A Murder on the Appian Way Page 7

  “It had nothing to do with that, Papa. For some reason, it’s in the Temple of Libitina that the fasces are kept when there are no consuls. You know, those bundles of sticks with an ax projecting, carried by the consuls at ceremonies and processions.”

  “Their badges of office.”

  “Exactly. With no consuls in office, the fasces have to be stored somewhere, and apparently the official place is the Temple of Libitina. So the mob breaks into the temple, seizes the fasces, and then runs back into the city to seek out the men running for consul against Milo.”

  “Publius Hypsaeus and Quintus Scipio.”

  “Yes. Both supported by Clodius, of course. The mob goes straight to Scipio’s house and shouts for him to come out and claim the fasces.”

  “Forgo the election entirely? Become consul by appointment of the mob?”

  “That must have been the idea. But Scipio wouldn’t show his face.”

  “Probably scared out of his wits, like everybody else in Rome last night.”

  “Then the same thing at the house of Hypsaeus. Shouts of acclamation, but the candidate kept his door shut. Then somebody in the mob got the idea to offer the fasces to Pompey.”

  “Pompey! But he’s not even eligible. He’s still a proconsul, in charge of running Spain. He commands an army; legally he can’t even enter the city walls. That’s why he’s living in his garden villa out on the Pincian Hill.”

  “The mob couldn’t be bothered by such technicalities. They ran out the Fontinalis Gate and up the Flaminian Way to Pompey’s villa. They waved their torches and lifted up the fasces. Some shouted for Pompey to become consul. Others shouted for him to become dictator.”

  I shook my head. “What in Hades are they thinking of? Probably most of them weren’t even born the last time Rome had a dictator.”

  “There are plenty of people in the street who think it’s time we had one again, to put an end to all this chaos.”

  “They’re mad. A dictatorship could only make things worse. Anyway, I can’t believe the leaders of the Clodian mob came up with such an idea. Clodius and Pompey detested each other, and Pompey’s never been a friend of populist causes.”

  “He’s popular with the masses, even so. The mighty general, conqueror of the East. The Great One, Pompey Magnus.”

  I shook my head. “It still doesn’t sound right. The same people who provoked the mob to burn down the Senate House are hardly likely to want a reactionary like Pompey to be their dictator. Maybe it wasn’t the same mob at all. Or maybe the mob was taken over at some point by infiltrators from Pompey’s camp.”

  Eco raised an eyebrow. “So you think the incident might have been staged by Pompey himself? Do you think he wants to be dictator, then?”

  “More likely he wanted a chance to publicly turn down the call. There are plenty of senators, especially friends of Caesar, who think Pompey might be plotting to take over the state. How better to reassure them than to turn down a mob of citizens offering him the fasces?”

  “He didn’t exactly turn them down. Like Scipio and Hypsaeus, he didn’t show his face.”

  I moved my chair a bit to keep up with the sun. Where the shade fell the air had a bite. “What word of Milo, then?”

  “Some think he sneaked back into the city last night, and is holed up in his house. They say that’s why the archers were in place to fight off the Clodians last night, because they’re part of Milo’s personal bodyguard. But it seems just as likely that he left them to guard the place in his absence, especially if he had planned to murder Clodius. He knew the mob would react with violence, so he left his house fortified. Others say he’s gone into voluntary exile, off to Massilia or somewhere.”

  “That’s possible,” I said. “It’s hard to see how he could possibly be elected consul now, if and when the state finally does manage to hold elections. And if Milo can’t be elected consul, he’s finished. He’s spent a fortune putting on shows and games, trying to impress the voters. He doesn’t have the resources of Caesar or Pompey, or even of Clodius. He wagered everything on his run for consul, and now he’s surely lost all chance of winning. Exile might seem the only honorable solution to him.”

  Another voice joined us, from the direction of the statue of Minerva. “But then why did Milo kill Clodius, if it meant ruining his own future?”

  I looked toward the statue. The virgin goddess towered above us, painted in such lifelike colors that she seemed almost to breathe. In one hand she clutched an upright spear, in the other a shield. An owl perched on her shoulder. A snake coiled at her feet. Under the midday sun her eyes were shaded by the visor of her crested helmet. For just an instant it seemed that Minerva herself had spoken. Then Diana stepped from beneath the shade of the portico and leaned against the pedestal. She put her hand on the sculpted snake.

  “A good question, Diana,” I said. “Why would Milo murder Clodius, if he knew it would unleash such a fury? Why kill his enemy, if that meant killing his own chances of being elected?”

  “Perhaps he miscalculated the reaction,” said Eco. “Or perhaps he killed Clodius by accident. Or in self-defense.”

  “Do you mind if I join you?” said Diana. Not waiting for an answer she pulled up a little folding chair and sat. She shivered in her cloak. “It’s cold out here!”

  “Let the sunshine sink in for a bit,” I said.

  “And then there’s a third rumor,” Eco said. “Some say that Milo is plotting revolution, and the murder of Clodius was just the first stroke. They say he’s stockpiled weapons all over the city—there must have been an arsenal of arrows at his house to fend off the mob last night—and now he’s crisscrossing the countryside, gathering troops to march on Rome.”

  “Setting himself up as another Catilina?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Only this time the revolutionaries would have men like Cicero on their side, instead of against them.”

  “Cicero is the last man to support anything remotely like a revolution, even if it was led by his good friend Milo. But who knows, nowadays? I suppose anything is possible.”

  “Oh, and some other news, Papa. This must have happened yesterday, while the mob was rioting down in the Forum. A patrician committee of the Senate met somewhere here on the Palatine. They finally appointed an interrex.”

  Diana looked puzzled.

  “See if I can explain it accurately, Eco,” I said. “In cases where there are no consuls—say, if both should die on a battlefield—”

  “Or if a whole year should go by with no elections,” added Eco.

  I nodded. “In such a case, where there are no magistrates at the head of the state, the Senate appoints a temporary magistrate called an interrex to run the government and hold new elections. Each interrex serves for only five days, and then a new one is appointed; that way they don’t get too settled in their office. So on and so forth until one of them manages to get new consuls elected. The Senate should have appointed an interrex at the beginning of the year, since there were no new consuls when the old consuls stepped down, but friends of Hypsaeus and Scipio managed to stall the appointment, thinking Milo had the upper hand and wanting to hold off the elections a while longer. No interrex, no elections. Well, perhaps now there’ll finally be elections and an end to this crazy talk of solving the crisis with a dictator.”

  “Not for another five days, at least,” said Eco. “You missed one technical point, Papa: the first interrex can’t hold the election. That can only be done by a subsequent interrex.”

  “Not by the first interrex?” I said.

  “During his five-day term he simply oversees a sort of cooling-off period.”

  Diana nodded. “It should take at least that long for the Senate House to cool off.”

  The first interrex had no authority to hold elections, as Eco had astutely pointed out. But the supporters of Scipio and Hypsaeus, sensing that the candidacy of Milo was done for, decided the time for elections had arrived. Even as Eco and I talked, they surrounded the hou
se of Marcus Lepidus, the newly appointed interrex, on the Palatine. Lepidus’s wife, a lady of irreproachable character named Cornelia, was busy setting up ceremonial looms in the vestibule, following an ancient custom pertaining to the wives of interrexes. (No one knows the origin of this custom; perhaps it has something to do with the interrex’s role in weaving the threads of the Republic’s future.)

  When Lepidus appeared at his door, the leaders of the crowd demanded that he hold elections at once. He explained to them the impossibility of his doing so. They repeated their demands. Lepidus, a very old-fashioned patrician, told them exactly what they could do with such a radical notion, in terms to make their ears burn. Then he slammed the door on them.

  The crowd did not erupt in a riot, but they did tighten their cordon around the house, preventing anyone from leaving or entering. They built fires in the street to keep themselves warm. To keep themselves amused they passed wineskins back and forth and shouted their electioneering chants, many of which were obscene poems about Fausta, Milo’s notoriously unfaithful wife. When the wine made the convoluted lyrics too complicated to recite, they resorted to a simpler chant: “Vote—now! Vote—now!”

  The interrex, ostensibly the head of the Roman state (at least for the next few days), was a prisoner in his own house.

  Of course, every man is a prisoner in his own house when the streets are unsafe and atrocities take place even in broad daylight. What is a man to do? Lock himself away like a cowering deaf mute? Or step into the fray, looking for a means to put an end to the violence around him?

  I had actually seen worse times in Rome—the civil war that led to Sulla’s dictatorship, for a start—but I had been a young man then. I moved through those crises following the instinct of the young, which craves adventure ahead of survival. Looking back now, I’m shocked at how little regard I seemed to have had for the risks I took. I wasn’t especially brave or foolish, merely young.

  Now I was no longer young. I was far more aware and more respectful of death and injury, having seen and experienced so much of both in the intervening years. With every passing year the fabric of existence seemed more fragile to me. Life seemed more precious. I was less amenable to taking chances with my own life or with the lives of others.

  Yet I found myself in times that called for taking chances. The idea of shutting myself away and disclaiming all responsibility offered no satisfaction to me. Like many a man in Rome that winter, the tumult in the streets sparked a tumult in my own heart.

  The Republic was very sick, perhaps sick unto death. Its wrenching spasms presented a spectacle I could hardly bear to look at, but I found it even harder to look away.

  Some years before I had tried to remove myself completely from the arena of politics. Sick of deceit and false promises, of the pompous vanity of politicians and the gaping credulity of their followers, of the vindictive arrogance of victors and the squalid backbiting of the vanquished, I declared I would have no more of it. I moved to a farm up in Etruria, determined to turn my back on Rome.

  That attempt did me no good. Instead, I became more deeply embroiled in political intrigue than I could ever have imagined. I was like a fretting navigator who goes to great lengths to avoid a whirlpool only to find that he’s plotted a course straight into the vortex. The episode of Catilina and his riddle had made me recognize the inexorable nature of Fate.

  Rome is my fate. And the fate of Rome was once again in the hands of her politicians.

  So, in retrospect, I justify to myself my reaction when later that day, after Eco had gone home, I received a visitor. He was an old, old acquaintance.

  Such an old acquaintance, in fact, that Belbo, secretly peering out the peephole in the front door, didn’t recognize the man. I had told Belbo not to let in anyone he didn’t know by sight, so he dutifully fetched me from my study to have a look for myself.

  I saw a man past middle age, of medium build with an open, handsome face and a touch of gray at his temples. He had the well-molded lips, the straight nose and the curly hair of a Greek. He carried himself with an almost haughty self-importance, like a philosopher or a scholar. The boyish young slave I had first met thirty years ago had grown into a distinguished-looking man. It had been a long time since I had seen him so close at hand. Usually, when I saw him at all, it was at a distance, as I had seen him on the previous night, putting his head together with Cicero up on the roof of Cicero’s house. He was very nearly the last person I had expected to call on me.

  I shut the peephole and waved to Belbo to unbar the door.

  “Tiro!” I exclaimed.

  “Gordianus.” He bowed his head and smiled faintly. Behind him stood a troop of bodyguards. I counted at least ten men, which seemed a bit excessive if he had merely walked the short distance from Cicero’s house. On the other hand, anyone leaving Cicero’s house was likely to be a target of the Clodian mob. With a wave of his hand he ordered them to stay outside. Belbo shut the door behind him.

  I showed him to my study and gestured for him to take a chair near the flaming brazier. Instead he walked slowly around the room, examining the scrolls in their pigeonholes and the decorative painting of a garden on one wall.

  “You’ve prospered, Gordianus.”

  “In some ways.”

  “I remember your old house over on the Esquiline. That big, rambling place with the garden all gone to seed.”

  “It belongs to my son Eco now. His wife has restored the garden to immaculate condition.”

  “Time passes so quickly! Who would have thought that you’d ever have a son old enough to run his own household?”

  “He’s made me a grandfather.”

  “So one hears.”

  “Does one?”

  A smile quivered at the corner of his lips. “You are still spoken of from time to time in Cicero’s house, Gordianus.”

  “But not too fondly, I imagine.”

  “Oh, you might be surprised.”

  “I certainly would be, if Cicero has anything good to say about me these days. I should have thought that the trial of Marcus Caelius was the last straw between us.”

  Tiro shrugged. “Cicero bears you no ill will. He’s not a man to hold grudges.”

  “Ha!”

  Tiro inclined his head thoughtfully. “Cicero can make himself a formidable enemy, to be sure, against those who make themselves his enemies by their spitefulness and deceit, or by the danger they pose to the Republic. But that has never been the case with you, Gordianus. Cicero understands that you’re a complicated man, not always easy for him to understand, but at heart an honorable and honest man. Honorable. Honest,” he repeated, stressing the words. “Like Cicero himself. If the two of you have sometimes come into conflict, it’s because you’ve seen things in different lights. Honorable men can’t be expected always to agree.”

  I sighed. Tiro was obviously as devoted to Cicero as ever. It would be useless to point out to him the flaws in his master’s character—the man’s totally unscrupulous behavior as an advocate, his pompous self-importance, his utter disregard for the truth (unless it happened to serve his purpose), the long string of victims he had destroyed in the cause of upholding the privileges and the power of the Best People.

  “Are you sure you won’t sit, Tiro? Belbo can take your cloak; it looks rather heavy, even for this weather.”

  “I’ll sit, yes. I tire rather easily these days. And yes, I suppose I can do without the cloak. The room seems warm enough. I have to be careful of catching a chill …”

  I hardly heard what he said, because as he shrugged off his heavy cloak I saw what he was wearing underneath—not a slave’s tunic, but a toga. Tiro was dressed as a citizen! I looked at his hand and saw, sure enough, that he wore the iron ring of a citizen just as I did.

  “But Tiro, when did this happen?”

  “What?” He saw the direction of my gaze and smiled. He worked his fingers as if he was still not used to the ring. “Oh, this. Yes, a change in status. Hardly more tha
n a formality in many respects. I do the same work, serve the same man. It’s easier for me to own property now, of course—”

  “Tiro—no longer a slave! You’re free!”

  “Yes.” He seemed almost embarrassed.

  “Well, it took Cicero long enough. You and I talked of such a possibility the very first time we met. Do you remember?”

  “Not really.” His cheeks colored a bit, and I realized how pale they had been before.

  “What did you just say—about taking a chill and tiring easily? Tiro, is something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. Not anymore.”

  I looked at him skeptically.

  “I was ill,” he admitted, “but that was last year. Very ill, to be frank. My health has been … somewhat erratic … for the last few years.” He smiled. “I suppose that’s one of the reasons Cicero made me a freedman last year; it looked then as if it might be a case of now or never. But I’m much better now. I could have wished for a faster recovery, but at least I’m not walking with the cane anymore. The physicians say there’s no reason I shouldn’t regain my full strength and be as healthy as I ever was.”

  I looked at him with fresh eyes. What I had read as a haughty expression was merely due to the gauntness of his cheeks. I reckoned in my head and realized that he must be fifty. He suddenly looked his age; there was more gray among the tight curls than I had thought, and there was a bald spot at the top of his head. A kind of boyish enthusiasm still sparkled in his eyes, but the firelight also caught the haunted glimmer of a man who had known severe illness. Yet he also seemed a man who was comfortable with himself and his place in the world; his frank and easy manner exuded an air of sophistication and self-contentment. And why not? The boyish slave who had come to my door those many years ago as the messenger of an obscure master was now a free citizen and the invaluable right-hand man of the most famous orator alive. Tiro had met great men and traveled the world at Cicero’s side. He had helped to run the government when Cicero was consul. He was famous in his own right, having invented a form of abbreviated writing whereby a copyist could take down a speech verbatim as quickly as it was spoken; every clerk in the Senate House was now required to learn Tironian shorthand.