The Mammoth Book of Classical Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  ‘What else?’

  ‘He fears assassination, but who among you does not?’

  Brutus nodded. ‘We wear our daggers and our short swords everywhere. Sometimes the person we assassinate is ourselves.’ He hesitated and then asked, ‘Will Caesar die by his own hand?’

  ‘I cannot say. The future is clouded. Tell him to come here himself if he needs a clearer answer.’

  ‘I will do that. Thank you, Mother Sysius.’

  On the following day, which was the fourteenth of March, Brutus arranged to meet with a number of others in the orchard at his home. First Cassius and then Casca arrived, followed by Decius, Metellus, Trebonius and Cinna. Once they were assembled, strolling out of earshot of the slaves, Brutus came to the point.

  ‘I believe Julius Caesar to be guilty of the murder of a young prostitute named Cybele, three nights ago.’

  A few of them gasped, but it was Cassius who spoke first. ‘He is a colossus among us, but even such a figure is not without his flaws. What proof do you offer for this accusation?’

  Brutus told them quickly of being summoned by the landlord Maximus. He described the scene of the crime, and the gold belt such as Caesar wore. He told of his visit to Cybele’s friend Athena. It was Casca who protested. ‘But the highest rank of government does not mean Caesar alone, dear Brutus. More likely this little whore attracted someone other than the mighty Caesar. Or even if Caesar was the woman’s lover, someone else might have killed her.’

  ‘Let us take your first point, Casca. The fortune teller, Mother Sysius, tells me that Caesar believes women with names beginning with a C bring good luck for him. Now is there any evidence of this odd fact in his life? Yes, there is. Caesar’s first wife, you will remember, was the doomed Cornelia. He loved her deeply. For a second wife he took Pompeia and realized his mistake too late when she was accused of violating the mysteries of the fertility cult and forced to resign as its leader. As he said when he divorced her, Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion. Since that time he has remained safely with the C names. Calpurnia became his third wife and Cleopatra became his mistress. The Egyptian queen bore him a son, whom he cannot publicly acknowledge, though the child has another C name – Caesarion. Calpurnia is barren, as we all know. Is it any wonder that he would turn to a prostitute named Cybele? Not only does her name begin with the proper letter but it is that of the ancient goddess who is a deification of the female generative principle. Caesar was hoping to father a daughter to replace the one lost ten years ago.’

  Cassius laughed at that. ‘Your ideas are far-fetched, Brutus. Do you have any evidence of this? An eye-witness?’

  ‘Of course not. I only say to you that we must take action against this murderer.’

  ‘We support you, of course,’ Decius assured him. ‘But you must bring us proof of such a charge.’

  And he knew they were right. Julius Caesar was the Father of Rome. Who could accuse him of killing a prostitute on the basis of some foolishness about names? ‘Give me until tomorrow,’ he said finally. ‘There is someone I must speak with.’

  ‘Who would that be?’

  ‘Sosigenes, Caesar’s astrologer.’

  The astrologer was a wise man who devoted his days and nights to a study of the heavens. Only two years earlier, after determining that the calendar was no longer in keeping with the seasons, he had persuaded Caesar to adopt a new calendar of 365 days each year, with 366 days every fourth year. Eighty days had been added that year, to compensate for past inaccuracies.

  Brutus found him alone in his observatory, surrounded by representations of the sun and moon. ‘A cloudy day after our recent rain, Sosigenes,’ he said. ‘What do you find to study on such a day?’

  ‘The sky is always with us. There are signs and portents if we are wise enough to read them correctly. What can I do for you, dear Brutus?’ He was a slender man, dressed in a long robe of colorful design. When he moved, his body seemed to flow.

  ‘I am arranging a surprise for Caesar, to be presented on the ides. I know of his liking for certain numbers and letters of the alphabet, and I wish to be certain that the gift is appropriate. Could you advise me as to his favorites?’

  The astrologer took a seat and motioned Brutus into an opposite chair. Touching the fingers of his hands together like a high priest in prayer, he answered, ‘Of course there is the letter C. He favors men and women whose names begin with that letter, because it is his own. Thus the senator named Cicero, and others named Cassius, Casca and Cimber are all known to him, as is Cinna the poet.’

  ‘And Caesar’s wife Calpurnia.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sosigenes agreed.

  ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘With numbers it is different, depending upon my readings of the stars. Is that any help?’

  ‘I think so. Tell me, did mighty Caesar visit you three nights ago?’

  ‘Not in a fortnight have I seen him.’

  Brutus nodded. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  Sosigenes waved a hand at the sky. ‘As you observed, it is a cloudy day. And even the clouds are shapeless.’

  All his visit to the astrologer had accomplished was to confirm Caesar’s affinity for the letter C. Brutus still had no proof against him, nothing linking him directly with the murder. He needed an eye-witness, and there was none.

  As he rode back from Sosigenes’ observatory, he remembered the print of a sandal in the blood on Cybele’s floor. If he could find that sandal, and show that its outline matched the bloody print . . .

  Certainly Caesar had many pairs of sandals at home. A slave could have scrubbed away the blood within minutes, while he wore another pair.

  But would he entrust that task to a slave? Might he try to do it himself and risk questioning by Calpurnia? Better to throw the bloodstained sandal away, not at home where it might be found but somewhere on the way home.

  Brutus was thinking more clearly now. Disposing of the sandal would have been most important to Caesar. He would have been alone at Cybele’s apartment, with no slave to go off for another pair. Where, in those early morning hours, could he find fresh sandals to wear home?

  That was when it hit him, as clearly as one of Sosigenes’ signs from heaven.

  The murdered Cybele had lived on the Street of the Sandal Makers!

  The street had been well named. Brutus counted five shops along the way, all devoted to sandal making. Like most of Rome’s shops they opened at seven in the morning, though Brutus sought one which might have been open even earlier on the day in question. Starting with the shop closest to the murder scene, he worked his way down the block.

  The second shop he tried had opened early three mornings ago. Unable to sleep because of an aching tooth, the tradesman had come into the shop from his living quarters just after first light. ‘And did you have an early customer?’ Brutus inquired.

  The tradesman, whose sour face hinted at continuing discomfort from his tooth, nodded and said, ‘An older gentleman, well dressed in a fine tunic. He said he’d broken a sandal strap but when I offered to fix it he told me he had no time. He laid out some coins for a new pair, and took the first ones he tried on.’

  ‘Did he wear them out?’

  ‘He did just that, carrying the old ones under his arm.’

  ‘Did you recognize him?’

  The man looked puzzled. ‘No.’

  ‘Could he have been Julius Caesar?’

  ‘I have never seen the great Caesar.’

  ‘But you would recognize your customer if you saw him again?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Then come with me,’ Brutus urged.

  ‘I cannot leave the shop.’

  He gave the man some coins. ‘Close it for two hours. I will need you no longer than that.’

  When the shopkeeper agreed, Brutus took him to the public market near the Forum, knowing Caesar would be passing that way. He dressed him in the black cloak of a soothsayer and told him, ‘When Caesar comes I will point him
out. Go up to him and say something while you study his face.’

  ‘Should I ask him how the sandals fit?’

  ‘No, no! You are a soothsayer! Warn him to beware the ides of March.’

  Brutus hurried to join Caesar’s party, which was approaching from the Forum. Then he signaled the disguised tradesman as they were passing some street musicians. The sandal-maker came forward and shouted, ‘Beware the ides of March!’

  Caesar paused, hearing the shout but not understanding it. ‘What man is that?’

  As the black-cloaked figure came forward, Brutus said, ‘A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.’

  ‘He is a dreamer. Let us leave him.’

  As the group moved on, Brutus fell back and asked the man, ‘Did you recognize him?’

  ‘I did. It was my morning customer who bought the sandals. See, he wears them even now!’

  ‘Come with me. There are others who must hear your words.’

  Within an hour Cassius and the others had heard the charges against Caesar. It was Trebonius who asked, ‘What good is this? What can be done now?’

  Brutus had an answer. ‘Tomorrow, I will bring this good tradesman to the Capitol. We will arrest Caesar as he enters the building, and remove him from office.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ the sandal maker said. ‘The ides of March.’

  As Caesar’s party entered the Capitol the following day, he saw the black-garbed soothsayer in the crowd. ‘The ides of March have come,’ he told the man.

  ‘Ay, Caesar, but not gone.’

  Caesar turned to Brutus, a look of puzzlement on his face. ‘Who is that man in black? Why does he seem familiar to me?’

  Brutus, at his side, spoke up as they walked. ‘He is the ghost of your past sins, O Caesar. He is the sandal maker you visited after killing the whore Cybele.’

  Caesar turned on him in a fury. ‘What say you? Have you betrayed me, Brutus?’

  ‘Your crimes betray you. We are removing you from office.’

  Caesar stared into their faces as they moved to form a circle around him. ‘I will have you put to death for treason!’

  ‘Your day is over, great Caesar. You stabbed Cybele to death.’

  Caesar’s hand went for his dagger, lunging out at Brutus. Et tu, Brute? ‘You too, Brutus?’

  Then Casca struck with his own dagger, catching Caesar in the chest. The others followed, and Brutus struck the final blow. Caesar died at their feet.

  ‘It is finished,’ Cassius said.

  ‘Finished.’

  Brutus stared down at the body. ‘My only hope is that the historians remember it the way it happened.’

  MURDERER, FAREWELL

  Ron Burns

  Ron Burns has written two mystery novels set in ancient Rome, Roman Nights (1991) and Roman Shadows (1992). The first is set toward the end of the tyrannical reign of the Emperor Commodus, whilst Roman Shadows is set earlier, at the start of the Roman Empire. It is toward those earlier days that we go. Ron Burns was interested in the reason behind the banishment of the poet Publius Ovidius Naso by Augustus in the year AD 8. The public view was that it was because the Emperor Augustus had taken offence at one of Ovid’s poems. But Ovid hinted at a darker, more sinister motive. How much of the following story is true?

  Little book – no, I don’t begrudge it you – you’re off to the city without me, going where your only

  begetter is banned!

  On your way, then – but penny-plain, as befits an exile’s sad offering, and my present life.

  For you no purple slip-case (that’s a color goes ill with grief), no title-line picked out in vermilion, no cedar-oiled backing . . .

  Leave luckier books to be dressed with such trimmings: never forget my sad estate.

  Publius Ovidius Naso – Ovid to you – was a poet, and as everyone knows poets recollect everything. It is their curse.

  So it wasn’t a matter of what could he remember. It was more along the lines of was there anything he could forget. And the shock of a macabre new crime brought it back easily enough. Brought it back in torrents:

  Ovid the prodigy. Ovid the little freak. Ovid the squawking pubescent, aged twelve, being brought before the new ruler Octavian, still young himself: stern and erect, yet smiling – though somewhat snidely.

  It was a time when Octavian’s image needed touching up. Actually a full-blown cover-up was more like what was required. It was back in 719* coming after a dozen or so years of joint rule with Mark Anthony, who had just taken part in a ritual double suicide with that Egyptian woman. Octavian, though victorious, had had immense problems – which was no surprise all things considered. Such as his signature at the bottom of hundreds of death warrants. Warrants for the murders of Roman citizens. Some of them illustrious, the glorious Cicero being one.

  So Octavian needed help, and when word reached him of this boy who wrote beautiful poems and spouted aphorisms of pithy advice as well, he summoned him to the Imperial court.

  ‘You must first of all change your name,’ the child unblinkingly told the king of the world – which prompted a mixture of sniggers and gasps from the attendant ministers and hangers-on.

  ‘Octavian is a boy’s name; I suggest Augustus,’ little Ovid continued, ‘as a new signal of greatness for you and for all Rome.

  ‘And never call yourself Emperor,’ he went on. ‘Use “Princeps” – first citizen. Also, restore the rituals of the Senate. Not the power, nor the substance. Just the form.

  ‘And finally, needless to say, no more murders. A justice of substance must rule in Rome.’

  As is widely known, Augustus adopted all these caveats, and within a year or so Octavian the bloodthirsty was known far and wide as Augustus the great and the good. And the prodigy Ovid moved into apartments of his own inside the palace, where he grew to manhood and flourished as poet and sage.

  Until, thirty-eight years later, there came a time when Augustus once again was threatened by a ‘perception problem.’ It involved this new crime – a murder, and once again he was rumored to be the murderer. And this time (it was said) no trumped-up warrant nor writ lent even a semblance of legality.

  Once again he called upon the poet to fix it, and Ovid quickly concluded that this time to save Augustus’ image he would have to solve the murder itself. Remarkably, he realized very soon how easy that would be.

  And how impossible.

  And for those very reasons he shook with a terror that only Rome could inspire.

  The victim was Marcellus Gaius, a much loved young man, quite dashing in that Roman way, definitely appealing to men (though of doubtful accessibility) and women alike. And a fighting general to boot – just back from a triumph at the German front. He was also a favorite of Augustus’ and was believed more and more to be his likely successor. Thus, the rumors flew. Marcellus had grown too overtly ambitious. Augustus felt threatened. They had had a falling out. Also, he was murdered in the palace, after all, in a chamber not far from the Emperor’s own rooms.

  ‘The people are saying I did it,’ Augustus snarled. ‘I don’t like it, so find out who did. And be quick about it.’

  Ovid, unhappy but knowing his master’s moods, backed silently, obediently, into the nearest corridor.

  The murder room, still under heavy guard, had been sealed and nothing touched. In a way it was disgusting – the crime was already two days old – but Ovid was pleased. Perhaps he would find something . . . helpful. Or at least not harmful.

  Marcellus’ body had been cut in three places: there was a clumsy slashing wound to the stomach, a powerful thrust to the chest, in the area of the heart, and finally a cleanly-made slit across the throat, ear (it might be said) to ear. There was blood around the body. Some, though not, he thought, as much as there might have been. There was also blood in . . . places where (one might think) it shouldn’t have been at all. He examined the spots, followed a trail that, mercifully, petered out, returned to the death scene and bent close to the corpse.

 
‘Tragic, tragic,’ he heard himself muttering. A moment of low melodrama. Then: high alarm. Did anyone hear me? Did I sound sarcastic? When there was no reaction, he relaxed a little. Keep your mouth shut! he told himself.

  Poking through the folds of Marcellus’ toga he felt something weighty around his waist. His purse! Undisturbed! Filled with gold sesterces! ‘Well, this was no robbery,’ he announced earnestly, then wondered: Why am I heralding the obvious? And again reminded himself of the virtues of silence.

  There was also a potentially powerful piece of evidence beside the body: a distinctive dagger with a handle of intricately carved ivory and studded with gorgeously colored rubies and sapphires. That, it should be noted, was covered with blood. So whose is this? he wondered. Should be easy enough to find out, then actually went, ‘Hah!’ Laughing at himself out loud.

  ‘Bodies, I have in mind, and how they can change to assume new shapes,’ the poet had written a few years before, meaning something quite different. But it came back to him now as he circled the remains. ‘I ask the help of the gods, who know the trick: inspire me now, change me, let me glimpse the secret and sing.’

  He smiled.

  And looked up to see a Praetorian guardsman watching him. Scowling.

  ‘Harumph.’ He cleared his throat haughtily. ‘You there. Yes, and you. And you, also. Let’s get this mess cleaned up. And careful how you handle him. This was Marcellus Gaius, nobleman and patrician.’

  What followed was amazing. The guardsmen carried away the body. A platoon of maids swept in, scrubbing and dusting. And after five minutes the room, a waiting area and occasional private dining room, was restored. There was no sign that trouble of any sort had taken place, let alone a brutal murder – save one old woman who scoured away for a long time after the others had gone, working with a tiny brush where the blood had seeped deeply into the cement between the tiles.

  Again, his own words came back to him. ‘Nature,’ he had written