Last Seen in Massilia: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Steven Saylor

  “I’m not Caesar, Meto. You don’t have to report to me.”

  He smiled as if I had made a weak joke, then proceeded as if I hadn’t spoken. “Let’s see; how did I get in and out of Massilia? By swimming, of course.”

  “You couldn’t swim when you were a boy.”

  “But I can now. Caesar himself taught me to swim. It’s really nothing to swim across the harbor here, or even from the harbor all the way out to the islands offshore.”

  “But the current—”

  He shrugged dismissively. “And a single man, swimming at night, especially on a moonless night, can easily get past sentries. I quickly learned which sections of the harbor were least heavily guarded, and the Massilians have been terribly careless about keeping shut the gates that open onto the wharves. So it was no great challenge for me to get in and out of Massilia.”

  “But when Domitius and his men chased you onto the wall and forced you to jump into the sea—Domitius was certain that you were dead.”

  He shook his head. “The fall could have killed me—if I didn’t know how to dive or if I’d struck a rock. But I headed for that particular stretch of wall because I’d scouted it out beforehand and I knew it was the safest place to make a dive. I knew I might have to make a quick escape one day, and I planned ahead accordingly.”

  “You’d been wounded by a spear.”

  “Merely grazed.”

  “They shot arrows at you.”

  “They missed. Not a decent archer among them!”

  “But they saw your body floating off on the current.”

  “Not my body; my tunic. When I struck the water it inflated with air. I tied it off so that it would float for a while, and at that distance they mistook it for a body. People see what they want to see, and the wise spy takes advantage of that; something Caesar taught me. Meanwhile, I held my breath and swam along the wall toward the harbor. By the time I surfaced, they had no idea of where to look for me. The sun was in their eyes, and they were already looking elsewhere. I took a quick breath and ducked back under the surface. I kept swimming until I crossed the harbor mouth and reached the shore on the far side.”

  I stared at the dregs in my cup. “Who sent me the anonymous message telling me that you were dead? Was it Domitius?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m almost certain it was Milo. I thought I could win him over to Caesar, but that was a very serious miscalculation on my part. Milo lacks the imagination to see the future; all he can think of is getting back into Pompey’s good graces. That’s why he almost got me killed. If he could flush out a dangerous spy, that would earn him points with the Great One. But Milo wanted to capture me alive, and he was never satisfied that Domitius’s men had killed me. He suspected—correctly—that I was not only still alive but back in Massilia, and he wanted to flush me out again. How better to do that than to lure my dear father to Massilia, where sooner or later I would surely try to make contact with you. Those were Milo’s men following you and Davus whenever you left the scapegoat’s house. They weren’t interested in you; they were hoping to catch me. Once, they almost did. It was after you left the house of Gaius Verres and paused in the street near that black market.”

  “Yes, we saw you, dressed in your soothsayer’s rags. But then you vanished.”

  “I had to! Milo’s men appeared out of nowhere. They very nearly caught me.”

  I nodded slowly. “And that was you, as well, waiting at the foot of the Sacrifice Rock on the day of the sea battle.”

  “Yes.” He shook his head disdainfully. “I couldn’t believe you had the temerity to climb up there! Did you imagine that no one could see you? I watched you for hours, expecting at any moment to see the priests of Artemis come drag you off. When you finally started to climb down, my only thought was to get to you first and try to hide you somewhere—but once again, I had to flee. Apollonides’s troops arrived to whisk you back to his house. Just as well, as that was the safest place for you. Otherwise the mob in the street would have torn you limb from limb, along with the scapegoat.”

  I was not satisfied. “Surely, Meto, you could have made contact with me at some point. After Domitius told me that you were dead, I went through…a very bad time. I didn’t leave Hieronymus’s house for days. If you couldn’t come to me in the flesh, then you might have sent a message. Not even a written message, merely some sign that you were still alive. The anguish I felt—”

  “I’m sorry, Papa, but it was simply too dangerous. And frankly, I’ve been too busy. You have no idea!” He smiled at me indulgently. “That day, when you and Davus stepped inside the temple of xoanon Artemis outside the city—where I was accustomed to leave certain secret reports for Trebonius, if you must know—and I heard two voices babbling on and realized it was you, I thought: What in Hades is Papa doing here? Well, obviously, you’d come to find me. But there was nothing for you to do here except get in the way. So I tried to warn you off, tried to send you back to Rome.”

  “While still disguised as the soothsayer!” I snapped, a flash of anger finally creeping into my voice.

  “I could hardly have revealed myself to you in front of those two guards. They’d have told everyone in the camp—and who knows what spies the Massilians have among our own men? No one but Trebonius knew of my mission and my disguise. Absolute secrecy was essential.”

  “You could have revealed yourself to me, Meto!”

  He sighed. “No, Papa. My only thought was to send you back to Rome where you’d be safe. After I left you on your way to the Roman camp, I doubled back and went directly to Trebonius; he promised me that he’d send you straight home. Even if you managed to thwart him, at the very worst I thought you’d simply spend the rest of the siege in the Roman camp, pestering Trebonius. I never imagined you’d actually find a way to get inside Massilia! And yet, here you are. I have to give you credit for ingenuity. Like father, like son, eh? Perhaps Caesar should use you as a secret agent.”

  At that moment, the very idea filled me with such loathing that the great thundercrack that abruptly shook the room seemed, for a peculiar instant, to be a manifestation of my own fury. But the thunderous booming and the earthshaking vibrations came from outside the room. Meto rushed to the window. “Great Venus!” he muttered.

  Billowing clouds of dust, weirdly backlit by the lingering flames, rose from the wall—or more precisely, from the places where sections of the wall had previously stood. The fissure now gaped far wider than before. On either side of the original breach more sinkholes had abruptly given way, swallowing all the rubble piled into the breach, along with the makeshift structures meant to shore up the wall and any of the engineers who were still working there. Then, as we watched, a bastion tower caved in on one side of the growing breach, to the sound of crashing stones and the screams of archers on the collapsing battlements.

  Where before there had been a breach that by some supreme effort might have remained defensible, now there gaped an enormous opening in the wall, leaving the main square of the city completely vulnerable. The walls of Massilia were hopelessly breached.

  From within the house of Apollonides there were sounds of men shouting and running through the hallways. Abruptly the door opened and the First Timouchos stood staring at us, wearing a stunned expression.

  My time alone with Meto was over.

  XXIV

  His face pale, his hands trembling, Apollonides ordered me to leave Meto’s cell. He stepped into the room, followed by several bodyguards, then slammed the door behind him. With the collapse of the wall, my son—Caesar’s agent—was the first person Apollonides wanted to talk to.

  I wandered down the hall. Around a corner I came upon a group of furiously whispering guards. They scarcely noticed me and made no effort to stop me as I stepped into the main part of the house. I wandered through the hallways until I heard a cry of joy and turned to see Davus, who likewise had been released and apparently forgotten. He laughed and hugged me so hard he squeezed the breath from me. />
  Tired and confused and at a loss for what to do next, I decided to look for Hieronymus. The door to his quarters stood open. We stepped into the small anteroom, then into the bedchamber beyond. There was another room beyond that, with a balcony looking out on the street. There was no one in any of the rooms, not even a slave. Exhausted, I reclined amid the plush cushions strewn across the scapegoat’s bed, thinking to rest for only a moment. Davus stood guard in the anteroom for a while, until exhaustion overcame him as well. He joined me on the bed.

  We woke at dawn in a house where confusion reigned. No one seemed to be in charge. Slaves seemed to come and go as they pleased, with no one to give them orders. But when I tried to enter the wing where Apollonides had questioned me the previous night, two very unhappy guards blocked my way. When I tried to speak, they brandished their swords and shouted me down.

  I tried to find Hieronymus again, without success. In the foyer, I saw that the front door of Apollonides’s house stood wide open. I stepped onto the porch and saw that the courtyard gates were open as well, with no soldiers standing guard.

  The walls of Massilia were hopelessly breached, yet throughout the long night the Romans had held back. Dawn had come, and still Trebonius did not mount an assault.

  But overnight, the rumor of Caesar’s imminent arrival had spread throughout Massilia. He was expected the next day…the next hour…the next minute. Fits of panic convulsed the city. Tearful worshippers thronged the temples. I had experienced something similar in Brundisium, but there the people had awaited Caesar as their deliverer. The Massilians awaited him as their destroyer. They knew too well the atrocities he had visited upon their neighbors, the Gauls—villages burned, men executed, women raped, children enslaved.

  Chaos ruled the streets. What madness had possessed the sober people of Massilia, famed for their staid academies, their love of order, their bland equanimity? Massilians were said to love money above all else and to exemplify the concomitant virtues—diligence, shrewdness, patience. Yet in the streets that day I saw staggering drunkards, bloody fistfights, a naked corpse hanging from a tree, a man in rich banker’s robes chased down and stoned by an angry mob. In the final moments of a great city, some citizens had descended to barbarism and could think only of their last chance at retribution against a neighbor. Massilia was tearing itself apart before Caesar had the chance.

  I saw a troop of gladiators marching toward us and gestured to Davus to hide, fearing trouble. But the man commanding the gladiators had already seen us. He ordered his men to halt and strode over to us. It was Domitius, dressed in full battle regalia, his cape thrown back to show the copper disk embossed with a lion’s head on his breastplate. Behind the cordon of gladiators, slaves wheeled carts piled high with trunks. Evidently, Domitius was leaving Massilia as he had arrived, with his ragtag band of gladiators, his household slaves, and whatever was left of his six million sesterces. At the siege of Corfinium, rather than fall into Caesar’s clutches, he had attempted suicide—and failed. Caesar had forgiven and released him. Now, once again facing the same prospect, Domitius apparently had no stomach for a second suicide attempt and did not trust that Caesar would be as merciful a second time.

  I couldn’t resist a sardonic jab. “Leaving us so soon, Domitius?”

  He glared at me. “I understand that bastard son of yours is alive after all. So Milo was right.”

  “Yes. But Meto’s not a bastard. He was a slave whom I adopted.”

  “Aren’t all slaves bastards by definition?”

  “One might say the same about Roman politicians.”

  His eyes flashed. I glanced nervously at the band of surly gladiators and swallowed dryly, wondering if I had pushed him too far. But in the next instant Domitius barked out a laugh. “Like father, like son, even if yours is adopted. What audacity you Gordianii have! I might almost wish you were on our side.”

  “What makes you think I’m on Caesar’s side?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. I looked at the carts piled high with trunks. “I suppose you’ve kept a ship in the harbor?”

  “Three ships, actually. Apollonides wanted to conscript them for battle, but I told him I’d have none of that.” He wet a finger and held it to the breeze. “The wind’s shifted from yesterday; we shall have good sailing. The ship I’ll be taking is a long, low beauty, swift as a dolphin.”

  “She’ll have to be, to get past the blockade.” I glanced toward the north, where the sky was turning dark. “It looks as if Aeolus might be bringing us storm clouds.”

  “Blockade or no blockade, storm or no storm, nothing shall stop me from getting out of this Hades-on-earth!”

  “Caesar will be disappointed. I’m sure he looks forward to your reunion.”

  “As do I! But not here, not now. Another day, on another battlefield!”

  “What about Milo? I don’t see him in your retinue.”

  “Milo is staying right here, where he belongs. If he’s lucky, when all this madness is over, Pompey will grant him a generous pardon and invite him back to Rome, where he can grow old and fat fishing on the banks of the Tiber. Until then, Milo must make do with Massilian mullets. No more talk, Gordianus! You’ve delayed me long enough.”

  And with that he was off again, barking an order at his gladiators to quicken their pace.

  Dark clouds obscured the sun. Sharp winds blew through the narrow streets of Massilia, carrying the scent of rain. Despite the looming storm, Davus suggested we go to a high place, where we might be able to see the breached section of the wall and scrutinize the activities of Trebonius’s army outside.

  As we trudged uphill, looking for a good vantage point, we encountered a large crowd gathered outside a temple. Some of the people chanted solemnly with their eyes shut. Some shrieked and spun about madly while others looked on, appalled. I located a spectator who looked reasonably calm and sober and asked him what was happening.

  “The scapegoat,” he said. “The priests of Artemis are making ready to conduct him to the Sacrifice Rock.”

  I pushed into the crowd. Davus helped clear the way. At last we came to the steps of the temple, where a black funeral bier lay upon a familiar green-canopied litter. A group of priests were just stepping out of the temple. Their white robes whipped in the wind. Wavering streamers and vortices of smoke rose from their bowls of smoldering incense. Flanked by the priests, a tall figure in green emerged from the temple. His face was hidden behind a green veil, so that from head to toe he was covered in green, like a chrysalis. I tried to step toward him, but a cordon of soldiers barred the way.

  I called out his name. Hieronymus turned his head in my direction. He whispered to one of the priests, who frowned but nevertheless approached the soldiers and told them to let me through. I rushed up the steps.

  “Hieronymus!” I tried to keep my voice low. “What is this? What’s happening?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Hieronymus, I can’t see your face. That veil—”

  “The scapegoat wears a veil on his final day. The gods are watching. The sight of the scapegoat’s accursed face could only offend them.”

  I lowered my voice to a hoarse whisper. “Hieronymus, you mustn’t go through with this! If you can postpone the ceremony for only a little while—Caesar is on his way. It may be only hours—minutes—”

  “Postpone the ceremony? But why?”

  “There’s no need for it. The siege is all but over. Your death will change nothing. You can’t possibly save the city.”

  “Not from conquest; but perhaps the city may yet be saved from utter destruction. Who knows what Caesar intends? The sacrifice of the scapegoat may tip the scales and cause Caesar to be merciful.”

  “Caesar will as do he pleases, no matter what happens to you!”

  “Shhh! Don’t tell the priests that, or the people of Massilia! For months they’ve pampered and pleasured me, preparing me to take on all their sins at once. Now they want to see the
ceremony carried through to the end.”

  “But, Hieronymus—”

  “Quiet, Gordianus! I’m at peace. Last night Apollonides called me to his private chambers. He told me everything.”

  “Everything?”

  He nodded. “I know that your son Meto is alive. I’m happy for you, Gordianus! Apollonides also confessed to me that it was his father who ruined my father. I had long suspected as much. And…he told me about Cydimache. My father jumped from the Sacrifice Rock. Apollonides’s daughter was pushed. His line has come to an end. The shades of my parents are appeased.”

  “And you, Hieronymus?”

  “Me?” The wind pressed the veil against his face so that I clearly saw his expression—his lips slightly pursed, one eyebrow sardonically raised. “I’m a Massilian, Gordianus, and above all else, a Massilian respects a contract. When I became the scapegoat, I entered into an agreement with the priests of Artemis and the people of Massilia. I did so with my eyes open. They honored their side of the contract. Now it’s my turn. My obligation is to willingly face my sacrifice. Not all scapegoats do so in the end; some have to be drugged, or bound, or even knocked unconscious. Not me! I shall stand tall and meet my destiny proudly.”

  My voice caught in my throat. I tried to think of words to persuade him, of something I could do to stop the farce. He laid his hand on my forearm and seized it with a powerful grip.

  “Gordianus, I know that you don’t take this ceremony seriously, that you don’t believe it actually works.”

  “Do you?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. My personal belief hardly matters. But it may be that a scapegoat can take on the sins of others and can carry them with him to oblivion, allowing those who survive to start afresh. Since I first met you, Gordianus, I’ve sensed that you carry a burden of guilt. Some wickedness—some crime you committed—perhaps in trying to save that beloved son of yours? Am I right?”

  I made no answer.

  “Never mind. I absolve you!” He suddenly released my arm. “There. Whatever burden of sin you may carry has gone out of you and come into me. Do you know, I believe I actually felt something. Truly!”