Poseidon's Gold

by Lindsey Davis

  Did he think I would finish the business? No. I was his executor, but only because the army had forced him to make a will. It was a joke. There was nothing to bequeath formally. There had never been plans for me to adopt those transactions that were my brother’s pride and joy. He had wanted to do it; he had intended to complete them himself.

  My only legacy was to decide, now, what kind of name I should allow him to keep.

  How could I decide?

  All I could do was miss him. There was nobody like him. Anything I had ever done that was bad had had its origin in his encouragement. The same went for anything affectionate or generous. I might not believe he was a hero, but that still left plenty to believe in: that great heart, that great colourful, complicated character which even three years after he had died still dominated all of us.

  I had continued for too long simply wondering. Tonight, if it existed anywhere, I was going to find the truth.

  I had entered the Forum down the Gemonian Steps from the Capitol. I walked from the Rostra and the Golden Milestone, the whole length of the Basilica Julia to the Temple of Castor, where I thought about attending the baths, then abandoned the thought. I was in no mood for the attentions of slaves and conversation with friends. I passed the Vestals’ House and Temple, emerging into the area the republicans called the Velia.

  All of the district around me, from the Palatine behind me to the Esquiline ahead, taking in both the Oppian and Caelian hills, had been destroyed by fire and then taken over by Nero for the abomination he called his Golden House.

  House was the wrong word. What he had created here was even more than a palace. Its lofty structures leapt between the crags, a feast of fabulous architecture. The interior decor was unbelievable, its richness and imagination surpassing anything artists had previously created. In the grounds, he had achieved another wonder. If the architecture was amazing, despite representing such blatant megalomania, even more dramatic was this entire landscape surrounding the halls and colonnades: a natural countryside within the city walls. Here there were parks and woodlands where wild and tame animals had roamed, all dominated by the famous Great Lake. It had been the tyrant’s private world, but Vespasian, in a calculated propaganda coup, had thrown it open to everyone as a vast public park.

  Smart move, Flavians! Now we had an emperor who treated his own divinity as an irony. He talked of pulling down the Golden House, though he and his sons were currently living there. The lake, however, had already been drained. It was the best-placed site in Rome, right at the end of the Sacred Way, on the main approach to the Forum. There Vespasian intended to use the cavern left by the drained lake to build the foundations and substructures of an immense new arena that would bear his family name.

  It was the glory of the city long before the Emperor laid the first stone with his golden trowel. Sightseers regularly came and stood around it. This was the place in Rome to spend a peaceful hour, or several, watching someone else at work. The site of the Flavian Arena had to be the biggest-and best-ever hole in the ground.

  I had last stood here looking at it in the company of the centurion Laurentius. After the waiter’s death at Flora’s Caupona, Petronius and I had sought him out. Rather than talk at his sister’s house, amidst the clamour of her young children, we had walked through Rome until we ended up at this building site. Here we had told Laurentius what had happened to Epimandos, and of our belief that Epimandos must have murdered Censorinus.

  Laurentius had been prepared for it. Recognising the runaway had already suggested the whole story. Nevertheless, its confirmation, and hearing about the waiter’s lonely end, had made us all dispirited.

  Laurentius was a sensible type, but even he began to philosophise gloomily.

  ‘Look at those, for instance!’ he had exclaimed, as we passed a group of Eastern prisoners. They were digging foundations, though not very busily. Construction sites have their moments of frantic activity, but this had not been one of them. ‘We legionaries flog ourselves in the burning sun with our brains boiling in our helmets,’ Laurentius complained bitterly, ‘while this lot calmly get captured and take their ease in Rome… What’s it all for?’ he demanded. The old cry.

  That was when I had asked him about Festus. He had not been present at Bethel. ‘I was off with a detachment under Cerialis, in bandit country further south. We were clearing the ground around Jerusalem in preparation for the siege, while the old man himself tackled the towns in the hills-‘ He was referring to Vespasian. ‘Is there a problem, Falco?’

  ‘Not really. ‘ I felt obliged to show some diffidence. To criticise a campaign hero is to take issue with the whole conduct of the campaign; nailing Festus as less than glorious would diminish the survivors too. ‘I did wonder what exactly happened.’

  ‘Did you not receive a report?’

  ‘Who believes reports? Remember, I’ve been in the army myself!’

  ‘So what are you thinking?’

  Somehow I had laughed, almost dismissively. ‘Knowing what I do now, I wonder whether when Festus overstretched himself commercially, your own syndicate might have chucked him off the ramparts in disgust at their financial loss?’

  ‘Not an issue!’ replied the centurion. He was terse. ‘Trust the report…’ There was nothing else I would learn from him.

  Yet as he turned away, in the act of leaving us, he threw back over his shoulder, ‘Believe the story, Falco.’ Those hard bright eyes glared at me from that quiet, trustworthy face. ‘You know what happens. These things are all the same when you get down to it-what took Festus off was probably some stupid accident.’

  He was right, and if so, he was right that we all had to forget it. I could believe that angle. Yet it was not enough. For my mother there had to be more than mere belief.

  I could go to Pannonia. I could find people who had been present-the men from my brother’s own century who had followed him on to the battlement. I already knew what they would tell me. They would say what the army had said.

  I could get them very drunk, and they would then tell me another story, but that would be because drunken soldiers all hate the army, and while they are drunk they blame the army for a lot of lies; those lies become truths again as soon as they sober up. His comrades had a vested interest in my brother’s official fate. Dead men have to be heroes. Nothing else applies.

  Dead officers even more so.

  The Judaean campaign was now famous: it had produced an emperor. That was an accident which nobody had expected in the months when Festus died. Festus was lost in March or April; Vespasian was not hailed emperor anywhere until July, and it had taken him a great deal longer than that to complete the process of gaining the throne. Until then, the Jewish Rebellion was nothing. Just another political foul-up in a terrible spot where we pretended to be taking the gifts of civilisation to the wild men, in order to keep a toe-hold in a lucrative trade arena. Unlike most of his colleagues, Festus at least knew at firsthand about the dyes and the glass and the cedar wood, and the links with the silk and spice routes which we needed to protect for ourselves. But even with that knowledge, nobody would fight there-not for a baking desert full of nothing but goats and squabbling religious zealots-unless they could believe at least the promise that their corpse would achieve some glory. Being first man over the battlement of some faded hill town had to count.

  It had to count for the mother he had left behind in Rome too.

  So since she had asked me, I did what I could. This niggle had been dogging us all for three years now, and the time had come to settle it.

  The Flavian Arena was to be built by a workforce which the conquests of Vespasian and Titus had conveniently provided: captured Judaean slaves.

  I had come to see them.

  LXVIII

  It was late afternoon when I started my search. I had to tackle one after another of the grisly gang foremen, whose demeanour was worse than the prisoners they guarded. Each passed me on to some other filthy lout with a whip. Some expected m
oney just for saying no. Most were drunk and all of them were nasty. When I finally found the right group of prisoners, talking to them was quite pleasant by comparison.

  We spoke in Greek. Thank the gods for Greek-always there to help an informer dodge paying the price of an interpreter.

  ‘I want you to tell me a story.’ They stared at me, anticipating violence. It was giving me bad memories of a time I once disguised myself as a hard-labour slave. I found myself scratching reminiscently.

  These were prisoners of war, nothing like the millions of nice, clean, cultured fellows Manlius and Varga had ranted about, the secretaries, stewards, toga-folders and wine-mixers who filled the streets of Rome looking just the same as their kempt masters. These were the few male survivors of various Judaean massacres, hand-picked to look good in Titus Caesar’s Triumph. Most of the thousands of prisoners had been sent to forced labour in Egypt, the imperial province, but these shaven-headed, dirty, sullen youths had been carried off to Rome first to be paraded as a spectacle, then to rebuild the city in Vespasian’s ‘Roma Resurgans’ campaign.

  They were fed, but thin. Building sites start work at dawn and pack up early. It was late afternoon. They were sitting around braziers now, outside their crowded bivouacs, their faces dark and hollow in the firelight as the winter darkness fell. To me they looked foreign, though I dare say I myself was being regarded by them as an exotic from a culture where everyone had dark jowls, unsavoury religious beliefs, strange culinary habits and a big hooked nose.

  ‘Bear up,’ I consoled them. ‘You’re slaves, but you’re in Rome. It may seem hard for hill-farmers to find themselves brought here for endless mud-shovelling, but if you survive this hard labour through to the stonecutting and construction work, you’re in the best place in the world. We Romans were hill-farmers once. The reason we clustered here among our theatres, baths and public venues is quite simple-we noticed that hill-farming stinks. You’re alive, you’re here-and you have access to a better life.’

  Jests were not required. Even well-meant stoicism failed. They were desolate and dreaming of their goats.

  They let me talk, however. Anything different is welcome to men on a chain-gang.

  I knew from their foreman that these hailed from the right area. I explained what I wanted. ‘It happened about this time of year, and about three years ago. There had been a hiatus since the autumn before, after Nero died; you may remember a period of uncertainty when hostilities ceased. Then came spring. Vespasian decided to revive his campaign. He climbed into the hills-where you come from-and he occupied your towns.’

  They stared at me. They said they did not remember. They said it like men who would lie to me even if they did.

  ‘What are you?’ they asked me. Even prisoners of war are curious.

  ‘An informer. I find things for people. Lost things-and lost truths. The mother of this soldier has asked me to tell her how he died.’

  ‘Does she pay you for this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  ‘He matters to me too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I am her other son.’

  It was as pleasing circuitous as a riddle. The slight shock drew a dry cackle of laughter from these demoralised men whose days were confined to digging foreign mud from a giant foreign hole.

  A prisoner rose from his haunches. I never knew his name. ‘I remember,’ he said. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he just felt I had earned some sort of tale. ‘Vespasian was placing garrisons in all the towns. He took Gophna and Acrabata. Bethel and Ephraim came next.’

  ‘Were you at Bethel?’ He swore that he was. Maybe he was lying now. There was no way I could really tell. ‘Was it a stiff fight?’

  ‘To us, yes-but probably, no.’

  ‘Not much resistance?’

  ‘Little. But we were going to fight,’ he added. ‘We gave up when we saw the fierceness of the Roman charge.’

  Evidently he thought this was what I was wanting to hear. ‘That’s gracious of you,’ I said politely. ‘Did you see the centurion?’

  ‘The centurion?’

  ‘The officer. Mailed shirt, metal on his legs, fancy crest, vine stick-‘

  ‘The officer who led the charge?’

  ‘He led it?’

  ‘From the front!’ smiled the prisoner, certain I would like that. Maybe he had been a soldier too.

  ‘But he fell?’

  ‘He was unlucky.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘An arrow squeezed in somehow between his helmet and his head.’

  I believed that. This man had seen our boy.

  Helmet not strapped properly. Trust him. Always unlaced, unhooked, half-belted. He hated feeling trapped. Loved sauntering into battle with his chin-strap waving free, as if he had just paused to dint the enemy on his way to somewhere else. Jupiter knows how that man got promoted.

  Well I knew how. He was bloody good. Our Festus, with even only half his mind on a problem, could outstrip most of the dull plodders he was up against. Festus was the charismatic kind who soars to the top on talent that is genuine, easy and abundant. He was made for the army; the army knew its man. Stupid enough to show he did have that talent. Placid enough not to offend the establishment. Bright enough, once he was in position, to hold his own against anyone.

  Yet still dumb enough to leave his helmet loose.

  ‘Is this satisfactory?’

  It was what I had come to hear.

  Before I left they gathered around me with more questions about my work. What did I do, and who did I act for? I repaid their description of Bethel with some tales of my own. They were starving for stories, and I had plenty. They were fascinated by the fact that anybody from the Emperor down could hire me and send me out into the world as an agent; they even wanted to take me on for a commission of their own. (They had no money, but we were on good terms by then and I had mentioned that half my ‘respectable’ clients forgot to pay.)

  ‘So what’s your quest?’

  ‘A retrieval.’

  They began a long rambling saga involving a sacred item.

  I had to break in. ‘Look, if this involves the treasures that the conquering Titus lifted from your Temple at Jerusalem and dedicated on the Capitol, I’ll stop you there! Robbing trophies from Rome’s most sacred altar lies outside my sphere of activity.’

  They exchanged furtive glances. I had stumbled on some much older mystery. Intrigued, I pressed for details. What they had lost was a large ship-like box of great antiquity, surmounted by two winged figures and supported on two carrying-poles. The Judaeans wanted to find it because it had magical properties which they believed would help them overthrow their enemies. Ignoring the fact that I didn’t want my fellow Romans struck by lightning or smitten with fatal diseases (well not many of them), I was tempted. I love ridiculous stories. But explaining such a peculiar commission to Helena was more than I could face.

  I grinned. ‘Sounds as if you need a real daredevil for this job! I do divorces, which are hard enough, but I don’t think I can undertake to find Lost Arks…’

  I repaid their information about Festus with hard currency, and we parted friends.

  As I picked my way from the bivouac, the unknown prisoner called out after me, ‘He was heroic. His whole heart was in the matter. Let his mother be told, the man you seek-your brother-was a true warrior!’

  I didn’t believe a word of it. But I felt prepared to tell the lie.

  LXIX

  I can’t say I was feeling happy, but I did feel sufficiently improved to give myself a minor treat: I walked from the Forum up the Via Flaminia to the collectors’ house. Then I joined the throng who were congregating in their gallery, viewing the Phidias.

  Smart people were standing around with that air of constipated fright people have when gazing at great art without a proper catalogue. The women were wearing gold sandals that hurt their feet. The men were all wondering how soon they could politely leave. Silver salvers with
very small pieces of almond cake were handed round to reward those who had come to do reverence. As usual on these occasions there had been wine earlier, but by the time I arrived the waiter with the tray had disappeared.

  Poseidon looked good. Among the other marble gods, ours held his own. I felt a certain glow of pride. I felt even better when Carus wafted up, his mournful face almost happy for once, with Servia bundling along on his arm.

  ‘Looks impressive.’ I popped in an almond slice. ‘What’s the provenance?’

  They dwelt lightly on the tale of the illustrious senator and his brother who imported from the East. I listened thoughtfully. ‘A brother of Camillus? Not the one with the cloud attached to his name? I’ve heard a few shady stories about that one-wasn’t he a merchant who handled dubious commodities, and died in mysterious circumstances?’ I stared back at the statue. ‘Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing!’ I remarked. And then I left.

  Behind me, I had left an insidious worm of distrust already gnawing morbidly.

  LXX

  The party at my mother’s house which I had wanted to avoid was over. ‘We heard about your disaster so I sent them home.’ Ma sounded gruff.

  ‘Geminus sent a message about what happened,’ Helena explained in an undertone.

  ‘Thank you, Papa!’

  ‘Don’t grouch. The message was mainly to warn us to look after you. When you didn’t turn up we were worried sick. I’ve been looking for you everywhere-‘

  ‘That makes you sound like Marina drag-netting the bars for my brother.’

  ‘The bars were where I looked,’ she confirmed, smiling. She could see I was not drunk.