A Murder on the Appian Way

by Steven Saylor

  There were cries from the crowd:

  “No!”

  “Never!”

  “Impossible!”

  “Milo wouldn’t dare!”

  “Wouldn’t he?” The tribune Pompeius, who had been holding back, stepped forward. As a member of Pompey’s clan, he claimed the crowd’s full attention. “I shall tell you what I think,” he said. “It was Milo who provided a body to be cremated in the Senate House. And it’s Milo who’ll provide another body to be buried on the Capitoline Hill!” His meaning was clear, for who but Pompey could be worthy of a sepulcher on the hill of Rome’s most sacred temples?

  The crowd raised their fists and began to shout, drowning out the speakers on the platform, who seemed only too pleased to fall silent and yield to the roar of the mob. Was Milo plotting to kill Pompey? The tribunes had not offered even a shred of evidence, but the mere suggestion drove the crowd to a frenzy.

  The Forum was like a great pool of sound. Individual cries were like pebbles that rippled through the crowd and echoed back from its edges. All coalesced into a deafening, indistinct roar, until somewhere in the crowd someone began to chant. The chant was joined by more and more voices until it rose above the roar: “Vote … now! Vote … now!” It was the same cry that had echoed for days around the house of the interrex Marcus Lepidus.

  The crowd began to move. How this movement began, I never quite understood. I saw no signal from the tribunes on the stage. I heard no shout from the crowd, urging everyone to head for the house of Lepidus. Perhaps if I had been on my rooftop watching instead of in the thick of things, I could have seen and understood the dynamics of the mob—or perhaps not. One might as easily comprehend the uncanny unison of a swarm of bees in flight.

  However it happened, the crowd became a mob, and the mob began to move as a single body toward the Palatine. Eco and I moved along with it for a while, unable to separate ourselves, like flotsam on a current. I was jostled and poked and pushed forward against my will. I gritted my teeth and grunted. But the same experience that I found so unpleasant seemed to invigorate many of those around me, who grinned and made giddy whoops of excitement as if they had drunk too much wine.

  Little by little we worked our way sideways through the press of the crowd until we reached the edge and were able to drop back. Even Eco seemed intoxicated by the excitement. “What’s wrong, Papa?” he said, smiling and catching his breath. “Don’t you want to join the march on the interrex’s house?”

  “Don’t be funny, Eco. There’s no telling what will happen. I’m going home. So should you.”

  I spent that afternoon on my rooftop, anxiously looking for signs of fire or smoke. I saw none, but heard the clattering echoes of some kind of battle taking place in the direction of Lepidus’s house.

  A sharp wind began to gust from the north, followed by dark clouds. As the first cold raindrops pelted my face, Bethesda appeared in the garden.

  “Come down from there!” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

  I obeyed. But halfway down the ladder I turned to stone, as did everything around me. A bolt of lightning opened the sky. Jupiter blinked, as the augurs say. The blinding flash of bone-white light was followed by a crack of thunder so loud that the earth itself seemed to flinch. Rain swept across the garden. I hurried down the ladder, shivering, and told Belbo to light the brazier in my study.

  I hardly had a chance to warm my hands over the flames before Belbo was back, announcing a visitor. “The same as before,” he said. “Cicero’s man.”

  “Tiro?”

  Belbo nodded.

  “Well, show him in.”

  “What about his bodyguards?”

  “They can stay outside in the rain.”

  A moment later Tiro stepped into the room, pushing the hood back from his face. His heavy woolen cloak was wet. He covered his mouth and coughed.

  “Cicero shouldn’t send you out in the rain, Tiro. He should consider your health.”

  “It’s only a short walk. Besides, he thinks you’re fond of me.”

  “And that I might not come if he sent someone else to fetch me?”

  Tiro smiled. “Will you come?”

  “Shouldn’t you and I have a brief, polite conversation about the weather first?”

  “Thunder and lightning,” said Tiro, rolling his eyes skyward. “Omens and portents.”

  “If you believe in that sort of thing.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Don’t be disingenuous, Tiro. It doesn’t suit you. Just because your master—your former master, I mean—pretends to go along with such superstitious ideas for the sake of politics …”

  “You really despise Cicero, don’t you?”

  I sighed. “No more or less than I despise all the rest of his kind, I suppose.”

  “His kind?”

  “Politicians.”

  “No, I think you despise him more than the rest. Because once upon a time you thought he was different somehow, and then he disappointed you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Whereas you expect only the worst from the rest of them, so they’ve never let you down.”

  I shrugged.

  “But isn’t it really only your own false expectations that have let you down, Gordianus? Do you think a man can cross a muddy street without getting his feet dirty? Cicero can’t walk on air. No one can.”

  “Cicero doesn’t just cross the muddy street, Tiro. He stoops down and flings handfuls of mud at anybody in his way. He sticks out his foot and trips people—and claps when they fall on their faces! Then he washes his hands at the nearest fountain and blithely pretends they were never dirty.”

  Tiro gave me a grudging smile. “Cicero can be a bit self-righteous.”

  “Smug is more like it.”

  “Yes. Well, I try to tone down those parts in his speeches. But it’s a funny thing. People may say that modesty is a virtue, but they respect a man who sings his own praises. They think if he’s vain, he must have a reason. And when such a bright fellow starts slinging mud, they pay attention. They figure he must have a good reason for doing that, too.”

  “You don’t have to convince me that Cicero knows how to manipulate an audience.”

  “Gordianus, these are merely questions of style, not content. Certain things about Cicero rub you the wrong way. Don’t you think I sometimes tire of his manner, spending so many hours of the day in his company? He can drive me mad! And yet I’ve never met a more admirable or honorable man in all my life. Fundamentally, you and Cicero are on the same side—”

  “Tiro, you needn’t try to convince me to come along with you. I’ve only been waiting for a break in our conversation to send Belbo after my cloak. But look, here he is, already anticipating my needs.” Belbo put the cloak over my shoulders. I pulled it around me. “The weather has turned colder.”

  “Still, let’s hope this rain keeps up,” said Tiro. “It makes it harder to start fires. Keeps the flames from spreading. There, we’ve talked about the weather. Shall we be going?”

  I found Cicero in his study, deep in conversation with Marcus Caelius.

  Cicero looked up and saw me scanning the room. “Milo isn’t here,” he said. “He’s returned to his own house. A show of self-confidence. After all, what does Milo have to fear in his own home, when the people of Rome love him so?”

  “Do they?”

  “How can they not, after the favor he’s done them, ridding the world of that appalling scoundrel? ‘He trapped the tyrant in iron bands—’”

  “ ‘And slew him with his own bare hands,’” I said, finishing the quotation from Ennius. “Well, did he?”

  “Did he what?”

  “Did Milo slay Clodius with his own bare hands?” I remembered the marks I had seen on Clodius’s throat. Something had been twisted around his neck before he died, either to restrain him, or to choke him, or to drag him.

  Cicero shrugged. “I wasn’t there to see. But the image appeals to me. Like his name
sake, the fabled wrestler of Croton, Milo is a strong fellow. I suppose he could strangle a man to death. What do you think, Caelius?”

  Caelius looked thoughtful. “Strangulation? It might make people forget the blood … take their minds off those gaping wounds. The idea of Clodius being strangled—I like it. It’s cleaner, less gory. Thinking about knives sets people’s teeth on edge. Strangulation is more manly, more heroic. It suggests killing an animal barehanded. It equates Clodius with a wild beast. Best to skirt such graphic details, really, but if we must discuss the actual where and how of the murder—”

  “I didn’t come here to listen to two orators toss ideas in the air,” I said.

  Caelius smiled. “But how else can we see which ideas float, and which ones fall like stones?”

  “You can do that after I leave.”

  Tiro made a face of disapproval at my rudeness.

  “Why did you agree to come, Gordianus?” said Cicero. “I thought perhaps Tiro had converted you with his eloquence.”

  “Converted me? But I thought you said we were already in the same camp, Cicero.”

  “We are. You just don’t realize it yet.” He laced his fingers behind his head and smiled.

  “Don’t be so smug, Cicero. You asked me to come. Here I am. Why did I come?” I walked to the brazier and spread my hands over the flames. “Because it’s a cold night in Rome, and dark outside. Like everyone else I’m craving warmth and light. Especially light. My reasons for coming are entirely selfish. I want more illumination on the path ahead, any glimmer to show the way. Knowledge is a fire. It burns high in this house. But right now it seems to be putting out a great deal more smoke than light.”

  Cicero shrugged good-naturedly. “Well, then, perhaps you might cast some light for me, Gordianus.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I believe you went down to the contio in the Forum today.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “One sees things, hears things.”

  “How?”

  “One has eyes and ears.”

  “Spies, you mean.”

  He shrugged. “Let us say that very little happens here on the Palatine that escapes my notice. But there are places where my eyes and ears can’t go. Not safely, anyway. Not without being noticed.”

  “Such as a contio held by three radical tribunes to stir up the mob?”

  “Three?”

  “Pompeius, Plancus, Sallust.”

  “Sallust as well? I thought he might have come to his senses by now.” Cicero thoughtfully tapped his chin.

  “Not a good sign,” said Caelius. “Sallust is the cautious one. If he’s decided to start stirring up riots with the others—”

  “They didn’t incite a riot,” I said. “It ended with a march on Lepidus’s house.”

  “A march?” said Cicero. “It may have begun that way, but by the time they arrived it was an all-out assault!” He stood and began to pace. He suddenly looked weary. “You didn’t witness the attack yourself, Gordianus?”

  “Of course not. I went home and bolted my doors.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what happened. The rabble marched up the Palatine and joined their fellows at the barricade, then altogether they rushed the house of Lepidus and broke down the door. They used paving stones they’d pulled up from the street. They broke the lock and smashed the bolt into splinters. Make note of that, Gordianus, the next time you bolt your door at night and lie down to sleep, thinking you’re safe: no man’s house is secure if there’s a mob determined to get inside. They ransacked the place. Overturned the busts of Lepidus’s ancestors, smashed furniture, tore apart the ceremonial looms in the hall—so much for the patrician ladies spinning an orderly pattern for the future of Rome. The poor women ran screaming in fright.

  “The mob probably intended to seize Lepidus and force him to conduct some sort of mock election right there on the spot. Not much doubt which candidates that rabble would have chosen, is there? Hypsaeus and Scipio, Clodius’s old allies. As if such proceedings could carry any authority at all! The gods help Rome when the day comes that men are chosen to head the state at the whim of a raging mob!

  “Fortunately, Milo was ready.” Cicero tapped his skull. “Always thinking, ever vigilant! Milo expected that something like this might occur on the last day of Lepidus’s interregnum, so he arranged to have his own men assembled in a side street, out of sight. When the attack on the house began, they rallied and mounted a counterattack from the rear. There was quite a battle, and no little amount of bloodshed. But needless to say, the Clodian rabble quickly scattered and fled. Their type is useless in a man-to-man fight. Milo’s men found Lepidus locked away in an upstairs room with his wife and daughters, all ready to slash their wrists. Can you imagine? An interrex of Rome was on the verge of killing himself rather than be torn apart by a mob of slaves and freedmen, and the women of his house were preparing to die rather than be raped by such men. I tell you, even in the darkest days of the civil war, there was never such a shame on the republic! And once again it was Milo who came to the rescue. But what chance is there that his foresight and vigilance will be recognized, let alone rewarded as they should be? If ever a man deserved to be consul …”

  Cicero seemed to speak from the heart, sincerely outraged by the attack on Lepidus, sincerely in awe of his friend’s patriotic zeal. But of course, I reminded myself, it was a part of his profession to be able to speak without apparent artifice, to strike the heartfelt tone, to stir emotions in his listeners against their will.

  I cleared my throat. “Is it true, what they say about Milo and Pompey?”

  Cicero frowned and looked puzzled at the sudden change of subject. Caelius raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Has Pompey also become a menace to the state?” I said. “Is that why Milo’s plotting to do away with him, as Clodius was done away with—for the good of Rome? Does he intend to strangle the general ‘with his own bare hands’? No wonder Pompey won’t allow him into his villa.”

  Cicero’s frown deepened. “Is that what was said at the contio today?”

  I nodded. “That’s what really stirred up the mob. They said that Milo paid a call on Pompey, and Pompey refused to see him. It was implied that Pompey fears for his life, and with good reason.”

  “What?” Cicero was aghast, or pretended to be.

  “I quote the tribune Pompeius: ‘It was Milo who provided a body to be cremated in the Senate House, and it’s Milo who’ll provide another body to be buried on the Capitoline Hill.’”

  “Absurd!” There certainly seemed to be nothing theatrical or premeditated in the way Cicero spat out the word. “Those rabble-rousers will say anything, and the idiots will believe it! The audience for the contio, Gordianus—did it seem to you that it was made up of handpicked supporters, packed with Clodian sympathizers?”

  “Not particularly. There were dissenting voices in the crowd. It was a mixed group. A great many people of all sorts were interested to hear what the tribunes had to say. I was there myself.”

  “And yet the crowd was swayed by such nonsense?”

  “More than swayed, Cicero, from what you’ve told me of the attack on Lepidus’s house. It’s completely false, then, what they’re saying about Milo and Pompey?”

  “Of course!”

  “Yes, well, perhaps not completely false,” said Marcus Caelius, raising an eyebrow at me and then casting an imperturbable, catlike gaze at his agitated mentor. “Well, Cicero, Gordianus has been candid with us. He deserves our candor in return. The fact is that Milo did attempt to pay a call on Pompey, and Pompey rebuffed him. It was a miscalculation on Milo’s part, if you ask me. He felt obliged to seek the Great One’s blessing. He should have known better. But our Milo is a simple man; simple in the virtuous sense, as our ancestors supposedly were. Having done Pompey so many favors in the past, Milo assumed that the Great One would feel obliged to return those favors now that Milo is in dire straits. Think agai
n! So the radical tribunes knew about the rebuff?”

  I nodded. “How did Sallust put it? ‘Pompey sent the scoundrel a roundabout message asking him to refrain from calling again, so as to spare Pompey the embarrassment of refusing to see him again.’”

  “You’ve always had an excellent memory for words,” said Cicero quietly.

  “Indeed,” said Caelius, “you could make Tiro’s shorthand obsolete!” He turned to Cicero. “But how did Sallust and the rest find out about Pompey’s message? It was sent in secret, and to this house, not directly to Milo.”

  “Perhaps Pompey wasn’t as discreet as he wanted us to think,” said Cicero. “Easy enough, to whisper the news from ear to ear until the tribunes knew about it. Pompey is like everyone else at the moment. He’s testing the waters.”

  Caelius turned back to me. “And what did Sallust and the other tribunes say about the subsequent exchange of messages between Milo and Pompey?”

  I shook my head. “They only mentioned the visit and Pompey’s rebuff.”

  “Well then, perhaps Pompey is being discreet after all,” said Caelius. “You see, Gordianus, Milo was quite shaken when Pompey refused his visit. When he received Pompey’s message declining any further visits, Milo sent Pompey a message in return, begging him to reconsider and offering—”

  “Caelius!” said Cicero.

  “But we might as well tell Gordianus everything,” insisted Caelius. “Well, then: Milo offered to quit the race for consul if Pompey wanted him to. ‘A word from you, Pompey Magnus, and for the good of Rome I will abandon my ambitions to serve her.’ Of course he was really fishing for some backhanded encouragement—‘No, no, dear fellow, politics prevents me from receiving your visit, but of course you must run!’ But that’s not what he got.”

  “What did Pompey say?”

  “The Great One is apparently too far above the fray to be bothered with Milo’s petty ambitions. He sent back a curt reply: ‘It is not for me to say who can or cannot stand for office. I would never dream of imposing my opinion on the Roman people, who are quite capable of making their own judgment without my advice.’ Cold, cold! As chilly as the rain that’s coming down.”