John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

Julia smiled delightedly. She loved philosophy. “Let’s do that. Who profits if Crassus conquers Parthia?”

“Crassus does. His sons will. Almost nobody else. Even his soldiers won’t do well out of it, Crassus being such a tight-fisted skinflint.”

“So who profits if he is defeated?”

“His political enemies, who are legion. The people who owe him money, who are likewise numerous. Pompey, who wants all the military glory in the world for himself. Even your uncle, Caius Julius Caesar, who grows increasingly embarrassed by Crassus. This last year Pompey has been of more help to him than Crassus. And, of course, Orodes of Parthia profits, by keeping his country and his throne.”

“But does Orodes really profit in the long run?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if he defeats Crassus, then someone else will be sent out to avenge Roman honor. He will just have to face a far more competent Roman general.”

“You are right,” I said. “This bears thinking about.”

She smiled complacently. “I am not Julius Caesar’s niece for nothing.”

“And,” I went on, “there are other nations involved. Crassus goes out to take over Syria from Gabinius, who’s been fighting and negotiating there for years. By extension there’s Egypt. Gabinius put Ptolemy back on the throne. There’s no love lost between Ptolemy and Crassus. Crassus opposed using Roman arms to support the Egyptian king.” Something tickled the back of my mind. “Just a minute. Wasn’t there something about a consultation of the Sibyllene Books involved in that?”

“I thought we were setting aside the religious implications as unnecessary distractions,” she said.

“So we were. Now, where were we?”

“I was going over the political implications of the murder, but you were going cross-eyed from fatigue and wine. Come along, my dear, time for you to go to bed.” She took my hand, and I followed meekly.

Tired though I was, I found it difficult to get to sleep. Having spent the better part of three years fighting in Gaul, I was not kept awake by the little battle out in the street, despite a few new pains. Rather, it was the nagging, unrelenting sensation that I was being misdirected. Despite the illuminating conversation with Julia, I felt that, somehow, the sacrilege investigation was the more important of the two. I just couldn’t imagine why. It was enough to make me wish that I was back in Gaul.

Well, almost.

A native-born Roman knows the moods of the Forum far better than he knows the moods of wife, children, and close relatives. After all, from childhood he has spent a considerable part of nearly every day there. That is why, when we must be away on foreign service, or even while we are escaping the heat and crowding of the City in a country villa, there is something in us that longs for the Forum. Despite our imperial posturing we are still a village people. Our ancestors lived their entire lives within hailing distance of the Forum. In those days, it was not only the assembly place. It was also the only market in Rome as well as the place where most religious ceremonies were performed. It is impossible to exaggerate the centrality of the Forum in the life of every Roman.

These thoughts passed through my head as I walked toward it the next morning, nursing my almost unprecedented number of cuts and bruises. My problem, I decided, was that I had been away too long. I had lost that ineffable sense of what the Forum was feeling and thinking. Nearly three years of the City’s experience had escaped me, and letters from friends had given me only the barest idea of what had been going on.

Conducting an investigation in Rome was largely a matter of discovering correspondences and linkages. Ordinarily, my sense of these things was extremely acute, but now everything was off: my timing, my judgment, my ability to sense the life and experience of the City. I was sure that, had I been in the City continuously these last three years, I would have arrived at the common point shared by all these events long before.

Amid such ponderings I reached the Forum itself, and I knew that its mood was ugly. That much of my sensitivity was functioning. The day before the mood had been vehement. Today it was dark and brooding. People weren’t shouting; they were muttering. The senators on the steps weren’t arguing so much as hissing at one another like a nest of disturbed vipers.

In front of the curia I saw a very distinctive conveyance: a huge litter draped with colorful curtains, its poles of polished ebony tipped with golden lions’ heads with jewels for eyes. Over its roof a golden vulture spread sheltering wings. It was the litter of the Egyptian ambassador, Lisas. A dozen magnificently clad bearers stood by the poles, patient as oxen.

As usual, a number of senators stood around on the steps of the curia . These were men with committee meetings to attend or juries to organize or, often as not, just senators with nothing else to do. I walked into the midst of one such group and jerked my head toward the litter.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Old Lisas showed up about an hour ago,” said a man named Sulpicius. “He looked like a man under death sentence. Demanded to see Pompey at once. The two of them are in there now.”

“Must be bad news out of Egypt to get that fat pervert up this early,” said another.

“When is there ever any good news out of Egypt?” Sulpicius snorted.

Then a praetor named Gutta spoke up. “Plenty of good news for Gabinius.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Haven’t you heard? Word has it old Ptolemy paid him ten thousand talents to reinstall his fat backside on the throne. Took three battles to do it, but the Flute-Player’s king now, and Gabinius comes home a rich man.”

“I knew Gabinius had restored Ptolemy,” I said. “I heard that as soon as I returned to Rome. I thought it was all rather bloodless. Who was he fighting?”

“It was one of the princesses who raised a rebellion. Had a lot of the Alexandrians on her side, too. Which one was it?” Gutta scratched his head, suffering from the usual Roman difficulty in keeping Egyptian dynastic politics sorted out.

“Cleopatra?” I asked. “She’s awfully young, but she’s the only one in the whole family with any brains.”

“No, it was one of the others,” Sulpicius said. “Berenice, that’s the one.”

“Berenice?” I said. “I know her. The woman can’t plot her next party, much less a rebellion.”

“She married a fellow named Archelaus,” Sulpicius said, “a Macedonian whose father was one of Mithridates’ generals. A real soldier, so they say.”

I thought I remembered him: one of the hard-faced professionals who kept the degenerate Macedonian dynasty on the throne of Egypt, supporting whichever of the claimants treated them best.

“Here comes Lisas now,” Gutta said.

I looked up toward the entrance of the curia and saw Pompey coming out with Lisas on his arm. He was patting the ambassador’s shoulder as if to reassure him. Lisas parted from the consul and descended the steps, mopping at his face. His makeup was running in streaks, even though the morning was chilly.

I went up the steps to meet him. “Lisas, what’s happened?”

“Ah, my friend Decius! In the middle of the night, a terribly disturbing dispatch arrived from Alexandria.”

“Old Ptolemy’s croaked, eh?” I said, unable to imagine that anything else would upset Lisas so deeply. “Well, it happens to them all, and there are plenty of-”

“No, no, no!” He waved his purple-dyed scarf in agitation. “It is not that at all! My master, King Ptolemy Dionysus, is in excellent health. But, it became necessary for him to put Princess Berenice to death to punish her for her unfilial rebellion.”