SPQR III: The Sacrilege Read online

  “The augurs are always supposed to check here at the temple before they go out the gate after dark, sir. The pontifex Spinther came here about ten days ago, with his striped robe and lituus. None since then.” I thanked him and left.

  “Why are you asking these questions?” Hermes asked me as we descended the hill. “Is it something to do with the patrician who tried to poison you and ended up dead instead?”

  “I don’t know, but I suspect that it is all connected. Why do you want to know?”

  Hermes shrugged. “If you get killed, I’ll just get passed on to somebody who’s not as agreeable.”

  “I am touched. Yes, there’s something very strange going on. Somebody tried to murder me, and Capito was murdered on the same night. The next night the rites of Bona Dea were profaned in Caesar’s house. Caesar told Celer that he was going out to look for omens on the Quirinal that night, but he didn’t. The boy who tried to poison me was murdered. The woman I suspect of selling him the poison was murdered. The boy was staying with Clodius, my worst enemy. The murdered woman was with Clodius when he sneaked into Caesar’s house dressed as a woman. Doesn’t it strike you that there is some common thread running through all this?”

  Hermes shrugged. “Free people are mostly crazy. Noble ones are the worst.”

  “Stay a slave,” I advised him. “That way your problems will always be simple.”

  We crossed the city and went over the bridge to the Island, then over the other bridge to the Trans-Tiber.

  “Where are we going now?” Hermes asked.

  “The ludus of Statilius Taurus, to visit a friend.”

  He brightened at that. “The gladiator school? You must know everybody!” He was always impressed with my familiarity with the lowest strata of Roman life.

  At the school I left him in the training yard, gaping at the netmen as they went through their drills and practice fights. For some reason the netmen had caught the fancy of the slaves and lowest classes. Probably because sword and shield were the honorable weapons of citizens. Like many boys his age, he probably thought of gaining fame as a gladiator. He was too inexperienced to realize that it was just a delayed death sentence. Luckily, he was old enough to understand the whip and the cross.

  Asklepiodes greeted me and insisted on going through the usual amenities with wine and cakes before he would enlighten me. Eventually, we sat by a wide window and looked down upon the men practicing below.

  “Since we last spoke,” he said, “I have been flogging my brain to remember where I had seen that hammer wound. Yesterday I was sitting here, idly watching the men at practice, when I saw some new men arrive. They were to have direction of the munera Pompey will give after his triumph. Some were old champions paid enormously to come out of retirement to grace the games, but among them were some Etruscan priests. Have you ever seen the fights as they are conducted in the more traditional areas of Tuscia?”

  My scalp prickled. “No, I have not.”

  He beamed with satisfaction. “Well, the sight of these Etruscans reminded me. Some years ago, I accompanied a troupe to some funeral games near Tarquinia. There I witnessed something I had not seen before. Now, in the munera, what happens after a defeated man has received the death-blow, before the Libitinarii come to drag the body away?”

  “The Charon touches the corpse with his hammer to claim it for the death-goddess, Libitina,” I said.

  “Exactly. Have you ever wondered where he got his attributes? The long nose and the pointed ears, the boots and the hammer? These are not the attributes of the ferryman of the Styx who bears the same name.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “They are said to be Etruscan in origin, like the games themselves.”

  “That is correct. In reality, he is the Etruscan death-demon, Charun, who claims the dead for the deity of the underworld, whom you call Pluto and we call Hades. Well, in Tuscia, he does not simply touch the corpse. He stands over the head and smashes the brow with his hammer.”

  “And these men came from Pompey’s camp, you say?”

  “That is an unhealthy and unseasonal sweat I see shining upon your forehead,” he observed.

  “As long as you see no hammer mark there, I am satisfied,” I said. I took a long drink from my wine cup and he refilled it. Then I took a long drink from that one. “Something else falls into place,” I said. “Murders with an Etruscan stamp, just when Pompey has a collection of Etruscan priests outside the walls. And Crassus told me that Pompey has lent some of them to Clodius.”

  “Ah! Pompey and Clodius. An unsavory pairing. What might all this portend?”

  I told him what I knew, and he nodded sagely as he listened. He had that trick of nodding sagely when he had not the slightest idea what you were talking about. It was a faculty I, too, learned in time. When I described Caesar’s dispersal of the crowd before my door and our subsequent discussion in my house, he interrupted me.

  “Just a moment. Caesar said that the goddess Libitina is the ancestress of his house? I have gone to hear him orate many times, and he has often named the goddess Aphrodite as his ancestress.”

  “Venus,” I corrected him. “Yes, he’s taken to doing that a lot lately. That’s because you practically have to go back to the time of the gods to find a Julian who ever amounted to anything. But our Venus is a more complex goddess than your Aphrodite. Libitina is our goddess of death and funerals, but she is also a goddess of fields and vineyards and of voluptuous pleasures, in which aspect she becomes the dual goddess Venus Libitina. Thus Caesar can call either of them his ancestress without contradiction.”

  “Religion is a thing of marvel,” Asklepiodes said.

  I spun the rest of the tale, not gloating over my acuity but rather telling of my perplexity. When I had finished, he refilled our cups and we thought in silence for a while.

  “So this investigation of yours, which was to seek out the guilt of Clodius, now involves Pompey and Caesar?”

  “And Crassus,” I said. “Let’s not forget him. If the other two are involved, so is he.”

  “What if the purpose of their plotting is to destroy Crassus?”

  “That’s involvement, isn’t it?” I demanded.

  “Excellent point,” he conceded.

  I rose hastily. “I thank you. I see someone down there I should speak with.”

  Asklepiodes followed my gaze and saw the young man who had just entered the exercise yard. “A handsome youth! And what striking coloring, almost like a German.”

  “Fairness like that is extremely rare among Romans,” I told him. “It’s common only in a single patrician family, the gens Cornelia.”

  “I forgive your hasty leave-taking. I might be so precipitous myself to greet a youth so comely.” He was, after all, a Greek.

  The young man looked up when I approached him. His eyes were like Egyptian lapis. “I don’t believe we’ve met since we were children, but I saw you yesterday in Pompey’s camp. I am Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger. Are you not Faustus Cornelius Sulla?”

  He smiled. “I am. I believe we rode together in the Trojan Game when we were boys.”

  “I remember. I fell off my horse.” Faustus was a small, almost delicate-looking man, but I knew that was deceptive. He had made a name for himself as a soldier in Pompey’s service, and had even won the corona muralis for being first over the wall at Jerusalem when Pompey had taken that ever-troublesome city.

  “Are you here concerning Pompey’s upcoming munera?” I asked him.

  “Yes, and to begin arrangements for my own. My father enjoined a munera upon me in his will. Since I’ve been old enough to celebrate them, I’ve been away from Rome. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to discharge the obligation, and I mean to get it out of the way before I’m sent off to another war someplace.” He was another of those men who had chosen foreign soldiering as a career and considered domestic civil service an onerous duty. I was precisely the opposite. My Greek friend had mistaken him for a youth because of his exqu
isite, almost feminine Cornelian features. Actually, he was no more than a year younger than I.

  “I understand Pompey is adding an Etruscan element to his munera,” I said. Faustus had been watching the fighters practice, but now he glanced toward me sharply.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “A friend saw some of his Etruscan priests here yesterday.”

  “They are just soothsayers,” he said quickly. “They’ll have nothing to do with the fights. They said they could ensure a better show by rejecting unlucky swordsmen.”

  “It seems to me,” I said, “that some of them will have to be unlucky, or it won’t be much of a show.”

  “I don’t think that’s what they meant,” Faustus said.

  We were interrupted when Statilius Taurus himself arrived to take charge of his distinguished visitor. I took my leave of them and retrieved Hermes.

  “Who’s that?” the boy said, jerking his chin toward Faustus.

  “Faustus Cornelius Sulla, only living son of the Dictator,” I informed him.

  “Oh,” Hermes said, disappointed. Doubtless he would have preferred some illustrious criminal. Well, there were plenty of those to go around, too. I decided to call on one of them.

  It took some asking, but I finally tracked Milo down in a massive warehouse near the river. His guard at the door let me pass the instant he recognized me. I was one of perhaps five or six men who had access to Titus Annius Milo at any hour of the day or night.

  Inside the warehouse, the scene was not greatly different from the one I had left at the ludus. Milo was drilling his men in some of the finer points of street-brawling. He had shed toga and dignity, and stood in his tunic while men circled him warily with clubs and knives. Hermes gasped when a man darted in and swung a club at Milo’s head. Milo didn’t duck the weapon like any ordinary man. He caught it instead and it made a noisy clack hitting his palm. I think Milo could have caught a sword that way. His years at the oar had given him palms as hard as the brazen shield of Achilles, and somehow they stayed that way all his life. His other hand grasped the front of the man’s tunic and with a fierce wrench sent him careening into another who was approaching with a knife. Both men collapsed in a heap. Milo never carried a weapon and never needed one.

  “That was good,” he said. “Let’s try another.”

  “No fair, Chief,” said a gap-toothed Gaul. “The rest of us can’t catch weapons like that.”

  “Then I’ll teach you something you can use,” Milo said, grinning. “Line up in two teams, facing one another.” The men did so. “Now, the idea is, you just defend yourself against the man directly in front of you, but keep aware of the man fighting your comrade on the right or left. The moment he leaves himself open, turn and get him. You’ll usually have your chance when he attacks the man before him. Move quickly. He won’t see you coming, and the man you’re engaged with won’t be expecting the move. Come back to guard instantly, and he won’t be able to take advantage of it. Now let’s see you try it.”

  The two groups went at it with relish, and Hermes cheered every smack of wood against flesh. These men were inveterate brawlers and they actually enjoyed the exercise. Ever since the Gracchi, mob violence had been a common fact of Roman political life. With his usual cold-blooded realism, Milo was polishing his men’s technique the way Caesar or Cicero would polish a speech. When he was satisfied with their performance, he came over to me.

  “They’re shaping up,” he said grudgingly.

  “They look fierce enough,” I acknowledged.

  “Ferocity is common. Clodius’s gang is plenty fierce. It’s concerted action that wins big fights. The gladiators only know single combat and the brawlers never think past their own knuckles. I need a street army and I intend to have one.”

  “You had better be careful, Titus,” I cautioned. “A few words in the wrong ears could get you charged with insurrection.”

  “I have Cicero and a good many others working on my behalf,” he said. “For every Senator who wants to see me brought down, there’s an enemy of Clodius who sees me as the savior of Rome.”

  “Cicero is not in high favor just now,” I warned, “and when Pompey comes back into the city in a couple of days, he’ll be the power in Rome until new alliances can be formed.”

  “Thanks for your concern,” Milo said, “but I’ve been working hard for years to arrange the sort of support I need. I feel secure for the time being.”

  “As you will,” I said. “Titus, I need to know what sort of naughtiness Mamercus Capito might have been up to. I—”

  “I can tell you right now,” he interrupted. “Nothing. I looked into it as soon as I learned he was murdered. He had no meaningful contacts among the Roman underworld, which is to say, my own colleagues. As far as I was able to learn, he wasn’t taking bribes beyond the acceptable limits. He had a few silent partners, mostly his freedmen, running businesses for him, since as a patrician he couldn’t be officially involved. They insist that he had no business enemies with cause to kill him. He must have been murdered for personal or political reasons. Your Senate contacts will know more about how he voted in the Senate than I.”

  “You’ve saved me a great deal of time,” I told him.

  “Then perhaps you can employ it in my behalf. Have you spoken with the lady yet?”

  “No, but I go from here to the house of Lucullus. With luck, I’ll get there in time for lunch.”

  “Enjoy yourself, but be eloquent.”

  “I’ll do my best, which if I may say so is considerable. By an odd coincidence, I’ve just met with her brother at the Statilian School. The resemblance is striking, and I’m told they both greatly resemble the old Dictator. I’m afraid he’s Pompey’s man, though.”

  “That’s unfortunate. I hope I don’t fall afoul of him, since I intend to be his brother-in-law.”

  “Matrimony is often a perilous enterprise,” I told him.

  Hermes and I left, stepping over the writhing or inert bodies of thugs who had been practicing all too seriously. My slave was inordinately excited by the whole experience.

  “Why don’t you sell me to him, master?” he said. “I think I’d enjoy belonging to Milo.”

  “If he ever offends me mortally, I’ll give you to him as a gift,” I assured the boy.

  I arrived at the house of Lucullus a little late for the full lunch ceremony, but a place was made for me at the table as the last course arrived, and that was far more than I could possibly eat even with the aid of the gods. I moderated my wine intake since I was to be doing some important negotiating later on.

  Because I was not an invited guest, I did not feel that I could rightfully impose myself on Lucullus, but I lagged behind while the others took their leave, which all did very shortly after the meal. Luncheon was still so new that a routine for socializing afterward had not yet been developed. Before long, I was sitting with Lucullus in his garden while his slaves dug in the huge planting-beds, readying them for the spring.

  “Does this involve the investigation Celer is being so sly about?” Lucullus asked. “If so, I fear I would be of little help. My wife is a Claudian first, like the rest of her family. She would never tell me anything that might get her dear little brother into trouble.”

  A server poured us wine from a golden pitcher. I sipped at it. It was Caecuban, of a vintage most men would have saved for the celebration of a victory, and only faintly cut with rose-scented water.

  “No; for a change I come on an amatory mission.”

  His eyebrows went up. “On your own behalf?”

  “On behalf of a friend. Titus Annius Milo.”

  Lucullus sat back and stroked his chin. “Milo. A rising man, sure to be a power in Rome in the future, if he doesn’t find an early grave first.”

  “That grave awaits us all,” I said.

  “How true. And just who might be the object of that formidable man’s affections?”

  “Your ward, Fausta. He met her here a few days ago
and was immediately felled by Cupid.” I sipped again at the excellent wine. This was a new activity for me.

  “I am amazed that anything can fell Milo. He is of doubtful birth,” Lucullus pointed out, “and his activities are little more than criminal.”

  “As to his birth, he has been from birth a Roman citizen, and there is no higher birth than that.”

  Lucullus clapped his hands. “Bravo. If this were one of the popular assemblies, I should rise to my feet and cheer.”

  “If his activities lack a certain gentility, is it more respectable to slaughter foreigners than to brawl in the streets of Rome? Besides, once he has come to great prominence in the state, his youthful excesses will be forgotten, as is always the case. Look at Crassus. At Sulla, even. Both of them were abhorred as degenerate young reprobates, but the highest elements in Rome were kissing their backsides soon enough. Just wait. Soon all Rome will be puckering up for Titus Milo.”

  “I’ll admit he couldn’t have sent a better man to press his suit. I almost want to marry the rogue myself now.”

  “Then you will allow him to pay court to Fausta?” I said.

  “There is a small but significant difficulty,” he said.

  “What might that be?”

  “A frog croaking in my fishpond has as much influence with her as I have. I am the executor of her father’s will, but she doesn’t think that extends to her person, whatever the law might say. She is a Cornelia, and a daughter of Sulla, and she is not about to submit herself to a mere Licinius like me. We get along well enough, but that’s about all. She gets on better with Claudia, and that’s a bad sign. But if Milo is willing to risk his future happiness with a haughty demigoddess of a Cornelia, he has my permission to chance it.”

  “Might I speak with her?” I asked.

  “I’ll send for her, but I can promise you nothing beyond that.” He raised a hand so slightly that it might have been mistaken for an involuntary twitch. But his slaves were sensitive enough to detect his slightest wish. One came running and all but prostrated himself. “Tell the lady Fausta she has a visitor in the garden,” Lucullus murmured. The man dashed off with winged heels.