herald strode to the front of the portico and stood at the top step. He took a deep, deep breath. This man had, perhaps, the loudest voice in the world.

  “IO SATURNALIA!” he bellowed, and was probably heard in Cisalpine Gaul.

  With that the crowd erupted and the celebration was on. Cries of “Io Saturnalia!” went up from all directions. Every citizen, from consul to freedman, took off his toga, the garment that distinguishes the citizen from the slave and the foreigner. For the duration of the holiday, we were all equal. We pretended so, anyway.

  Folding my toga and tucking it beneath my arm, I descended the steps to where the patricians were rapidly merging into the general populace. Amid the sea of bobbing heads it was difficult to find one small woman. But I was taller than most and not so difficult to locate.

  “Io Saturnalia, Decius!” Julia cried, slamming into me like one galley ramming another, throwing her arms around me and giving me a resounding kiss. The license of the season allowed such an indelicacy, unthinkable at other times. Besides, we weren’t married yet.

  “Io Saturnalia, Julia!” I said, when I could draw breath again. “Let’s find someplace less deafening where we can talk.”

  As we pushed through the mob, I caught sight of Hermes. Without thinking, I held my toga out to him.

  “Take this to my house!” I called out.

  “Take it yourself, Decius,” he said, turning away. “Io Saturnalia!”

  Julia laughed until tears ran down her face while, our arms around each others’ waists, we lurched a
round until we found a wine booth in front of the Basilica Sempronia, bought two rough clay cups full of even rougher wine, and sat on the base of a statue of Fabius Cunctator at the corner of the basilica steps. The old boy got his odd title, “the delayer,” from being so cautious about engaging Hannibal in combat. It was a rare case of a Roman leader being honored with a title for showing some plain good sense.

  Twilight does not last long at that time of year. As the sky darkened, torches were kindled, braziers flamed with pine knots, and from them people lit the traditional wax tapers. There is an old story that, in ancient times, the god demanded heads for his sacrifice. Then somebody realized that the old word for “heads,” with a slightly different accent, meant “lights,” and we’ve been giving each other candles ever since.

  “This has always been one of my favorite sights since I was a child,” Julia said, as the flickering or blazing lights spread over the Forum and the rest of the city. “It’s how I pictured Olympus or the cities in old Greek myths. How sad that it’s only for a day and two nights.”

  “But the whole point of holidays is that they’re unlike other days of the year,” I pointed out.

  “I suppose so,” she said, taking a long swallow. I had the distinct feeling that, like everybody else, she had started much earlier in the day. “All right, Decius, why are you here? I’ve already heard gossip that you and Clodius have called a truce, and that’s like hearing somebody discovered a lost book of the Iliad where Patroclus catches Hector and Achilles in bed together. Tell me what you’re here for and let me help you.

  So I told her. I knew it was useless trying to keep secrets from her, although I didn’t see how she could help out in this case. Something kept me from giving a full account of the episode in the striga’s booth. The experience still upset me. I had to go back for refills before I got the whole account out.

  “You’ve done a lot, considering you’ve been in the city less than three full days.”

  “I pride myself on my diligence,” I said.

  “Clodia! I wish you could stay clear of that woman. She’s perfectly capable of poisoning, and I was sure she has. Do you really think she might be innocent?”

  “Only because so many others seem to have had equal if not greater reasons to do away with him. I am sure now that he was poisoned, else why kill the herb woman? It must have been to cover whoever bought the poison from her. But why are these Marsi threatening me? I would think they should want the killer brought to justice.”

  Julia’s brow wrinkled in deep thought. There were times when she could see the patterns in things better than I could, probably because she didn’t have to deal with all the violence that kept me continually on my toes. She always claimed that it was because she drank so much less.

  “There is one common factor that keeps cropping up in all this, if you can ignore the witches long enough.”

  “They’re pretty hard to ignore,” I said. “What factor?”

  “Gaul. Murena and his brother were in command there not so long ago. Celer was to have Transalpine Gaul for his proconsular province, but Flavius took it from him and Celer died before he could get the courts and the Senate to give it back. He spent his whole consulship fighting Pompey, and Pompey wanted that Gallic command.”

  “Instead,” I said, turning over the possibilities in my mind, “your uncle Caius Julius got the whole of Gaul for five years.”

  “My uncle had nothing to do with killing Celer!” she insisted. She still had a blind spot for Caesar, although by then his ambitions were plain to everybody.

  “Gaul. I don’t know, Julia. We’ve been occupying and colonizing and fighting in that place for so long that hardly anyone of public consequence hasn’t had some connection with it. I’ve been there myself more than once on military or diplomatic duties.”

  “But so many of them connected with the murders, and so recently! Right now, Gaul is the biggest plum to be picked. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to poison my uncle. You know Pompey wants Gaul.”

  “Caesar is too smart for that,” I said, with the clarity of vision that wine sometimes bestows upon me. “He finally got Pompey’s veterans their settlement. With his disgruntled soldiers behind him, Pompey was a force to be reckoned with. Even with a good war in view, they may be difficult to pry off their fat Campanian farms now.” It had been a neat bit of maneuvering now that I thought of it, the way Caesar had protected himself from treachery by Pompey.

  “Besides,” I went on, “Lisas told me that it may turn into a fight with the Germans, not just the Gauls. There’s precious little loot to be had fighting the Germans.”

  “Germans?” she said sharply. “What’s this?”

  So I had to explain my talk with Lisas in some detail. She followed my recital closely, with a Caesar’s quick grasp of political and military nuance.

  “Do you think you can trust that scheming Egyptian?”

  “I don’t see what advantage there would be for him in making it up,” I told her. “It could be catastrophic for your uncle. It won’t be the war he was counting on.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He is equal to anything, including big armies of bigger barbarians. When he comes back from Gaul, he’ll celebrate the biggest triumph ever seen in Rome.”

  I didn’t think he stood a chance, which shows how much I knew about it.

  “Decius, for the holiday I have full freedom to move around the city without my grandmother’s supervision.” Julia’s grandmother was the frightening Aurelia, mother of Caius and Lucius Julius Caesar. She was not above demanding my public flogging and execution for impropriety with her granddaughter, and had done so more than once in the past.

  “Even so, I don’t see what you can … ?”

  “What is there to do in this case except pick up rumors, gossip, and malicious innuendo? I can do that as well as you!”

  “Well, yes, but …”

  “Then it’s settled.” And so it was.

  By this time we needed another refill, and as I handed Julia her cup, she noticed the bandage on my hand.

  “What happened to your hand?” She set down her cup and took my wounded paw in her delicate, patrician fingers, as if she could heal it by contact.

  “On the voyage here we were attacked by pirates,” I told her. “I received this wound when I drove them back to their ship and slew their captain.”

  She dropped my hand. “You probably cut yourself shaving.”

  For the remainder of the evening we wandered among the stalls, admired the many mountebanks performing their various arts, and generally got into the mood of the season. We saw performing animals, boys dancing on tight-stretched ropes, troupes of beautiful youths, and maidens performing the ancient dances of the Greek islands, Nubian fire-breathers, Egyptian magicians, and others too numerous to recall.

  A Persian magus made a bouquet of white flowers appear from within Julia’s gown, and as she cried out in delight and tried to take them in her hands, the flowers became a white pigeon and flew away. We had our fortunes told by a benevolent-looking old peasant woman who gazed into our palms with rheumy eyes and predicted that we would enjoy long years of happy marriage with many children, prosperity, and distinction. She was predicting the same for everyone who came to her. Long lines stood outside the booths of the many more professional seers as people waited to hear their fortunes for the coming year. I looked for Furia’s booth but did not see it.

  Everywhere, people were rolling dice at folding tables, monument bases, or just on the pavement. On Saturnalia, public gambling was allowed. The rest of the year, one could bet openly only at the circus. As the evening wound down, the torches began to burn low, smoke, and flicker. Then only the diehard gamblers remained at the tables, rolling their dice and knucklebones beneath the light of Saturnalian candles.

  As midnight neared, people began to trail off toward their homes, to rest up for the even greater revelry of the following day. I took Julia to the door of Caesar’s great house on the F
orum, the mansion of the pontifex maximus adjoining the Palace of the Vestals. There we were met at the door by the formidable Aurelia, who for once was constrained by custom from upbraiding me. We promised to meet the next day, but we did not dare to exchange so much as a kiss with her grandmother looking on. She was quite capable of setting her slaves on me with whips and staves.

  As I walked home, I felt not the least fatigued despite all the wine I had drunk and the food I had stuffed down my gullet. As I crossed the fast-emptying Forum, thick with the smoke of burned-out braziers, I was struck by its eerie aspect at such a time. The few gamblers crouched over their candles were like underworld spirits tormenting some unfortunate mortal singled out by the gods for special punishment. The outlines of the majestic buildings were soft and muted, more like something willed into being by Jupiter than the work of human hands. This was the Forum as we see it in dreams.

  Far up the slope of the Capitol, just below the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, I could make out the dark, forbidding crag of the Tarpeian Rock, where traitors and murderers are hurled to their deaths. From the frantic gaiety of the earlier evening, all was transformed to a sinister gloom.

  It was with thoughts of this sort that I made my way through the narrow, winding streets to my home, acknowledging the greetings and good wishes of weaving drunks, stepping over the recumbent bodies of those who had partaken too lustily and hadn’t made it to their own doors, thoughts of gloom and demons wended their way, inevitably, to the witches. What were they doing that night, out on the Vatican field?

  At my house I had to let myself in, since my slaves weren’t about to answer my knock at the door. I went to my sleeping room and finally unburdened myself of my toga, which had been making my arm sweat all evening. I began to undress for bed, then stopped, sat on the edge of the bed, and thought. I was wide awake. If I lay down, it would only be to stare at the ceiling until the sun came up.