Death at Pergamum

by Albert Noyer

  After Arcadia sat down, flies again settled on leftover food. "Since we'll all be together for awhile," she said, "my husband and I wanted to know more about you. Wouldn't you like to come outside under the awning, where it's cooler? The benches aren't all occupied and most passengers are asleep on the shady side of the deck."

  Melodia agreed, "That sounds very pleasant. Maria?"

  "Yes, let's do. Sea air will be good for us both."

  When the women seated themselves on the bench, Getorius was not there. "Are you from Ravenna?" Arcadia asked, wondering how the women's husbands had died.

  "Yes, the Oppidum quarter," Melodia told her.

  "The old city. Then you both must know Senator Maximin?"

  Melodia scoffed, "Not with a great deal of pleasure."

  Maria reprimanded her, "Melodia, remember to be charitable."

  Arcadia surmised that the senator's ambitions had clashed with the two widows. She changed the subject. "Maria, might I ask how your husband died?"

  The old woman hesitated a moment, as if such information were too private or too painful to relate, then replied softly, "Thirty years ago Visigoths murdered my dear Marcus Aemilianus on one of our estates. Alaric was blockading Rome at the time and sent some of his barbarians to forage the countryside." Maria reached over to pat her companion's hand. "Melodia, I didn't mean to be gruff with you a moment ago. Your husband was killed the previous year."

  Arcadia asked, "How did that happen?"

  "Alaric again," Melodia said, her eyes misting. "Lucius was prefect at Ostia when the barbarians tried to cut off Rome's grain supply. He died with his guards while defending the port."

  "Our families had been close," Maria added. "We moved to Ravenna to be safe."

  "I'm so sorry." Arcadia saw her husband returning. "Here's Getorius. He took food to Brisios."

  Getorius greeted the women. "I stayed with our slave awhile, then tried to count the number of passengers that Hermes could carry. With benches and cabins all taken, I estimate about two hundred."

  Arcadia recalled. "The 'peacock' didn't seem to care if they weren't all filled,"

  "He's on a schedule and wanted to sail on time. What were you all talking about?"

  "Sadly, how Maria's and Melodia's husbands were killed."

  Melodia suggested, "Let's go on to a more pleasant subject. Surgeon, you're surely planning to visit the Asklepion at Pergamum."

  "Asklepion?" Getorius was unsure of what the woman meant. "The site must have something to do with healing, but, no, I've not heard of it."

  "Nor had we," Melodia admitted. "Tranquillus told us about the shrine while we were in Jerusalem. It's a treatment center for the ill, but staff physicians all are pagan. According to the presbyter, the place had been abandoned, but a priest-physician reopened the site a few years ago. Maria, do you recall his name?"

  "I believe it's Apollonios."

  "Yes." Melodia continued, "He reopened the temple of Asklepios, so we've decided to endow a Christian church nearby to counteract this blatant Hellenism."

  "Very commendable, ladies," Getorius said, "but my wife and I are going no further than Constantinople."

  "Surgeon, we want to emulate the good works that Melania has done at Jerusalem." Maria turned to Arcadia. "Have you heard of Aelia Pulcheria, an Augusta at Constantinople?"

  "N...no." she admitted.

  Maria explained, "She's the sister of Theodosius, the Eastern Emperor, and exceedingly pious. At fourteen Pulcheria decided to remain a virgin and devote herself to Christ, more specifically to his Blessed Mother."

  "We requested an audience with her through Bishop Chrysologos at Ravenna," Melodia added. "Tranquillus sent it on by imperial post."

  Maria continued, "I understand she has a circle of women who are like-minded in doing works of charity. We also want to meet them." She clasped Arcadia's hand. "My dear, you must come with us when we see Pulcheria."

  Arcadia glanced at her husband. "I...I'm not a virgin."

  "Are Maria and I?" Melodia gave another hint of the musical laughter her parents had anticipated when they named her. "It's not really a requirement."

  Talk turned to pilgrim sites in the Holy Land connected with Christ's ministry that the widows had visited. In speaking of Melania's convent at Jerusalem, they said that the wealthy Patrician woman had gathered virgin followers around her who ministered to the poor and tended Christian shrines constructed with patrons' alms.

  * * *

  When the widows returned to their cabin, the sun had arced lower in the southwest. As Hermes sailed nearer to Constantinople, heavy sea traffic increased: fishing boats with triangular sails gave way to square-rigged merchant galleys. An occasional sleek war dromon was sighted; an innocent brightness glinted off its deadly ram. After one galley named Samothrake drew a few hundred paces alongside, challenges were called out between the two masters. The relentless mallet strokes beneath two decks increased in tempo and volume as the oarsmen strained to outrace each other. Hermes briefly pulled ahead before the race ended in victory for the lighter warship.

  Sightings of gray stone villages on a flattening shoreline became more frequent. White smoke rose from fields, where autumn stubble burned off. The Via Egnatia was glimpsed angling back toward the coast, crowded with cart traffic as it approached the Eastern capital. On rises of high ground, elaborate villas with tile roofs shone in the lowering sun. The estates were surrounded by shimmering poplar trees, windbreaks for the orchards of fruit and olive trees beyond. A few homes were built in two stories, with an upper dining room situated to catch the sea view and breeze. Getorius was reminded of the younger Pliny's description of his villa outside Rome, yet some of these looked more luxurious and many of the beachfront boathouses were faced with marble.

  A few senatorial families came out of their cabins to stand at railings, where

  excited children pointed to one of their country homes as the galley glided past.

  Herakles reappeared, flushed, grinning foolishly, and smelling of wine. "Astetrios, in one hour we arrive," he announced, slurring the name and boasting, "We round that cape ahead. Where Nova Roma begins, you will see the mag-nicifent walls of Anthem-os. I will be honest, nothing like them in West, not even at Roma!"

  Aware that he sounded defensive, Getorius retorted, "I've not been to Roma, but Valentinian, our Augustus, is completing quite impressive new walls at Ravenna."

  "Work of a child," the guide scorned. "You will see."

  Arcadia recalled the decrepit mansio at Herakleia. "Where are we spending the night? Galla Placidia is your emperor's niece, so will we stay at the palace?"

  Herakles looked at Arcadia as if she had drunk too much wine and laughed. "Ohi, no, Domina. Your Placidia may be aunt to the Basileus, yet even relatives do not walk into the Great Palace and demand a room. Protocol may take a week to even see a

  secretary of Theodosius."

  "A week? How frustrating."

  Herakles raised a hand to calm Arcadia. "Domina, there is much to see, like Holy Apostles, tomb of your greatly revered Constantine. Games in hippodrome. Baths and Mégalè Ekklèsia, Great Church of the First Theodosius."

  Getorius reminded her, "Arcadia, we came to study medical texts, not complain about sleeping arrangements. Herakles, how many libraries are in Constantinople?"

  "Asterios, there are three."

  "Fine, but where will we stay tonight?" Arcadia repeated. "In one of them?"

  "You jest, Domina, but that is arranged." Recovered now, Herakles looked beyond her at the shoreline. "Kalos, now I must alert my other clients."

  Arcadia watched him hurry off toward the cabins. "Well, he's certainly secretive. We're in the hands of man who doesn't seem to be the most honest of types."

  "Herakles keeps telling us that he is."

  "When he offered his services at Herakleia, I suppose we had no choice."

  Getorius said, "Nor do we now, cara. I admit I was uneasy after that monk harassed you, but we're probably
both nervous because we're arriving at our destination." He leaned on the rail and looked at the approaching buildings of a suburb. "I thought that Placidia's authorization was a universal entrance token. Now I'm wondering if anyone in the city can even read Latin."

  Arcadia slipped her arm under his. "The clerk should have thought of writing in Greek, too." She abruptly straightened up and clutched his hand. "Getorius! See up ahead! Those must be the city walls that Herakles boasted about. Look at their sheen. They seem like...like gold!"

  In the late afternoon glare, a distant line of limestone walls banded with rows of reddish brick had taken on a shimmering, golden glow. Getorius's slight annoyance with his wife evaporated as quickly as had morning mist on the Propontis, and yet an uneasy feeling persisted in him.

  "Cara," he whispered, "we know that walls aren't really made of gold, not even in New Rome. Let's hope that what we discover behind them won't just be more of the same false illusion."

  CHAPTER III

  Even before it was plain that the Anthemian walls were not made of gold, the monks of Hagios Karpos had roused themselves to chant a psalm of thanksgiving to their saint for a safe arrival. Passengers joined in the hymn, although nothing dangerous could have happened, aside from an unlikely collision with another galley or damage from an early autumn storm.

  Herakles returned with the widows, Tranquillus, and Fuscus, to point out the sights of Constantinople. He elbowed away a few rustics so his clients could stand close to the railing. As the massive barriers grew nearer, he boasted, "Did I not tell you, Asterios, of the magnificence of these walls? First, a ditch so deep that six men standing on each others' shoulders cannot touch its rim. The width is such that the strongest of horses cannot leap over it. Behind these are two other walls, the first, twenty-five of your

  Roman feet high. The second is three times as tall, with guard towers every twenty paces. But see for yourself, Physician. Was I not honest?"

  Getorius nodded awed agreement, "Very impressive, Herakles."

  Fuscus squinted at a barrier that stretched inland as far as he could see. "I built lots of apartments at Rome and that's good stonework." After a moment, seemingly puzzled, he asked, "Getrus, where we at?"

  "Where are we? At Constantinople. Isn't that where you're going?"

  "I been to a lot of places lately. They run together in my brain."

  "You're at the capital of the Eastern Empire."

  "Eastern Empire?" Baffled, Fuscus furrowed his brows. "There's two empires?"

  "It's one Empire," Getorius said, but a different Augustus rules each half."

  "Where do we live?"

  "In the western half."

  "Western half?" Fuscus looked away to lean on the rail and scan the passing shoreline. "Western half," he muttered to himself. "Western half. Western half."

  Getorius turned to the guide. "Just before you came back, Herakles, we passed an immense villa on shore and a rectangular open space. What were they?"

  "Asterios, the field is the Hebdomon, at the seventh city milestone, an assembly place for legions leaving to war. What you call Campus Martius." He beckoned to Maria and Melodia. "Dominae, the villa Asterios mentions is a palace belonging to Pulcheria."

  "Pulcheria!" Melodia shook her companion's tunic sleeve in excitement. "Maria, perhaps that's where we'll meet with her. Is it possible, Herakles?"

  "The Augusta has five palaces," he replied without elaborating or masking a sneer of disgust at this imperial extravagance.

  After the galley passed more suburban villas and apartment blocks built along the Via Egnatia, and was almost opposite the southern gate of the walls, Arcadia commented on a glare coming from the three-arched portal. "Herakles, back there the walls gave an illusion of being made of gold, but that gate does look gilt."

  "Ah, Domina, ohi, no. They call it the Porta Aurea, the 'Gate of Gold,' yet it has plates of common brass."

  "We have a portal at Ravenna with the same name, yet not as massive."

  "Indeed, Domina, New Rome lives up to its name."

  Beyond the outer defenses, gray limestone walls, lower in height than the land barrier and built at the water's edge, protected the northward curve of shoreline. About a mile past the Porta Aurea, the two long arms of breakwater moles embraced a harbor crowded with merchant galleys. An Egyptian grain carrier three times their size had anchored nearby. A square lighthouse on one mole had the name THEODOSIVS IMP and a mosaic of the double-headed eagle of the Eastern Empire on its seaward side.

  "This harbor is from the First Theodosius," Herakles explained, "and now crowded with the last grain galley of the year. We dock at Portus Juliani, closer to where we stay tonight, and also near the Great Palace, residence of the Second Theodosius, Eudokia, and their court."

  Arcadia said, "Their daughter, Eudoxia, is married to our Augustus, Valentinian."

  "Indeed, Domina." When Herakles frowned and turned away from her, Arcadia thought, He doesn't seem to want to talk much about anything that has to do with the imperial government. I wonder why?

  At the entrance to the harbor built by Julian, reviled as "the Apostate" by Christians, Nikephoros eyed the harbormaster's signal pennant and ordered his helmsman to bear down on the steer-board rudder and swing Hermes through its breakwater moles.

  Docks lined with galleys and passenger transports similar to Hermes, were enclosed by an extension of the sea walls. A single small grain carrier, the Serapis, lay moored at a pier to the left. A contingent of armed men guarded the cargo. Set back from the wharf, a line of arched warehouse sheds flanked a paved avenue that rose gently up into the city. As at Ravenna, mosaic pavements in front of shipping offices displayed maritime themes and the names of port destinations they served.

  A few people on shore waved to passengers aboard Hermes, but late afternoon activity was less than at Herakleia that morning. The guide explained that most harbor slaves had left to go to the baths.

  Passengers began pulling down their baggage from atop the cabins, setting chicken cages on deck, and shortening tethers on their goats to crowd the debarking area. After Hermes was secured to mooring dogs and the gangplank fitted into place, four members of a senatorial family pushed forward to be the first off the galley. Roughly elbowed back by other passengers, they stepped aside. Even the monks of Karpos thought it best to wait for the crowd to disembark before going ashore.

  Herakles called out in Greek to men waiting with a team of mules and a wagon, then told Getorius, "Your slave will put travel cases in that wagon. The men will load those of the others.

  "Fine, I'll go tell Brisios."

  Basina Bobo had stayed in her cabin for most of the voyage. Now she limped out, holding on to the arm of Hermias while loudly complaining about the discomfort of the sea journey. Flavius Bobo followed behind, his hat pulled down as if not wanting to be noticed.

  After following the stevedores down the gangplank and waiting for them to load the baggage, Getorius helped the women step up into the wagon. They sat on a row of benches on either side of its center, where the cases had been stacked. Once the men were seated, Herakles gave the driver instructions. After the mules passed through the wall gate and strained up the sloping road into the city, Arcadia noticed the intersection of a broad avenue a block or so beyond.

  "How far are we going?" she asked the guide.

  "You will see, Domina. Not far."

  A block this side of the avenue that Arcadia mentioned, the wagon stopped in front of the gate to a three-story building's walled garden. "We stay here at Nova Roma," Herakles announced. "Very new. Very nice."

  Eyeing a building that was unlike previous inns along the way, Getorius asked, "Is this an imperial mansio?"

  "Mansio? Here we call pandocheion, Asterios. You will like. Very nice."

  "I'm excited!" Arcadia exclaimed, squeezing her husband's hand.

  The inn's garden acted as a buffer against street noises. Gilt bronze letters above a central arch of the entrance portico, Nova Roma, wa
s in Latin, a good omen that Westerners stayed there. Guest rooms were located on three floors around an atrium courtyard, where a fountain splashed into a central basin. A first-floor dining room faced the garden, but other tables were set up outdoors around the pool.

  After Herakles spoke to the reception clerk, Getorius and Arcadia were assigned Room XVII at the eastern corner of the second floor. A balcony allowed them a view of the hippodrome and Great Palace, as well as a glimpse of blue water beyond. Herakles brought them to the room, but was uncharacteristically silent as he stood with them on the balcony, gazing at the palace complex of buildings, gardens and walls. Beyond the imperial residence, a number of luxurious villas on a triangular tip of land descended to the sea walls.

  The guide roused himself and swept a hand over the panorama. "The old acropolis is beyond the Great Palace. That blue is Bosporus, with the hills of Asia on far shore. Very nice," he repeated without smiling. "Was I not honest, Domina?"

  "Herakles, it's stunning," Arcadia replied. "The palace is at least twice as extensive as the Lauretum at Ravenna, and with many separate buildings. What are those villas down below?"

  "Homes of the very wealthy, perhaps some are those of senators on the galley."

  Getorius noted, "Several are being demolished near the palace."

  The Basileus always needs more room. For this he takes." Herakles stopped and turned away. "Kalos. I must go to see if the widowed ladies are comfortable."

  "Where is Brisios sleeping?" Arcadia asked him.

  "Domina," he answered as if it were common knowledge, "in slave dormitory with the others."

  "That's not acceptable," Arcadia objected. "I want him close by."

  "But, Domina, slaves cannot stay with owners."

  "See to it," she insisted, cutting short his protest in mid-sentence. "We're guests of the Western Augusta." After Herakles stalked out of the room, Arcadia turned to her husband. "Getorius, I wasn't wrong, was I?"