SPQR IV: The Temple of the Muses

by John Maddox Roberts

  “I’ve never met a woman of such impressive diplomatic credentials,” I said. “But I cannot blame you for finding Rome more congenial.”

  “Yes. Mine is an unforgiving profession. One’s desirability lasts only as long as youthful beauty. Once that fades, the road downhill is steep. I’ve known women to go from highly paid hetaira to mere streetwalking porna in two years.”

  “It is a hard world,” I agreed.

  “But it is looking better now,” she said. “Tell me, have you visited the Daphne of Alexandria?”

  “I’ll confess, the diversions of the court have been too exhausting to seek out the more strenuous amusements of the city.”

  “It isn’t as famous as the one in Antioch, but it is more than lively. You’ve been living the high life thus far, Roman. Why not come with me and sample the low?”

  “Now?” I said, looking up at the full moon. “It must be near midnight!”

  “Then things should just be getting lively,” she said.

  I was never one to hold out against temptation for long. “Lead on!” I said.

  In Rome, it was easy for people to forget that some other cities have what is known as a night life. When Romans feel in a mood for debauchery, they begin their parties early so everyone can get properly paralytic before it gets too dark for their slaves to carry them home. In other places, they just light the torches and carry on.

  The Daphne of Alexandria, named for the famous pleasure-garden of Antioch, was located in a beautiful grove in the Greek quarter, near the Paneum. Lines of torches led to its entrance, and between the torches vendors wandered, selling the wherewithal necessary for an evening of revelry. To my surprise, we were expected to wear masks. These were cleverly made out of pressed papyrus, artfully molded and painted to resemble various characters from mythology and poetry. They were rather like theatrical masks save that they left the mouth uncovered to facilitate eating, drinking and whatever other uses to which one wished to devote that orifice. I took one with a satyr’s face; Hypatia, one with the licentious features of a nymph.

  Then we had to have wreaths. Around our necks went wreaths of laurel and vine leaves, and Hypatia wrapped a garland of myrtle around her beautiful black hair. I chose a generous chaplet of acorn-studded oak leaves to help disguise my Roman haircut. Not that I was greatly worried in this place, where the crowd consisted mainly of Greeks and other foreigners. There were few if any Egyptians.

  At the entrance a fat fellow dressed as Silenus came to greet us. He wore the white chiton, carried the flowing bowl and wore the chaplet of vine leaves complete with dangling bunches of grapes. He recited verses of welcome in the rustic Greek of Boeotia.

  “Friends, enter these sacred precincts

  In peace of heart and expectation of joy.

  Here dread Ares has no home,

  Nor does hardworking Hephaestus toil.

  But only Dionysus of the grape, Apollo of the lyre,

  Eros and the gentle Muses reign.

  Here each man is a swain,

  Each woman a carefree nymph.

  Leave care and sorrow behind you.

  For these have no place here.

  Welcome, doubly welcome, and rejoice!”

  I tipped the man handsomely and we entered. The grove consisted of a series of interlocking arbors in the form of a maze. Torches burned, perfumed to give a fragrant smoke. There was just enough light to make everything clear and to reveal rich colors, but no more than that. A step would carry you from plain view to dark intimacy as desired. Everywhere were small tables on which little lamps burned, the low-level light making the masked faces nearby look like something from another world. Among the tables wandered women in the abbreviated tunics of mythical nymphs, men costumed as satyrs, boys with the pointed ears and tails of fauns, wild-haired women in the leopard skins of Bacchantes. All of them poured wine from amphorae or served delicacies from trays or danced or played wild music upon the syrinx and double flute and tambour. It was all quite licentious and abandoned to Roman eyes, but its joyous exuberance utterly lacked the fanatic hysteria of, say, the rites in the Temple of Baal-Ahriman.

  “Come on, let’s find a table,” Hypatia urged. We wandered into the maze, taking so many turns that I despaired of ever finding a way out again. It is the virtue of such a place that you don’t really care if you ever get out. Eventually we found a table with a top no larger than the thumping tambours of the musicians. A bright-eyed girl placed cups on our table and filled them. As she bent over, her breasts nearly fell out of her brief tunic. Hypatia eyed her as she danced away.

  “A pity it’s so cool,” she said. “Most of the year they wear less.”

  We raised our cups and saluted each other. The cups were of finely polished olive wood, in keeping with the air of poetic rusticity. The wine was Greek, sharply resinous. A boy dressed as a faun brought a platter of fruits and cheeses. After the fanciful fare of the Palace, which was a delight to the eye and palate and a disaster to the digestion, this simple food was a distinct relief.

  A troupe of Argive youths and maidens came through, performing the very ancient crane dance. Then came a huge, brawny man dressed as Hercules with a lion skin, who entertained the crowd with feats of strength. Then came singers who sang erotic verse or praises of the nature gods. There was no epic verse or songs of the deeds of warriors. It was as if all such unpleasantness had been banished for the night.

  I found that one becomes a different person when wearing a mask. One is no longer constrained by the rigid views of one’s upbringing and may instead adopt the persona of the mask, or else dispense with all such coercion and see the world as a god looking down from a passing cloud. Just so a gladiator, in donning the anonymity of the helmet, ceases to be the condemned criminal or the ruined wretch who sold himself to the ludus, and becomes instead the splendid and fearless warrior he must be out on the sand. Without my accustomed cosmopolitan, not to say cynical, poses, I could see these revelers and these performers as the very characters from pastoral poetry they pretended to be.

  Hypatia, the hard-mouthed professional woman, became an exotic, flower-haired creature, her hands on the olive-wood cup like lilies made animate. I had always thought pastoral verse one of the silliest forms, but I was beginning to understand its attractions.

  And I? I was growing rapidly drunk. The setting and the company provided an unwonted abandon, one to which I was not accustomed. At home, I always had to consider the possible political consequences of even my most private indiscretions. In a place like the Palace, I had to be ever mindful of who was behind me, as a matter of self-preservation. But here there was no one behind me. And, in any case, I was no longer Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, slightly disreputable scion of a prominent Roman family. I was a character in one of those poems where all the women are named Phyllis and Phoebe and the men are not men but “swains” and they’re all named Daphnis or something of the sort.

  In short, I let my guard down completely. I realize this sounds like the utmost folly, but a life lived cautiously is a dull one. All the really careful and cautious men I ever knew were drab wretches, while those who eschewed caution had interesting if brief lives.

  Before long, I had our serving-girl, or one just like her, seated in my lap, while a faun-boy occupied the same place on Hypatia. They sang and popped grapes into our mouths as general liberties were taken by all. I learned more ways to drink someone’s health in Greek than I ever dreamed could exist. Versatile language, Greek.

  At some point during the night I found myself standing behind Hypatia, my hands on her lissome hips, and someone else’s on mine. This might have been alarming, but it turned out that we were all doing the crane dance under the tutelage of the Argive youths and maidens. Like the bird for which it is named, the crane dance is a blend of grace and awkwardness. Hypatia supplied one and I the other. I had never danced before. Roman men never dance unless they belong to one of the dancing priesthoods. It seemed to me that these Greeks h
ad happened upon a good thing.

  The moon was very low when the whole reveling crowd poured out of the Daphne and wound its way up the spiral path of the Paneum. Live creatures mixed with the bronze ones along the path, cavorting and disporting themselves in the time-honored fashion of rural worshippers. In the heat of their exertions, many had divested themselves of clothing along with their inhibitions and sense of decorum.

  In the sanctuary we all sang traditional hymns to Pan in the Arcadian dialect. The flickering light of the torches played over the bronze god and I thought I saw him smile, a real smile, not the fraudulent grimacing of Baal-Ahriman. The women draped their garlands around his neck and over his outsized phallus, and a few of the masked ladies begged him to help them conceive. If the fervor of the worship were of any help, they would all surely bear twins.

  It was an easy walk from the Paneum to the Palace, but I was sorry to see the place again. I was weary of its plots and intrigues, and for all its luxuries it seemed a grim place after a magical night spent in the Daphne.

  “I must leave you here,” Hypatia said as we approached the gate nearest the Roman embassy. “My protector keeps me in a house close by. It is forbidden for women to be housed in the Parthian embassy.”

  “How will you come to me tomorrow?” I asked, reluctant to see her go despite my better instincts.

  She pushed back her mask, came into my arms and kissed me. She was like a sack of wriggling eels, and I was ready to carry her into a doorway and make good on the offer I had turned down in the Necropolis. But she pulled away and placed her fingers across my lips.

  “It is too late now, the time is past. But look for me to come tomorrow evening. One with the right friends can go about freely within the Palace, and I have more friends than most. I will bring the book, and you will help me to establish myself in Rome.”

  “I have given my word,” I said.

  “Good night, then. Until tomorrow.” She turned and was gone.

  With a sigh I staggered toward the gate. I remembered to take off my mask and stuck it inside my tunic. The guard at the gate sleepily returned my equally sleepy salute. The Palace was as lifeless as the Necropolis as I made my way across its elaborate pavements.

  The embassy was, if anything, even more devoid of life, not even a slave stirring. That suited me perfectly. I was sure that, by this time, my appearance must confirm Creticus’s worst fears about me. I made my way to my quarters undetected and dropped my cloak to the floor, let my weapons clank onto a table, then thought better of that and locked them away in my chest. The mask I hung on the wall.

  I left my tunic where it fell and brushed the vine leaves from my hair before collapsing into my bed. It had been one of the most eventful days of my life. Had it really started out with my visit to Baal-Ahriman? It seemed more like weeks ago. First the fine intellectual exercise of deciphering the trickery of Ataxas, then my flight through the Rakhotis, culminating in the Salt Market riot.

  Then the night, which had begun in a city of the dead and ended in a veritable Arcadian fertility rite. Even at my most adventurous, I was unaccustomed to so many changes of venue and circumstance. In this place death lurked in many places and took many guises, but I would never die of boredom.

  The memory of Hypatia writhing against me was unsettling, but I knew that I would see her again the next night. Perhaps there was some other site of exotic debauchery we could try. And perhaps what she was to bring me would solve the mysteries surrounding the death of Iphicrates.

  I was well pleased with the events of the day and the prospects for the morrow. It was just as well that I could go to sleep in such a state of complacency, because when I woke up, there was a dead woman in bed with me.

  11

  I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY A LEGION of cocks was crowing in my ear. Surely, with all their strange tastes, these pseudo-Egyptian Macedonians didn’t keep livestock in the Palace. Then my head began to clear and I realized that it was the embassy slaves raising the racket. Some of them were eunuchs and these added a falsetto quality to the uproar. What on earth had them so upset?

  I struggled to a sitting position, rubbing my eyes to get them into focus. Right away, I knew that I had the sort of hangover that makes you certain that the gods robbed you of your youth in your sleep. My mouth tasted like the bottom of a garum vat. The resin from the Greek wine lent a certain dockside element to the foulness, as if my mouth had been tarred and caulked.

  I glared blearily at the slave who stood in the doorway pointing at me and gabbling something in Egyptian. Others behind him stared wide-eyed.

  “What are you pointing at?” I demanded. I intended to sound forceful. But my voice came out in a croak. “Have you all gone mad?”

  Then I realized that he was not pointing at me. He was pointing just to one side of me. With a prickling scalp I turned to see, then squeezed my eyes shut. It didn’t help. When I opened them again, she was still there. It was Hypatia, and she was quite dead. Were I a poet, I would say that her staring eyes were full of reproach, but they expressed nothing at all. The eyes of the dead never do.

  She was naked, and the bone hilt of a dagger protruded from just below her left breast. There was a small wound below her left ear, and her lovely black hair was matted with blood. I saw her bloodstained gown on the floor by her.

  “What is this?” Creticus came storming in and went pale when he saw the little tableau. Behind him were Rufus and the others.

  “It isn’t …” I cursed my thick tongue.

  Creticus pointed at me. “Decius Caecilius Metellus, I arrest you. Bind him and throw him in the cellar.”

  A pair of burly, shaven-headed men came forward and laid hands on me. These were the Binder and the Whipper, the slave disciplinarians belonging to the embassy. They didn’t often get a chance to practice their skills on a free man and they made the most of it. They jerked my arms behind me and slapped manacles around my wrists. Then they hauled me to my feet.

  “At least let me get dressed!” I hissed.

  “Decius, you are not only a degenerate but a madman,” Creticus said. “I will go to talk to the king. Since you are part of the embassy, he can’t call for your head, but rest assured I’ll have you tried before the Senate and banished to the smallest, most barren island in the sea!”

  “I’m innocent!” I croaked. “Bring Asklepiodes!”

  “What?” Creticus said. “Who?”

  “Asklepiodes, the physician! I want him to examine that body before these Greeks cremate it! He can prove that I am innocent!” Actually I was confident of no such thing, but I was desperate. “Rufus! Go to the Museum and fetch him.” His shocked face nodded minutely. I was not even sure he understood my words.

  The Whipper and the Binder hustled me through the halls and past goggling slaves, then down a flight of steps to the cellar. There they bolted a neck-ring on me and chained me to the wall. They talked to each other merrily in some barbarous tongue, their bronze-studded belts scraping my abused hide as they disposed of me. With their big bellies and thick, leather-banded arms, they looked like apes imitating men. Well, one doesn’t employ disciplinarians for their refinements. With a final test of my bonds, they left me to my thoughts. These were not pleasant.

  Somehow, I had been neatly bagged. I was not sure how this had been done, but it seemed to have been done with my fullest cooperation. I was now assumed by everyone to be a murderer. The victim had been a free woman and a resident of Alexandria, although of foreign origin. At the very best, Ptolemy would allow me to be quietly shipped off to Rome. I had no doubt that Creticus would make good on his threat to impeach me before the Senate. Roman officials were allowed a certain license in foreign lands, but for a member of a diplomatic mission to disgrace the Republic was unconscionable.

  How to get out of this? It had all been so sudden, and my mind so benumbed, that I had not been able to take in the circumstances, much less devise a defense. I knew a few basic facts: The woman was Hypatia, she was in m
y bed and she was unquestionably dead. What, if anything, was in my favor?

  The knife buried in her body was not mine. I remembered with relief that I had locked my weapons away before retiring. Perhaps something could be made of that. I certainly had no reason to kill her, but I had enough experience with murder trials to know that a motive is the least of considerations, especially when evidence of culpability is strong. It was certainly strong in this case.

  How had this been carried out? All too easily. The whole Palace had been sound asleep, and I had been too sodden to notice the arrival of marauding Gauls. Poor Hypatia had simply been deposited in my bed and the murderers or their lackeys had strolled away, all of it as casual as tradesmen making a delivery.

  But why had they not simply killed me? If Achillas and Ataxas were determined to put an end to my investigation, it seemed to me that the simplest thing would have been to deposit the dagger in my heart, not in some innocent woman’s. Not that Hypatia had been terribly innocent, either in her professional life or in her intentions toward the conspirators. A dungeon is an excellent place to mull over questions like this, free as it is from distractions. I don’t recommend it as a regular practice.

  I wished that I could consult my friends Cicero and Milo on this. Between Cicero’s legal expertise and Milo’s criminal genius, they would have cracked this problem within minutes. Cicero had once told me that many men in legal difficulties failed to understand their situation because they always assumed themselves to be the focus of the problem. Each man exists at the center of his own personal cosmos and believes that he must be the foremost concern of gods and men. This is a grievous fallacy and must be guarded against.

  I suspected that Achillas was behind everything. Ataxas was his accomplice and cat’s-paw. Milo had told me that he overcame the other gang leaders in Rome by simply thinking like them. In this way he could anticipate their every attack. The difficult part, he said, was in duplicating the thought processes of someone more stupid than oneself, which was always the case.