John Roberts - Oracle of the Dead

We rode along the south wall, through the Stabian Gate, and up a major street that traversed the town, then west along a cross street to the city forum. It was a beautiful city, but then it seems that all Campanian cities are, in contrast to Rome, which is a very large city with some very fine buildings, but lacking in overall grace and utterly unplanned, more like a cluster of villages crammed into walls that surround much too small an area. I love Rome, but I am not blind to her faults.

We found both duumviri in the town’s modest basilica, just finishing up some public business. Belasus was a small, portly man, with a fringe of white hair and the look of a prosperous merchant. Porcius was tall, thin, and aristocratic, a much younger man. I complimented Valgus on his restoration of the amphitheater, and Porcius on his father’s fine contribution to the city and to the district as a whole. Both seemed pleased.

“Now,” I said, “tell me about this dead Syrian.”

“His name was Elagabal, and he had an import-export business,” Belasus said.

“Dealing in what?”

“He speculated in cargoes. He’d buy a shipload of oranges from Spain, for instance, and hold them hoping the price would rise so he could sell them at a large profit. He’d buy grain and send it to someplace where his contacts informed him that the harvest had failed, that sort of thing.”

“It sounds like he ran a chancy business,” I commented. “You can’t hold on to oranges for very long, and anything that travels by ship is at hazard.”

“We have reason to doubt that he made very much money that way,” Porcius said. “But he made a lot of money anyway.”

“And how did he do that?” I asked.

“Local rumor has it that he was a receiver of stolen goods,” Belasus said. “His business was just a cover, and he could ship the stolen goods to places where they could be sold without raising suspicions about himself.”

“Yet suspicions were raised,” I noted.

“A fence can’t work alone, ” Belasus said. “He must deal with thieves, and thieves talk.”

“So they do. This court case he had pending, did it involve his nefarious activities?”

“Hard to say,” said Porcius. “He had a citizen partner, as foreign businessmen must by law. He was a man named Sextus Aureus, a tanner. Aureus was bringing suit against Elagabal for defrauding him of his share of several years’ profits from the legitimate business.”

“You would think it would be Aureus who would end up conveniently murdered,” I observed. “I’ll want to speak with Aureus, but first I want to see the Syrian’s body and his place of business.”

“You want to see the body?” Porcius said. “Why?”

“You never know what you might learn from a dead body,” I said. They looked at me as if I were a prize loon. It is a look I had grown used to.

“Very well,” said Belasus. “If you will come with me, Praetor.”

“I will have Aureus summoned and sent to you,” Porcius said. “If there is any other way I can help you, please let me know.”

We took our leave of Porcius and followed Belasus into the city. Its forum was long and narrow and we passed the local Temple of Apollo (that local Greek influence again) and a small but exquisite temple to the public lares. Past the forum we came to a district of more small temples, these dedicated to gods associated with death, as is the Temple of Libitina in Rome. Here we found the facilities of the undertakers. In Campania they don’t wear the Etruscan costumes they wear in Rome. A man dressed like the rest in a black tunic took us to a table where the corpse of the Syrian lay covered by a shroud.

At my gesture the attendant threw back the shroud, revealing a lean, bearded man of perhaps fifty. Someone had thoughtfully arranged his features into an expression of serenity. Somewhat less serene was the wound in his abdomen, just below the sternum. He had been knifed.

“Any idea when this happened?” I asked.

“Probably the night before last,” said the duumvir . “A man with business to transact went to the Syrian’s offices and found him dead on the floor yesterday morning and reported it to the town watch, who sent a runner to inform me. When I remembered he was a defendant in a case coming up before you, I sent a messenger to inform you.”

“Very thoughtful of you. I think we’ve learned all we are going to here. If you could lead us to his offices now I would be obliged.”

As we made our way through the streets, I beckoned Hermes to my side. “Did that knifework look familiar to you?”

“Just like the girl at the temple,” he said. “But it’s a pretty common way to dispatch someone with a knife.”

“If it was in Rome,” I said, “I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Although seeing two people in a quiet place like this, both killed identically, that makes me suspicious.”

“A man like that Syrian,” Hermes mused, “a professional criminal from the sound of it, used to dealing with thieves and worse-”

“What are you thinking?”

“To use a knife like that you have to get close. The man showed no signs of defending himself. Maybe the killer was someone he knew and trusted.”

“It’s likely. Of course, accomplices can always hold a man’s arms while you stab him. Let’s see what his office looks like.”

The late Syrian’s office occupied two rooms of no great size on the lower floor of a two-story building, flanked by a tavern and a wool merchant’s shop. Inside, the main room contained a long table, a few chairs, a small desk topped by a tall, honeycomb scroll holder. Along one wall were some circular leather cases with wooden lids and these held yet more scrolls.

There was also a large bloodstain on the floor. Bloodstains are rather commonplace so I paid it little attention; the flies were giving it attention enough. The back room had obviously been the man’s living quarters. It contained a bed, a low table with a basin and a large pitcher and a fairly clean towel. A niche in one wall held an image of some eastern god flanked by a pair of lamps. Before the image was a clay dish that held the ashes of some cheap incense There was a small wooden chest at the foot of the bed. I opened it and found a couple of tunics, an old belt, a pointed cap, and a striped woolen cloak. That was all. Obviously the man had done nothing in this room except sleep in it.

Back in the main room, we set to work. “Let’s go over these papers,” I said. “We’re looking for names of contacts, lists of goods that may have been illegally acquired, letters, anything that might give us an idea of who would have wanted him dead.”

“A fence?” said one of my men. “Who wouldn’t want him dead?” This got a good laugh, even from Belasus. I stepped outside with the duumvir and we sat on a bench next to a fountain where water spouted from the carved face of Silenus into a basin carved in the shape of a seashell. We bought cups of wine from a passing vendor and settled down to talk. Naturally, the talk was about politics. I had other things to discuss with him but the proprieties had to be observed, and when two Italian politicians talked, the principal subject was always foremost.

“Well, Praetor,” he said, “where’s your money? Caesar, Pompey, the Senate? Some up-and-comer I’ve never heard about?” As if we were discussing Green against Blue at the Circus.

“Caesar,” I told him bluntly. “Pompey’s through. The Senate will go with the winner except for a few die-hard Pompey adherents who will probably end up in exile. Last time there was civil strife, this town backed the Samnite League against Sulla. Don’t make the same sort of mistake again.”

He stared at me, astonished. “Well, that’s blunt enough. I thought your family backed Pompey these days. Then again, you’re married to Caesar’s niece, aren’t you?”