SPQR III: The Sacrilege

by John Maddox Roberts

  It was barely midafternoon when I reached the Forum. There were several hours left before sunset, when I would meet Julia at the Temple of Castor. I wondered what she might have discovered, but that was not the foremost thing on my mind. I was more excited just to be meeting Julia again. Too many women had inserted themselves into my life in recent days: Clodia, Fulvia, even Purpurea. In the company of these mysterious and dangerous women, Julia seemed positively wholesome, even if she was Caesar’s niece.

  The Forum is always a good place to idle, so I idled. I talked to friends and acquaintances, and got braced by more publicani than I had known to exist. Most of these were angling for public contracts out in the provinces, because virtually all the builders in Rome were going to be engaged for the next couple of years on Pompey’s new theater. Not only was the theater itself to be immense, but it was to be but the centerpiece of a veritable minor forum out on the Campus Martius. It would have galleries and gardens, a new voting-compound for the popular assemblies and a Senate house. It seemed that there was a sort of public-works rivalry between Pompey and Lucullus, and the city was doing well out of it. Lucullus, though, gave better parties.

  As I ambled around the periphery of the Forum, I came upon one of those crowds that assemble wherever something ghastly has happened. With a sinking heart, I went to investigate. I could already see that they were gathered before a booth, one decorated with fortuneteller’s symbols. I pushed my way through the gawkers and into the booth. Inside I found a man in a purple-bordered toga dictating to a pair of secretaries who stood with styluses and wax tablets poised.

  All three were gazing down at the body of Purpurea, which was decorated with the now-familiar wounds on throat and brow. Her face was stretched into a mask of terror as exaggerated as those worn on the stage. Unlike the other victims, she had known what was coming.

  “Good day, Senator,” said the man in the toga praetexta. He was perhaps forty years old, with a serious face and reddish hair. “I am Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, curule aedile. This woman was murdered sometime this morning. Did you know her, or were you just curious to see what the fuss was about?”

  I told him my name and enough of my lineage to let him know who I was. “I have questioned her in recent days concerning an investigation I am engaged upon.”

  “Under whose auspices?” he asked sharply.

  “Metellus Celer,” I said.

  “He has no authority, but we both know he’ll be one of next year’s Consuls, and I’ll be out of office then, so I won’t dispute his right to appoint you.”

  “How was she discovered?” I asked.

  “Several people entered this booth this morning but left thinking she was not here. A man who keeps a sausage-stand nearby came in to see if she had any garlic among her herbs, and he saw her foot sticking out from behind a pile of baskets. Whoever killed her covered the body.”

  “Is anything known about her?” I asked.

  “Nothing but her name and occupation,” Domitius said.

  “I don’t suppose she had a license to practice her trade here?”

  “How could she?” he said. “It’s illegal.” He caught my reproving look. “All right, I know it’s our duty to expel them from the Forums and markets, but the office of aedile was assigned when Rome was about one-tenth the size it is now. We have to test weights and measures, guard against usury and counterfeiting, put on the public games, keep all the public works in repair, clean and pave the streets—” He threw up his hands. “I could devote my whole year just to inspecting the wineshops and whorehouses, another of our duties, and never get to all of them!”

  “The burdens of office are great,” I agreed. “Any idea whether she was freeborn? If she was a freedwoman her former master may want to claim the body for burial.”

  “I intend to find out. One of my secretaries will go from here to the Archives.”

  “When you find out, could you send me word? I didn’t get to finish questioning her, and there is a great deal I would like to know. I would esteem it a great personal favor.”

  He had been bored with the onerousness of office, but this brightened him. This meant he would be able to call on me for a favor someday, and that was not a small thing when the parties had names like Domitius and Metellus.

  “I shall be most glad to, Senator.”

  “Thank you. My house is in the Subura. Your messenger can ask anyone there where to find me.” I took my leave and went outside. I checked to make sure that my caestus was handy and my dagger was loose in its sheath. The way things were progressing, it couldn’t be long before the man with the knife and the hammer came for me.

  The Temple of Castor is the most beautiful in Rome. It had been built over four hundred years before, in gratitude for our victory at Lake Regillus. Actually, its full name was the Temple of Castor and Pollux, but nobody bothers with poor old Pollux, who, like Remus, is the forgotten brother of the Twins.

  I found Julia standing atop the steps, between two of the tall, slender columns. She wore a belted gown of pale saffron and a shawl of darker yellow. Her only jewelry was a string of gold and amber beads. She was as different from Clodia as it was possible for a woman to be, and that was the highest praise I could think of. She smiled as I came up the steps toward her. She had wonderful teeth.

  “You’re early,” she said. “The sun isn’t quite down.”

  “I was anxious to see you again.” I looked around the portico, which seemed to be deserted. “No grandmothers lurking in the shadows?”

  “We’re safe,” she said. “I’m supposed to be visiting an aunt in the House of the Vestals.”

  “I have an aunt there myself,” I said inanely.

  “Actually, I went there,” she said. “I wouldn’t lie about it. I just didn’t stay as long as I hinted I might.”

  “That’s nothing to anger the gods,” I assured her. “Before I forget—when you said that Fulvia was at Caesar’s house on the night of the Mysteries, did you mean the younger one, the one who is betrothed to Clodius?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. The elder Fulvia left the city in disgrace last year. I met Fulvia that night, before the unmarried women had to withdraw. She’s a beautiful creature. I’ve heard rumors about her, but I would not believe them. Nobody that young can be that bad.”

  “Oh, yes, they can,” I affirmed. “Some people are bad from birth. Age merely confers experience and discretion upon their youthful promise. I met her yesterday, and I couldn’t have picked a better match for Clodius. With luck, they’ll kill each other, but I tremble for the fate of Rome, should they produce children who live.”

  She laughed merrily. “I love the way you exaggerate, Decius.” Poor, simple girl. She thought I exaggerated.

  “Just what is it that you unmarried women did that night? Or is that another of those forbidden subjects?”

  “Oh, no. There is a preliminary ceremony, an invocation of the goddess. After that the Mysteries began, and we had to leave. Mostly, we sat around gossiping in the back of the house, and we would have been there all night, but things broke up in the uproar over Clodius being there.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, don’t you want to hear what I’ve found out?” she said impatiently.

  “Certainly. Whatever makes you think otherwise?”

  “Because you’re acting just like a man!” As if that were some sort of condemnation.

  “I should hope so. Now, what is it you’ve discovered?”

  “I found out how Clodius got in!”

  “Splendid. We already know he was dressed as a woman.”

  “Yes, yes, but he didn’t arrive with the others. It was later, when the Mysteries were already well under way. He arrived with the woman who brought the laurel leaves.”

  “Laurel leaves?” I said. “You mean wreaths?”

  “No, leaves steeped in something or other according to some ancient formula. The women chew them during the later phase of the rites. Things get rather … abandone
d, I understand.”

  “Imagine that,” I said. “Respectable Roman matrons carrying on like a pack of maenads.” Then the implication struck me. “This woman Clodius arrived with—you wouldn’t have got her name, would you?”

  Julia shrugged. “Just a peasant herb-woman. Is it important?”

  I leaned against one of the fluted columns and rubbed my eyes. My head was beginning to throb.

  “I could take you across the Forum and show you her corpse.”

  Julia’s eyes widened and she gasped. She had led a sheltered life. “She was murdered?”

  “The carnage is getting warlike,” I said. “Four dead so far, slave, peasant and patrician. What next? A eunuch?”

  “Then my information was of no use to you?” She looked so crestfallen that I was swift to reassure her.

  “By no means. What you’ve told me is sure to be of the utmost importance. The murders tie in somehow with the sacrilege.”

  “Certainly it was scandalous,” she said, “but worthy of multiple murder?”

  “No. The profanation of the rites has been a real laugh-raiser. Romans aren’t as pious as they used to be. Clodius was up to something else that night, and that is what he doesn’t want discovered.”

  “Then you think Clodius has done all this?”

  I shook my head. “He is involved, but I can’t believe that he originated anything so devious. Direct action is his style. No, what we need to find out is who else was there that night.”

  “Who else? You mean you think Clodius was not the only man to profane the rites?”

  “If not the rites themselves, then in another part of the house. Where better to meet for nefarious reasons than in a house where men are supposed to be banned for the night?”

  “Conspiracy! This gets better all the time!” I could tell that her delight in winkling out plots matched my own.

  “I suspect that Clodius attended whatever conference he and his co-conspirators had arranged, and then almost ruined everything because he couldn’t resist sneaking back in to spy on the rituals. Serves them all right, whoever they are. Anyone who would trust Clodius deserves whatever happens to them.” I glanced into the temple, where the priests were placing fires before the statues of the Twins. The moment the word “twins” entered my mind, the question that had plagued me was shaken loose.

  “Julia, you said that Fausta was there that night. Yet she is not married. Was she with you unmarried ladies?”

  Julia frowned in thought. “No, she wasn’t. She arrived with Claudia the wife of Lucullus. She wore a veil, but it was almost transparent and I knew her by sight. I didn’t notice if she withdrew when the rest of us did. Are you sure she isn’t widowed?”

  “She has never married. So what was she up to? All sorts of anomalies keep cropping up in that night’s doings. You will find that it is the anomalies that are truly important, when investigating the deeds of infamous men.”

  “I suspected as much,” she said rather coolly. Apparently, I was pointing out the obvious again.

  “I think it might be time to concentrate on Fausta,” I said. “It should not be difficult to get other ladies to gossip about her—she’s the center of much gossip as it is. Try to find out if anyone else remembers her doing anything suspicious that night.”

  Julia smiled again. “I shall do that.”

  “But carefully, mind you. Someone is killing people without regard to sex or social standing. I would hate for you to be the next victim. Or even the one after, for that matter.”

  “I shall be discreet. What will you be doing?”

  “Dangerous and foolish things,” I assured her. “Stalking violent and ambitious men, searching for murderers who employ a singular technique for dispatching their victims, that sort of thing.” I was beginning to feel quite heroic.

  “Then do take care yourself. You are unique, and the Republic can scarcely afford to lose you.”

  I could not but agree with this, but I modestly forbore to acknowledge the fact. She took her leave and descended the steps of the temple. I waited in the shadow of the portico until she was out of sight. I now realized, belatedly, that it was perilous for her to be seen in my company. I scanned the surrounding area for surreptitious watchers, but that was futile. Rome provides from every prospect more alleys, windows, warrens, rooftops and other lurking spots than the human eye can readily discern.

  When Julia was gone I left the temple and walked through the city’s rapidly darkening streets. I tucked my hands beneath my tunic as if warming them, but actually to grip my weapons. As I walked I pondered, trying to fit the new anomalies into some sort of order.

  As I had told Julia, the anomalies are important. So are correspondences, linkages, kinships, anything that ties the facts together in some fashion however bizarre they might seem at first. My problem was that, when thinking of Clodius, I found it difficult to think of anything else. I decided to concentrate on other things and see if they led back to Clodius, or somewhere else.

  Fausta had some odd part to play in this. She was the daughter of the late Dictator, Sulla. What else was she? She was the ward of Lucullus, who had been named Sulla’s executor. Her twin brother, Faustus, was Pompey’s loyal henchman. That was another scent that could easily distract me. I longed to pull Pompey down almost as much as Clodius. In Pompey’s case because he was a prospective tyrant and king of Rome. With Clodius it was personal. So Fausta had that connection with Pompey. She lived in the household of Lucullus, who hated Pompey, but she would be more likely to side with her beloved twin than with her protector. She had arrived at the house of Caesar on the night of the rites in company with the wife of Lucullus. And his wife was Claudia, elder sister of Clodius and Clodia. The other Claudian brother, Appius, was out there in Pompey’s camp someplace, but he did not concern me. To the best of my knowledge, he had found legionary life to his taste and settled on a military career, taking little interest in politics.

  This might prove embarrassing. I had already told my friend Milo that I would aid him in his courtship of the woman. He would not take it kindly if she were to be exiled because of me. Between Celer’s insistence that I keep Clodia out of the scandal and Milo’s infatuation with Fausta, I was placed in something of a quandary. Trouble with women was nothing new in my life, but this was a novel variant of it.

  Who else might have been in that house on the night of the rites? And for what purpose? The fact that they had gone to such extremes to keep their doings secret, and were murdering people to cover themselves, meant that whatever it was was very, very bad indeed. And what could Capito have had to do with it?

  I reached my house without any attempts being made on my life.

  10

  The next morning I found that Hermes was mostly recovered from his malady, pale but upright and rubbing his belly from time to time.

  “Can’t guess what it might have been,” he said. He had a furtively guilty look but he usually looked that way, so I could not tell whether that signified anything. “Maybe an enemy put a curse on me,” he said.

  “More likely you broke into my wine closet and drained a jug or two,” I said. “I’ll look into it later.”

  I greeted my clients, and in the midst of it a man arrived with a note. I recognized the fellow as one of Asklepiodes’s slaves.

  Please come visit me at your earliest opportunity, it read. Below the message was the whimsical seal the Greek used: a sword and caduceus. This looked promising. Perhaps he had discovered something.

  We all trooped to Celer’s house, and at the first opportunity I took him aside.

  “Have you determined anything?” he asked.

  “Just a great deal of confusion,” I said. “But I must ask you something. A few days ago I spoke to Caesar in this house. He said that he had come to ask you for a night’s lodgings while he was banned from his own roof.”

  “So he did.”

  “Was he here all night?” I asked.

  “Well, no. About midnight he
went out. He said that he had to go take the omens. He was wearing his trabea and carried his crooked staff. Why? Is this significant?”

  “It may be,” I said. “Did you see him after that?”

  “Yes. He came in shortly after I got up. He said he’d been up on the Quirinal, but that the night had been too cloudy for decent omen-taking. Why?”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I am just trying to account for everybody’s location that night. It all happened at his house.”

  “Stick to Clodius, my boy. Don’t go trifling with Caius Julius.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. I did not tell him that I suspected more powerful men than Caius Julius were involved.

  I dismissed my clients and told Hermes to follow me. We walked back through the Subura and trudged up the Quirinal to the ancient Colline Gate. Like all the gates, it was a holy place and had seen many battles. Hannibal is supposed to have heaved a spear over it as a gesture of defiance, and just twenty-one years before Sulla had smashed the Samnite supporters of the younger Marius outside the gate, a battle the Romans had watched from atop the walls as at an amphitheater. After the rigors of the previous years, I am told that it was something of a relief seeing blood shed outside the walls.

  Since Rome had no military or police within the walls, the guardianship of the gates was parceled out among various guilds, brotherhoods and temples. The Colline Gate was the responsibility of the collegium of the nearby Temple of Quirinus. These were the Quirinal Salii, who danced each October before all the most important shrines of the city. The young patricians did not pull night guard themselves, of course, but their servants did.

  In the temple I went to the wardroom, where the gate guards stayed. Then I requested to be shown the tablet of the night when the rites had been profaned. The slave who kept the wardroom rummaged among the tablets while I looked over the small facility. There was no one else there. The gates were only watched at night.

  “Here you are, sir,” the slave said. I looked at the scratchings on the wax. Several freight wagons had entered the city during the night. All had left the same way before first light. There was no record of the Pontifex Maximus going out to take the omens. I asked the slave if he knew anything about it.