by Mike Ashley
‘It seems, Senator,’ said Dionysus as if the words left a foul taste in his mouth, ‘that Rhodes owes you thanks. Not that Pompey or any other general would have found us so easy to take, with or without our harbor chain. How may we express our gratitude?’ He was used to Roman envoys, a greedy lot back then.
‘I care only for justice,’ I told him. Then I draped an arm over his shoulders. ‘My father, however, is a great fancier of Greek sculpture. Down in the Sculptor’s Market there is a statue of Helios that would be perfect for his country estate . . .’
These things happened in Rhodes in the year 692 of the City of Rome, the consulship of Metellus Celer and Lucius Afranius.
THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR’S
Edward D. Hoch
Edward Hoch was one of the most prolific writers of mystery short stories, producing almost a thousand between 1955 and his death in 2008. Although a number of these were historical mysteries, such as his Ben Snow and Sam Hawthorne series, he didn’t often venture into ancient history. Never one to duck a challenge, in the following story he created a new mystery out of the death of Julius Caesar.
In Rome, early in the year that would someday be known as 44 BC, the prostitute Cybele had moved out of the brothel on the second floor of the Romulus Tavern and taken two rooms of her own. She had come to the city from the countryside to the north, choosing to be known by the name of the earth goddess. It was a name that suited her, and it brought her at once to the attention of those men high in the government who often sought out the pleasures of the forbidden.
Now, with the gold coins paid by her protector, she was able to afford these rooms on the Street of the Sandal Makers. One served as both living and dining room, where she prepared food over a charcoal brazier and ate it at a nearby table. The other was the bedroom, furnished only with a bed, table, washstand and chamber pot. Olive oil lamps furnished necessary light. It was here each day that Cybele cleansed herself by rubbing oil on her body and then scraping it off. It was here that she applied cosmetics to her face, eyebrows and eyelashes in preparation for a visit from her lover. He came in the evening, if the affairs of state allowed, though she never knew when this would be. She was always ready and loving, believing herself to be his particular favorite despite the presence of the Egyptian queen in the city.
On this night, when a light rain had begun to fall on the city, the Street of the Sandal Makers was all but deserted. He came at last, some hours after sundown, and she lit all of her lamps to bring some cheer to the little rooms. ‘You have made this into a place of beauty,’ he remarked. ‘Oh that Calpurnia could make my home quite so lovely.’ He rarely mentioned his wife’s name and never that of his mistress, Cleopatra, though she now lived in Rome with his bastard son. He shed the cloak which served to protect him from both the rain and prying eyes. Underneath he wore a tunic designed for street wear, and his sandals. As always there was the dagger at his waist.
‘Are you hungry, my lord?’ Cybele asked.
‘Perhaps a little wine would be nice.’
A short time later he removed his tunic and stood before her clad only in a loincloth. At fifty-six he still had the body of a general, with the demeanor of a statesman. She had admired that body many times, feasting her eyes on the wounds of battle as he told the stories again and again. ‘Lovely Cybele, this sword stroke came as I led my troops across the Rubicon and defied the Roman Senate with its armies. Let me tell you of it.’
‘I have heard the story of your bravery, mighty Caesar,’ she remarked with just a trace of mockery. They had known each other for many seasons.
‘Very well,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Let us retire to the bed.’ From his lips it was always a command, not an invitation.
‘In the marketplace I hear talk of corruption in your government,’ she told him later, toward dawn, when the night’s shadows were still deep in the room. It was a remark meant as conversation and nothing more, and as she spoke she toyed with the golden cord from his tunic.
‘It is always so,’ he answered dismissively.
‘Members of Rome’s ancient families are said to be involved. They say even the noble Brutus has loaned money to a community of Greeks at interest rates approaching fifty per cent.’
‘Why bother your head with such harmful gossip?’
But she persisted, pouring out the words she had meant to save for another time. ‘They say that Crassus when he lived used scouts to report on fires in the city. He then hastened to the scene and offered a low price to purchase the ruin from its agonized owner. Thus he was able to buy up much valuable property.’
Caesar was growing uncomfortable. ‘Enough of this, woman! You speak of things you do not know. Crassus was a good and true friend whose fortune helped finance my political career. With the late Pompey we formed a powerful triumvirate.’
‘You betrayed them both and caused their deaths.’
She saw that her words had truly angered him. ‘I have paid you well for your services, woman. Why do you now turn against me?’ He stormed about the tiny room. ‘Crassus died in battle in Syria and Pompey in Egypt, as you must know.’
‘Pompey was murdered, probably on your orders.’
‘Pompey was my own son-in-law!’
‘Not after Julia died. Then he was an enemy who had driven your daughter to an early grave.’
‘How do you know these things?’ he whispered. ‘How do you know of my daughter Julia? Are you a sorceress or soothsayer?’
‘Neither. As a young girl I worked in your daughter’s household, before her death. Have you forgotten that she died just ten years ago, not yet thirty years of age?’ She had not planned it this way, but she’d known from the first that someday it would happen. ‘Look into my eyes, O Caesar, and tell me what you see. Do you see the lovely daughter you forced into an unhappy marriage with Pompey for your own political ends, simply to win his backing?’
‘You are a demon!’
‘I am your conscience.’
‘How do you know these things?’
‘Julia confided her heartbreak to me. I never dreamed then that I would become her father’s whore.’
Caesar fell back as if physically struck by her words. She watched him grapple for the dagger on his mound of discarded clothes but still she saw no reason to fear him. Even when he lunged at her and she felt the blade slip easily between her ribs, she could not quite believe what was happening.
Marcus Junius Brutus had never considered himself a friend of Julius Caesar. He could never forget the fact that his mother had once been Caesar’s mistress, or that his love for Caesar’s daughter Julia had been shattered by her marriage to Pompey. He was fifteen years younger than Caesar, who had ruled Rome as a virtual dictator since the end of the Triumvirate. Crassus and Pompey were both dead, and Brutus himself was lucky to be alive. At a crucial point in the political maneuvering, during the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, he had allied himself with the losing side. Julia was long dead by that time, and Pompey seemed the lesser of two evils. But Pompey was defeated and fled to Egypt where the assassins found him. Caesar showed mercy and pardoned Brutus, even appointing him governor of Cisalpine Gaul for two years.
Now he was back, as praetor of Rome, an elected magistrate charged chiefly with the administration of civil justice. It was not unusual for his duties to take him among the criminal classes, but it was mere chance that brought him to the rooms in the Street of the Sandal Makers where a prostitute named Cybele had been killed.
Her body had been found on the morning of her death by a slave who cleaned the rooms once a week for the building’s owner. That owner, a man named Maximus, sent a runner to fetch the praetor because he feared legal entanglements from the killing in his building.
Brutus, at forty-one, was a grim-faced man with hard eyes and an acne-scarred skin. Like many wealthy government officials he had learned the trick of using money to make more money. If one accused him of charging interest rates approaching fifty per cent, he wa
s not one to deny it, only to ask how much the accuser desired to borrow. Someday, he knew, it would all catch up with him. Perhaps then he would follow the wily Pompey’s flight into Egypt, and pray he was better at dodging the assassins’ knives.
‘Who is this woman?’ he asked Maximus, staring down at the body sprawled over the edge of the bed. In life she had been quite lovely. Now her loincloth, which she would have worn to bed, was crusted with dried blood from a stab wound. There were more spots of blood on the bed and floor.
‘Her name is Cybele. She has been here only a few months, since the beginning of winter.’ Maximus was a squat bearded man in his fifties, owner of several abodes in the neighborhood. There were many like him in Rome.
The stench of death was strong in the room and Brutus opened the shutters, allowing the cool outside air to circulate. ‘Only a whore would call herself by the name of a goddess,’ he said.
‘She paid me three hundred sesterces each month and I asked no questions,’ Maximus replied.
‘What do you want of me?’
‘I am an honest man, my lord. A slain woman in my building will surely bring trouble.’
‘Not if you are truthful. Was she a prostitute?’
The bearded man shrugged. ‘She moved here from the bordello over the Romulus Tavern. Some knew her there, but I have only seen one man visit her in this building.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He wore a cloak that concealed his face and body.’
Brutus saw something glisten in the light from the open window. He knelt and removed a gold cord from the dead woman’s right hand. ‘Have you ever seen this before?’
‘No.’
‘Was it hers?’
‘I do not know.’
Brutus pulled it around his waist. ‘It is long, more for a man than a woman.’
‘She might have pulled it from the killer as he stabbed her.’
‘I was thinking exactly that.’ He wound the gold cord into a coil and slid it under the belt of his tunic. ‘Something like this implies a gentleman wearing a tunic. I have seen Caesar himself wearing such a belt.’ He continued studying the floor, especially where the woman’s blood had stained it. ‘Look here! This could be the imprint of a sandal’s heel in the dried blood. See how the stain curves around?’
‘But there is no blood underneath,’ the landlord noted. ‘Where is the rest of it?’
‘On the sandal, I imagine.’
‘If you find that sandal you would have your killer.’
Brutus smiled at the idea. ‘I am certain it has been scrubbed clean by now.’ He began searching the two rooms, first examining the bed itself. It was an expensive one made of wood with legs of bone, perhaps a gift from the man in the cloak. There were glass inlays along the sides, serving as mirrors for the light. It was covered with a wool mattress as protection against the winter chill.
Next he moved on to a lamp stand which held a cluster of oil lamps. The oil had burned out in all of them and he wondered if that indicated the killer had spent the night. He would likely have blown out the lamps when he departed, rather than allow their glow to illuminate the body of his victim. If the lamps had burned out and the shutters were closed, he might not have noticed the drop of blood on his sandal.
Brutus moved on to the charcoal brazier, used for cooking and the room’s only source of heat. Even at this hour, close to noon, he could still detect a bit of warmth when he held his hands near the ashes. ‘Who paid you for the room?’ he asked.
‘She did. I came for it each month and she always had the silver sesterces ready.’
Brutus continued his search but could find nothing of interest. ‘I will report this to the authorities,’ he said at last. ‘They will try to locate her family so the body may be claimed for burial.’
‘I hope so. I have no money for an undertaker.’
‘One will come to remove the body. I will see to it.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Brutus had expected it to be a simple task, but by day’s end he realized that the dead woman’s true identity was hidden behind that name of Cybele. He knew he should turn the task over to a clerk, but something about the killing intrigued him. Perhaps it was the beauty of the victim. Maximus had said she’d lived in the brothel above the Romulus Tavern before moving to his building. That seemed a likely place to begin.
Like other Romans, Brutus usually dined at home around three in the afternoon. After a tasty meal of pheasant and turbot prepared by the household slaves, his wife Portia suggested they ride over to visit some friends, but he pleaded the pressure of his civil cases and went off alone. By late afternoon he was on the street where the Romulus Tavern was located. He kept the cloak wrapped tightly around him, hiding his expensive tunic, and entered the place as any customer would.
‘Is the brothel open upstairs?’ he asked the man dispensing wine behind the counter.
‘They never close. The stairs are over there.’
At the top he was met by an aging madam who asked his preferences and explained the rules. He interrupted to say he was looking for a particular girl named Cybele. ‘I was here once last year and I remember her striking beauty.’
‘Cybele is no longer with us,’ the woman explained. ‘But I can offer beauties even more luscious to behold.’
‘I must find Cybele.’ He offered a silver coin. ‘Surely there must be someone here who knows her whereabouts.’
The woman seemed dubious. When he added a second coin she said, ‘Her best friend was Athena.’
‘Of course! Athena and Cybele! An opportunity to sleep with the gods, or goddesses!’
‘Second room on the left. You have an hour.’
‘More than I’ll need, good lady.’
Athena was dark and brooding, with a bruise on her face she had tried to cover with cosmetics. She got up off the bed as he entered and opened her arms to him. ‘This is the place, my lord.’
‘I come seeking Cybele.’
‘I am the new Cybele, born again to enchant you.’
He handed her some coins. ‘You were her friend, I am told.’
‘I still am.’
‘She was killed early this morning.’
The color drained from Athena’s face. She sat down on the bed. ‘I saw her only two days ago.’
‘She had a regular customer who paid for her apartment.’ He made it a statement, not a question.
The woman on the bed nodded. ‘He wanted her for himself, not to share with others.’
‘What is his name?’
‘She could not utter it. She told me once he was at the highest rank of the government.’
The highest rank? If taken literally that would mean Caesar himself. It hardly seemed likely he would be dallying with a prostitute when Calpurnia was at home and Cleopatra was in Rome with his three-year-old son Caesarion.
‘Did she tell you anything else about him?’
‘Just that he came when he could and sometimes spent the night, leaving as the shops were opening around seven. He had to cover his face then, so as not to be recognized.’
‘Thank you,’ Brutus said, slipping her another small silver coin. ‘You have helped me.’
‘That is all you want?’ she asked, not quite believing it.
‘That is all.’ He left her and went back downstairs, through the tavern to the street.
The killing of the prostitute Cybele caused no great stir within the city, and was little noted outside the immediate neighborhood of the crime. It was two days after the discovery of the body that Brutus happened to call at Caesar’s home at a time he knew the ruler would be at the Forum. A slave showed him to Calpurnia’s inner chamber. She was a pleasant, bland woman, whom some thought Caesar had married for political reasons following the death of his first wife and a divorce from his second.
‘My husband is at the Forum,’ she told Brutus, interrupting the slave girl who was preparing her hair and makeup. She sent the girl from the room an
d continued, ‘I thought you would have known that.’
‘I am concerned lately about your husband’s schedule. He was to have met me two nights ago but he never appeared.’
Calpurnia pondered this for a moment and finally said, ‘That would have been the night he visited the fortuneteller, Mother Sysius. He returned late.’
‘After dark?’
‘Much after dark.’ She smiled calmly. ‘Toward morning, I believe. Since we have separate bed chambers I cannot be certain of the time.’
Brutus smiled. ‘There is no need to tell Caesar I called. I will see him at the Forum.’
‘Very well, Brutus.’
Mother Sysius was an elderly woman who lived in a small room behind her shop near the Senate House in the Forum. That building was one of the accomplishments of Julius Caesar’s reign, and even Brutus admired the long, high-ceilinged room where the legislative body met. Though he had no time for fortunetellers himself, he had often watched as the Roman senators made their way from the Forum to Mother Sysius’s tiny shop.
Now as he entered he saw the woman in her odd pointed hat, seated on a sort of table or altar. A small dog ran about the room as she peered at this new arrival through clouded eyes. He suspected she was almost blind, and was surprised when she greeted him by name. ‘Ah, fair Brutus! This is the first time you have ventured into my dwelling place.’
‘It is,’ he agreed.
‘Do you wish to know what the gods hold for you?’
‘Not really. I come about our leader, the great Caesar.’
She nodded. ‘I have often given him words of advice.’
‘Was he here two nights ago?’ Brutus asked.
Mother Sysius wrinkled her brow. ‘Not for a fortnight have I seen him.’
‘You’re certain of that?’
‘Yes. Perhaps he visited his astrologer, Sosigenes, instead.’
He laid out some coins on the table before her. ‘Tell me about Caesar.’
Her eyes closed and she seemed to sway a bit. ‘He consults the oracles. He believes in signs and wonders. The letter C and women’s names starting with that letter are considered lucky by him, and he listens to the words of the soothsayers in the streets.’