The Tribune's Curse (14 page)

When the reading and copying were done, I tipped young Hylas with a sesterce and turned away discreetly while he disposed of it somewhere about his person. Slaves, especially small ones, must resort to certain subterfuges in order to prevent larger slaves from acquiring their wealth, and it is often inadvisable to wonder too much about where our money has been.

With my papyrus tucked into my tunic, I left the temple, thinking about the man now looting Sardinia, and others of his sort. From what I had learned of him so far, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was nothing unusual, just a typical Roman politician of the times. At some time he had been a quaestor, doing scut work for the government, perhaps accompanying some general and profiting from it, making valuable political and commercial contacts in the process. He had then been elected to the aedileship and had not stinted himself on largesse to the populace with his Games and his theater and his baths. Undoubtedly he had gone deeply into debt to do this, besides squandering whatever wealth he had inherited.

Riding on the great popularity of his aedileship, he stood for praetor the very next year and won the office handily. Then he had been given a propraetorian province, Sardinia, which he was now looting so merrily. It had become common practice, and it did much to ruin the Republic. Provinces that had been Roman territory
for centuries were treated like newly conquered nations, with extortions and oppressions that would shame an Oriental potentate.

The provincials had recourse in our courts. Cicero had made his legal reputation prosecuting a man named Verres who had given Sicily a sacking that was breathtaking even in that jaded age. The Sicilians had come to Cicero because they had been very pleased with the honesty of his own administration of the western part of the province when he was quaestor there under Peducaeus.

Not that even Cicero hadn’t come back from provincial administration well-off. There were plenty of ways to accumulate money that were considered legitimate, if not exactly high-minded: there was nothing wrong with accepting handsome “gifts” from contractors; people currying favor were always happy to sell land, property, and artworks at extremely favorable rates; and any overage in the revenues might be divided among the promagistrate and his assistants. Plus, never forget, today’s quaestor might be tomorrow’s praetor, consul, even Dictator, administering provinces, commanding armies, and making policy for the Empire. It was always advisable to be fondly remembered by such people.

One thing was certain: an aedile always needed money, and a suppression list like the one tucked into my tunic was a matchlessly handy way to raise cash.

I returned home to find Julia glowing.

“Decius!” she bubbled, first rushing to embrace me, then drawing back at my involuntary groan of pain. “Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot. But guess who was here a few minutes ago!”

“Uncle Julius, back from Gaul?”

“No! A man from the Egyptian Embassy! He arrived in a litter carried by Ethiopians with feathers in their hair and big scars carved in patterns all over their bodies. He wore a huge black wig and a white kilt made of linen so stiff that it crackled when he walked, and he had on all sorts of gold and jewelry.”

“I am familiar with Egyptian fashions,” I told her. “What was the brunt of this dignitary’s mission?”

Cassandra appeared with a tray bearing cups and two pitchers, one of wine and one of water. I reached for a cup, but Julia got it first, added extra water, then handed it to me.

“He brought this,” she said, beaming. She held up a papyrus, beautifully decorated with Egyptian drawings in colored ink and gilding. It was an invitation, praying that the “distinguished senator Metellus” and his “goddess-descended lady Julia” attend a reception being given in honor of King Ptolemy’s birthday.

“I’m just distinguished while you’re goddess-descended?” I said.

“I am a Julian, while you’re a mere Caecilian,” she told me, as if I didn’t know. “I’ve been so hoping for this! It’s the day after tomorrow. What shall I wear? How shall I do my hair?”

“My dear, I trust your patrician instincts in this. I just ask that you do not—do
not
, I say, consult with Fausta.”

We meandered into the
triclinium
, where the slaves laid out our dinner. It was a rare dinner at home for us, and while we ate, Julia went on happily about the upcoming party at the embassy. While I tried to look bored, I was cheered by the prospect. Lisas gave wonderful entertainments, and I was in need of such. After the dishes were cleared away, I steered the conversation toward more serious things.

“Did you get to circulate among your lady friends today?” I asked Julia.

“I started out at the new baths this morning,” she reported. At the time it was the custom for women to use the facilities in the morning, men in the afternoon. “And after that I went to the perfume market and the jewelers’ market, and then to the Temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitol.”

“The Temple of Juno?”

“Every month at this time the patrician ladies gather there to practice the songs for the Matronalia.”

“I see.” Another of those women’s things I was going to have to get accustomed to. “And did this activity reap a rich reward?”

“Well, first off, everybody has an astrologer. But you aren’t interested in astrologers, are you?”

“As it happened, references to astrology were about the only occult things left out of Ateius’s curse.”

“I thought so. Once I’d cleared away the clutter of abortionists and fortune-tellers and so forth, I kept turning up three names: Eschmoun of Thapsus, Elagabal the Syrian, and Ariston of Cumae.”

“Ariston of Cumae? That doesn’t sound like a magician’s name. It sounds more like a professor of rhetoric.”

“Nonetheless, a good many well-born women regard him as an infallible seer and spirit-guide. He is supposed to be on familiar terms with the powers of the underworld.”

“It might have been worse. At least he’s not Ugbo the Wonder-Worker. And what business have these ladies with such powers?”

“A number of things. Communicating with dead relatives, who give them guidance during difficult times, and underworld spirits are supposed to be good at spying. The women ask what their husbands are up to.”

“Hmm. No wonder the Senate is always trying to drive them out of the City. Speaking of which—” I took the papyrus from inside my tunic and spread it on the table. “Just as I thought. All three of them are on the list of foreign magicians supposedly driven out of Rome three years ago.”

“What is that?”

So I explained to her about Aemilius Scaurus’s somewhat conditional zeal in suppressing the foreign cults.

“Then why are they still here?”

“Presumably, they were able to come up with Aemilius’s price.”

“That is a disgraceful way for a Roman official to carry on,” Julia said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll be an aedile myself next year. I may have to accept the occasional handout from a questionable source, too.”

“But surely you would never deal with people as loathsome as these?” she said.

“Oh, I would never do that,” I murmured.

“Look. By all three names it says, ‘trafficker with the chthonians.’ None of the others has that particular description.”

I took the list and examined it. “You’re right. What a pity Aemilius Scaurus is in Sardinia and I can’t touch him. I’d love to question him as to why he let these three slide. Oh, well, I can do the next best thing, which is question the men themselves.”

“They’re an oddly assorted lot,” she noted. “A man from an old Carthaginian city with a Carthaginian name—Eschmoun was a god of Carthage, I believe—a Syrian, and an Italian Greek.”

“It does sound odd,” I agreed. “But then, they could be three slaves born within brick-throwing distance of this house, tricked out in foreign clothes, beards, and fake accents. That’s a pretty common dodge with frauds. Did you happen to find out where these three exotic specimens live?”

“Of course. Which will you begin with?”

“Whichever of them lives nearest. I have a suspicion that I won’t be up to much walking tomorrow.”

E
LAGABAL THE SYRIAN, IT TURNED
out, had his dwelling in the northern part of the Subura, near the Quirinal. This was a relief because, as I had predicted, I awakened in even worse shape than the day before. Amid much loud groaning I was once again massaged and shaved and shoved out the front door. I dismissed my solicitous clients and trudged through the cheerfully raucous morning bustle of my district. Here and there people recognized me and called out congratulations or wished me good fortune. Yes, it was good to be back in Rome, even in the poorest district.

There was no mistaking the house of Elagabal when I came to it. The facade was painted red, and flanking the doorway were a pair of man-headed, winged lions. Over the door was painted a serpent swallowing its tail. Not your typical, cozy little
domus
. It was two stories, and a trellis ran around its upper periphery, draped with climbing plants spangled with multicolored flowers.

When I tried to enter, a hulking brute stood in the doorway,
arms folded across his chest. He had a black, square-cut beard and suspicious little eyes flanking a nose like a ship’s ram.

“Do you have business with my master?”

“Is your master Elagabal the Syrian?”

“He is.”

“Then I do.”

The man stood, unmoved. Perhaps the little exchange had been too complicated for him. While he sought to sort out its nuances, someone spoke up from behind him.

“This man is a senator. Let him in.”

The hulk stood aside, and I passed within. I found myself in an atrium that had been converted into something resembling a ceremonial temple entrance. Several statues stood there, in human form but in very stiff poses.

“I apologize for Bessas. He defends my privacy with great skill but little wisdom.” The man was thin with a vaguely Eastern cast of countenance, wearing a long robe and a pointed cap. His beard was likewise pointed.

“I take it that I address Elagabal?”

“At your service,” he said, bowing with the fingers of one hand spread over his breast.

“Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, senator and current candidate for next year’s aedileship.”

“Ah, a most important office,” he said.

“One with which you’ve had some official dealings, I understand.”

“Is this an official visit, Senator?” he asked.

“Of a sort.”

He appeared unapprehensive. “Official or social, there is no need to be uncomfortable. Please accept the hospitality of my house. If you will follow me, we may be comfortable above.”

We went up a flight of stairs and came out onto a splendid little roof garden, some of the plantings of which I had seen from
the street below. At the corners, orange trees stood in great earthenware pots, and the trellises arched overhead so that, in summer, they would provide shade. Now, in November, the growth had been trimmed back but was still luxuriant. In its center a tiny stream of water bubbled in a delightful little fountain. There were few parts of Rome with sufficient water pressure to get even that much water up to what was, in effect, the third floor of a building.

At Elagabal’s gesture I took a seat at a little table, and he sat opposite me. Moments later a young slave woman appeared with a tray set with the expected refreshments, along with some strips of flat bread strewn with granules of coarse salt.

“If you will indulge me in a custom of my country, bread and salt form the traditional offering to a newly arrived guest. It is the ancient token of hospitality.”

“I am familiar with the custom.” I took one of the strips of bread and ate it. It was still hot from the oven and astonishingly good. The serving girl stood by silently. She was barefoot, wearing a simple wrap of scarlet cloth fringed with yellow yarn that covered her from armpits to knees. Bangles at wrists and ankles were her only adornments. Her heavy, black hair was waist length, and she kept her gaze demurely down, with none of the offhand insolence you so often see in Roman slaves. Maybe these Syrians were onto something, I thought.

Unlike many Romans I have a certain crude regard for other people’s customs, and I knew that, in the East, one did not bring up the subject of business immediately. To do so was a sign of rudeness and ill breeding.

“The gods in your atrium,” I said, choosing a mundane subject, “which of them is Baal?”

He smiled. “They all are.”

“All?”

“
Baal
in my language just means ‘Lord.’ In my part of the world, we seldom or never use the actual names of our gods. This
practice is so ancient that those names have sometimes been forgotten. So we address each deity by his best-known aspect or his location. Thus Baal Tsaphon is Lord of the North, Baal Shamim is Lord of the Skies, Baal Shadai is Lord of the Mountain, and so forth. A goddess is
Baalat
, which means, of course, ‘Lady.’ ”

“I see. Is this true of all the lands east of Egypt?”

“To an extent. In the various dialects Baal is honored. To the Babylonians he is Bel, to the Judeans El, to the Phoenicians and their colonies, Bal. The word forms a part of many names. My own name translates, from very archaic language, as ‘My Lord Has Been Gracious.’
Baal
is also a part of the Carthaginian name best known to you Romans: Hannibal.”

“Fascinating,” I said. He seemed to be a learned man, not the wide-eyed fanatic I had half expected. “I have never been to that part of the world—no farther east than Alexandria.”

“Perhaps your duties will take you to my homeland someday. Even now your proconsul Crassus wends his way thither.”

“It is concerning something touching that expedition that my errand brings me here this morning.”

“I am far from the high ranks of power, merely a humble priest. But whatever poor knowledge I have is at your disposal; this goes without saying.”

“Undoubtedly you know of the scandalous act of the tribune Ateius Capito upon the departure of Crassus?”

He raised his hands in an Eastern gesture imploring protection from baleful powers. “All Rome has heard of this! I rejoice that I was not there when it happened. Such a curse contaminates all who witness it. He is lucky to be a serving official of Rome. In my own land he would be subjected to the most terrible punishments for such an offence to the gods.”