SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengeance Read online

  This was a typical rant from Cato. As usual, he blamed all corruption on foreigners and the lower classes. His own class had been pure, pristine, and above it all before they were tempted by those whom the gods adored less.

  My own interpretation of our social history differs somewhat from Cato’s. Dispensing with pleasing myths like the story of the Trojan prince Aeneas, according to myth the son of Venus, and his son, Julus, from whom Caesar traces his ancestry, it goes somewhat as follows:

  About seven hundred years ago, a pack of bandits arrived in central Italy, led by two brothers named Romulus and Remus. They despoiled the nearby peoples of land and women and set up their own little bandit state. At some point, Romulus established a fine old Roman tradition by murdering his brother. Had it been the other way around, I suppose we might now be living in a city named Reme.

  After a period of rule by kings, some of them Etruscan, our ancestors established the Republic. The pack of families who controlled everything called themselves patricians, and they owned all the land that was worth anything. Since they were nothing but wealthy farmers, they decreed that only wealthy farmers had any claim to honor and respectability. Money from any source save farming was tainted, since it was a kind of money they never got.

  The lesser people were the plebeians, who got here a little too late to claim the better land, all that having gone to the first pack of bandits and passed on to their descendants. The plebeians had the virtue of numbers, and the patricians needed them if there was to be an army; and the rest of Roman history has been a struggle between the classes for power. These plebeians wanted to own land and be respectable, too; and some of them, my own family among them, managed the feat. It is a rule that good land is already claimed, so the only way to get some of it was to take it away from somebody else, and that was how we got started on the path to empire.

  There was one exception to this wealth-from-landequals-honor rule: Loot taken in war was also honorable. This consisted of anything the people you killed left lying about, plus the people themselves, if they were still breathing and capable of work. If you captured the wealthier ones, you could sell them back to their families. Crudely put, besides farming, the only honorable ways to make money were theft, slaving, and ransom.

  Do not misunderstand me. Barbarians are usually far worse than we are and are mostly disgusting when they aren’t being ridiculous. People who get enslaved generally bring it on themselves by losing wars or being stupid; and if they have any decent qualities at all, they can work themselves out of that state.

  All my life I have enjoyed being an aristocrat, loaded with privileges and able to lord it over most of the population. It is just that, unlike Cato, I don’t see any particular virtue inherent to the status of nobilitas. If my long life has taught me anything, it is that the only really vital quality to have is luck. Some have it and some do not, and it has nothing to do with character or inherited virtue. We can sacrifice and perform all the prescribed rituals to placate or buy off whatever god or goddess is in charge of whatever aspect of life; but in the end, the only one that counts is Fortuna, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to infiuence her.

  The maddening thing was that I had to agree with Cato, at least when it came to the problem and what should be done about it. I have often noticed that the most frustrating thing in life is, not when people disagree with you, but rather when they agree for the wrong reason. It looked as if Cato and I were to be allies on this thing, yet I detested the man, his bullheaded obstinacy, his vile, self-righteous brutality, his total lack of any sense of proportion, his complacent pride in his ancestry, and any number of other qualities and actions I found repugnant.

  “First off,” Cato said, “we must have names. With names we can bring charges before the court of the urban praetor. So far we have only Aemilius Scaurus and this contemptible contractor, Caninus. The former has already been in court a good deal of late, and the latter is little more than a glorified garbage hauler. We need more names, many names, and prominent ones. We’ll attract little attention just prosecuting these two.”

  “I’m working on that,” I told him, “but there may be problems.”

  “Eh? What sort of problems?”

  “Well, if my past experience in this sort of investigation, which you know to be extensive, is anything to go by, people will soon be trying to kill me.”

  He scowled. “So what? You’re a grown man. You should be able to take care of yourself. I myself have never shirked a fight, whether in foreign lands or right here in the Forum. If someone attacks you, kill him first. That’s what I always do.”

  “Sage advice as always. Still, they may be more numerous than usual this time. They may succeed.”

  “Then I shall just have to go on without you. Rest assured, I shall pursue this matter until the last malefactor is brought to justice. There are still some fine old punishments for corruption on the books. I shall find them.”

  “I am sure you shall, Marcus Porcius, and knowing it is a great comfort to me.”

  “What need has any true Roman of comfort?” He really talked that way.

  I walked away from him greatly relieved that I wouldn’t have to talk to him again for a while. Disagreeable as the conference had been, I knew that he would work indefatigably on the case, and that he would put his clients to the same task, and that I might anticipate some progress soon. Awful as he was, Cato was a good man to have on your side.

  In favor of Marcus Porcius Cato, I can say only this: He died splendidly, years later, in Utica.

  Hermes and I made our belated way to the Temple of Ceres while I pondered my next move. When I saw the heap of old wood in the courtyard, a thought occurred to me.

  “Hermes, go find the messengers assigned to the office. Send them out to locate Marcus Caninus and summon him here at once.”

  Hermes trotted off, and I consulted with my clients and petitioners for a while. While we talked, I made them all accompany me on a short walk down to the river. The water was ankle deep on the wharves, and a quick examination revealed that it was almost to the tops of the sewer outlets. Soon all would be backing up; and as jammed as the side drains were, the water could stand in the City for weeks after the river receded.

  I dispatched clients to check on the lower-lying areas of the City and report on their preparations and ability to weather the coming fiood.

  In the last fioods, I recalled, people had crowded into temples, basilicas, and porticoes, anywhere that they could find a roof. Most, however, had simply huddled miserably on the higher parts of the Campus Martius and on hillsides outside the walls of the City. Those fioods had been accompanied by heavy rains, so sickness had been rampant and many people had died.

  It occurred to me that we ought to have some sort of system to provide temporary relief in times of natural catastrophe. We had our old system of grain doles, but that was for times of siege, which had been rare in recent centuries. A warehouse or two holding tents or portable booths would make a great deal of difference. But who would pay for this and see to its maintenance? Oh, well, another problem to ponder.

  In the afternoon, Marcus Caninus arrived, and he was not alone. The five men with him were tough-looking specimens of his own sort, and all of them were dressed in green tunics. This was the uniform of the followers of Plautius Hypsaeus, mob leader and candidate for next year’s praetorship. Of course, I thought when I saw them, they might all work for the Green Racing Faction, or it might just be coincidence that they all wore green tunics that day. As I have said, I have little faith in the power of coincidence.

  “You’ve summoned me, Aedile, so here I am,” Caninus said, his previous toadying servility replaced by insolence. “Now what do you want?” Clearly, my status had fallen in the two days since our last interview.

  “You must remove all this timber,” I said, waving a hand over the heap of rotten wood.

  “I delivered it only yesterday morning,” he said. “Where do you want it now?”<
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  “First, I want to know why you switched the wood you took from the fallen insula, which was sound, although a bit green and then deliberately damaged, for this rotten stuff.”

  “Switched?” he said. “This is the wood I took from that basement, and anyone who says differently is a liar.”

  “Mind your tongue,” I advised him. “You are speaking to a serving magistrate.”

  “Times aren’t what they once were, Aedile. People don’t look to you senators for leadership like they used to. An aedile doesn’t have imperium anyway. You’ve got no lictors around you, and you don’t have the special protections that a tribune of the plebs enjoys.”

  It sounded to me suspiciously as if someone had coached him on the niceties of the law concerning serving officials. Most citizens were woefully ignorant of these matters and assumed that anyone in office shared in the powers and immunities of the highest. The fact was, many of us were no more than State functionaries without special protection and privileges. Those trappings of the imperium-holding offices—the lictors and curule chairs and the purple borders on the togas—conferred far more than mere dignity. They set the officeholder aside as someone with extraordinary powers and to trifie with whom could cost your head. As a mere plebeian aedile, I had none of those things.

  Behind Caninus, his green-clad thugs smirked. Such men always relish a leader’s defiance of authority. I knew men like Caninus well from long, bitter experience. They are like the oversized curs that lead mongrel packs, and if you display the slightest weakness before them you are done for. I stepped up to him so that our faces were only inches apart and assumed the cold, imperious face for which Roman officials are famed all over the world. I was very good at this and practiced it often, in private.

  “Publicanus,“ I said, in my most withering tone, “it is only out of respect for the laws of the Republic that I tolerate your insolence. Display any more of it, and I will haul you before the urban praetor’s court on a charge of maiestas. You are aware of that charge?” I had chosen my form of address deliberately. To most people, publicanus was a term of contempt and loathing, since the only publicani they were likely to encounter were the tax collectors, whom nobody loved.

  His eyes fiickered for a moment, his confidence beginning to slip before my arrogance. “I’ve heard the word. What of it?”

  “It means gross insult to the majesty of the Roman people and their sacred State. The punishment is the same as that for treason.”

  “That is absurd! Just because I—”

  “As an official of that State,” I went on, not giving him a chance to collect his slow wits, “I embody the collective dignity of the Roman People! Lay so much as a hand on the lowliest quaestor, and you become an enemy of the State.”

  “Who is laying hands on anyone?” he blustered. “I spoke up for myself, that is all!”

  I sneered as haughtily as Cato. “Insult of word or attitude is the same as personal violence. You are not in the midst of a mob now, Caninus, hurling anonymous abuse at your betters on the speaker’s platform. You stand here alone, before witnesses. These are the sacred precincts of the Temple of Ceres, home of the plebeian aediles since the founding of the Republic. Do not compound your offense with sacrilege!”

  This was purest bluster on my part. He could bend over, pull up his tunic, and expose his buttocks to the whole College of Aediles in perfect safety, to the best of my knowledge; and you could probably include the High Priestess of Ceres. But physical size and the toughness of a street brawler are no match for the gravitas of a highborn Roman official, raised from birth to sit in judgment and command legions. Facing down such a figure, backed by the power of the State, was a far cry from driving gangs of slaves.

  “Now,” I said, “be so good as to tell me why you substituted this timber for the wood you hauled from the ruins of the insula. And think carefully before you call me a liar.”

  He was cowed, but I couldn’t be sure how long that would last. The men behind him looked sorely disappointed. His pique at losing face before his peers could easily overcome his ingrained subordination to authority.

  He paused and thought, clearly an unaccustomed activity. “There is the wood. That is what I took from the insula. You have no evidence that says otherwise.”

  “So you are going to trade legal quibbles with me? Do you think you are qualified to do this? I’ve conducted many prosecutions, Caninus.”

  “And I’ve witnessed many trials, Aedile. I know that a mere accusation means little without evidence to back it up.”

  He had me there. I had no reliable witnesses to attest to what we’d found in the basement, just Hermes, and as a slave he could only testify under torture. Even if this is done in form alone, as by pouring water up the wretch’s nose, it is a degrading business and nobody believes the slave anyway. If I told him what I had learned from Justus, the man would be dead by morning. I decided to hold the freedman in reserve.

  “Marcus Caninus, it is clear to me that there is a criminal conspiracy here, a conspiracy to conceal evidence of fraudulent practices from investigation. If you do not reveal to me what you know about this matter, I will not hesitate to proceed against you and seek the most severe punishment.”

  He shifted uneasily, glancing in the direction of the men in green. He was beginning to regret that he had brought them along. “You’ll be dealing with men far more important than I am, Aedile.”

  “Exactly. It is the custom of such men, when engaged in criminal conspiracy, to sacrifice the lowest-ranking man involved to save their own hides. That man would be you, Marcus Caninus.”

  His expression hardened. “Then I’m screwed by greater men. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You needn’t suffer alone,” I told him. “In fact, there is no need for you to face prosecution at all. I am not interested in bringing a mere publicanus to trial. Name to me the men who are engaged in this illegal traffic, which has cost the lives of a great many citizens, and be prepared to swear to this in court, and you will suffer no more than the forfeit of your public contract and a nominal fine.”

  “I am not an informer,” he said, drawing himself up to his full, formidable height.

  “Of course not,” I said. “You are a loyal supporter of the Senate and People. Think about it. You know how to find me. Now, I give you leave to go.”

  Nonchalantly I turned and walked away, the muscles of my back tensed against a half-anticipated dagger thrust. Slowly I turned and saw him walking away with his hounds at heel. “Oh, Marcus Caninus?”

  He turned, puzzled. “Aedile?”

  “Don’t forget to come back and haul away all this wood. The High Priestess is most insistent.”

  9

  THAT WAS WELL DONE,” HERMES said, “but how long will it last? He’ll collect his wits, see that his bullyboys think he’s backed down from a weaker man, and come after you.”

  “But were they his men? He struck me as a busy man when I spoke with him two days ago. He has a business to manage. It’s one that calls for a free use of the whip, and he may kill a slave or two on occasion as an example to the others; but holding a public contract like that, it must keep him active from dawn to sundown. When does such a man have time to lead thugs in the streets?”

  In Rome, the activity of putting up new housing and demolishing old structures went on constantly. In later years, when Caesar enacted as permanent law the occasional legislation passed by tribunes of banning wheeled traffic from the streets during daylight hours, he specifically exempted carts carrying building materials or hauling away the rubble of demolition.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Hermes admitted. “Those were Hypsaeus’s men. Do you think they were sent along to keep an eye on Caninus, to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing?”

  “That’s as good a guess as any, but also to let me know that I now have enemies who don’t hesitate to kill people who get in their way. The word must be out that I can’t call on Milo for help in this part
icular matter.”

  We were hurrying through the streets in the direction of the Subura. I was heading home. It was yet early in the day, but I wanted to look at those documents I had demanded from the Tabularium. The streets were even more jammed than usual because the people who lived in the fiood-prone parts of the City were moving to higher ground, along with such of their belongings as they could carry. These included pet dogs and birds, along with chickens and other household livestock, making the streets so noisy that Hermes and I were shouting at each other.

  “You still have Caesar on your side,” Hermes said.

  “Caesar is far, far away,” I said. “And if I get killed over a matter of politics and money, he’ll be understanding about the whole situation. It will just mean that whoever is responsible will owe Caesar a big political favor to make up for it.”

  We came to a lane where all foot traffic was stopped by a group of men hoisting chests and other furniture onto the roof of an insula. Items that couldn’t be carried were being moved to upper stories and roofs everywhere, but many things were too large to carry up the narrow stairways so they had to be lifted by ropes from the streets. Since few Roman streets were wide enough for two people to pass one another comfortably without turning sideways, the effects on traffic were predictably chaotic.

  “What about your neighbors?” Hermes asked. “They’ve rallied to your aid before.”

  “Hermes, I get the distinct impression that you don’t believe I am competent to handle this situation.”