John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“I’ll look into the records of the aedile’s office, to begin with. They have the task of expelling magicians from the City. I won’t waste much time with it. I suspect that the bulk of them are nothing but mountebanks, and that goes for the ones your lady friends frequent as well.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? But please recall that some of them are priestesses of very respectable cults and can be expected to know things to which very few men are privy, especially senators, who care far more about war and politics than about religion.”

“I knew being married to you was going to come in handy.”

“Something else strikes me,” she mused. “Crassus himself is a pontifex . Do you think he had any idea of what was being used to curse him?”

I thought back over the scene at the gate. “I don’t think so. If he had, he probably would have turned right around and gone home. Surely even his lust for loot has limits.”

“So one would think.”

Soon I was back in the Forum, but this time I wasn’t wearing my candidus . Instead, dressed as an ordinary citizen, I went to the end of the Forum where the men standing for the office of quaestor were lounging about, cadging votes. Among them was Faustus Sulla, looking uncomfortable the way an aristocrat always does when he has to go about the low-bred process of vote-grubbing. Near him was the younger Marcus Crassus, who looked much more at home. He grinned engagingly when I walked up. We went through the usual, overdone public greeting.

“Taking the day off, Metellus?”

“Yes, but not willingly. Not much longer until the elections, anyway. Will you be joining your father in Syria to be his quaestor?” Like me, he was almost certain of election. Nobody could outbribe a Crassus.

“No, I’ll be with Caesar in Gaul. My brother Publius will be leaving Caesar’s army early next year to take some Gallic cavalry to Father’s war with Parthia.”

“Lucky you. I spent my year in the Treasury.”

“Safe but unprofitable,” he said. “I hear Caesar’s doing rather well.” In peacetime a general’s quaestor was little more than a paymaster, but in a great war he could get rich. Besides disbursing pay for the troops, he let contracts to businessmen supplying and serving the army, divided and accounted for the loot, and sold prisoners to the slave traders who followed the army like a bad smell. A bit of every transaction could stick to his fingers, and I had no doubt that the younger Marcus Crassus had been an apt student of the elder.

“Your father’s campaign certainly had an ill-starred beginning.”

He shrugged. “It takes more than maledictions mumbled by a swine of a tribune to frighten the old man. Spells and curses are how our nurses make us behave when we’re children. They have no place in the real life of men of affairs. If magic were any real use, how did we ever whip the Etruscans? And why does everyone push the Egyptians around with impunity? Everyone says they’re great magicians.”

“An astute observation. So your father didn’t act as if this curse was anything especially menacing?”

“No. Why do you ask?” His eyes sharpened on me, bright with suspicion.

“I’ve been charged to investigate the incident.” This much at least I could admit to. “You’re probably right, and it’s nothing but a lot of mumbo-jumbo to impress the masses.”

“The curse is nothing. The insult-well, that’s another matter. The second that viper steps down from office, I’m going to be waiting there with my flagrum . My slaves will tell you that I don’t wield it with a light hand when I’m annoyed. I’ll flog him from here the whole length of the Via Sacra and out of the City.”

“That’ll serve him right,” I commended. “Well, I have to go and catch up on some paperwork. Good luck, Marcus.”

He shrugged again. “All this is a waste of time if you ask me. I’ve bought the office already.”

Spoken like a true Crassus , I thought.

My steps next took me south through the Forum Boarium and past the Circus Maximus to the Temple of Ceres. There, amid the archives of the aediles, I found one of the year’s plebeian aediles, a man named Quintus Aelius Paetus, who never achieved any greater distinction that I ever heard about. He lifted an eyebrow when he saw me come in.

“Starting work a little early, aren’t you, Metellus?”

“I have no intention of assuming office one minute too early,” I assured him. “I’m here to look something up.”

“Ah! Here I can be of aid.” He turned his head and bellowed over his shoulder: “Demetrius! Come in here!”

A middle-aged slave came from the back. “Sir?”

“The honored senator Metellus, soon to be your supervisor, has something he wants to look up. Assist him.”

“Certainly. How may I help you, Senator?”

“I haven’t been here in a few years. I don’t recall seeing you before.”

“I have been here most of my life, but usually in the back rooms. I became head archivist last year. What might you be looking for?”

“I need to examine records concerning aedilician investigations or expulsions of sorcerers and priests of non-State cults.”

“Let me see,” Demetrius mused. “We have several centuries’ worth of such documents. I take it you do not wish to view them all?”

“Just the most recent will do,” I informed him. “When was the last such suppression?”

“Three years ago, when Calpurnius Piso and Gabinius were consuls,” said the slave. “You may recall that Piso was very keen to expel the Egyptian cults from Rome.”

“Actually, that was my first year with Caesar in Gaul. We were more concerned with the Gauls and Germans than with the Egyptians.”

“As generally happens in such operations, the expulsion took in foreign cults as a whole, including those of Italy outside Rome.”

“Then that is what I’m looking for. I’m not interested in the market women who tell fortunes or the poisoners or abortionists we’re always expelling from the City-just the major practitioners of magic and advocates of non-Roman gods. I’m especially interested in the Italian cultists, although I suppose the Egyptians will bear looking at.”

“I take it this has something to do with that business at the gate two days ago?” Paetus asked.

“Yes, the pontiffs want to know where Ateius got that elaborate curse. They’ve charged me to investigate.”

“What’s the authority?” he asked. “A pontifical investigation is rare. I’m not even sure of its legality.”

“This is informal, of course. I’m standing for aedile and will have access to the records after the elections, anyway.”

“With your family, I suppose you can take the election for granted,” he said enviously. “Well, I don’t see why not. Demetrius, the archives are at the noble senator’s disposal.”

“Who was charged with the task of routing the Egyptians?” I asked the slave.

“The curule aedile Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.”

“He must have been a busy man,” I said. “I’ve been to the baths he built that year, and they’re magnificent. I hear the same of his theater.”

“It was a remarkable tenure of office,” Demetrius said.

“His Games were of unmatched splendor,” Paetus said, “even by the standards Caesar set. Pity the poor Sardinians. They’re having to pay for it all, now.”

“Squeezing them pretty hard, is he?” I asked.

“Sardinian property owners he’s extorted are already in town, lining up prosecutors. He’ll be up before the courts the minute he sets foot inside the gates.”

“I’m always out of town when the best shows are on,” I groused.

“Of course, he had the leisure to plan his Games and build his baths and round up all the mountebanks,” Paetus said. “He was curule. He could sit around in the markets half the day and assess fines. Plebeian aediles have to spend all day inspecting every street, warehouse, and foul tenement in the City.” He seemed to be a man with a lot of grievances.