SPQR V: Saturnalia

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Then there is the victim.” Another finger. “If he were a citizen, especially one of good family, mobs would assault the Curia to get something done. Did you recognize him?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “In all probability he was a foreign slave. Legally, they are expendable persons, mere property with no rights. The fact of the sacrifice may have been in contravention of the laws, but the victim was of no consequence.”

  He lowered his hands and placed them upon his spread knees. “But worst of all, Decius, is the time of year. None of the sitting praetors or aediles will want to institute proceedings just a few days before they leave office.”

  “There are still next year’s,” I said.

  “And which among them will want to take up such a dubious prosecution, one which must drag in the man who will be the uncrowned king of Rome next year?” Then, more gently, “Decius, do you think you can even find this place again?”

  I thought about it, trying to remember just where I had turned off the Via Aurelia onto the farm road, and where along the farm road I had heard the screech owl and followed its call to the sunken lane. And how far along the lane had that isolated copse stood?

  “I think so,” I said uncertainly. “The Vatican is a big area, but I think if I looked long enough …”

  “I thought so. Today being Saturnalia I will bet you my library against your sandals that you couldn’t find it by the end of the month. I’ll bet further that, even if you could find it, all evidence of the sacrifice is gone. You will find no bones, no sorcerous paraphernalia, no more than a scorched patch of ground. That is not enough to take to court.”

  “This is most discouraging,” I lamented.

  “I am sorry that I could not be of more comfort or aid.”

  “You have been a great help,” I protested hastily. “As always, you have clarified matters and put them into perspective. You may also have saved me from making a fool of myself.”

  He grinned, a welcome expression on his mournful face. “What is life if we can’t make fools of ourselves from time to time? I make a regular practice of it. Is there any other way I may be of service?”

  “Can you tell me what I should do now?”

  “Continue your investigation of Celer’s death. Concentrate on the facts involved there and forget about the witches and their repulsive rites. What you have uncovered there is an ancient but deep-rooted cult that will never be fully eradicated and a pack of bored, thrill-seeking women who need something a little more lively than the state religion to get their blood stirring.” He stood. “And for now, I return to the festivities. Io Saturnalia, Decius.”

  “Io Saturnalia, Marcus Tullius,” I said, as he climbed the stair.

  When he was gone I sat pondering for a while. Unquestionably, he was right. To institute judicial proceedings at that moment would not only be futile, it would invite ridicule. I took some comfort in the thought that my father and his cronies would be seeking a way to turn my findings to account. Where strict legality failed, perhaps political malice would succeed.

  Where to go next? I tried to think where I had been sidetracked and decided it was my interview with Furia. I had let her mountebank’s trickery distract me. In the midst of her sorcerous set-dressing, she had given me Harmodia. Forget about Harmodia being one of the witches; Harmodia had been an herb woman. She may have sold somebody the poison that killed Celer, and she had undoubtedly been killed to silence her. If Celer had been murdered because he was about to crack down on the witches, would they have killed one of their own?

  With great reluctance, I had from time to time attended classes on philosophy and logic and related subjects. Sometimes, in exile, there is little else to do. Occasionally, these studies coincide with the necessary arts of law and rhetoric, for there are few more distressing things when arguing before the courts than to find yourself tied up in a logical knot because you got some elementary point wrong. A philosopher in Athens had once told me that when you discovered that you were pursuing the wrong course because you had made an incorrect assumption, you should do what a hunter does; you should go back to the last place where you know for certain that you were on the proper track.

  I thought this over and decided that I had stepped off the trail when I entered Furia’s booth. What I needed to do was to go back and act as if I had never entered it. For purposes of my real investigation anyway. I wasn’t about to forget what I had seen, and I wasn’t entirely persuaded that the two were unconnected, despite what Cicero had said.

  Things began to look a little more clear. What I had to do was find another herb woman, one considerably less formidable than Furia, and question her about Harmodia. They couldn’t all belong to the witch cult. It ought to be easy enough to find one I was certain had not been out on the Vatican field the night before. A blind one, perhaps. Nobody without eyes could have danced like that.

  Having so decided, I got up and walked from the Senate chamber. I wasn’t halfway down the stairs when Julia ran up and grabbed me.

  “Decius! I’ve been looking all over for you! What in the world were you doing inside the Curia?”

  “I called my own Senate meeting,” I said. “It wasn’t well attended.” I quailed at the thought of having to go over the previous night’s adventures one more time, especially to Julia, who was somewhat more gently bred than her frightening colleagues of the patrician sisterhood who had a taste for human sacrifice. I knew that she would have it out of me though.

  “Decius, are you all right?” She held me at arm’s length and looked me over. “You’ve been fighting again!” As if there were something wrong with that. Women are strange.

  “Come along, my dear,” I said. “It’s just that things have taken a new turn, and it is a turn immeasurably for the worse.” Arm in arm, we descended the steps. “But before you hear my account, tell me what you’ve found out. I can tell by the way you’re panting and quivering that you have news.”

  “I am not panting, neither am I quivering,” she said. That was true. She had that well-schooled patrician demeanor, which does not leave the breed even during earthquakes and while aboard sinking ships, but the signs were there if you knew where to look.

  “My apologies. Please go on.”

  We walked to a booth and picked up a few items to sustain us through a full day of reveling.

  “Are you familiar with the Balnea Licinia? Crassus built it last year on the Palatine, and it’s become the most fashionable bathhouse in Rome. The appointments are marvelous, far more luxurious than anything we’ve seen before. Anyway, it has women’s hours in the morning, and I’ve just come from there.”

  “I thought you smelled especially delectable,” I said.

  “Better than you,” she said sharply, wrinkling her nose. “What have you been doing?”

  “Never mind that. Just tell me what you’ve found.”

  “All right, if you’ll just be patient.” She took a big bite of flat bread with toasted cheese on top, sprinkled with chopped, spicy sausage. “Anyway, all the most fashionable ladies go there, you know, members of Clodia’s set.”

  “Just a moment,” I interrupted. “Was Fausta there or Fulvia?”

  “You mean the younger Fulvia?” Her brow wrinkled. “No, I didn’t see either of them. Why do you ask?” There was deep suspicion in her voice.

  “It’s just that they must be in terrible need of a bath this morning.”

  “Decius! What have you been up to?” she said, spraying crumbs.

  “All shall be made clear in time, my dear. Pray continue.”

  “All right,” she said darkly, “but I expect a full explanation. So there I was on a massage table with Cornelia Minor and your cousin Felicia and about five others on other tables in the room … they have huge Nubians there, Lydian trained, the best masseurs in the world …”

  “Men?” I said, shocked.

  “No, silly. Eunuchs. It’s a wonderful place to pick up the latest gossip and talk about those
things women only discuss when there are no men present.”

  “You must talk rather loudly, I would think,” I said, my mind going into an irrelevant reverie. “All that smacking of flesh, I mean. All those grunts and explosions of breath as the delicate female bodies are pummeled by the dusky hands of brawny masseurs …”

  “You just wish you’d been there. So I let it be known that I might soon need the services of a saga for a condition that must prove embarrassing, since I am unmarried.”

  “Julia! You shock me!”

  “It is not at all an uncommon subject among this crowd. They trade the names of the most fashionable abortionists just as they do those of pearl sellers and perfumers.”

  “Oh, the degeneracy of the times,” I lamented. “Did any familiar names emerge from this colloquy?”

  “The first name to be mentioned was Harmodia, but someone said that she had been killed.”

  “Do you remember who knew about her murder?” I asked.

  “I think it was Sicinia, the one called Swan, because she has such a long neck. Is it important?”

  “Probably not. She might have wanted to hire Harmodia, asked around the Flaminius, and found out she’d been murdered.”

  “Furia was also recommended. You mentioned her yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said.

  “But you didn’t tell me everything, did you?”

  “No, I did not.” We had come to the shrine of the Lares publici, before which was a low stone railing. I brushed away the dust and we sat. All around us people were carrying on dementedly, having a fine time. A huge man wearing a lion skin and carrying an outsized club performed feats of strength a few steps from us. At the corner of the Sacred Way and the Clivus Orbius a platform had been erected to display Spanish dancers from Gades who were performing one of the famous dances of their district, which were forbidden by law at other times of year because of their extreme lasciviousness.

  “Decius! Stop watching those dancers and pay attention!”

  “Eh? Oh, yes. Go on. Did you get anything else out of your langorous companions of the bath?”

  “One of them said a woman named Ascylta is very trustworthy and that she has a stall beneath arch number sixteen at the Circus Flaminius.”

  “Ascylta? At least it doesn’t sound like a Marsian name. It’s Samnite, isn’t it?”

  “I think so. And didn’t you say Harmodia’s stall was at the Flaminius?”

  “Urgulus said Harmodia had arch nineteen. There were only two between them. Perhaps this Ascylta is a woman I should question.”

  “You mean we, Decius. We should question her.”

  I sighed. I should have seen this coming. “As always, Julia, I appreciate your help. But I don’t see how your being with me will improve matters.”

  “Decius,” she said gently, “I’ve never said this to you before, but you can be uncommonly dense at times. Especially when you are dealing with women. I think I may be able to speak with this woman and gain her confidence. You would come on like a prosecutor and make her shut up in fear.”

  “I am not at all intimidating! I am the soul of diplomacy, when I want to be.”

  “With all those new cuts and bruises, you are even worse than usual. Not only do you lack tact, you are not even truthful. Now tell me about Furia!”

  I was not entirely certain where that had come from, nor how her original assertion had led to her ultimate demand. Nonetheless, I knew better than to hold back. So I told her of my upsetting interview in Furia’s tent. She sat and glowered as she listened.

  “And you thought,” she said, when I was finished, “that I would be upset just because you were fondling the udder of that striga?”

  “I wasn’t fondling!” I protested. “The woman took possession of my blood-dripping hand and fastened it to her mammary. ‘Udder’ is not a properly descriptive term, in any case. Rather an attractive appendage, if you must know.”

  “Spare me,” she said.

  “Anyway,” I went on, all but squirming like a schoolboy before an unforgiving master, “it wasn’t that. It was what she said, about being Pluto’s favorite and a hunting dog and a male harpy and all my life being the death of what I love. You know I am not a superstitious man, Julia, but I’ve dealt with frauds all over the world and I know when I am confronted with something different. The woman left a mark on me.”

  She took a swallow of the coarse wine and settled down, apparently mollified. “Now tell me the rest of it. What happened last night after you left me?”

  The recital didn’t take long. It was the third time I had delivered it, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I was getting good at it. She listened with equanimity until I got to the part about the sacrifice. Then she turned pale and dropped the honey cake she had been about to nibble. She was no hardened power chaser or decadent aristocratic thrill seeker.

  “Oh!” she said when I was finished. “I knew those women were wicked; I never realized they were truly evil!”

  “An interesting distinction. I take it you mean the patrician women, not the witches?”

  “Exactly. The strigae sound no more than primitive, like barbarians or people from the time of Homer. But Clodia and the rest must do this for the perversity of it.”

  “Cicero said much the same thing just now,” I told her.

  “Cicero? When did you speak with him?” So I gave her our conversation. Julia loved philosophical things for some reason, and she listened with close attention. Luckily, I had a well-trained memory and was able to repeat him word for word. I was a little put out that she hadn’t gone into palpitations over my mortal danger and desperate flight. True, I was right there so she could see that I had survived the experience, but I expected some display of concern. It was not the only disappointment of my life.

  “He is right,” she said, nodding. “What you witnessed was a ritual of a very ancient religion. It makes those rustic wise women seem rather innocent, in a horrible sort of way.”

  “Philosophical detachment is an admirable trait,” I told her, “but those people wanted to kill me! Put my eyes out anyway.”

  “Punishments for profanation and sacrilege are always severe. Besides, you got out of it in one piece. You shouldn’t make such a great thing of it. You really aren’t a hero out of some epic.” I could tell she was still angry with me.

  “Cicero himself compared me with Ulysses.”

  “Cicero is sometimes guilty of rhetorical excess. Most politicians are. Now, how do we find Ascylta?”

  It was no use. “We may have to wait until she’s back beneath her arch at the Flaminius. She is probably out there somewhere”—I gestured grandly to take in the spectacle of the overcrowded Forum—“but it would be futile to try to find her.”

  “Have you anything better to do?” she asked impatiently.

  “Well, it is a holiday, and I had a rough night. I had planned to indulge in a little debauchery …”

  She pushed off the railing with her hands and landed lightly on her dainty, highborn feet. “Come along, Decius, let’s go look for her.”

  Julia’s sprightly energy depressed me. Undoubtedly, she had enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Perforce, I concluded that wandering around the city was as good a way as any to spend the day, and we certainly would not lack for distractions. So off we went, peering into booths and tents, pausing to take in some of the innumerable performances or allow a chain of dancing celebrants to wind its mindless way past us.

  The fortune-teller’s establishments were everywhere. Instead of being concentrated in one area as on ordinary days, they were set up wherever they could find space. And there were far more of them than usual, because the practitioners from all the villages and towns for many miles around Rome had come to town for the holiday. They had come from as far as Luca to the north and Capua to the south.

  It seemed as if most of the Italian peninsula had crammed itself into Rome that day. And there was the usual crowd of foreigners, come to the cen
ter of the world to gawk, everything from Syrians in long robes to check-trousered Gauls and Egyptians with their eyes outlined in kohl. Somehow, Rome had become a cosmopolitan city. I suppose you can’t be the capital of the world without a lot of aliens hanging about.

  By early afternoon we had exhausted the possibilities of the Forum Romanum so we decided to try the Forum Boarium, the cattle market. There the relative lack of monuments, platforms, podia, and the like made it easier to explore, as the many small merchants had established a sort of tent city, like a legionary camp, with an almost orderly grid of streets. There were fewer fortune-tellers and more people selling merchandise: ribbons, children’s toys, figurines, small oil lamps, and other things of trifling value to be passed along as gifts.

  Julia acted as if she were in the great marketplace of Alexandria, exclaiming over every new display of tawdry trash as if she had just discovered the golden fleece hanging in a tree in Colchis. I think it was Colchis.

  “Julia, I never knew you had this streak of vulgarity,” I said. “I approve. It makes you seem … well, you seem more Roman.”

  “You do have a way with compliments.” She picked up a little terra-cotta group: two ladies gossiping with pet dogs in their laps.

  I selected a lively little Thracian gladiator, poised to strike and painted in lifelike colors. He held a tiny bronze sword and his helmet sported a crest of real feathers.

  “I like this one,” I proclaimed.

  “You would, being not only vulgar and Roman, but male. Carry these.” She handed me her purchases and quickly added a half-dozen others. I thought she had forgotten her mission to locate Ascylta, but Julia had a rare ability to divide her attention. While she was trying to decide between a scarlet scarf and a purple one, she spotted a garish tent covered with floral designs.

  “Let’s try that one,” she said, walking away and leaving me trying to juggle all her junk. I bought the red scarf in order to wrap them all up. I caught up with her at the entrance to the tent. “You stay out here,” she said. “If it’s the woman we’re looking for, I want to speak with her alone for a while. I’ll call you when I need you.” She pushed the door covering aside and went in.