John Roberts - The River God

“You will do something about this, Aedile?” Acilius asked.

“Decidedly. What we just saw is a menace to the health of all Romans and an affront to the gods. Why”-I gestured toward the river before us-”Father Tiber himself must be insulted that the unburied dead are committed to him.”

“He doesn’t look too happy as it is,” Hermes said. “Look, he’s risen since we crossed this morning.”

He was right. The waterline was noticeably higher than that morning. “Come along, Hermes. We need to speak with the rivermen.” I dismissed the rest of the party with further assurances that I would do something about the condition of the sewers, although just what was unclear even as I promised it.

We had emerged into daylight with the Aemilian Bridge to our right. Turning left, we passed under the Sublician Bridge, walking along the great westward bend of the river. Beyond the Sublician lay the river wharves, where the barges up from Ostia unloaded their cargoes then reloaded them with the products of Rome and the inland farm country to be taken down to the harbor for export.

This was one of the liveliest, most active districts of the City, most of it outside the walls. The natives spoke a river dialect all their own, and a score of foreign languages could be heard. Sailors from every nation touched by the sea coming upriver to trade or see the sights are among our most numerous visitors. The factors of many foreign companies had their offices along the wharves.

Foreign tongues were not the only alien sounds to be heard. The cries, roars, bellows, and squawks of exotic beasts and birds were everywhere, as cages from Africa, Egypt, Spain, Syria, Phrygia, and places even more remote were brought in for the gardens and estates of the rich and, more often, for the hunts in the Circus. There were lions and leopards, peacocks, ostriches, bears, bulls, racing horses, zebras, camels, and even stranger creatures.

About as many slaves were being unloaded for the markets, but they walked off the barges under their own power and were far quieter than the beasts. This was a sight I found far less agreeable than that of odd animals. I am quite aware that civilization cannot exist without slaves, but some limits should be observed. There were far too many slaves in Rome already, and the recent wars had fiooded the markets with even more, so cheap that even poor households could afford a few.

The great bulk of the slaves were sold to the vast lati fundi a of Sicily and southern Italy before they ever saw Rome. The others were, for the most part, the better looking and more skilled captives destined for household service. There were beautiful young women and boys for the houses of the wealthy and the brothels, trained masseurs for the baths, artists, cooks, and so forth, plus a few stalwart young warriors to be trained as gladiators. These last seldom had to be chained or coerced and usually faced their fate cheerfully. Raised as tribal warriors, the prospect of being given their keep and no duties except to train and fight suited them well enough. Being set to labor would have been an unthinkable disgrace.

But I was not there to enjoy the sights. We walked along the wharves until we came to a stretch of the river walk paved with colorful mosaic, where a stout, baldheaded man sat at ease behind a stone table, shaded by a yellow awning and attended by a secretary. He rose when he caught sight of me and raised an arm.

“Good day, Aedile! What brings you to the wharves this fine afternoon?”

“Good day, Marcus Ogulnius!” I called to the wharf master. He was a publicanus charged with collecting import duties, docking fees, and so forth. A bit of each transaction stuck, lawfully, to his fingers, so he was a rich man. I didn’t see much of him because, strictly speaking, his office came under the purview of the curule aedile as regulator of markets. “I’ve come to confer with knowledgeable men about the state of the river.”

“If you’d come a day later there might have been none for you to confer with,” he said. “When this lot of barges is finished unloading, they’ll be headed back to Ostia; and we’ll see no more for a while. I’m amazed they made it here today with this current. This evening I’ll pack up my office and move to higher ground for the duration.”

“That bad?” I said. “I saw that the river was rising, but we’re still far from fiood stage.”

“Cast your eyes up there, Aedile. Look at the Janiculum.” I gazed toward the hilltop where the red fiag fiew as it had for centuries, to be lowered only if an enemy approached the City. The long strip of scarlet cloth stood almost straight out, its tip snapping back and forth in a blurring motion. “That wind’s from due south, straight out of Africa. Here in Rome it just makes for some nice, warm days in a season when it’s usually still cold. But it’s blowing full blast on the mountaintops, and it’s melting the snow.”

“I heard something of the sort earlier today,” I allowed.

“Well, you can believe it. You’ll soon be getting word of mountain towns destroyed by fioods and wiped out by avalanches. The snows this winter were the worst in living memory, so I’m told. Those snows and this sirocco make for a bad combination, sir. The river’s about to rise faster than anyone’s seen it rise, and this bend of the river right here’s going to catch the worst of it. It always does.”

“Have any precautions been taken?” I asked him.

He shrugged, surprised. “What can be done about a fiood? When Father Tiber decides to get out of bed and move about, you’d best get out of his way.”

“Sound advice.”

He thought for a while. “There were some engineering works supposed to be undertaken awhile back to keep the river in its banks, but they never got past the planning stage. Of course, that was under the censors-”

“Servilius Vatia and Valerius Messala!” Hermes and I chorused together.

The wharf master looked at us strangely. “That’s right.”

A thought occurred to me. “You obtained your public contract from them, did you not?”

“Renewed it, actually. I’ve held this post for more than twenty years, and my father had it before me.”

“It is done by open bidding, is it not?”

“Assuredly. It’s all in knowing the job. There’s others would like to have it, but my family’s done it for so long that I know to the last sestertius what it’s worth to the State and what it’s worth to me. Anyone who tries to underbid me is a fool who doesn’t know the work and will bollix it up, costing everyone. The censors know that, sir, and they renew my contract every five years accordingly.”

More likely , I thought, he has grown so rich that no one who wants the office could bribe the censors half so well as he . I didn’t hold it against him. He was an honest man by most men’s standards and collecting revenues for the river traffic was too important to the State to be left to a fool or an amateur.

“How long do we have, do you think, before the low parts of the City are fiooded?”

He rubbed his chin. “Some predict the river walk will be ankle deep by morning, and that’s why I’m clearing out tonight. It could be up into the Forum Boarium and in the Circus by next morning. Personally, I don’t think it’s going to be all that quick, but I’m not taking any chances.”

“Wise move. What about the warehouses and the boats?”

“The river people have known this fiood was coming for more than a year. They’ve taken precautions. Goods have been stored up higher than usual. Anything made of wood’s likely to be lost though.” He shrugged again. “Nothing that can’t be replaced. Inside the City”-he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward the city wall that rose behind him- “that, I’m not responsible for. But I hope your house is on high ground.”