John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

Follow-up reports gave details of suppression and expulsion. Most of the leaders were foreigners and were simply banished from Rome. Some of these were branded so that they would be unwelcome anywhere in Roman territory. The way our Empire was growing, these unfortunates might soon have to take up residence somewhere around the headwaters of the Nile or in the land of the Seres, where silk comes from.

The ones who could claim Roman citizenship were mostly let off with an admonition, any repetition of their scandalous behavior to be dealt with sternly. I had every expectation that these people had also proven able to come across with a few thousand sesterces to make the aedile’s life more comfortable and help defray the onerous burdens of his office. It was an unspoken but well-recognized fact of political life that cult leaders could deliver substantial bloc votes come election time.

When the reading and copying were done, I tipped young Hylas with a sesterce and turned away discreetly while he disposed of it somewhere about his person. Slaves, especially small ones, must resort to certain subterfuges in order to prevent larger slaves from acquiring their wealth, and it is often inadvisable to wonder too much about where our money has been.

With my papyrus tucked into my tunic, I left the temple, thinking about the man now looting Sardinia, and others of his sort. From what I had learned of him so far, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was nothing unusual, just a typical Roman politician of the times. At some time he had been a quaestor, doing scut work for the government, perhaps accompanying some general and profiting from it, making valuable political and commercial contacts in the process. He had then been elected to the aedileship and had not stinted himself on largesse to the populace with his Games and his theater and his baths. Undoubtedly he had gone deeply into debt to do this, besides squandering whatever wealth he had inherited.

Riding on the great popularity of his aedileship, he stood for praetor the very next year and won the office handily. Then he had been given a propraetorian province, Sardinia, which he was now looting so merrily. It had become common practice, and it did much to ruin the Republic. Provinces that had been Roman territory for centuries were treated like newly conquered nations, with extortions and oppressions that would shame an Oriental potentate.

The provincials had recourse in our courts. Cicero had made his legal reputation prosecuting a man named Verres who had given Sicily a sacking that was breathtaking even in that jaded age. The Sicilians had come to Cicero because they had been very pleased with the honesty of his own administration of the western part of the province when he was quaestor there under Peducaeus.

Not that even Cicero hadn’t come back from provincial administration well-off. There were plenty of ways to accumulate money that were considered legitimate, if not exactly high-minded: there was nothing wrong with accepting handsome “gifts” from contractors; people currying favor were always happy to sell land, property, and artworks at extremely favorable rates; and any overage in the revenues might be divided among the promagistrate and his assistants. Plus, never forget, today’s quaestor might be tomorrow’s praetor, consul, even Dictator, administering provinces, commanding armies, and making policy for the Empire. It was always advisable to be fondly remembered by such people.

One thing was certain: an aedile always needed money, and a suppression list like the one tucked into my tunic was a matchlessly handy way to raise cash.

I returned home to find Julia glowing.

“Decius!” she bubbled, first rushing to embrace me, then drawing back at my involuntary groan of pain. “Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot. But guess who was here a few minutes ago!”

“Uncle Julius, back from Gaul?”

“No! A man from the Egyptian Embassy! He arrived in a litter carried by Ethiopians with feathers in their hair and big scars carved in patterns all over their bodies. He wore a huge black wig and a white kilt made of linen so stiff that it crackled when he walked, and he had on all sorts of gold and jewelry.”

“I am familiar with Egyptian fashions,” I told her. “What was the brunt of this dignitary’s mission?”

Cassandra appeared with a tray bearing cups and two pitchers, one of wine and one of water. I reached for a cup, but Julia got it first, added extra water, then handed it to me.

“He brought this,” she said, beaming. She held up a papyrus, beautifully decorated with Egyptian drawings in colored ink and gilding. It was an invitation, praying that the “distinguished senator Metellus” and his “goddess-descended lady Julia” attend a reception being given in honor of King Ptolemy’s birthday.

“I’m just distinguished while you’re goddess-descended?” I said.

“I am a Julian, while you’re a mere Caecilian,” she told me, as if I didn’t know. “I’ve been so hoping for this! It’s the day after tomorrow. What shall I wear? How shall I do my hair?”

“My dear, I trust your patrician instincts in this. I just ask that you do not-do not , I say, consult with Fausta.”

We meandered into the triclinium , where the slaves laid out our dinner. It was a rare dinner at home for us, and while we ate, Julia went on happily about the upcoming party at the embassy. While I tried to look bored, I was cheered by the prospect. Lisas gave wonderful entertainments, and I was in need of such. After the dishes were cleared away, I steered the conversation toward more serious things.

“Did you get to circulate among your lady friends today?” I asked Julia.

“I started out at the new baths this morning,” she reported. At the time it was the custom for women to use the facilities in the morning, men in the afternoon. “And after that I went to the perfume market and the jewelers’ market, and then to the Temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitol.”

“The Temple of Juno?”

“Every month at this time the patrician ladies gather there to practice the songs for the Matronalia.”

“I see.” Another of those women’s things I was going to have to get accustomed to. “And did this activity reap a rich reward?”

“Well, first off, everybody has an astrologer. But you aren’t interested in astrologers, are you?”

“As it happened, references to astrology were about the only occult things left out of Ateius’s curse.”

“I thought so. Once I’d cleared away the clutter of abortionists and fortune-tellers and so forth, I kept turning up three names: Eschmoun of Thapsus, Elagabal the Syrian, and Ariston of Cumae.”

“Ariston of Cumae? That doesn’t sound like a magician’s name. It sounds more like a professor of rhetoric.”

“Nonetheless, a good many well-born women regard him as an infallible seer and spirit-guide. He is supposed to be on familiar terms with the powers of the underworld.”

“It might have been worse. At least he’s not Ugbo the Wonder-Worker. And what business have these ladies with such powers?”

“A number of things. Communicating with dead relatives, who give them guidance during difficult times, and underworld spirits are supposed to be good at spying. The women ask what their husbands are up to.”

“Hmm. No wonder the Senate is always trying to drive them out of the City. Speaking of which-” I took the papyrus from inside my tunic and spread it on the table. “Just as I thought. All three of them are on the list of foreign magicians supposedly driven out of Rome three years ago.”

“What is that?”

So I explained to her about Aemilius Scaurus’s somewhat conditional zeal in suppressing the foreign cults.

“Then why are they still here?”