Under Vesuvius

by John Maddox Roberts

  “You needed to stand on your horse to get atop the wall,” I said. “But somebody had to hold it while you were inside, so that you could make your escape.” This accounted for the smell of horse I’d detected on the girl’s body.

  “I told myself that it was all right. It wasn’t a long ride, after all. I washed and dressed her and we rode out after dark. There was no problem getting into the compound. I was very familiar with the place and its routines. Gaeto was surprised to see me, but he thought I’d just come in through the front gate. I disrobed and let him know that I was overcome with passion. He was a man. He was flattered. I put the dagger in him and dressed and left.”

  So much for her inconvenient husband.

  “But as we neared the city before dawn, Charmian doubled over in terrible pain. It was the beating. I never should have let her ride with me. That vicious priest killed her!” For the first time she wept. This was the only death that touched her. She dried her tears and went on. “I took her as far as the laundry park and she could ride no farther. I laid her down on the grass and she died before sunrise. I did the best I could by her, and it was such a beautiful place.” She was weary, now, all but drained.

  “But you had to strip her and leave her naked,” I said, “because you’d dressed her in your household livery.”

  “Aren’t you the clever one,” she said tonelessly.

  “Actually,” I told her, “Hermes figured that one out. He has his moments. That leaves only Quadrilla. Why did you kill her?”

  “The dagger.”

  “What?” I said.

  “She’d taught me that trick with the little dagger, hiding it in your hair. Greek hetaerae don’t use it, you see. They don’t stoop to common, brutal clients. They’re too expensive. But Italian whores know the trick, and Quadrilla had been forced into prostitution when she was a young girl, after her father was ruined. Like so many of the wives around here, she came to me to learn refinements. In return, she taught me some of the baser realities of a whore’s life. Just in case I should ever be cast aside, you see.”

  “But she smuggled you into her house,” Julia said. “You were sleeping with her, too.”

  “With quite a few of the local ladies, actually. As I said, they came to me for lessons. What better way to teach? But Quadrilla began to tease, to let me know she knew I’d done away with Gaeto. Maybe she would have kept silent. But I couldn’t risk it.”

  “And the bandits?” I said. “How did you contact them?”

  She livened a bit. “By pure luck. They found me arranging Charmian’s body. They’d been driven from Vesuvius by the smoke and ash and were foraging in the countryside. They wanted the horses. I told them go ahead and take them. Then I told them that I could pay them handsomely of they’d get rid of a Roman praetor and his prisoner for me. You’re such a troublesome snoop. I told them when Gaeto’s funeral would be and which road you would be on.”

  “How did you know I’d let Gelon go and that I would attend?”

  “Because I’d already seen what a dutiful man you were, what an examplar of Roman pietas, when you were so generous about Gorgo’s funeral. You were so punctilious about matters of religion and ritual. I never thought you’d be so handy with a sword. I was very impressed.”

  “But why,” Julia asked, “did you take Quadrilla’s sapphire?”

  She looked at my wife, and for the first time her eyes revealed the madness within. “As a keepsake. I truly liked Quadrilla.”

  “Why didn’t you kill Diocles?” Antonia asked.

  “He was next,” Jocasta told us. “But Diocles presented difficulties. He would never let me get close. The others allowed me to get close.”

  There was silence for a while, then I rose from my chair. “It is almost sundown and I told the town that I would render judgment by then. Let’s go to the forum and set this matter at rest.”

  “Actually,” Jocasta said, “I don’t wish to provide a spectacle for all these Campanian snobs. But I don’t mind letting a Caesar and a Metellus see this.” Her right hand went to her hair.

  “Stop her!” Julia shouted.

  But Jocasta was too swift for our stunned senses and she hadn’t run out of daggers. This was not one of her needlelike weapons. It was no larger, but its blade was flat and double-edged, with a keen point. It flashed across and went in beneath her left ear. She jerked it across, all the way to the other ear. The she stood there, with her blood flowing like a waterfall. Throughout, she glared at us with defiance, standing erect, letting us know who was the true aristocrat here. Then the light went out of her eyes.

  I sat again, ignoring the wails and sobs of the women, the strangled noises made by the men.

  “I should have had her stripped and her hair searched,” I said. “I must be getting old.” But I was truly not unhappy that I would not be condemning her to death. In spite of all she had done, I did not want her blood on my hands.

  * * *

  “I lost the case but my client was exonerated,” Tiro mused. “I am not sure how I feel about that.”

  “Feel happy,” Cicero advised. “The law is a chancy business. I was exiled for the finest legal judgment I ever delivered.” He shook his head. “This district is so pleasant it’s hard to believe it’s such a sink of corruption.”

  “I like it anyway,” I assured them. “They know how to have a good time, and you can’t get fish stew like this just anyplace.”

  We were lounging in a dining room of the Villa Hortensia while my household packed up for the trip to Bruttium. We were dipping crusts of bread into the last of the stew, having put away a prodigious amount of it.

  “Did you hear?” Hermes inquired. “Diocles opened his veins last night.”

  “With all his guilt,” I said, “what he couldn’t stand was for people to know he’d been the slaver’s partner. This is one funeral I’ll pass up.”

  “So ends the line of priests of Campanian Apollo,” Julia said sadly.

  “They’ll find another one,” I assured her. “Bloodlines aren’t everything.”

  “But such an ancient lineage!” she said. “It seems a shame.”

  “This was just a little change in a little town,” Cicero said. “I fear that far greater things are about to change very soon.”

  And so they did.

  * * *

  These things happened in southern Campania in the year 704 of the City of Rome, the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Caius Claudius Marcellus.

  GLOSSARY

  (Definitions apply to the year 704 of the Republic.)

  ala Literally, “wing.” A squadron of cavalry.

  arms Like everything else in Roman society, weapons were strictly regulated by class. The straight, double-edged sword and dagger of the legions were classed as “honorable.”

  The gladius was a short, broad, double-edged sword borne by Roman soldiers. It was designed primarily for stabbing. The pugio was also a dagger used by soldiers.

  The caestus was a boxing glove, made of leather straps and reinforced by bands, plates, or spikes of bronze. The curved, single-edged sword or knife called a sica was “infamous.” Sicas were used in the arena by Thracian gladiators and were carried by street thugs. One ancient writer says that its curved shape made it convenient to carry sheathed beneath the armpit, showing that gangsters and shoulder holsters go back a long way.

  Carrying of arms within the pomerium (the ancient city boundary marked out by Romulus) was forbidden, but the law was ignored in troubled times. Slaves were forbidden to carry weapons within the City, but those used as bodyguards could carry staves or clubs. When street fighting or assassinations were common, even senators went heavily armed, and even Cicero wore armor beneath his toga from time to time.

  Shields were not common except as gladiatorial equipment. The large shield (scutum) of the legions was unwieldy in narrow streets, but bodyguards might carry the small shield (parma) of the light-armed auxiliary troops. These came in handy when the oppos
ition took to throwing rocks and roof tiles.

  augur An official who observed omens for state purposes. He could forbid business and assemblies if he saw unfavorable omens.

  balnea Roman bathhouses were public and were favored meeting places for all classes. Customs differed with time and locale. In some places there were separate bathhouses for men and women. Pompeii had a bathhouse with a dividing wall between men’s and women’s sides. At some times women used the baths in the mornings, men in the afternoon. At others, mixed bathing was permitted. The balnea of the republican era were far more modest than the tremendous structures of the later Empire, but some imposing facilities were built during the last years of the Republic.

  basilica A meeting place of merchants and for the administration of justice. Among them were the Basilica Aemilia (aka Basilica Fulvia and Basilica Julia), the Basilica Opimia, the Basilica Portia, and the Basilica Sempronia (the latter devoted solely for business purposes).

  client One attached in a subordinate relationship to a patron, whom he was bound to support in war and in the courts. Freedmen became clients of their former masters. The relationship was hereditary.

  compluvium An opening in the roof of a Roman house through which rain fell to be gathered in a basin called the impluvium. Eventually, it became a courtyard with a pool.

  crucifixions The Romans inherited the practice of crucifixion from the Carthaginians. In Rome, it was reserved for rebellious slaves and insurrectionists. Citizens could not be crucified.

  curule A curule office conferred magisterial dignity. Those holding it were privileged to sit in a curule chair—a folding camp chair that became a symbol of Roman officials sitting in judgment.

  duumvir A duumvirate was a board of two men. Many Italian towns were governed by duumvir. A duumvir was also a Roman admiral, probably dating from a time when the Roman navy was commanded by two senators.

  ergastulum Locked room in which to imprison one’s slaves.

  euergesia The obligation laid upon the wealthy to provide public works and entertainment for the people.

  euergetes One who provides public works and entertainment for the people.

  families and names Roman citizens usually had three names. The given name (praenomen) was individual, but there were only about eighteen of them: Marcus, Lucius, etc. Certain praenomens were used only in a single family: Appius was used only by the Claudians, Mamercus only by the Aemilians, and so forth. Only males had praenomens. Daughters were given the feminine form of the father’s name: Aemilia for Aemilius, Julia for Julius, Valeria for Valerius, etc.

  Next came the nomen. This was the name of the clan (gens). All members of a gens traced their descent from a common ancestor, whose name they bore: Julius, Furius, Licinius, Junius, Tullius, to name a few. Patrician names always ended in ius. Plebeian names often had different endings. The name of the clan collectively was always in the feminine form, e.g., Aemilia.

  A subfamily of a gens is the stirps. Stirps is an anthropological term. It is similar to the Scottish clan system, where the family name “Ritchie” for instance, is a stirps of the Clan MacIntosh. The cognomen gave the name of the stirps, i.e., Caius Julius Caesar. Caius of the stirps Caesar of gens Julia.

  The name of the family branch (cognomen) was frequently anatomical: Naso (nose), Ahenobarbus (bronzebeard), Sulla (splotchy), Niger (dark), Rufus (red), Caesar (curly), and many others. Some families did not use cognomens. Mark Antony was just Marcus Antonius, no cognomen.

  Other names were honorifics conferred by the Senate for outstanding service or virtue: Germanicus (conqueror of the Germans), Africanus (conqueror of the Africans), Pius (extraordinary filial piety).

  Freed slaves became citizens and took the family name of their master. Thus the vast majority of Romans named, for instance, Cornelius would not be patricians of that name, but the descendants of that family’s freed slaves. There was no stigma attached to slave ancestry.

  Adoption was frequent among noble families. An adopted son took the name of his adoptive father and added the genetive form of his former nomen. Thus when Caius Julius Caesar adopted his great-nephew Caius Octavius, the latter became Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus.

  All these names were used for formal purposes such as official documents and monuments. In practice, nearly every Roman went by a nickname, usually descriptive and rarely complimentary. Usually it was the Latin equivalent of Gimpy, Humpy, Lefty, Squint-eye, Big Ears, Baldy, or something of the sort. Romans were merciless when it came to physical peculiarities.

  fasces A bundle of rods bound around with an ax projecting from the middle. They symbolized a Roman magistrate’s power of corporal and capital punishment and were carried by the lictors who accompanied the curule magistrates, the Flamen Dialis, and the proconsuls and propraetors who governed provinces.

  first citizen In Latin: princeps. Originally the most prestigious senator, permitted to speak first on all important issues and set the order of debate. Augustus, the first emperor, usurped the title in perpetuity. Decius detests him so much that he will not use either his name (by the time of the writing it was Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus) or the honorific Augustus, voted by the toadying Senate. Instead he will refer to him only as the First Citizen. Princeps is the origin of the modern word “prince.”

  flagellum A multistranded whip, whose thongs were cords or leather; flagrum was a flagellum whose thongs were were strung with bones, circles of metal, or hooks.

  forum An open meeting and market area.

  freedman A manumitted slave. Formal emancipation conferred full rights of citizenship except for the right to hold office. Informal emancipation conferred freedom without voting rights. In the second or at least third generation, a freedman’s descendants became full citizens.

  games ludus, pl. ludi Public religious festivals put on by the state. There were a number of long-established ludi, the earliest being the Roman Games (ludi Romani) in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and held in September. The ludi Megalenses were held in April, as were the ludi Cereri in honor of Ceres, the grain goddess and the ludi Floriae in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers. The ludi Apollinares were celebrated in July. In October were celebrated the ludi Capitolini, and the final games of the year were the Plebian Games (ludi Plebeii) in November. Games usually ran for several days except for the Capitoline games, which ran for a single day. Games featured theatrical performances, processions, sacrifices, public banquets, and chariot races. They did not feature gladiatorial combats. The gladiator games, called munera, were put on by individuals as funeral rites.

  gravitas The quality of seriousness.

  hospitium An arrangement of reciprocal hospitality. When visiting the other’s city, each hospes (pl. hospites) was entitled to food and shelter, protection in court, care when ill or injured, and honorable burial should he die during the visit. The obligation was binding on both families and was passed on to descendants.

  imperium The ancient power of kings to summon and lead armies, to order and forbid, and to inflict corporal and capital punishment. Under the Republic, the imperium was divided among the consuls and praetors, but they were subject to appeal and intervention by the tribunes in their civil decisions and were answerable for their acts after leaving office. Only a dictator had unlimited imperium.

  iudex An investigating official appointed by a praetor.

  janitor A slave doorkeeper, so called for Janus, god of gateways. In some houses they were chained to the door.

  legion They formed the fighting force of the Roman army. Through its soldiers, the Empire was able to control vast stretches of territory and people. They were known for their discipline, training, ability, and military prowess.

  libitinarii Rome’s undertakers. Their name comes from Venus Libitina, Venus in her aspect as death goddess. Like many other Roman customs associated with the underworld, the funeral rites had many Etruscan practices and trappings.

  lictor Bodyguards, usually freedmen, who accompanied magistrat
es and the Flamen Dialis, bearing the fasces. They summoned assemblies, attended public sacrifices, and carried out sentences of punishment.

  lupanar A brothel.

  military terms The Roman legionary system was quite unlike any military organization in existence today. The regimental system used by all modern armies date from the Wars of Religion of the sixteenth century. These began with companies under captains that grouped into regiments under colonels, then regiments grouped into divisions under generals, and by the Napoleonic wars they had acquired higher organizations such as corps, army groups, and so forth, with an orderly chain of command from the marshal down through the varying degrees of generals, colonels, majors, captains, sergeants, corporals, and finally the privates in the ranks.

  The Roman legions had nothing resembling such an organization. At the time of the SPQR novels the strength of a legion was theoretically 6,000 men, but the usual strength was around 4,800. These were divided into sixty centuries. Originally, a century had included one hundred men, but during that time there were about eighty. Each century was commanded by a centurion, making sixty centurions to the legion. Six centuries made a cohort. Each centurion had a optio as his second in command. The centurionate was not a single rank, but a complex of hierarchy and seniority, many details of which are obscure. We know that there were first-rank and second-rank centurions. The senior centurion of the legion was primus pilus, the “first spear.” He was centurion of the first century of the first cohort and outranked all others. Centurions were promoted from the ranks for ability and they were the nearest thing a legion had to permanent officers. All others were elected or appointed politicians.

  Legionaries were Roman citizens. They fought as heavy infantry fully armored and armed with the heavy javelin (pilum), the short Spanish sword (gladius Hispaniensis), and the straight, double-edged dagger (pugio). They carried a very large shield (scutum) that at that time was usually oval and curved to fit around the body. Besides holding the center of the battle line, legionaries were engineers and operated the siege weapons: catapults, team-operated crossbows, and so forth.