John Roberts: The River God

“I see your little time in the forests of Gaul made you an expert on arboreal matters.”

“Do you have a better idea?” He stooped once again and came up with a couple of pale cylinders about the length and thickness of a man’s thumb.

“What are those?”

He held them out to me on his palm. “Candle stubs. They must be from the ground-?oor apartment. Poor people don’t use them much.”

I took one and examined it. Its base was dark from whatever it had been stuck to when it was in use. “Rich people don’t use them much either,” I commented. Most people prefer lamps because, not only are candles expensive, but they drip. They do burn more brightly than lamps, though. For some reason candles are a traditional Saturnalia gift, so most people use them for only a week or two after that holiday.

“It’s getting dark.” I looked up and yelled, “Marcus Caninus!”

Moments later the man looked down into the cellar. “Aedile?”

“I want these big support timbers, these joists or whatever you call them, taken to the Temple of Ceres and placed in the courtyard as evidence. I want to examine them tomorrow in daylight.”

He made a sour face. “Whatever you say, Aedile.”

Hermes was poking at one of the timbers with his knife. “Look at this.” He scratched an X with his knife so I could see where to look in the fading light. Where the lines crossed was a hole in the wood big enough to stick my middle finger in without fear of splinters. “I’ll bet this timber is full of boreholes like this.”

“Somebody,” I said, “allowed all these citizens to die just to save a few wretched sesterces. Our laws have become entirely too lenient of late. I am going to search the law codes and find absolutely the most savage, primitive, vicious punishment ever laid down for such a man, and then I am going to see it applied to whoever is responsible for this atrocity.”

When I entered my house, Julia began to make a comment on my dirty, disheveled appearance, caught the expression on my face, and thought better of it. She clapped her hands and sent a couple of slaves scurrying for my dinner. We had agreed that, for the year of my aedileship, we would give up any thought of regular meal hours.

“A bad day, I see,” she said, taking my hand and leading me to the triclinium . “Was there fighting?”

“No fighting this time,” I told her as I collapsed onto a couch. “An insula fell. Two hundred thirty-three dead at the final count. A lot of injured, and some of them won’t live.”

She gasped. “Infamous! As plebeian aedile can’t you condemn those rickety old buildings and have them pulled down? They cause more deaths in a year than a foreign war.”

“I could if I had the time and the staff and the manpower, which I don’t. This was a new one anyway. A crooked contractor, inferior materials, no doubt a fat bribe to one of last year’s aediles, all the usual factors.”

She sat beside me and stroked my brow while ancient Cassandra, who guarded her triclinium serving duties like a dragon, laid out bread, oil, smoked fish, and sliced fruit. Hermes brought in wine with the water added according to my standing instructions-by holding it out a window during a heavy fog.

“Eat before you drink any of that,” Julia instructed. “Are you going to prosecute?”

“If at all possible. Metellus Scipio wants to give it to his son.” I wiped a hand across my face. “How much good will it do anyway? One wretched contractor more or less will mean nothing in the long run.”

“Then,” she said seriously, “perhaps it’s time for you to stand for the tribuneship. As tribune of the people you can introduce legislation to drive all the criminal contractors from the City, demolish all the substandard insulae as a menace to the public good, and institute strict enforcement of the building codes. It would do us all a world of good and set a high tone for your political career.”

I thought about it. “It’s a good idea. The family has wanted me to stand for tribune for years.”

“Then it’s time to lay the groundwork,” Julia said, decisive as only a Julian could be. “There is plenty of time between now and the elections. Take a tribuneship for next year, while people still remember this disaster.”

Then I remembered, and a pall fell over my brief enthusiasm. “Pompey may be dictator next year. A tribune means nothing during a dictatorship.”

“Surely not!” Julia protested. “Caesar will come back from Gaul and Crassus from Asia before they’ll allow Pompey to be dictator!” Like everyone else, she had begun referring to Caesar by the family name as if he alone bore it. This was an archaic, monarchical practice regarded by many of us with deep suspicion.

“Something must be done,” I said. “As much as I hate to say it, the chaotic state of the City calls for the most stringent measures. Another year of the usual partisan bickering and we will be ruined. Scipio says we are working for some sort of compromise, but I can’t imagine what it might be. Oh, by the way, it looks as if Scipio’s daughter is to wed Pompey.” I tried to add something, but she stuck a piece of fish in my mouth to keep me quiet while she thought. Political calculation was as natural to her as to me. In fact, she was far more swift and acute than I.

“I see,” she said at last. “Well, since my cousin died, he has been in need of a wife. It is natural that he would want to forge an alliance with the Metelli.” She spoke of Caesar’s daughter, the other Julia, who had married Pompey and died giving birth to his child.

“And he truly loved his Julia,” I said. “His grief at her death was not false. His marriage to Caecilia may help to strengthen all our bonds. Pompey just gave Caesar another of his legions for the war in Gaul,” which, I did not add, was a far more sincere pledge of friendship than any number of political marriages.

“And if it should come to a break between Caesar and Pompey?”

I placed a hand atop hers. “When Sulla ordered Caesar to divorce his wife, Caesar fied to Spain rather than give her up. I will do no less should it come to that.” She smiled and seemed to be reassured, but I knew what she was thinking: Caesar had been ordered to divorce his wife by a political enemy, not his own family.

I WAS AT THE SITE OF THE RUINED insula at first light the next morning. Nothing remained but the empty basement, the slave gang having labored through the night to haul away the wreckage. Three men remained, digging through the gravel foundation to ascertain its depth.

“Three feet of gravel, then river mud!” shouted one of them when the last bucket of rock was handed up.

“Below code,” I said, “but once again not outrageously so. This may complicate the prosecution, when we have someone to prosecute. If you are going to be a greedy villain, why not go ahead and be egregious about it? Why these half measures?”

“Maybe they’re like slaves and soldiers,” Hermes suggested. “They know how to push authority just so far without being severely punished.”

“You may have a point.” I always let Hermes speak to me freely when I was not discussing matters with my peers. In public, certain proprieties had to be observed. As it happened, we were alone in that place. “Let’s go to the Island and see if that slave porter can talk.”

The walk was not a long one. We crossed the fine, still new Fabrician Bridge to the Island and its complex of buildings that combine temple and hospital. The temple itself re joiced in a new facade, provided by some ambitious politician to celebrate his own glory. I didn’t even glance up to see whose name now decorated the pediment. We were barely off the bridge when we heard the groaning.