“You mean the Marruvians and the Marsi in general are unaware that their snake has been purloined?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “If her disappearance should become common knowledge, I fear there could be widespread panic. In these unsettled times, with so many of our men serving in the armies, there could be disaster. Thus far, only the priesthood of the temple know.”
“Of what breed is she? What does she look like?”
“The sacred serpent of Angitia belongs to a breed known only near the lake, called a swamp adder. They are black on the head and back, with a white belly. Of course our serpent is an especially magnificent specimen, about five feet long and as big around as your arm.”
“An adder? Then she is poisonous?”
“Decidedly. The swamp adder is deadlier than any Egyptian cobra or asp.”
“A brave thief, then.”
He shrugged. “Venomous serpents are easily handled, if one has the skills.”
“And why do you think that your sacred snake is in Rome?”
“When the theft was discovered, I pledged all of the personnel of the temple to silence and secrecy, and then I sought an omen from the goddess.”
“I am guessing that this involved snakes,” I said.
“What else?” he said, seemingly astonished.
“What else, indeed? And how did the goddess answer your entreaty?”
“First, we gathered several score of wild snakes from the lands adjacent to the temple, all of them belonging to lines known to us for generations.”
“One wouldn’t want to consult with foreign snakes,” I concurred.
“Of course not. After fasting for a day and a night, we performed all the proper sacrifices and sang the prayers in the original Marsian language, which has not been spoken for many generations. Then—”
I know all too well the tedium of hearing a man expound upon his favorite subject, which is of no interest to oneself, so I interrupted. “And what omen did you receive?”
“Oh. Well, at the moment the rite was finished, all kept silence in anticipation, and immediately there came a loud clap of thunder from the west. Clearly, the goddess wanted us to search to the west to find our serpent, and Rome lies to the west of Marruvium.”
“Couldn’t be clearer,” I agreed. “Yet there remains the matter of who snatched your snake and precisely why. What were the circumstances surrounding her disappearance? In what sort of confinement was she kept? I presume she was not permitted to just slither freely about the grounds?”
Again he looked pained. “She has a sanctuary beneath the altar.”
“What is it like? How large is it?”
He seemed puzzled at these questions. People often do when I interrogate them. My method of gathering evidence in small increments from as many sources as possible in order to get at the essence of what really happened left most people utterly mystified. The more charitable opined that I had invented a new school of philosophy. Those of a magical disposition think it is some sort of sorcery. I just consider it good sense, but I can convince few of my peers that this is the case.
“It is circular, earth-floored, naturally, but strewn with fragrant cedar bark. There are a number of statues of the present serpent’s revered ancestors, on small pedestals.”
I was tempted to ask him how each new holy snake was chosen, since snakes do not have offspring one at a time, but I was afraid that he would answer. “And how is the sanctuary accessed?”
“By a single passageway, quite narrow, that descends from a doorway pierced through the stairway ascending to the portico and altar.”
“And this is the only ingress or egress available to either human or serpent?”
“It is.”
“And is the access by way of a stairway, or by an inclined ramp?”
“It is a slanted floor. There are no stairs. Is this somehow significant?” He was getting impatient. I was used to that.
“It is indeed. A snake might have trouble ascending a stair, but not a ramp. Might it not have simply wandered off on its own? It must get dreadfully boring down there. One can only spend so much time contemplating the images of one’s ancestors. I know this. In my own atrium are the death masks of dozens of my Metellan ancestors, and a more sour-faced pack of patriotic villains is difficult to imagine. If I had to look at them all the time—”
“Senator!” Pompaedius hissed, rather like his missing reptile. “We need to find the sacred Serpent of Angitia! I do not think you appreciate the gravity of the situation.”
Sometimes if I needle someone sufficiently I can trick him into saying something intemperate, something more revealing than he had intended. Not this time, it seemed.
“Lucius Pompaedius, I will find your snake. I fully appreciate how crucial this is, not because of the importance of the Marsi, or because of their goddess and her reptilian consort, but because I have been instructed to do so by Caius Julius Caesar, and keeping Caesar happy is of utmost importance to all sane Romans.”
That evening, I consulted with my own household authority on religion, my wife, Julia.
“Angitia?” she said. “She’s the one to sacrifice to if you’ve been bitten by a snake.”
“If you can make it from Rome to her temple on the lake,” I observed, “you will have recovered anyway.”
“She has a shrine here in Rome,” Julia said. She pondered the business for a while as she picked at dinner. “I think we should have a household snake. Some of the best families have them. The Claudians have always kept snakes.”
“The Claudians,” I observed, “are a family of insane hereditary criminals.”
“Appius Claudius the Censor wasn’t insane or a criminal,” she objected.
“A single, outstanding exception to an otherwise inflexible rule,” I said. The estimable Appius had been brother to my old enemy Clodius, who had been both criminal and insane, and that was only the start of it. “No snakes for us. Neither the Caecilians nor the Julians have been serpent fanciers. In any case, I think it is unfitting for holy icons to crawl out of a swamp. Sacred tokens should fall from the heavens, like the Palladium and the sacred shields of Mars.”
“Only one of the sacred shields fell from the sky,” Julia pointed out. “The rest are counterfeits to fool thieves and jealous gods.”
“We are getting away from the problem here,” I said. My head was beginning to hurt. “Your uncle Caius Julius wants me to find a snake. Rome is a rather large city, and it seems to me a snake must be fairly easy to hide. Any long, narrow space or container would do. Snakes can arrange themselves in compact coils, so a basket or jar would suffice. Where to begin?”
“A good place might be the snake market,” Julia suggested.
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I wondered.
So the next morning Julia and I, accompanied by one of her girls and my freedman Hermes, set out for this exotic destination. Since Julia was going along, we had to have a litter, of course, instead of walking on our own perfectly good feet. Well, my feet had fallen somewhat short of perfection by that time. In fact, just getting about the city was enough effort for me.
The snake market was just off the Forum Boarium, not far from the northern end of the Circus Maximus. The old forum was bustling with livestock. Everywhere you looked there were pens for cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, and donkeys and hutches full of rabbits. There were beautiful specimens for sacrifice and others, less attractive, for eating, some of these specially fattened on olive pulp. There was a section for poultry: peacocks, chickens, cages of songbirds. One area was devoted to exotics: monkeys, gazelles, Egyptian ibises, cheetahs, and so forth. It was fashionable for the wealthy to adorn their estates with such creatures. It was noisy and smelly, and I was grateful that our house was on the other side of the city.
“I think it’s down this street somewhere,” I said, directing the litter slaves. I knew my native city intimately, but there were still a few parts of it I had never visited, and the sn
ake market was one of them. This was because I had never been in the market for a snake.
“Ah, here we are.” We had come to a large shop with a striped awning above its portico. Spelled out in mosaic on the doorstep was the legend Sergius Poplicola, Purveyor of Fine Snakes.
The possessor of this imposing name greeted us at the door, his eyes going wide at the sight of our fine carriage and my senatorial insignia. “Welcome, Senator! Welcome, my lady!”
I took both of his hands in a hearty politician’s handshake. “My friend Sergius, I am here to see you about a snake.”
“Of course, of course, please come inside.” He bustled within, clapping his hands and calling for his slaves to step lively. The interior was spacious and cool, with open skylights. Here and there about the floor were small pits, their bottoms strewn with cedar shavings. Over all hung the scent of fragrant cedar, but beneath it there was a slight but disagreeable musky odor. Snakes, no doubt. While the slaves set up chairs and a table and loaded it with refreshments, I examined a large clay pot from which came a rustling noise. I peered within and saw that it was half full of grain, barley, and wheat by the look of it, and it swarmed with mice.
I took one of the chairs and accepted a cup of wine. It turned out to be an unusually fine Cretan, powerful enough to put anyone into a buying mood. “I am looking for a very particular snake,” I began.
“But naturally,” said Sergius. “Whether you need a snake for divination, for communication with the chthonian gods, for keeping the pantry free of mice, for eating, for whatever purpose, rest assured I have just the snake for you, and as many of them as you may require.”
“For eating?” Julia said.
“Certain of our African snakes are esteemed as delicacies,” he assured her.
“Oh, we’ve been to Egyptian banquets,” I told him. “It’s just not what one expects to see in Rome.”
“Rome is a very cosmopolitan city,” he reminded me.
“So it is. No, snakes for the table are not on my agenda today, nor for the pantry, but a snake for the altar, that is different. Do you happen to have a swamp adder on the premises?”
“A swamp adder?” He seemed taken aback. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a cobra? We have plenty of those, of several varieties, in fact.”
“Who buys cobras?” Julia asked, seemingly intrigued.
“The Isis cult is growing quite popular in Roman territory, my lady. Cobras are an absolute necessity for the rituals of Isis. If you have visited Egypt you have observed that the cobra, along with the vulture, is prominently featured on the uraeus crown of the pharaohs, since adopted by the Ptolemys. The cobra goddess, Wadjet, has been the patroness of the royal family since earliest antiquity.”
Here was another man about to launch into an oration on his favorite subject, so I took quick action to forestall him. “Is there some sort of problem with the swamp adder? It is, after all, native to Italy, not some exotic foreign breed. Rather prolific around Lake Fucinus, I hear.”
“Decidedly so. There is a reason the Marsi need a goddess of their own just for snakebite. Do you know much about venomous serpents, Senator?”
“Only that I don’t like them much.”
“Well, people think that cobras and asps and such are terribly deadly creatures. In truth, they are fairly easy to avoid, and their venom, while quite dangerous, will seldom kill a healthy adult. Their victims are usually the very young, the very old, and the infirm. Often, snakebitten people simply frighten themselves to death because they believe all snakes to be deadly.”
“Really?” I said. This was fascinating.
“Absolutely, Senator. I know of many cases in which people have died after being bitten by perfectly harmless snakes. For this reason, the common ratsnake that farmers keep in their barns for vermin control have probably killed more people than all the cobras in Egypt.”
“I see. But the swamp adder actually lives up to its reputation?”
“Beyond question. Its venom is more than powerful enough to kill a man in a few moments. In fact, the Marsi have an annual ritual in which a bull is sacrificed by placing it in a pit with a large swamp adder. It is a rather small pit, so it doesn’t take long for the bull to annoy the adder and be bitten. The priests of Angitia draw a great many omens for the coming year according to where the bite or bites are located on the bull, whether it staggers for a while, or has violent convulsions, or just drops down dead. The best omen is if the bull falls down dead instantly from a single bite.”
“What does this signify?” Julia asked.
“That nothing much will happen in the coming year. The Marsi consider this a good forecast.”
“As should we all,” I affirmed. “Is the serpent used in this rite the sacred specimen kept in Angitia’s temple?”
“Oh, no. There is too much danger of the snake being injured or killed, as sometimes happens when the bull falls. That is a portentous event in itself, meaning disaster to come. No, an adder is captured wild in the swamp by a team specially trained for this hazardous activity. If it lives, it is released back into the swamp, bearing the prayers of the people along with messages for their dead.”
“I see. So I take it you don’t have a swamp adder?” I said.
He shook his head. “Neither I nor my staff are that brave. You are aware, I take it, that almost all of the snake charmers you see in the markets and at festivals are Marsian? They never use swamp adders for their performances. They would never touch one except for religious purposes. You aren’t really looking to buy one, are you, Senator?”
“No, I just need to learn about them. Matters of state between Rome and the Marsi, as it were.”
“Actually,” Julia said, “I am quite interested in purchasing a house snake, one for family consultation, although I suppose it would do no harm if it catches mice as well. Could you show us your stock?”
Needless to say, we went home with a snake, a small, green creature of no great distinction that I could see. It came with a supply of cedar shavings and careful instructions as to its care and feeding, housed in an Egyptian basket artistically plaited from papyrus fiber. Julia seemed almost as delighted with the basket as with the snake.
“Have we learned anything?” Hermes said as we wended our way back toward the Subura.
“Other than that I am an indulgent husband?”
“We already knew that, dear,” Julia said, gloating over her purchase.
“I am a bit puzzled,” I said, running a few things through my mind. “Pompaedius acted as if the handling of venomous serpents is a simple business, yet Poplicola told us that it takes a specially trained team of Marsi just to catch one for the bull sacrifice.”
“Maybe it’s catching one in the swamp that’s the tricky part,” Hermes said. “Maybe they live in packs out there. The sacred snake sounds domesticated.”
“Pompaedius,” I mused. “Wasn’t that the name of the man who led the Marsi in the Social War?”
“Quintus Pompaedius Silo,” Julia said. “He is said to have held Cato out of a high window by his heels, when Cato was about ten years old.”
“Should’ve dropped the little bugger on his head,” I observed. “I remember the story now. He was in Rome drumming up support for Marsian citizenship rights, and little Cato refused to take his oath or some such. I always thought it was something Cato’s supporters made up to make him sound patriotic instead of just an insufferably rude little twit.”
“Do you think it’s significant?” Hermes asked. “For all I know, Pompaedius is as common a name in Marsian territory as Cornelius is in Rome.”
“Probably nothing,” I said. But in truth I was not so sanguine. Religion and politics are inseparable, which is why the founders of the Republic wisely made priesthood and omen-taking a part of public office. That way it can be kept under control, after a fashion. But Caesar himself had decided that this silly business was worth pursuing. Of course, he was obliged by ancient custom to aid a client who was in
Rome with a problem. “How did a Marsian named Pompaedius become Caesar’s client?” I wondered aloud.
“If I recall correctly,” Julia said, “most of the Marsi were clients of Livius Drusus. But then he was murdered.”
“He championed the Italian allies in the Senate, didn’t he?” It was coming back to me. Drusus had tried to get citizenship for all our Italian allies, but word got out, whether truthfully or not, that they had all secretly pledged to enter his clientele if he was successful in making them citizens. That would have made him too powerful, and his enemies had him assassinated. Typical politics for that generation. For any generation, if truth be told.
“That’s right,” Julia said, “but in the Social War, his brother was killed leading a Roman army against the Marsi, and the Livii repudiated their patronage.” Julia’s knowledge of the great families was far more comprehensive than my own. “After all the fuss died down and they were citizens, the Marsi took clientage under the Pompeius family, and when Pompey Magnus was killed, Caesar offered them patronage. His support in that part of Italy was weak, so he courted the Marsi. With them in his clientele, the other people of the central mountain district followed.”
“That sounds like Caesar,” I said. “They sent a good many young men to serve in his legions. I wonder what he promised them in return?”
“Nothing but the proper mutual obligations of patron and client, I am sure,” Julia said. She probably believed it.
Hermes spoke up. “Didn’t you say Angitia had a shrine in Rome?”
I had completely forgotten it. “Where is it, Julia? We ought to see if anyone there knows anything.”
“It’s just a tiny place near the grain market,” she said. “I don’t know if it even has a permanent staff. There is some sort of ceremony at the time of the Martialis, and people leave offerings there to protect them from snakebite. That’s as much as I know.”
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