John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

Ariston was an ex-pirate who had been of great help to me a few years before, when I was playing admiral and putting down a resurgence by some of his former colleagues. When Pompey had suppressed the pirates in his great campaign, those who wanted to live had surrendered and vowed to move inland and never go to sea again. Ariston had violated this agreement by taking up the sailor’s life once more and had been liable to execution, but with Pompey dead I had secured his pardon. Now he was a more or less a legitimate importer and occasional merchant captain. I hoped he was in his place of business and not sailing to Trapezus or some such faraway place.

The port was always a bustling, smelly place where you could hear every language in the world and see some very odd people indeed. The wharfs were stacked with bales and amphorae and ingots of metal. That day an endless string of barges were being unloaded, their cargo nothing but fabulous marble for Caesar’s endless building projects.

Ariston was in his warehouse, a long, rambling building that fronted on the river with a tile roof and no wall on the river side. He was a big man with a scarred and battered face. He was burned dark brown from constant exposure, which made his blond hair and bright blue eyes even more striking. He grinned when he saw me.

“Senator! You don’t come down here very often. I haven’t seen your accountant lately. Has this new calendar affected our agreement?” As his patron I naturally received a small percentage of his profits every year.

“Not at all. I came to consult with you.” I took his hand.

“Any way I can help. Are you planning a voyage?”

I shuddered. “No, for which I thank all the gods.… It’s a rather sensitive matter.… I’m starving. Let’s find a tavern and get something to eat.”

“I know just the place.” He gave some orders to his slaves and we went a block cityward and into a low-ceilinged dive that had a distinctively smoky aroma. We sat at a table and a server brought the usual bread and oil along with a bowl of roasted and salted peas and another of tiny smoked fish and smoked sausages. That explained the smell of the place. They had big, brick smokers in the back. I took a handful of the crunchy, salted peas, then a few of the fish. The rough red wine common to such places was the perfect accompaniment. “This is excellent,” I told him. “Is the cook a Spaniard?”

“The cook, the owner, his wife, and most of the servers. They brought their smoking process from Cartago Nova.”

I tore off a piece of the tough brown bread and dipped it in oil. “Ariston, I am trying to find a foreigner. He is very dangerous. He’s already killed two men I know about, and I suspect he is not done. Within the last few days he murdered two of the Alexandrian astronomers who have been staying on the Tiber Island.”

“Why do you think it’s a foreigner?”

I told him about the distinctive method of homicide. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

He shook his head. “I’ve known men who could break necks bare handed, but it wouldn’t leave marks like that. It may be something oriental, maybe Egyptian. Those people would rather kill a man in some complicated fashion than step right up and stab him, like we would. I’ll ask around. If he’s a professional far from home, he’ll probably be offering his services for pay. You don’t do that right out in the Forum. You go the taverns and brothels and drop a few hints. Sooner or later someone will find you and make an offer.”

“Do that. You’ll do very well out of it if you can help me find him.” I reached into my purse to pay for our lunch and came out with the strange brass coin. I handed it to Ariston. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

He glanced at both sides. “You see them all the time in the Red Sea trade. They’re from India.” He tossed it back, and I caught it and tucked it back.

“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I found it near the quarters of the Indian astronomer. He must have dropped it. I was hoping it might be something significant. What do the Indians trade for?”

“Spices, dyestuffs, but mainly frankincense. It’s as important in their temples and ceremonies as ours. Speaking of which, I have a line on a cargo that includes some chests of the white Ethiopian frankincense, the most valuable kind. I can get you some cheap.”

“Cheap because it was smuggled or cheap because it was pirated?” I asked.

“Now, Senator,” he chided, “there are some questions you don’t ask.”

“I’ll pass. If you get this cargo, please don’t tell me about it. Sometimes the less I know the better.”

He grinned again. “As you like it, Senator. Your wife wouldn’t mind a gift of white frankincense next Saturnalia though, would she?”

“I don’t see why she should,” I said. There is such a thing as carrying incorruptibility too far, after all.

I left him and trudged back toward the Forum. His remark about Egyptians had set me to thinking. It would not be unlike Cleopatra to have an assassin in her employ. In many quarters, such a specialist is considered merely a tool of statecraft, but she was the one person in Rome I could not suspect of plotting Caesar’s death. What reason would she have for killing her own astronomers? Of course, an Egyptian assassin living at the old embassy could well hire himself out secretly, just to keep in practice. I also had not forgotten that I had almost lost my nose to a pygmy’s arrow in Cleopatra’s house.

Still, there were other easterners in Rome, and among them there was the envoy sent by King Phraates of Parthia. The envoy Caesar had so publicly humiliated just days before.

The first time I had seen Archelaus he had been with Cassius. The second time he was in the company of Hyrcanus’s ambassador. I had no idea where he lived. Unlike Egypt, Parthia had never maintained a permanent residence for its embassy. The Parthians sent embassies whenever there was something to discuss or settle with Rome.

Hyrcanus’s ambassador had a house on the Germalus, just a few doors up the Clivus Victoriae from the house where Clodius and his sisters had once lived. It was a very fashionable neighborhood, unlike the Subura, where I lived. The Subura was full of the poorest Romans and many foreigners, but I preferred it.

Some years before, there had been a dispute between princes over succession to the throne of Judea, a not uncommon occurrence in that part of the world. One of the brothers, Hyrcanus, had appealed to Pompey for aid that Pompey had supplied gladly. He was always looking to enlarge his clientela and loved to boast that he had kings among his clients. Now Pompey was dead and Hyrcanus had transferred his allegiance to Caesar. Hyrcanus was a weak man and the real power was his chief advisor, a man named Antipater.

I knew Herod, son of Antipater, from the time of Caesar’s eastern campaigns. The family was of Idumaean Arab origin, and they wore their Jewish religion lightly. Antipater was an enlightened man who selected the best aspects of Hellenistic culture and managed to reconcile them with the beliefs of Hyrcanus’s always recalcitrant and often violently reactionary subjects.

Herod was a man very different from his father. He shared many characteristics with Sulla. He was brilliant and fierce. He combined great personal beauty with a ruthlessness that chilled the hardest of men.

Like Cleopatra, Antipater saw clearly that Rome was the future, and Caesar was the man of the hour, and he guided Hyrcanus wisely. Naturally, he and Cleopatra hated one another with a blind passion.

I had gotten along well with Herod and had ridden with him on bandit-hunting expeditions, which he practiced with the fervor that most eastern monarchs devote to hunting beasts. He and Antonius had become great friends as well.