The Year of Confusion s-13

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Servilia! This sounds ominous.”

  “How so?” I asked. “It’s bad news for Calpurnia, but when has Caesar ever worried about the sentiments of his wives? Except for Cornelia, that is. He does seem to have had a certain affection for her.”

  “It could mean that he intends to adopt Brutus as his heir.”

  This hadn’t occurred to me. “Well, he must adopt soon, I suppose. He’s never had a son that lived except for Caesarion, and no Roman is going to accept the son of an Egyptian queen as Caesar’s heir.”

  “Certainly not. Caesarion is a charming boy, but a bit of a mongrel. Brutus is at least a patrician. Of course, there is Caius Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew. He shows promise but he is awfully young.”

  “I think we make too much of this patrician business,” I said.

  “You would, being plebeian,” she said. “But at least your family is one of the noblest of the old plebeian names. I think half of my uncle’s cronies are men who hope to be his adopted heir, or want it for their sons.”

  “Like Servilia,” I said.

  “Like Servilia.”

  “And speaking of those great ladies, Egyptian and Roman, let me tell you what I learned from Sallustius.” So I gave her that story. “You are far more conversant with the great ladies of Rome than I. Have you heard about any of this?”

  She sat quietly for a while, marshaling her thoughts and memories. It was a process I knew better than to interrupt. “A good many of the ladies of my circle are interested in astrology. I am myself, but a few are besotted with the subject and constantly consult with supposed experts concerning the most trivial aspects of their lives. I believe most of these practitioners to be frauds, but some are true scholars. And who is more likely to be a true scholar than one who practices at the Museum in Alexandria?”

  “But Demades was not a believer, yet he was present at several of the affairs attended by Servilia and her crowd at the house of Cleopatra. Any thoughts about that?”

  “Not just yet, but I can see that it’s been far too long since I called on Servilia. Now that things seem to be warming between her and Caesar, what could be more natural than a visit?”

  “Excellent idea. What do you know of Brutus? I know him only slightly. I see him in the Senate and I occasionally run into him at dinners, but he has never appealed to me as a companion.”

  “Too philosophical?”

  “That, partly. I’ve heard he’s a bit of a money grubber. Not a very patrician quality, is it?”

  “I only know what I’ve heard. A few years ago he is supposed to have lent a vast sum to the island of Cyprus so they could settle their tax debt, and they couldn’t pay on time.”

  “Hardly surprising at, what was it? Two hundred percent interest or something of the sort?”

  “I don’t think it was that bad, but pretty steep.”

  “I also heard he used a Roman army to collect. I call that misuse of a public resource.”

  “What set you thinking along these lines?” she asked.

  “I’m just trying to picture what sort of person he would be as Caesar’s heir. Yes, by all means do pay a call upon Servilia. Make sure you get everything she knows about the astronomers, not just Polasser and the astrologers, but all of them.”

  “I shall do exactly that,” she said, “and I’ll call on Callista, too.”

  I knew that was coming.

  The next day I went to the Tiber Island and sought out Sosigenes. I found him in his study, doing some sort of calculation on papyrus with dividers and instruments so arcane I didn’t want to ask him about them.

  “Old friend,” I said, “we need to talk.”

  “By all means,” he said. We went out to a little terrace off his study and he sent servants for refreshments. We sat for a while and I enjoyed the vista. From this spot we had a fine view of the low, massive bulk of the Circus Maximus just across the Forum Boarium, and towering above it the magnificent Temple of Ceres. The refreshments came, we sipped and nibbled, then I got down to business.

  “Sosigenes, I’ve learned that some of your astronomers are very popular with the fashionable ladies of Rome.”

  He sighed. “You already know my opinion of astrology. Unfortunately, far too few Romans share my skepticism. This is especially true of the ladies.”

  “So I’ve learned. The most prominent among these are now intimates of your queen.”

  He nodded. “I have never been able to persuade her majesty that she is wasting her time, but it is at worst harmless, I suppose.”

  “Far from it,” I told him.

  “Eh? What do you mean?” Like so many great scholars, Sosigenes dwelled in a world other than our own, a world of knowledge and scholarship that he thought to be above the petty affairs of men. In Alexandria he lived in the middle of a palace complex and did not realize what evil places they can be.

  “Nothing that involves the highborn people of Rome can be termed harmless,” I informed him. “And that goes for the women. This is a place where politics is played for the highest stakes. At any gathering of great Roman ladies, you will find a number who will happily kill to advance the fortunes of their husbands or sons.”

  “But, how can this concern us?”

  “Did you know that, periodically, the aediles or censors expel all fortune-tellers from Rome?”

  “I was unaware of this. Why?”

  “Because they can influence politics here in Rome. It isn’t just bored noblewomen. The common people of Rome are passionately devoted to all sorts of fortune-telling. They are easy prey for any kind of fraud and if one of those persons predicts a particular outcome to an election or prophesies when a great person is going to die, it can affect public matters in unpredictable ways.”

  “Yet you have your official augurs and haruspices. You take the omens for every sort of official business.”

  “Precisely. Our augurs are public officials, but they, and the haruspices, emphatically do not predict the future. All they can pronounce upon is the will of the gods at that particular moment. The gods, of course, are free to change their minds. That calls for further omen taking. That’s the way we like it, with supernatural matters under competent official control. We don’t like unpredictable factors, like fortune-tellers, even if they are learned stargazers from Alexandria.”

  “You are telling me that some of my colleagues may have embroiled themselves, however innocently, in Rome’s political intrigues?”

  “I knew that a man of your acumen would understand. I am still puzzled by the role of Demades in all this because he was of the rationalist faction.”

  “I wish I could help you there but I am just as puzzled as you. Polasser or Gupta or the Arab (he used the unpronounceable name), certainly. This is their art. But Demades was as unlikely as I to take part in these affairs. We were colleagues, but not confidants.”

  “Sosigenes,” I said, “as much as I esteem you and your company, I think that it would be best if you and your friends were to leave Rome. Caesar may seem to have things under control, but that is far from the truth. There are all manner of intrigues and plots under way, and should you get entangled in them you will have little hope, being foreigners. The calendar is done. Why not just take your leave and return to the far more congenial milieu of the Museum?”

  He sighed and made a Greek gesture of the hands and shoulders. “Personally, I would be most happy to go, but the choice is not mine. It lies with my queen and Caesar. We are here at their behest, and we will go only with their leave.”

  “Why are they keeping you around?” I asked him.

  “I do not know. At the moment we are continuing projects begun in Egypt, where the conditions for observing are better than here. We give lectures, or, a few of us, indulge in the activities that you have described.”

  It seemed to make little sense, yet the great people of Rome tended to behave in senseless ways sometimes. I knew men who bought tremendously expensive and skilled architects, and then never bui
lt anything. Many owned impressively skilled slaves and never made use of them. It was a way of showing off their wealth and importance, that they could waste money in such an extravagant fashion. I supposed that keeping a gaggle of philosophers around doing nothing of importance was the same sort of foolishness.

  “Well, you-” at that point we were distracted by a high-pitched shriek from somewhere toward the southern tip of the island. Moments later the high priest came running.

  “Senator! There has been another murder! I will stand for no more of this!”

  I got to my feet. “Yes, the serenity of your sanctuary has been taking a bit of a beating lately, hasn’t it? Who’s dead? Oh, well, let’s just go look. I like surprises.”

  The Tiber Island has many little terraces like the one where Sosigenes and I had been enjoying the view before the rude interruption. On one of these, just below the temple on the City side, not far from the bridge, we found another corpse, seemingly fresh this time and not decently covered. Most of the little crowd staring down at it were astronomers. The Arab was there, and Gupta the Indian, turban off and long hair streaming, and quite a number of Greeks.

  “Where’s Polasser?” I asked. “Oh, that’s him there on the ground, isn’t it?” Indeed it was the fake Babylonian, lying peacefully if somewhat grotesquely with his neck broken. “What a pity.”

  “You sound saddened, Senator,” said the high priest.

  “This eliminates him as a suspect in the murder of Demades, and he was the one I thought the most likely. Oh, well, I should have known better than to think this job would be easy. Who found him?”

  “My chamber is just over there,” Gupta said, pointing to a row of doorways a few dozen steps away set into the base of the temple. He babbled nervously, his Greek almost incoherent. “I was meditating, as I always do at this hour. I heard a strangled cry that seemed unnatural and I threw on a robe to come see what it was.” Strangely, he blushed. “I fear I am not decent.” He took a long, yellow band from inside his robe and with incredible swiftness and efficiency would it around his head, completely covering his long hair.

  “Men of Gupta’s sect are forbidden to cut their hair,” Sosigenes explained. “When meditating, they remove their turbans, robes, and sandals and wear only white cotton loincloths. They think it indecent to go out in public with their hair uncovered.”

  “Well, I know of stranger customs. How did everybody get here so fast?”

  “Most of us, great lord,” said the Arab, “have quarters nearby. But in fact Polasser sent a servant to summon us here, saying that he had news of import that concerned us all. Some of us were already on our way.”

  “Well, he’s not going to deliver this news. Where is the servant?” They looked around, then at each other. There was much shrugging. “Had anyone seen this servant before?” More shrugs.

  “Why was I not sent for?” Sosigenes demanded.

  “Maybe he was going to say bad things about you,” I hazarded. “I want a search made for this servant.” I turned to the priest. “Can you take care of that? Get a description from these gentlemen, but round up any servant-looking person on the island who cannot be accounted for.”

  “I will do so, Senator,” he said with ill grace, but of course, an hour later no such person had been found.

  Before noon I was in front of Caesar in the Domus Publica, his residence in the Forum in his capacity as pontifex maximus. “Things are getting out of hand. At this rate you’ll be completely out of astronomers soon.”

  “They do seem to suffer a high mortality rate. Have you any suspects?”

  “My best one is dead. I have a few leads I am following.”

  “What sort of leads?”

  I knew better than to mention Servilia and her coterie of star enthusiasts. There were some matters one did not bring up to Caesar without a pile of corroborating evidence. He was a sensitive man about some things, things touching his personal life being high on the list.

  “I hesitate to bring them up without further investigation,” I told him.

  “Well, I have little time for suppositions and wild guesses. Come back when you have evidence worthy of a trial. And make sure that it is soon.”

  I took my leave of Caesar with great relief. He was an uncomfortable man to be around in those days and it was a bad idea to displease him. I wandered out into the Forum and amused myself for a while looking at the many monuments to the old heroes. There were Romulus and Numa, Severus, Horatius, Cincinattus and Curtius and Marcellus and Regulus. It seemed to me that they had lived in better, simpler times when choices were plain and simple.

  This is probably an idle conceit, doubtless their lives seemed as complex and frustrating to them as my own did to me. They must have engaged in plots and intrigues as devious as any practiced in the time of Caesar. I had known nothing all my life but the greed and grasping of great men who wished to be greater than they already were. No doubt it had been the same in the time of Rome’s old heroes.

  Before long Hermes found me with news.

  “Cleopatra’s back in Rome. She moved back into her house last night.”

  I smiled. “Let’s call upon the lady, then.”

  4

  Since the first citizen took absolute power by defeating Cleopatra and Antonius at Actium, it has been fashionable for his flatterers to blacken her reputation. It is always safe to portray Cleopatra as a heartless Oriental temptress who seduced Antonius into rebellion against Rome. But I have no interest in flattering the First Citizen, and now I am too old to care what he thinks.

  In truth, Cleopatra was no worse than other rulers of the time and a good deal better than most of them. If she was ruthless, all rulers have to be. It is an inescapable fact of history that the worst rulers are not the cruel ones but the weak ones. The former may oppress some of their subjects, but the latter bring disaster to all. Cleopatra was firm, but I never knew her to be needlessly cruel. In her liaisons, first with Caesar and later with Antonius, she always tried to make the best possible deal she could arrange for Egypt, not just for herself and her family. She was a realist and she knew that Rome was the future. Egypt’s only hope lay in a favorable treaty with Rome.

  Her house in the Trans-Tiber district was a sprawling mansion of no particular floor plan that had once housed the Egyptian embassy. Years before it had been home to a wonderful old degenerate named Lisas, who had thrown the finest parties Rome had ever seen. Alas, Lisas had made the classic error of getting involved in local politics, including a few ill-advised murders, and he had been forced to commit suicide. The fat old pervert had been a good friend for all that and I missed him.

  Cleopatra kept considerable estate in her Roman residence, since she made it her policy to entertain the highest society. Invitations to her affairs were sought-after, especially among the equites, but she was too alien ever to become truly popular. She had expanded the already lavish pile of architecture and had imported statues from Egypt. She had widened and deepened the crocodile pool and stocked it with hippos, the first ever seen in Rome. In this she miscalculated. She should have played up her Greek ancestry and culture instead of Egyptian exoticism, but she truly believed that in this way she could make Egyptian customs seem less foreign to Rome.

  A guard of black spearmen and Libyans armed with enormous swords stood before her door and bowed as we went inside. In the courtyard a chorus of beautiful boys and girls sang us a welcome apparently composed for visiting senators. Slave girls armed with sprigs of hyssop dipped them in bowls of perfumed water and sprinkled us with fragrant drops. More slaves washed our hands and feet and as we went into the house yet more servants flocked to us with trays of delicacies and cups of astoundingly fine wine. I decided I would have to come here more often.

  Cleopatra received us in what can best be described as a throne room, although no such facility would have been tolerated in Rome. Nonetheless, it was a very large room with a very large chair elevated on a lavish dais. Cleopatra sat in the sumptuo
us chair in a suspiciously pharaonic pose, lacking only the crown, crook, and flail. When she saw us she smiled brightly and skipped down from the dais. She seemed genuinely delighted.

  “Senator Metellus!” she cried. “Why haven’t you been to see me sooner?” I had known Cleopatra at various stages of her career as a little girl, a headstrong young woman, a desperate fugitive, and a fearsome queen. In all of them she outshone her contemporaries the way Caesar outshone his peers.

  “Caesar keeps me too busy to get away from the City very often,” I told her.

  “My husband is a demanding man, I fear.” She always referred to Caesar as her husband, despite the fact that he had a wife in Rome. In Egypt, Caesar did not disdain the title, but she was something of an embarrassment at home.

  “I wish this were a social call,” I told her, “but something very serious has happened and I need to speak to you about it.”

  “Is Caesar safe?” she said, concerned.

  “Healthy as a Thracian,” I told her. “No, there have been murders on the Tiber Island. Two of your astronomers have been killed.”

  “Not Sosigenes?” she said. The old man was one of her favorites.

  “No, Demades and Polasser.”

  “Oh.” She sounded relieved. “I knew them, but not very well.” She made no false pretence of sorrow. She had seen so many killed, including her own siblings, that it took the death of someone truly close to move her to mourning. “Please come with me. We can talk more comfortably by the pool.”

  “Not the one with the hippos in it?” I asked. The huge, boisterous beasts sprayed water and less savory fluids everywhere.

  “Oh, no. I have far more tranquil pools. This one is perfect for intimate conversation.”

  She led us to a pool that could have floated a trireme, surrounded by a veritable forest of palms, myrrh shrubs and other exotic vegetation. Among the bushes, tiny black people of a type unfamiliar to me rushed about, shooting miniature arrows at hares. In the water beautiful naked nymphs swam about, singing hymns to obscure river gods while on the island a handsome youth attired as Orpheus played upon the lyre.