The Triumph Of Caesar rsr-12

by Steven Saylor

  "Perhaps he was working for her as a tutor. Hieronymus was smarter than just about anybody!" This came from Androcles, who had been very impressed by all the stories Hieronymus could recite.

  "It couldn't be that," said Bethesda, sighing through her tears. "Calpurnia has no need for tutors; she's never given Caesar a child. The woman is famously barren."

  "But Caesar has a son, even so, doesn't he?" offered Mopsus, doggedly following his younger brother's chain of thought. "He had a son by Queen Cleopatra, a little boy about the same age as Beth. And they say Cleopatra is in Rome right now, to witness Caesar's Egyptian Triumph, and she brought her little boy, Caesarion, with her." His face was lit by the glow of deductive success. "I'll wager Calpurnia wanted Hieronymus to be Caesarion's tutor."

  Even Davus, as thick as he is, knew better than this. He laughed. "I hardly think that Caesar's Roman wife would want to engage a tutor for the son of Caesar's Egyptian mistress!"

  He was right, of course. But what was Calpurnia's attitude toward Cleopatra and, more especially, toward the child Cleopatra claimed to be the son of Caesar? I had seen Calpurnia grimace when she spoke the queen's name, but she had said not a word, harsh or otherwise, about Cleopatra. Mopsus and Androcles were clearly far from the mark with their speculations about Hieronymus, but could the Scapegoat's death have had something to do with Cleopatra, nonetheless? I felt a stab of eagerness to begin reading the reports Calpurnia had given me as well as Hieronymus's private journal.

  But first, there were practical considerations to be dealt with. I had told Calpurnia that I would assume responsibility for Hieronymus's funeral rites. I dispatched Rupa and the slave boys with a cart to fetch his body. Diana, with Davus to accompany her, I sent to pay a call on an undertaker near the temple of Venus Libitina. I had used the man's services before. He would supply slaves to wash the body and anoint it with oil and perfumes, and deliver a wreath of cypress for the door and a funeral bier with garlands for my vestibule. He would also enter the name of Hieronymus in the official registry of the dead and make arrangements for his cremation.

  Bethesda busied herself with preparing the evening meal. We would eat that night in honor of the memory of our departed friend, Hieronymus of Massilia.

  Left to myself, I withdrew to the garden and sat on a chair in the afternoon shade. With the scrolls beside me, and with a much-desired cup of wine close at hand, I began to read.

  I began with the documents Calpurnia had given me. The reports from Hieronymus-there were a great many of them-had been neatly arranged into sections under the names of various persons. Most of these people were familiar to me, and I could see why Calpurnia thought it worthwhile to keep an eye on them.

  I turned to the reports regarding Marc Antony.

  Antony had been one of Caesar's most trusted officers during the conquest of Gaul. Later, he fought beside Caesar at Pharsalus in Greece, where Pompey was routed. When Caesar pursued Pompey to Egypt, he sent Antony back to Rome to keep order. Because Antony's return occurred shortly after I left for Egypt myself, I had not been present during his tenure as master of the city.

  Governing the city for month after month, while Caesar defeated his enemies and quelled unrest abroad, had been no easy task. The wartime capital was plagued by shortages and riven by factional violence. Antony had forbidden citizens to carry arms, but this ban was universally ignored. Gangs had ruled the streets by day; common criminals had ruled the city by night.

  Added to the general violence had been the growing unruliness of the lower classes, many of whom expected Caesar to abolish all debts and (in their wildest dreams) to redistribute the vast properties of the defeated Pompeians to the poor. Stirred up by one of Caesar's youngest officers, the radical firebrand Dolabella, a mob had gathered in the Forum to call for debt relief. Antony explained that he had no authority to grant their demands; they would have to wait for Caesar's return. The mob rioted. Antony, determined to keep order, dispatched soldiers to clear the Forum. By the end of the day, more than eight hundred citizens were dead. The city was calmer after that.

  When Caesar finally returned and learned of the massacre, one of his first actions was to publicly berate Antony for the heavy-handedness of his rule-and to heap praise on Dolabella, the instigator of the mob. Caesar's actions may have been purely pragmatic, a bid to regain the favor of the lower orders. Still, his rebuke of his longtime protege must have stung. Shortly after Caesar's return, Antony vanished from the public arena.

  So much, from hearsay, I knew about the situation between Caesar and Antony. What else had Hieronymus discovered?

  I scanned the notes written in Hieronymus's elegant hand. He went back and forth between Latin and Greek. His Latin was a bit stiff, but his Greek was almost absurdly elevated, full of Homeric flourishes, recondite references, and complicated puns. All this made for slow and difficult reading; glancing at the massive volume of material, I groaned at the idea of trying to read it all. I was surprised that Calpurnia had tolerated such prose.

  Translating in my head, I tried to strip away Hieronymus's stylistic indulgences, looking simply for the facts.

  Antony currently resides in Pompey's old house, called the House of the Beaks, in the Carinae district…

  How could that be? I remembered the day, shortly after my return to Rome, when Caesar announced that Pompey's entire estate would be sold at public auction to benefit the Treasury. He had charged Antony with conducting the auction, a formidable task. Pompey's house was stuffed with so many precious items, looted from his many campaigns of conquest, that simply making an inventory would pose a logistical challenge. But so far as I knew, there had been no auction. Yet Antony himself was living in the house of Pompey, according to Hieronymus.

  Had Caesar given Antony the house outright, and with it Pompey's treasures? That seemed unlikely. Rewarding a favorite with so much plunder would be a slap at the mob, many of whom were in desperate straits and still ready to agitate for a radical redistribution of wealth. It would also smack of the arrogant favoritism that Sulla had practiced when he was dictator, and Caesar would never wish to be compared to Sulla.

  I read on.

  Antony divorced his second wife (and first cousin), the lovely Antonia, some time ago. He is living, quite openly, with his lover, the even more beautiful Cytheris. There can be no question of marriage, of course. An aristocrat like Antony, no matter how dissolute, could never marry a mere actress, especially a foreigner from Alexandria…

  News of Antony's divorce came as no surprise. I had met Antonia before I left for Egypt. She was a bitter woman. Her marriage had not been happy, thanks largely to Antony's open affair with Cytheris, whom I had met also. "Even more beautiful" than Antonia, Hieronymus had written, but when I tried to picture Cytheris, the impression in my mind was not so much of her face as of her sheer sexual allure-a tangled mass of auburn hair; flashing hazel eyes; a loose gown that could barely contain her voluptuous breasts; and, most especially, the way she had of moving, executing even the smallest gesture with a dancer's sinuous grace.

  Everything that one hears about the parties Antony and Cytheris have been throwing in Pompey's house is true. These events are obscenely lavish. If there are food shortages in Rome, one would never guess from looking at Antony's table. Pompey's famous stock of expensive wines? Almost gone! Antony and Cytheris have done their share to empty the amphorae, but they've had plenty of help from every thirsty actor, dancer, street mime, and juggler in Rome. (Cytheris knows everyone connected to the theater.) She has told me I have a splendid voice for declaiming Greek, and says I should have gone on the stage.

  I laughed out loud at this sudden intrusion of Hieronymus's vanity into his report. It seemed that my friend had not only managed to get himself invited into Antony's house but also had won plaudits from Cytheris. I could easily imagine him reciting a racy bit of Aristophanes at one of the couple's raucous gatherings, after warming his throat with a draft from the dwindling store of Pompey's fine vintag
es.

  I quickly scanned the rest of the material about Antony. The details seemed to be as much about the spy as about the spied upon-Hieronymus reported that one of his puns had made Antony laugh so hard he spat out a mouthful of wine, and recounted at length a verbal duel in which he got the better of a faded actor with rouged cheeks. I grew weary of the ornate prose and found the documents increasingly difficult to read. It seemed to me Hieronymus was intentionally filling space to pad reports that had contained very little actual information. He would not be the first confidential informant to pull such a trick. As long as Calpurnia kept paying (and Antony kept inviting him back), why not stretch out the accounts as much as possible, even if he had nothing of importance to report?

  I wondered if his private journal had been as prolix. I set aside the material about Antony and picked up the scraps of parchment I had found in Hieronymus's apartment.

  I saw at once that the prose was indeed different-it was entirely in Greek, with some passages succinct to the point of abbreviation, like the shorthand code invented by Cicero's secretary, Tiro.

  I saw my own name and stopped to read the passage.

  Beginning to think dear old Gordianus was a bit of a puffed-up charlatan. This "finder" business not remotely as difficult, or as dangerous, as he always made it out to be. The tales he used to tell, portraying himself as the fearless hero on a relentless quest for the truth! Half of those stories were probably made up. Still, if he's truly dead, as people say, I shall miss the old windbag…

  My face turned hot. If the lemur of Hieronymus was present, watching me, what would he say now about the danger of this sort of work?

  I shuffled through the notes, looking for other mentions of my name, but instead I found this:

  At last, I have hit upon it! Calpurnia's fears, which I had begun to think absurd, may be well-founded, after all-and the menace to Caesar will come at a time and from a direction we did not anticipate. But I could be wrong. Consequences of a false accusation-unthinkable! Must be certain. Until then, not a word in any of my official reports to the lady and her soothsayer. I dare not write my supposition even here; what if this journal were to be discovered? Must keep it hidden. But what if I am silenced? To any seeker who finds these words and would unlock the truth, I shall leave a key. Look all around! The truth is not found in the words, but the words may be found in the truth.

  An icy chill swept through me. Apparently Hieronymus had discovered something of deadly importance, after all. But what?

  It appeared he had even foreseen his death and anticipated the discovery of his journal. But what was the key he spoke of-a real key or a metaphorical one? "Look all around!" he wrote, yet I had searched every corner of his rooms and found no key, nor anything else of obvious significance. "The truth is not found in the words, but the words may be found in the truth." More of his irritating, self-indulgent wordplay!

  Mopsus appeared in the garden to announce that dinner was ready. I put aside the scraps of parchment and rose from my chair, glad to feel the warmth of the last rays of the sun on my face.

  IV

  I stayed up late that night, reading for as long as the lamps had oil to burn. My eyes are not what they were, and neither my brain nor my body can boast the stamina they once possessed. Deciphering Hieronymus's ornate handwriting and his cluttered prose, especially by dim lamplight, wearied me to exhaustion. The great majority of documents remained unread when I finally succumbed to a few hours of restless sleep.

  Before breakfast, I stepped into the vestibule to view the body of Hieronymus. All had been properly done, according to Roman custom. Washed, perfumed, and dressed in a spotless tunic, surrounded by fragrant garlands, he lay upon a bier with his feet toward the door, his upper body slightly elevated so that any visitors could see him at once from the entrance, where a wreath of cypress had been hung on the door to signal the household's grief.

  No doubt the Massilians had their own way of doing these things, but Hieronymus had rejected his native city, and it seemed to me that Roman rites would be proper.

  I gazed for a long moment his face, which was peaceful in repose. In death, his features gave no indication of the tart words that could issue from that mouth of his, within which now lay the coin to pay his passage to the underworld.

  "Puffed-up," he had called me, and "charlatan," and, worst of all, "windbag." Indeed! Yet, gazing at him, I could feel no resentment. Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned away.

  After a breakfast of farina prepared in the Egyptian manner, with bits of dates and a sprinkling of poppy seeds-since our return from the Nile, Bethesda had prepared nothing but Egyptian dishes, revisiting all the favorites of her childhood-I set out, with Rupa at my side. If I were to discover the reason for Hieronymus's murder, I had to begin somewhere. The house of Pompey, where Antony now resided, seemed as good a place as any.

  The so-called Great One had owned several houses in Rome. I was most familiar with his magnificent villa with gardens on the Pincian Hill, outside the city walls. The house claimed by Antony was within the walls, in the very heart of the city. People called it the House of the Beaks, because the vestibule was decorated with metal ramming beaks from ships captured by Pompey during his illustrious campaign to rid the sea of piracy some twenty years ago. Only the choicest of these trophies were displayed; it was said that Pompey captured some 846 ships. The House of the Beaks was located in the Carinae district, on the southwestern slope of the Esquiline Hill above the valley of the Subura.

  The most prominent monument on the slope of the Carinae was the Temple of Tellus, the earth goddess. We passed it on the way to Pompey's house, and Rupa indicated, by a nod and gesture, that he wished to step inside for a moment. I could guess his reason. Tellus is celebrated during sowing and harvest, for accepting seed and giving forth grain, but she is also worshipped for receiving the dead, for all things return eventually to the soil. Rupa still mourned his older sister, Cassandra, whose death had brought him into my family. No doubt he wished to put a coin in the temple coffers and say a prayer for the departed spirit of Cassandra.

  I waited outside on the temple steps, remembering Cassandra in my own way.

  Just as Rupa emerged, I saw a litter coming up the hill, heading in the direction of the House of the Beaks. Through a break in the yellow curtains, I caught a glimpse of the occupant. It was Cytheris, lounging on a pile of rust-colored cushions that complemented her auburn hair and exquisite complexion. Cytheris had known Cassandra, and Rupa, back in her days as a dancer in Alexandria. If I moved quickly, I might make it appear that we had run into her by chance. A meeting that seemed fortuitous rather than premeditated was often to be preferred in my work-as I had more than once told Hieronymus. Had he absorbed that lesson, or had he considered it hot air from a windbag?

  I grabbed Rupa by the arm (insofar as my hand could lay claim to such a massive limb) and hurried down the steps to intercept the litter, which was making slow progress through the crowded street.

  Things could not have gone more to my liking. While I pretended to look the other way, Cytheris spotted the two of us and called out.

  "Gordianus? Hello there! Can it truly be you? Back from the dead? But it must be, because that big blond demigod beside you can only be Cassandra's little brother. Rupa!"

  She pushed aside the curtains and, not waiting for a slave to assist her, bounded from the litter. The flimsy gown she was wearing seemed more suitable for staying in than going out, and the hug she gave Rupa, pressing her small body full against him, caused him to blush to the roots of his golden hair. But when Cytheris threw back her head in a laugh of sheer delight, Rupa did likewise, though the sound that emerged from his throat was something between a bray and a bleat.

  "But this is too delicious!" she said, turning her attention to me. "One heard that you were dead. Oh, dear, is it awful of me to say that aloud? I'm sure I must be flouting some superstitious rule of silence. But really, it's such a surprise. You were off in Alexandri
a, weren't you? Along with Rupa? But now you're back! What are you up to, here in the Carinae?"

  "Well… we were just stopping here at the Temple of Tellus, so that Rupa could say a prayer for his sister." This was the truth, after all.

  "Ah, yes, Cassandra…" Cytheris and Cassandra had been close in their younger days, when they were both street performers in Alexandria. "But you must come with me, both of you. You must tell me all about Alexandria. It's been ages since I was there, but some days I still wake up with the salty smell of the harbor in my nostrils. Come with me to the House of the Beaks, and we'll share some wine in the garden."

  Are you watching, lemur of Hieronymus? I thought. Take notes! I had intended to make your death the reason for my visit, as the bearer of sad news, but this is much better. To all appearances, we have met by chance, and my visit to the house of Antony is Cytheris's idea, not my own. I shall mention your death only in passing…

  Slaves scurried to assist Cytheris back into her litter, but she shooed them away and beckoned to Rupa. With a single sweep of his arms he lifted her up and deposited her among the cushions. While Cytheris rode, we walked beside her. The litter bearers restrained their pace, in deference to my slow, uphill progress.

  Like many houses of the rich in Rome, Pompey's old residence presented an unostentatious face to the street. The portico was small and there was little in the way of ornament. But once we passed through the front doorway, I saw how the house had come by its name. The vestibule was enormous-one could have fitted a more humble house inside it-and the display of ramming beaks was dazzling. Some were very crudely fashioned, little more than man-sized lumps of bronze with a pointed end. But some were amazing works of art, fashioned to look like griffins with ferocious beaks or sea monsters with multiple horns. They were fearsome objects, intended to wreak havoc on other ships, but strikingly beautiful. I pondered for a moment the degree of artistry that is lavished on spears and swords and other weapons, to make pleasing to the eye a thing designed to cause death and destruction.