John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

“This was a mere academic dispute,” Sosigenes objected. “If scholars settled their arguments with violence there would be none left in the world. We argue endlessly about our own fields of study.”

“I’ve known men to murder one another for the most trifling of reasons,” I informed them. “I have been charged with this case and I may wish to question each of you separately or severally. Please do not be offended if I ask that you all stay where I can find you. I should take it very ill should anyone be seized with a need to visit Alexandria or Antioch. I should hate to have to dispatch a naval vessel to fetch you back at public expense.”

“I assure you, Senator,” said Sosigenes, “no one here has anything to hide.”

“If only I had a denarius for every time I’ve heard that assurance,” I muttered.

“Did you say something, Senator?” Sosigenes asked.

“Just that I am so glad to know that nobody here could be responsible.”

“Decius,” Cassius said, “I have other things to attend to. If I may borrow Polasser for a short while, I will leave you to your duties.”

“By all means,” I told him. The three men went off together and I returned my attention to the corpse. Shortly after this, Asklepiodes arrived on a litter accompanied as always by his silent Egyptian servants. Hermes walked behind the litter. The little Greek took me by the hands, smiling broadly.

“A lovely day for a murder, is it not?” he said. Over the years he had become increasingly morbid. I suppose his calling demanded it.

“But is it a murder?” I asked. “It is for this very reason I’ve asked for your help once more. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this man came by his death.”

“Well, let’s have a look at him.” He examined the dead man for a while. “Poor Demades. I knew him slightly. We attended some of the same affairs and lectures.” This came as no surprise. The members of Rome’s small Greek intellectual community all knew each other.

“When you saw him did he mention enemies or any particular fears he might have had?” I asked.

“No. He scarcely spoke at all and when he did it was of astronomical matters. These people are very tightly focused and take little note of anything outside their particular field of study. He would take offense if someone asked him to cast a horoscope and complained that few understood the distinction between astronomy and astrology.”

“Yes, I understand that to be the source of raging controversy hereabouts. Do you think he may have met with an accidental death?” I asked hopefully.

He gestured for his servants to turn the body over. He examined the back of the neck and felt the severed bones, frowning. At last he straightened. “I do not think it was an accident, but I must confess the nature of this injury has me mystified. I have never seen anything quite like it.” This must have been a painful admission for Asklepiodes, who seemed to know everything about the human body and how it might be injured.

I told him of the speculations of Cassius and Archelaus. “Do you think there might be anything to that? Might the murderer be a professional lurking at the Statilian school?”

He shook his head. “A wrestler’s hands would have left distinctive marks on the neck. Likewise, a shield edge would have marked the back of the neck. As to the blow with the edge of the hand”-he wafted his own hand in a gesture of uncertainty-“I think not. It is more plausible than the other two, but the displacement of the vertebrae in this case is of a different nature. Somehow the vertebrae just below the skull have been offset from right to left. These small marks”-he touched two roundish red marks above the break, and two identical marks below it-“I have never seen anything like them. I fear I must ponder this for a while.”

“Please do. Caesar is going to be terribly vexed that someone has done away with one of his pet astronomers. Do you think there is anything further to be learned from the corpse?”

“The only evidence is the injury to the spinal cord, and now I have seen that, there is no further need for examination.”

“Then I will turn him over to his companions.” I turned to Sosigenes, who still stood by with a few of the Alexandrians and Greeks. “Will you undertake his rites?”

“Of course. He has no family here, so we will perform the ceremonies and cremation today. I shall have his ashes sent to his family in Alexandria.”

“Very well then.” I cast a last look at the late astronomer. “Why couldn’t you have been killed in some routine fashion?” I asked him. Sensibly, he remained silent on the matter.

* * *

That evening I described the day’s events to Julia.

“It was probably a foreigner,” she said.

“Why?”

“Romans kill each other all the time, but they use the simplest means: a sword or dagger, a club, something crude and basic. Women sometimes employ poison. You’ve investigated scores of murders. How often were you unable to understand how the victim had died?”

“Only a few times, and usually that was because I was overlooking something obvious. If an expert like Asklepiodes is stymied, what hope have I?”

“None,” she said succinctly. “So for the moment you must forget about how and apply yourself to why. Why would someone want to kill a man like Demades, who from all appearances was a harmless astronomer?”

“That’s exactly what I have been asking myself. By the way, there was another curious matter on the island this morning.” I told her about Cassius and his odd errand and his diplomat friend.

“I do not understand why Caesar lets that man run around loose,” she said. “He is rabidly anti-Caesarian and does not care who knows it.” One of the few faults she would acknowledge in her uncle was his misplaced leniency.

“Maybe he’d rather have his enemies right where he can see them, not behind him professing friendship while they sharpen their knives for him.”

“Perhaps so, but the men he has pardoned and called back from exile! Any other man would have had the lot of them executed.”

“Maybe he wants a reputation for kinglike clemency.”

“Now you’re talking like them,” Julia said ominously. “They’re always saying Caesar wants to make himself king of Rome. They even interpret his mercy toward themselves as evidence of royal ambition.”

“Well, I for one don’t think he wants to be king,” I assured her. “He’s already dictator of Rome, and that makes him more powerful than any king in the world.”

Even so, Caesar’s power was not absolute. After conquering Gaul he had crushed his Roman enemies one after the other at Thapsus and Munda and many other, less famous fights. Nevertheless, there were still old Pompeians at large, some of them with considerable forces at their disposal.

“I think it strange that Caesar is so determined to prosecute this war with Parthia while so much is still unfinished at home,” I said. “I know he wants to take back the eagles that were captured at Carrhae, but there is no rush about that. Yet when Caesar speaks of war he is always serious.”

“Always,” she acknowledged. “So what does this Archelaus hope to accomplish?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “He is being paid to undertake this mission. Whether or not it succeeds, his pay is the same.” I left unsaid my own suspicions about Caesar and his ambitions. The reputation of Alexander the Great had lain over the heads of ambitious military men for almost three hundred years. Each of them longed to surpass Alexander, and Alexander’s conquests had been in the east, not the west. What was conquering Gaul compared to conquering Persia? And Parthia was the inheritor of the Persian Empire. If Caesar could conquer his way into India, then his empire would extend from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges and he would have outconquered Alexander the Great. His would be the new reputation for would-be conquerors to best.