John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

“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 built 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?”