by Mike Ashley
The first boy nodded. “It became a personal argument between them, then, instead of a discussion among friends. They began to rail at each other about gifts of money and gamecocks and I know not what. All manner of fine things, from what Tydeus said.”
Socrates: Then these gifts were from our dead friend Tydeus to Euchecrates?
Youth: Yes, Socrates; and Tydeus was angry because Euchecrates had given them all away to someone else.
Socrates: To whom did Euchecrates give the gifts of Tydeus?
Once again silence fell, and the young men exchanged puzzled looks. But a bronzed athlete who had been standing outside the circle blurted out: “Even Tydeus didn’t know who it was!”
Socrates: Why do you say that?
Athlete: I came here to the palaestra before any of the others, just at daybreak, and I met Tydeus on his way to the god. I recall that I asked him if he were going to swim, and he said, no, he was about to offer a prayer to Eros for a misdeed. Then I teased him about losing his gifts . . .
Socrates: And asked him who Euchecrates’s admirer was?
Athlete: Yes, but Tydeus flew into a rage and began to say things in a distracted fashion about “that person,” as he put it, “whoever it may be.” I wanted to speculate with him on the identity, but Tydeus said he must hurry to Eros, for he wished to complete his prayer before the sun rose above the horizon.
Socrates: And he said nothing further? Well, then, will you now please go to Euchecrates’s house and tell him what has befallen his friend Tydeus, and ask him to meet Socrates at the Shrine of Apollo Lyceus?
The bronzed youth agreed to do so, and Socrates took his companion Aristodemus by the arm, leading him back up the path to the shrine. “I shall return with water,” he said, passing through the crowd, “that you who have touched the body may purify yourselves.”
When they were out of the hearing of the young men, Aristodemus said in a low voice, “I know, Socrates, that you seek answers by the most devious questions; but I cannot discover what it is you attempt to glean from all that you have asked of those boys.”
Socrates: I believe you said that the piece of fat which we saw in the rubble was sacrificial lamb?
Aristodemus: I would say so. And we saw Tydeus sacrificing, did we not?
Socrates: We saw him praying. Do you recall that the bronzed fellow told us that when first he saw Tydeus, he asked Tydeus if he were going to swim?
Aristodemus: Yes, I remember.
Socrates: And would it not be an exceedingly odd question to ask of a man who was carrying a sacrifice?
Aristodemus: That is true, Socrates; but what does it mean?
Socrates: You recall, too, that you spoke of Tydeus as a Pythagorean?
Aristodemus: Yes, I know that he was.
Socrates: Then perhaps you will also remember that, among Pythagoreans, it is a custom never to offer living sacrifice, or to kill any animal that does not harm man?
Aristodemus: I had forgotten, Socrates. And I see now that it could not have been possible that Tydeus intended to sacrifice.
Socrates: Yet we saw a piece of lamb, did we not? How else could we account for it, if it were not brought to be sacrificed?
Aristodemus: It seems unaccountable.
Socrates: Do you remember where you saw it?
Aristodemus: It was on the hand of Eros.
Socrates: And so, also, was the hawk. Does that not suggest another reason for the fat?
Aristodemus: Why, yes! It must have been placed on the hand as bait for the bird!
Socrates: Clearly, that is what was intended. And I think it must have been fastened there in some manner, for the hawk did not pick it up and fly off, but rather balanced himself on the fingertips and pulled at it until the statue was overbalanced.
The two had walked, in their preoccupation, to the very steps of the altar before the Shrine of Apollo Lyceus. The eastern doors of the marble sanctuary were still open, and they could see the god within, gold and ivory, gleaming softly now in the full morning light.
But at that moment they heard shouts from a footpath on their right, and they saw the bronzed athlete running toward them. He pulled up abruptly and panted heavily.
“He’s dead, Socrates! Euchecrates is dead! I found him at Tydeus’s house, in the doorway. He’d hanged himself from a porch beam!”
Socrates: Are you certain Euchecrates took his own life?
Athlete: Quite certain, Socrates. For he had scrawled a message on the wall, and I recognized his writing.
Socrates: What was his message?
Athlete: “Hide me in a secret place.” Does not that mean he was ashamed?
Socrates: That is so.
“Who wishes to be hidden?” asked a woman’s voice, and the three men turned to see Alecto, the priestess of the shrine, slowly and gracefully descending the marble steps.
Socrates: Euchecrates, who has killed himself, Alecto.
Alecto: It is indeed a dreadful thing to hear, Socrates.
Aristodemus: Oh, there is more! See where the statue has fallen? Tydeus lies dead beneath it.
Alecto: He must have displeased Eros mightily to have been felled by the god’s own image?
Aristodemus: No, I think it fell because Euchecrates contrived that it should.
Alecto: How could it have been contrived, Aristodemus?
Socrates: Alecto, we came to ask you for some water which we will take to the Lyceum, for there are those of us who have not yet purified ourselves.
The priestess nodded and left. She returned in a few moments with a vessel of water.
Socrates: I should have asked also on behalf of this young man, so that he may take some to the place where he found Euchecrates.
Athlete: No, there is not need of that; for there was water there.
Socrates: Indeed? Then, Alecto, who preceded us with such a request?
Alecto: For water? Why, no one.
Socrates: Can purificatory water be simply drawn out of a well, or a pool, or any other ordinary source?
Alecto: No, of course it must be obtained from a priest or a priestess.
Socrates: And there is no other priest or priestess so close to the house of Tydeus, where Euchecrates lies?
Alecto: No, I am the closest.
Socrates: Then can we not assume the water was obtained here? Do you not recall such a request?
Alecto: Only that of Tydeus, several hours ago. I didn’t know why he asked for water, but it would now seem to be for that reason.
Socrates: And we know also from this, do we not, Aristodemus, that Euchecrates was already dead when Tydeus went to pray to Eros? Tell me, Alecto, when Tydeus came for water, do you recall that he asked for anything else?
Alecto: I recall nothing else.
Socrates: Tydeus had told this young man that he could not stand and talk with him, since he wished to complete his prayers before the sun’s rise. Does that not indicate that Tydeus knew beforehand that his prayers would be of some length?
Alecto: Yes, surely it does.
Socrates: And since he stayed to complete them even though the sun had already risen, and was not even distracted from his intentions by the presence and noise of the bird, what is the likely conclusion?
Aristodemus: I would say that he had a particular prayer to complete.
Socrates: Excellent. That would be my conclusion. Now, Alecto, do you think it likely that a young man still angry from a quarrel – indeed distraught – would sit down and compose a lengthy prayer?
Alecto: He would be more likely to pray spontaneously.
Socrates: But these things seem not to agree. The prayer, we may suppose, was planned beforehand; yet the young man was not prepared to plan the prayer. What may we surmise, then?
Alecto: That someone else composed the prayer for him?
Socrates: I believe so. And who would be likely to have done that?
Alecto: It would be someone expert in such matters, no doubt.
Socrates: Such a
s a priest or priestess?
Alecto: Yes, it must be so.
Socrates: And since Tydeus called, as you have said, upon yourself, Alecto, does it not seem inevitable that he asked you to compose his prayer?
Alecto: I am compelled to admit he did just that, Socrates.
Socrates: And one last matter: You were sacrificing lamb here at dawn?
Alecto: Yes, lamb and honey.
Socrates: And where is the fat of the lamb which you sacrificed this morning, Alecto? While Tydeus was within memorizing his prayer, did you not go down to the statue of Eros and affix some of the fat to that extended hand?
Alecto: You have a daemon advising you, Socrates!
Aristodemus: Oh, no, Alecto. It is as Cebes has said: Socrates can put a question to a person in such a way that only the true answer comes out! But, Alecto, how did Tydeus dare come to you?
Alecto: He did not know that it was to me his friend Euchecrates had given his gifts. But when Tydeus confessed to me that he had caused my lover’s suicide, I could not but avenge the death!
The priestess turned her cold eyes proudly on Socrates. “I was named Alecto for good reason,” she said with fierce triumph; “for like that divine Alecto, the Well-Wisher, I too found myself singled out by the gods to wreak vengeance!”
“But remember,” cautioned Socrates quietly, “we call the divine Alecto the ‘well-wisher’ only to placate her. She is still one of the Furies. She still pursues the blood-guilty to death or madness. And think, Alecto: You are only mortal, and you have done murder.”
Alecto’s eyes widened with the sudden, horrible knowledge of her own fate.
The priestess wept then, and drew the heavy black coils of hair about her face like a shroud.
MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
John Maddox Roberts
John Maddox Roberts (b. 1947) is the author of over twenty novels, most of them in the fantasy field, including a number featuring that mighty-thewed hero, Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard. But Roberts also has a fascination for and an intense knowledge of the world of ancient Rome, and in a series of historical novels, starting with SPQR (1990), he has brought vividly to life the Roman world through the eyes of Decius Caecilius Metellus.
Roberts provides some further background:
“The advantage of writing about Decius Metellus is that he lived for a long time and had plenty of adventures. He was born around 93–91 BC. The stories are in the form of a memoir, written when he was a very old man, during the reign of Augustus. He has outlived most of his old enemies and rivals and is past caring what Augustus (whom he despises) does to him.”
The first four novels take place early in Decius’s career when he was a young and unimportant official. The present story, which was written specially for this anthology, jumps ahead a few years to 53 BC. The city is in utter turmoil. All three triumvirs are away from Italy and the gangs of Clodius, Milo and other politicians are staging daily riots in the streets. Decius is serving as a plebeian aedile and is trying to stay out of trouble by spending his days in the cellars of Rome – one of the tasks of his office is to inspect for building violations. But Decius can’t go long without stumbling over a murder.
The wonderful thing about being Aedile is that you get to spend your days poking through every foul, dangerous, rat-infested, pestilential cellar in Rome. Building inspection is part of the job, and you can spend your whole year just prosecuting violations of the building codes, never mind putting on the Games and inspecting all the whorehouses, also part of the job. And I’d landed the office in a year when a plebeian couldn’t be Curule Aedile. The Curule got to wear a purple border on his toga and sat around the markets all day in a folding chair, attended by a lictor and levying fines for violations of the market laws. No, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus got that job. Well, he never amounted to anything, so there is justice in the world, after all. Mind you, he got to be Triumvir some years later, but considering that the other two were Antony and Octavian, he might as well have been something unpleasant adhering to the heel of Octavian’s sandal.
And the worst thing was, you didn’t have to serve as Aedile to stand for higher office! It was just that you had not a prayer of being elected Praetor unless, as Aedile, you put on splendid Games as a gift to the people. If you gave them enough chariot races, and plays and pageants and public feasts and Campanian gladiators by the hundred, then, when you stood for higher office, they would remember you kindly. Of course the State only provided a pittance for these Games, so you had to pay for them out of your own pocket, bankrupting yourself and going into debt for years. That was what being Aedile meant.
That was why I was in a bad mood when I found the body. It wasn’t as if bodies were exactly rare in Rome, especially that year. It was one of the very worst years in the history of the City. The election scandals of the previous year had been so terrible that our two Consuls almost weren’t allowed to assume office in January, and the year got worse after that. My good friend, Titus Annius Milo, politician and gang leader, was standing for Consul for the next year, as was the equally disreputable Plautius Hypsaeus. Milo’s deadly enemy and mine, Publius Clodius Pulcher, was standing for Praetor. Their mobs battled each other in the streets day and night, and bodies were as common as dead pigeons in the Temple of Jupiter.
But that was in the streets. Another plebeian Aedile, whose name I no longer recall, had charge of keeping the streets clean. I resented finding them in my nice, peaceful if malodorous cellars. And it wasn’t in one of the awful, disgusting tenement cellars, either, uninspected for decades and awash with the filth of poverty and lax enforcement of the hygienic laws.
Instead, it was in the clean, new basement of a town house just built on the Aventine. I was down there inspecting because in Rome honest building contractors are as common as volunteer miners in the Sicilian sulphur pits. My slave Hermes preceded me with a lantern. He was a fine, handsome, strapping young man by this time, and very good at controlling his criminal tendencies. Unlike so many, the basement smelled pleasantly of new-cut timber and the dry, dusty scent of stone fresh from the quarry. There was another, less pleasant smell beneath these, though.
Hermes stopped, a yellow puddle of light around his feet spilling over a shapeless form.
“There’s a stiff here, Master.”
“Oh, splendid. And I thought this was going to be my only agreeable task all day. I don’t suppose it’s just some old beggar, come down here to get out of the weather and died of natural causes?”
“Not unless there’s beggars in the Senate, these days,” Hermes said.
My scalp prickled. There were few things I hated worse than finding a high-ranking corpse. “Well, some of us are poor enough to qualify. Let’s see who we have.”
I squatted by the body while Hermes held the lantern near the face. Sure enough, the man wore a tunic with a senator’s wide, purple stripe. He was middle-aged, bald and beak-nosed, none of which were distinctions of note. And he had had at least one enemy, who had stabbed him neatly through the heart. It was a tiny wound, and only a small amount of blood had emerged to form a palm-sized blot on his tunic, but it had done the job. Three thin streaks of blood made stripes paralleling the one that proclaimed his rank.
“Do you know him?” Hermes asked.
I shook my head. Despite all the exiles and purges by the Censors, there were still more than four hundred Senators, and I couldn’t very well know all of them.
“Hermes, run to the Curia and fetch Junius the secretary. He knows every man in the Senate by sight. Then inform the Praetor Varus. He’s holding court in the Basilica Aemilia today and by this hour he’s dying for a break in the routine. Then go find Asklepiodes at the Statilian School.”
“But that’s across the river!” Hermes protested.
“You need the exercise. Hurry, now. I want Asklepiodes to have a look at him before the Libitinarii come to take him to the undertaker’s.”
He dashed off, leaving the lantern
. I continued to study the body but it told me nothing. I sighed and scratched my head, wishing I had thought to bring along a skin of wine. Not yet half over, and it was one of the worst years of my life. And it had started out with such promise, too. The Big Three were out of Rome for a change: Caesar was gloriously slaughtering barbarians in Gaul, Crassus was doing exactly the opposite in Syria, and Pompey was sulking in Spain while his flunkies tried to harangue the Senate into making him Dictator. Their excuse this time was that only a Dictator could straighten out the disorder in the city.
It needed the straightening, although making a Dictator was a little drastic. My life wasn’t worth a lead denarius after dark in my own city. The thought made me nervous, all alone with only a corpse for company. I was so deeply in debt from borrowing to support my office that I couldn’t even afford a bodyguard. Milo would have lent me some thugs but the family wouldn’t hear of it. People would think the Metelli were taking the Milo side in the great Clodius-Milo rivalry. Better to lose a Metellus of marginal value than endanger the family’s vaunted neutrality.
After an hour or so Varus appeared, escorted by his lictors. Junius was close behind, his stylus tucked behind his ear, accompanied by a slave carrying a satchel full of wax tablets.
“Good afternoon, Aedile,” Varus said. “So you’ve found a murder to brighten my day?”
“You didn’t happen to bring any wine along, did you?” I said, without much hope.
“You haven’t changed any, Metellus. Who do we have?” His lictors carried enough torches to light the place like noon in the Forum. The smoke started to get heavy, though.
Junius bent forward. “It’s Aulus Cosconius. He doesn’t attend the Senate more than three or four times a year. Big holdings in the City. This building is one of his, I think. Extensive lands in Tuscia as well.” He held out a hand and his slave opened the leaves of a wooden tablet, the depressions on their inner sides filled with the finest beeswax, and slapped it into the waiting palm. Junius took his stylus from behind his ear and used its spatulate end to scrape off the words scratched on the wax lining. It was an elegant instrument of bronze inlaid with silver, befitting so important a scribe, as the high-grade wax befitted Senate business. With a dextrous twirl he reversed it and began to write with the pointed end. “You will wish to make a report to the Senate, Praetor?”
