Steven Saylor - A Mist of Prophecies

What would become of the household if both Bethesda and Diana were bedridden? What would happen when the banker Volumnius began pressing me for repayment of my loans? The first installment would fall due in a matter of days.

I fell into a black mood and did not stir from the house.

Days passed. After that first miserable night, Bethesda's fever lessened and receded. Diana seemed well, but there was something furtive in her manner. I sensed she was hiding something from me.

I might have kept pursuing my quest for the truth about Cassandra, but a kind of stasis of the will settled over me. Rome itself seemed gripped by a trancelike paralysis, awaiting news from Greece about Caesar and Pompey, awaiting news from the south about Caelius and Milo's insurrection. A sense of impending catastrophe loomed over the city, over my house, over my spirit. It clouded every moment, poisoned every breath.

Another thing stopped me from taking any further steps to find Cassandra's killer. By telling me what she knew, by charging me with the task of finding the truth, and by promising Caesar's justice, Calpurnia had effectively enlisted me to become yet another of her informants in the city. I had deliberately severed every tie to Caesar, even disowning Meto. Yet if I wished to see the search for Cassandra's killer through to the end, how could I do so without becoming a spy for Caesar?

It was Hieronymus who brought me the news.

One morning while I brooded in the garden, he came striding in, eyes flashing, slightly out of breath. I knew at once that something terrible had happened-terrible for someone, if not for Hieronymus. Mayhem and the suffering of others excited him.

"It's all over!" he announced.

"What's over?"

"They're dead. Both dead, and all their followers with them."

For a brief moment I thought he meant Caesar and Pompey, and I tried to imagine the immensity of the debacle that could wipe them both from the face of the earth along with their armies. Had Jupiter himself sent down lightning bolts, had Neptune flooded the mountains, and Hades opened chasms beneath them? I felt a cold spot in my heart in the place where my love of Meto had once resided.

Then I knew what he meant.

"Where?" I said. "How?"

"One hears conflicting details, but according to the best sources down in the Forum-"

Davus rushed in. "Milo and Caelius are dead!" he cried. "Both of them, dead! A huge crowd is gathering in the Forum. Some are celebrating. Some are weeping and tearing their hair. They say it's all over. The insurrection is over before it even began."

Hieronymus gave Davus a sour look. "As I was saying… it seems to have happened like this: Milo and Caelius headed south from Rome, but they split up to carry out separate actions. Milo started by going from town to town claiming he was acting on orders from Pompey, making wild promises and trying to get the town leaders to join him. But that got him nowhere. So he used his gladiators to set free a great number of field slaves, the type made to work under a whip and kept in pens along with animals or in barracks no better than cages-the most desperate of the desperate. Milo's ragtag army went on a rampage, plundering temples and shrines and farmhouses all around. Raising a war chest, Milo called it. He must have gathered a great number of slaves-hundreds, maybe thousands-because he dared to lay siege to a town called Compsa, garrisoned by a whole legion. But it all went wrong when Milo was struck down by a stone hurled from the ramparts. The rock hit him square in the forehead, shattered his skull, and killed him instantly. With no one to lead them, the slaves panicked and fled."

"And Caelius?"

"Caelius started by trying to raise a revolt among the gladiators in Neapolis. But the city magistrates got wind of the plot and put the ringleaders among the gladiators in chains before they could rally the rest. The magistrates tried to arrest Caelius as well, but he managed to slip through their trap. Word that he was an outlaw traveled ahead of him. No city would open its gates to him. He headed toward Compsa to join up with Milo, and learned of Milo's death from slaves who were fleeing the battle. Caelius tried to rally the slaves, but they wouldn't listen and ran off in all directions. How did one-armed Canininus put it? 'All those years bending to the lash and buggering sheep rendered them immune to Caelius's rhetoric.' Caelius headed farther south, practically alone-they say he had only a handful of supporters still with him, no more than five or six men. He pressed on until he came to the coast. Apparently there's a town called Thurii situated in the instep of Italy. That was where Caelius made his last stand."

Poor Caelius, I thought, Vain, ambitious, restless, quick silver Caelius! With Milo dead, every city closed to him, and no army-not even an army of field slaves-he must have known there was no hope, that he was doomed. Thurii was the end of the line, the end of the world, the final terminus in the comet like career of the young orator who had been Cicero's scintillating protege, Milo's staunch defender, Caesar's brash lieutenant, Clodia's faithless lover, and the last desperate hope of the disgruntled, dispossessed masses of Rome.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Well, as I heard it…" Hieronymus lowered his voice. His eyes glittered with excitement at being able to deliver the details to a virgin ear, but Davus, too agitated to hold his tongue, interrupted him.

"They cut him down!" said Davus. "When Caelius arrived at Thurii, he strode right through the open gates of the city-word hadn't yet reached them to be on their guard against him. He walked through the market, into the forum, and up the steps to the porch of the town senate building. He clapped his hands and called to a group of soldiers to go and fetch their companions because he wanted to address them. A crowd gathered. Caelius started speaking. They say his voice was too big for the little forum at Thurii. People could hear him all over the city and even outside the walls and in fishing boats out on the water. More townspeople and soldiers gathered until the little forum was packed.

"Apparently, most of the soldiers stationed at Thurii are Spaniards and Gauls from Caesar's cavalry. Caelius tried to get them excited by reminding them of all the slaughter and destruction Caesar had brought to their native lands. But the soldiers would have none of it. They refused to hear a word against Caesar. They started booing and hissing and stamping their feet, but Caelius only raised his voice. He told them that Caesar had betrayed the people of Rome, and it was only a matter of time before he would betray them as well. The soldiers pelted Caelius with stones, but he kept talking, even with blood running down his face. Finally they rushed up the steps. They tore Caelius limb from limb. He screamed at the soldiers, calling them fools and lackeys. He never stopped talking until they threw him to the ground and crushed his windpipe by stamping on his throat."

Milo's skull had been crushed. Caelius had been torn apart. What had become of their heads, which Calpurnia had so fervently desired to have brought to her? Only their heads could provide her with incontrovertible proof that the menace was over; only then could she write to Caesar with the good news without fear that her informants might be wrong. Would she gloat over those heads just a little, indulging her emotions in a manner unbecoming to a Roman matron?

"…were crucified," I heard Davus say, jarring me back to the moment.

"What?"

"The gladiators at Neapolis and the field slaves who fought with Milo: they were crucified. The gladiators were already in custody. As for the field slaves, the soldiers from the garrison at Compsa hunted them down. Some died fighting, but most of them were rounded up and crucified alongside the roadways. They say so many slaves haven't been crucified at one time since the days of Spartacus, when Crassus put down the great slave revolt and lined the whole length of the Appian Way with crucified slaves."