John Roberts - The River God

“I will do it.” He was looking at me with an expression I’d never expected to see on his face: respect. “Decius Caecilius, you are going to have the most eventful aedileship in recent memory, if you can survive it.” He wheeled and strode away, barking orders at his followers like a general preparing for battle. In a way, that was what he was doing.

For a few minutes the other aediles crowded around me, wanting to know what was going on. Suddenly and unexpectedly, it seemed that they were looking to me for leadership. I didn’t waste the opportunity. I snatched a piece of papyrus from a scribe and scrawled a crude map of my beloved, beautiful, awful old City. This I divided into sections, giving each aedile one to subdivide among his helpers. I saw Acilius standing by with his men and ordered him to provide a detailed report on the condition of every cloaca, tributary sewer, and drain hole in the City and have it ready by afternoon.

The State freedman smiled and gestured to one of his slaves. The man withdrew from his satchel a thick scroll, which Acilius presented to me. “What do you think I have been doing these last two years?”

“You see?” I cried, loud as Cato. “Somebody here has been doing his duty! I charge you all to go and do the same! Meet me on the terrace before the Temple of Jupiter one hour before sundown and have your reports ready!”

“At once, Aedile!” they chorussed, dashing off to do something useful, instead of fretting endlessly over actors and chariot races and public banquets.

I stood there for a while, savoring the moment. I felt better than a general with six victorious legions out killing barbarians.

A few minutes later, Hermes arrived, puffing and sweating like an Olympic runner.

“We got it boxed up,” he panted, when he had breath. “Old Burrus is escorting it out to the country estate, says he’ll see it stowed away, and nobody will get a look at it.”

He sat down, and while he caught his breath, I told him about the statue’s provenance. “It was Scaurus’s safety precaution,” I said. “He wanted to make me look like one crook accusing another. It could have worked, too.”

“Tell me something,” Hermes said. “Why did they kill Folius and his wife? They were all together in it, weren’t they? Living in each other’s money chests, doing the trade in trashy building materials, all of them making each other richer than they were already-who turned on Folius and why? It’s where all this started, as far as we’re concerned, with that insula coming down and us finding the two of them under it all. They were doing so well. How did they fall out?”

The temple slaves were bringing out breakfast unasked. They laid out bread and honey and sliced fruit on the table, along with watered wine. I sat and gestured to Hermes to sit with me.

“That is a very astute question.” Somehow I knew that this was the right time to broach the most delicate subject that lay between us. “Hermes, someday soon I will grant you your freedom. Instead of master and slave, we will be patron and client. You will have every right and privilege of citizenship except that of holding office.”

He covered his astonishment by gulping some wine and smearing a cake with honey. “I always expected that, someday.”

“These last few days you have pleased me greatly. I intend to keep you close to me in future years as I rise in office. If you will live up to the promise you have shown lately, you can look forward to becoming one of the great men of the Republic.”

Now he was truly embarrassed. “I never-I mean, I-”

“You know Tiro, who was once Cicero’s slave and is now a freedman. Senators and foreign kings court him. That could be you. Anyway, I tell you this by way of warning. Keep this up, but conduct yourself prudently. Too many men use their servile origin as an excuse to be worthless. Watch, listen, think, and act wisely. You may have a distinguished future ahead of you.”

I watched him hard. He swallowed, fumbled with his cup, but said nothing. I nodded with satisfaction. “You are silent. Yet another good sign. Very well, we will say no more about this for a while, but I want you to bear this firmly in mind.”

“I am not likely to forget it,” he said.

“You asked about Folius and his wife. That we may never know for certain, but I have been thinking about it. You remember how I have taught you to anticipate your enemy by trying to think like him?” Hermes nodded. “It works as well in this sort of investigation. I found myself pondering this: Suppose I were a criminal conspirator and I had found a useful tool, say, a man from Bovillae, perhaps a neighbor who had great ambition and no scruples, whose career I could push to my own great profit? And suppose further that I brought this unscrupulous man to Rome and set him up in one of my profitable enterprises? Then suppose I found that, after a mutually profitable partnership, this man showed himself to be a madman, a murderer capable not only of embarrassing me, but of destroying our whole, beautiful business?”

“You’d want to get rid of him,” Hermes said. “You mean the habit the Folii had of torturing and killing slaves? That might be a little rich for aristocrats, but it’s legal.”

“To our shame, yes. But I think it was getting beyond that. Andromeda gave us a hint. Folius and his wife were getting entirely out of control in their love of blood and pain.”

I sat back and scratched my unshaven chin. The old scar was itching abominably, the way it usually did when I hadn’t shaved for a while. “There is something wrong with such people. Most of us have a natural desire to witness combat and strife, and our customs provide the circus and the arena where these things may be displayed in an orderly, lawful fashion, where the blood that is shed is that of malefactors and the volunteers who wish to fight for their own satisfaction or profit or glory.”

I shook my head. “But that is not enough for certain people. These must torment innocent, powerless people. And such persons are never satisfied but must progress from atrocity to atrocity. I think that the Folii had degenerated to the point that they were about to do something irrevocably unforgivable. They had outlived their usefulness. Either Scaurus or Messala decided they had to go.”

“But take down a whole insula and more than two hundred people?” Hermes said. “Why? It’s not as if killing two people is that hard to accomplish!”

“That is something I intend to learn before the day is out,” I told him. Then for a while we went over plans for the evening meeting. I was ready to set off for a tour of the fiooded areas when a messenger came running down the slope of the Aventine behind the temple.

“Aedile Metellus?” the man asked, halting before the table.

“You’ve found me.” I took the message he handed me and read quickly. After a formal greeting the message was brief:

We must discuss the condition of my theater, which I am now inspecting for damage from this fiood. Please come at once. This need not detain you long, but I must speak with you . Below was appended the name: M. Aemilius Scaurus.

“What happened to his trip to Bovillae? Wasn’t he concerned about his fig trees?”

“It was grape vines,” I said, handing a tip to the messenger, who saluted and trotted off. “Either he went there and returned at a gallop, or he never went at all.”

“Whichever it is, he’s a fool to think you’d step into so transparent a trap.” He chuckled, but I said nothing. Hermes looked at me with growing alarm. “He is a fool to think that, isn’t he?”

“Under ordinary circumstances he would be, but I am feeling rather foolish just now.”