The Venus Throw

by Steven Saylor

  Bethesda had a soft spot for our handsome young neighbor Marcus Caelius, the one whom I had run into on the night before my departure. According to Bethesda, Caelius had just finished prosecuting a case which had set the city abuzz.

  "I went down to watch," she said.

  "Really? Th e trial, or the prosecutor?"

  "Both, of course. And why not?" She became defensive. "I know quite a lot about trials and the law, having lived with you so long."

  "Yes, and Marcus Caelius is exceptionally good-looking when he gets himself all wound up with an exciting oration—eyes flashing, veins bulging on his forehead and neck ... "

  Bethesda seemed about to respond, but thought better of it and stared at me straight-faced.

  "A prosecution," I finally said.

  "Against whom?"

  "Someone called Bestia."

  "Lucius Calpurnius Bestia?"

  She nodded.

  "You must be mistaken," I said, with a mouth full of millet. "I think not." Her expression became aloof.

  "But Caelius supported old Bestia for the praetorship last fall. They're political allies." "Not any longer."

  This was entirely credible, given Caelius's reputation for fickleness, both in love and politics. Even when he was publicly allied with a candidate or cause, one could never be quite sure of his real intentions. "On what charge did he prosecute Bestia?"

  "Electoral bribery."

  "Ha! In the fall he campaigns for Bestia, and in the spring he tries the man for illegal campaigning. Roman politics!" I shook my head.

  "Who defended?"

  "Your old friend Cicero."

  "Oh, really?"

  This added a new wrinkle to the matter. Marcus Caelius had made his entry into public life as Cicero's pupil and protege. Then, during the turmoil of Catilina's revolt, he parted ways with his mentor—or perhaps he only pretended to do so, in order to spy for Cicero. Throughout that tumultuous episode, Caelius's real allegiance remained a mystery, at least to me. Afterward, Caelius left Rome for a year of government service in Africa. On his return he seemed to have left the camp of his old mentor for good, going up against Cicero in court and actually getting the better of the master orator. Later, when the Senate exiled Cicero and his enemies went on a rampage and destroyed Cicero's beautiful house on the Palatine, it was my neighbor Marcus Caelius who came knocking at my door with the news—complaining that the windows of his apartment afforded no view and asking if he could watch the flames from my balcony! The way the lurid glow danced on his handsome face, it was impossible to tell whether Caelius was appalled or amused, or perhaps a little of both.

  After much political wrangling, the Senate had recalled Cicero from exile, and he was back in Rome. His house on the Palatine was being rebuilt. And now, according to Bethesda, he had again matched wits in a court of law with his one-time pupil Marcus Caelius.

  "Well, don't keep me in suspense," I said. "How did the case come

  out?"

  "Cicero won," Bethesda said. "Bestia was acquitted. But Caelius says the jury was bribed and vows that he's going to prosecute Bestia again."

  I laughed. "Tenacious, isn't he? Having once defeated Cicero in court, I imagine he simply can't stand being bested by his old teacher this time. Or did a single speech not suffice for Caelius to adequately slander Bestia?"

  "Oh, for that purpose I think the speech did very well."

  "Full of venom?"

  "Dripping with it. In his summation Caelius brought up the death last year of Bestia's wife, and the death of his previous wife before that. He practically accused Bestia of poisoning them."

  "Murdering one's wives can't have much to do with electoral brib-

  ery."

  "Perhaps not, but the way Caelius brought it up, it seemed entirely appropriate."

  "Character assassination," I said, "is the cornerstone of Roman jurisprudence. The prosecutor uses any means possible to destroy the accused's reputation, to make it seem more likely that he's committed whatever crime he's accused of. It's so much easier than producing actual evidence. Then the defender does the same thing in reverse, accusing the accusers of various abominations to destroy their credibility. Strange, to think that once upon a time I actually had a certain amount of respect and even admiration for advocates. Yes, well, I've heard the rumors that Bestia did his wives in. Both died relatively young, with no preceding illness and without a mark on them, so naturally people say he poisoned them, though even poison usually leaves some evidence."

  "There wouldn't have been much evidence if it was done the way that Marcus Caelius implied," said Bethesda.

  "And how was that?"

  She sat back and cocked her head. "Remember that this was said in a court of law, before a mixed audience of men and women alike, not in a tavern or at one of his orgies. Marcus Caelius is a very brazen young man." She did not sound wholly disapproving.

  "And a brazen orator. Well, out with it. What did he say?"

  "According to Caelius, the quickest of all poisons is aconitum."

  I nodded. Many years of investigating the sordid means of murder have given me some familiarity with poisons. "Aconitum, also called panther's-death, harvested from the scorpion-root plant. Yes, its victims succumb very quickly. But when swallowed in sufficient amount to cause death, there are usually noticeable reactions in the victim and plentiful evidence of foul play."

  "Ah, but according to Caelius, the poison was not swallowed."

  "I don't follow you."

  "According to Caelius, if aconitum touches a woman's genitals, she will die within a day."

  I raised an eyebrow. Even with all my experience of poison, this bit of information was new to me, and I was not sure I believed it. "What Caelius says is possibly true—though I'm inclined to wonder how anyone could ever have discovered such a curious thing. But then, I suppose there's not much that Marcus Caelius doesn't know about female genitalia."

  "Ha!" Bethesda's eyes sparkled. "Even Cicero didn't come up with that one."

  I turned up my palms to show modesty. "So, Caelius accused Bestia of having poisoned his wives by ... " I left the sentence unfinished. There seemed no delicate way to complete it.

  "He did not accuse Bestia outright. Having stated the properties of aconitum, and having worked himself up to a feverish pitch, Caelius pointed his finger at Bestia and shouted, 'Judges, I do not point the finger of guilt—I point at the guilty finger!' "

  I choked on a mouthful of porridge. "Outrageous! Just when I was beginning to think that Roman orators had degraded their craft to the lowest level of indecency and bad taste, along comes a new generation to push the limit even further. Oh Minerva," I added under my breath, glancing out the window at the statue in the garden, "preserve me from a day in court! 'I point at the guilty finger.' Ha!"

  Bethesda sipped from her cup of honeyed wine. "Anyway, Bestia was acquitted, finger and all."

  "I suppose Cicero made a stirring speech for his defense."

  She shrugged. "I don't recall."

  Cicero's speech would probably have made a greater impression on her, I thought, had the man delivering it been as young and good-looking as Marcus Caelius.

  "Fortune smiled on Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, then."

  "Though not on his wives," said Bethesda dryly. There was a flash of something like anger in her eyes, but then a smile crept across her lips. "Speaking of young Caelius reminds me of another bit of gossip from the Forum," she said.

  "Also involving Caelius?"

  "No, involving his landlord."

  "I see. And what fresh outrage has Publius Clodius perpetrated now?" Clodius owned the apartment building down the street, the one in which Caelius had his lodgings. In his mid-thirties and a patrician of impeccable lineage, Clodius had made himself much feared in recent years as a rabble-rouser and exploiter of populist resentments. It was Clodius, as tribune, who had masterminded the Roman takeover of Cyprus in order to finance his scheme to pass out free grain to the people
of Rome. Once friendly to Cicero, he had almost single-handedly engineered Cicero's exile and was now his archenemy. His political tactics were crude, relentless and often violent. Just as men like Caelius were pushing the boundaries of oratory in the courts, men like Clodius were pushing the boundaries of political intimidation. Not surprisingly, the relationship of the two men went beyond that of landlord and tenant. They had become frequent political allies, and they shared a personal bond as well. It was well known that Caelius was the lover, or at least one of the lovers, of the rabble-rouser's widowed older sister, Clodia.

  "Well, I didn't witness the incident myself, but I heard about it at the fish market," said Bethesda, practically purring. "It seems that Pompey was down in the Forum, arriving with his retinue at some trial or other that was about to begin."

  "Could this have been the trial of Pompey's confederate Milo, for breach of the peace?"

  Bethesda shrugged.

  "With Clodius acting as prosecutor?" I added.

  "Yes, that was it, because Clodius was there with a large retinue of his own, made up of some very rough types, apparently."

  To describe Clodius's notorious gang of troublemakers as "rough" was to understate the case. These were strong-armers of the lowest order, some hired, some obligated to Clodius for other reasons, some voluntarily in his service to sate their appetites for violence.

  For a man like Clodius to be prosecuting anyone for breach of the peace seemed ironic, but in this case the charge was probably justified. The accused, Milo, had his own rival gang of ruffians ready to rampage through the streets supporting whatever political cause their master happened to favor at the moment. Where great men like Pompey, Caesar and Crassus contested one another in exalted spheres of financial and military prowess, vying for mastery of the world, Clodius and Milo strug-gled with one another for immediate control of the streets of Rome. The greater powers allied themselves with these lesser powers for their own purposes, and vice versa. At the moment, Milo was Pompey's enforcer in Rome, so Pompey was obligated to speak in Milo's defense. Clodius, whether acting for Caesar, or Crassus, or entirely on his own, appeared to be badgering Milo chiefly to get at Pompey. Clodius seemed determined to undermine Pompey's attempts to take control ofthe notorious Egyptian situation . . .

  This chain of thoughts caused me to remember my visit from Dio the previous month, and I suddenly felt uneasy. "By the way," I said, "do you remember the odd pair who visited me on the day before I left for Illyria? I was wondering if you had heard from them, or if you knew—"

  Bethesda gave me her Medusa look. Her anecdote was not to be interrupted. "There was a great crowd gathered for Milo's trial, too many to fit into the open square where it was being held, so the mob spilled out into the nearby streets. When Pompey appeared, there was much cheering from the crowd. You know how the people adore Pompey."

  "The Conqueror of the East."

  "Exactly. But then Clodius appeared atop some high place and began shouting to the mob below, which was apparently packed with his sup-porters. Most people were too far away to hear what he was shouting, but whenever he would pause the mob below him would cry out with one great voice, 'Pompey!' Even those too far away to hear Clodius or even see him could hear the name of Pompey being shouted in unison. It was like a slow chant: 'Pompey!' A pause. 'Pompey!' A pause. 'Pompey!' Well, apparently Pompey heard his name being called, for they say he pricked up his ears and broke out in a broad grin, then changed his course and began making his way toward the shouting, thinking he was being lauded by the crowd."

  "A typical politician," I remarked, "beating a path toward his adoring supporters like a calf heading for the teat."

  "Except that this milk was sour. As he drew closer, the smile vanished from Pompey's face. First he saw Clodius, pacing back and forth atop the ledge, addressing the mob below and clutching himself with laughter whenever they responded with the cry of 'Pompey!' When Pompey drew close enough to hear what Clodius was shouting, he turned the color of a hot flame."

  "And what set Pompey's cheeks ablaze?"

  "Clodius was posing a series of questions, like riddles, over and over, and the answer was always the same—'Pompey!' "

  "And what were these questions?"

  "Like his friend and tenant Marcus Caelius, Clodius is a very brazen man ... "

  "Please, wife, no false modesty. I've heard you blast dishonest vendors in the market with curses that would make even a man like Clodius blush with shame."

  "You exaggerate, husband."

  "Only slightly. Well?"

  She leaned forward.

  "The chant went something like this:

  What's the name of the general who's generally obscene?

  Pompey!

  Who peeks up his soldier's skirts when they're marching on parade?

  Pompey!

  Who makes like a monkey when he scratches his skull?

  Pompey!"

  This last was a reference to the great commander's habit when deep in thought of scratching the back of his head with his forefinger, and was innocuous enough, though with a bit of pantomime I had no doubt that Clodius could make it quite scathing. The other riddles were typical invective of the sort that might have been directed at any politician or general. All in all, such doggerel was pretty tame stuff, and hardly in a league with Caelius's quip about Bestia's guilty finger. But then, Pompey was not as accustomed as other politicians to the free-for-all of the Forum. He was used to being obeyed without question, not to being insulted in public by a Roman mob. Generals make thin-skinned politicians.

  "But in the end," said Bethesda, leaning forward and lowering her voice, "it was Clodius who got the worst of it." "How did that come about?"

  "Some of Milo's men heard the shouting and came running. Soon there were enough of them to drown out Clodius and his gang. Their chants were positively shocking."

  "Oh, probably not all that shocking," I said, idly shaping the last of my breakfast porridge into little peaks and valleys, feigning indifference.

  Bethesda shrugged. "You're right, they weren't really shocking at all, since one has heard all those rumors before. Though I imagine hearing them chanted by a mob in the Forum must have made even Clodius squirm."

  "What rumors?" I said, giving in.

  "About Clodius and his older sister. Or half sister, I should say."

  "Clodius and Clodia? Oh, yes, I've heard whispers and a few nasty jokes. Never having met either of the doubtless charming siblings face to face, I wouldn't presume to second-guess the secrets of their bed-chamber. Or bedchambers."

  Bethesda gave a delicate snort. "Why Romans should make such a fuss over relations between a brother and sister makes no sense to me anyway. In Egypt, such unions began with the gods and have a long and sacred tradition."

  "No such tradition exists in Rome, I can assure you," I said. "What exactly did the mob chant?"

  "Well, it started with something about Clodius selling himself to older men when he was a boy —"

  "Yes, I've heard that story: when their father's early death left them in financial straits, the Clodii boys rented out little brother Publius as a catamite, and with considerable success. It could all be a spiteful lie, of course."

  "Of course. But the chant went something like this:

  Clodius played the girl

  While he was still a boy.

  Then Clodia made the man

  Into her private toy.

  And then more of the same, only more and more explicit."

  "The Greek vice, coupled with the Egyptian vice," I observed. "And easterners complain that we Romans aren't versatile' in matters of sex. How did Clodius react?"

  "He tried to keep up his chant against Pompey, but when Milo's men began to drown him out, he disappeared pretty quickly, and not with a smile on his face. The chanting finally broke into a scuffle between Milo's and Clodius's gangs."

  "Nothing too serious, I hope."

  "Not serious enough to disrupt the trial." />
  "Probably only a few heads split open. And how did the trial turn out? Was Milo acquitted or found guilty of disturbing the peace?"

  Bethesda looked at me blankly, then shrugged. "I don't recall. I'm not sure I ever heard."

  "Probably because no one cares a whit. What they all remember and what they'll keep talking about is the scandal of Clodius's reputed incest with his sister being shouted aloud in the Forum. What's the difference in their ages—five years? Well, the widow Clodia does have a reputation for liking younger men, like our neighbor Marcus Caelius. I wonder what he thinks of having his lover's alleged incest made into a ditty by the mob?"

  "Actually, Caelius and Clodia are no longer lovers, and Caelius isn't on such good terms with Clodius anymore," said Bethesda.

  "How could you possibly know that?" I shook my head in wonder. "You haven't been slinking off to some of these wild Palatine Hill parties, mixing with the sophisticated young set in my absence, have you?"

  "No." She leaned back on her couch with a smile and luxuriously stretched her arms above her head. The gesture was unabashedly sensual, evoking memories of the night's pleasures, as if to demonstrate that despite my teasing she would indeed fit in quite well at a Palatine Hill debauch, were she not so acutely aware and protective of her hard-won role as a respectable Roman matron.

  "Or has young Caelius been confessing the secrets of his love life whenever the two of you happen to meet in the street?" I said.

  "Not that either. But we have ways of sharing what we know."

  "We'?"

  "We women," said Bethesda with a shrug. She was always vague about her network of informants, even to me. I had spent a lifetime ferreting out secrets, but Bethesda could sometimes make me feel like an amateur.

  "What caused the parting of the ways," I asked. "Surely sophisticated lovers like Clodia and Caelius don't abandon each other over trifles like infidelity or a bit of incest."

  "No, they say it was—" Bethesda abruptly frowned and creased her

  brow.