John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“I am pleased that you appreciate the gravity of the act. I have been commissioned to investigate this sacrilege.”

“I am flattered to be called upon. But the curse, as it was repeated to me, involved none of the Baalim. This is the plural form,” he added, although I had guessed the meaning already.

“Even so, it is thought that foreign influence may be present.”

“Ah,” he said, ruefully. “And your Roman officials are always wary of the corrupting influence of foreigners, despite your habit of packing the City with them in the form of slaves.”

“Precisely. Three years ago, during the aedileship of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, there was a purge of Rome’s foreign cults. Your name was on the list of those to be driven from the City, yet I find you still here. How comes this about?”

He made a truly comprehensive gesture involving hands, shoulders, neck, and head, indicative of all things unknowable and unavoidable, combined with all things eminently mutable and subject to arbitrary change, ever altering, yet ever remaining the same. I have never known a people as eloquent in their gestures as the Syrians.

“The honorable aedile and I came to an agreement whereby I was to remain in the City, so long as I refrain from any unnatural practices and do not disturb the neighbors.” He smiled broadly. “You have said that you stand for that same office, and surely so eminent a gentleman as yourself will have no difficulty in securing it. I do trust that we shall be able to come to a similar understanding?”

So he thought I was here soliciting a bribe. He knew his Roman officials, all right.

“That’s as may be,” I said vaguely, knowing how strapped for money I would soon be, “but just now I am more concerned with that curse. The list of foreign priests to be sent away listed you and two others as ‘traffickers with the chthonians.’ How does this refer to you?”

He quirked an eyebrow upward. “ Chthonian? That is not a word I encounter every day. Greek, is it not? Indicating things of the underworld?”

“Yes. In Rome, our chthonians mostly came to us by way of the Greeks and Etruscans. We Romans were a rustic lot. Our gods were those of the fields and rivers and the weather.”

“I see. This must account for your fondness for pastoral poetry.”

“Please,” I said. “I regard pastoral poetry as one of the blights of this age. Epic is the only worthwhile verse form as far as I am concerned.”

“Spoken like the scion of an heroic people. Now, as to the chthonians, some of the Baalim are lords of the underworld and have as their servants whole legions of imps ever eager to torment the living. These can deliver to my-my associates,” he chose a legally innocuous term, “certain valuable services, always protective and always secured by means of perfectly respectable ceremonies, I assure you.”

“But none of these deities were named in the tribune’s curse?”

“None.”

“Two other such traffickers were named along with you on Aemilius’s list: Eschmoun of Thapsus and Ariston of Cumae. What can you tell me about them?”

Another gesture, this time contemptuous. “As for Eschmoun, you will waste your time talking with him. He is a fraud from Africa, of mixed Libyan descent. He claims to commune with the underworld through a serpent that resides in a golden egg. What he actually does is bilk wealthy ladies of large sums of money by bringing them messages from their dead husbands, children, and other relatives. He is exceptionally good at discerning what it is that his clients long to hear. He has purloined the name of a Carthaginian god and taken upon his shoulders the mantle of power still clinging to that thankfully destroyed city.”

“ ‘Thankfully’?” I said. “You have no esteem for Carthage? And yet were the Punic people not relatives of yours?”

He grimaced. “Distant kin at the very most. The Phoenicians founded Carthage many centuries ago, and the Punic race worshiped the Baalim, but their practice grew very degraded even as the city grew rich and powerful. As you are aware, they performed the most frightful acts of human sacrifice.”

“They were barbarians, however well they dressed,” I said.

“Even so, their practices must have given some satisfaction to their gods, for those deities blessed them with many victories. In the end, of course,” he added hastily, “the gods and arms of Rome prevailed, praise be to all the Baalim.”

“It was a rough fight,” I admitted, “but it made soldiers of us.”

I was putting it mildly. The First Punic War alone had been twenty-four uninterrupted years of solid campaigning-land battles, sea battles, and sieges. The Carthaginians had thrashed us far more times than we beat them, but in the end we were a matchlessly warlike, military nation for good or ill. Before, we had just fought our Italian neighbors and expanded our territory incrementally in the peninsula. But we won Sicily from Carthage, and with it our first taste of empire. By the end of the Third Punic War, we had holdings in Spain, Gaul, and Africa, and Carthage was a pile of rubble.

“Ariston is another matter. He is a very deep scholar of the ways of gods and spirits. Many aspiring scholars and historians consult him on these matters.”

“And what sort of cult does he lead?”

A shrug. “I was unaware that he had any such. Of course, men involved in arcane studies often excite malicious and fearful rumors. Perhaps some superstitious or malevolent person gave false information against him.”

“That may have been it.” I stood. “Well, I thank you for your help and hospitality. I am sure that I shall be able to report that you had nothing to do with the tribune’s scandalous behavior.” I was sure of nothing of the sort, but neither was I under oath.

“I rejoice in meeting you, Senator,” he said as he led me back to his door. “Soon you will be an official of great authority, and I have learned that previous acquaintance makes one such far more approachable.” He was still expecting to bribe me. I said nothing to discourage his assumption.

It was a fairly lengthy walk to the house of Eschmoun, which was just off the old Forum Boarium, in a block of tenements that were foul even by Roman standards. Beside his doorway were painted all sorts of trashy mystical signs, and I was sure I would find a filthy, wild-eyed loon within. What I found instead was the well-appointed town house of a man of considerable means.

Eschmoun himself was a plausible, smooth mountebank, as described by Elagabal. The rogue proudly displayed his mystical egg, a handsome object of smooth gold the size of a child’s head. I had to take for granted the residence within of the holy serpent. Eschmoun, too, tried to bribe me, and again I ignored the attempt, while leaving the impression that I might be back sometime. His occult knowledge clearly extended only to his confidence spiel, and fleecing wealthy, gullible ladies is far down on my list of intolerable offenses.

It was another long walk to the dwelling of Ariston, and I stopped on the way for lunch and a brief rest. I was loosening up, and walking had become moderately tolerable. Passing through the Forum, I saw Milo returning from his morning court. I asked him if anything had been heard from our eccentric tribune.

“Not a word or a sighting since the curse,” he informed me. “He has a gang surrounding his house, but no petitioners have been able to get through to see him.”

“Then he can be impeached,” I said.

“If someone is willing to bring charges. And if he can be located. The house may be empty. The populares are concerned for the institution of the tribuneship. If he’s disappeared, they may be pretending to protect him from assault to prevent a wider scandal.”