Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"What in Hades is going on?"

"I wouldn't advise going outside to find out," said Belbo earnestly.

I thought for a moment. "We'll go up on the roof to have a look. Fetch the ladder, Belbo, and bring it to the garden!"

A few moments later I found myself settled precariously on the slanting tiles along the front roof of my house. From here I had a view not only of the street below, but of the Forum beyond, with its temples and public spaces clustered close together in the valley between the Palatine, and Capitoline Hills. Just below me the mob continued to surge through the street. Some of them ran straight on. Others broke away and took the shortcut called the Ramp that leads down to the Forum and empties into a narrow space between the House of the Vestals and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Some of the rioters carried sticks and clubs. A few brandished daggers, in open defiance of the law that forbids such weapons within the city.

And though it was well after daybreak, a few carried torches. The flames whipped and snapped through the cold air.

The mob eventually thinned, but was soon followed by an even larger, slower group of mourners. If it was a funeral procession, it was certainly a strange one. Where were the mummers doing parodies of the dead man to lighten the mood? Where were the wax effigies of the dead man's ancestors, taken from their places of honour in his foyer to witness his passage to join them on the other side? Where were the hired mourners, weeping and clawing at their tangled hair — indeed, where was there a woman to be seen?

But there was music — mournful horns, wailing flutes and shivering tambourines, making a noise that set my teeth on edge. And there was a body — the corpse of Clodius carried upon a wooden bier festooned with black cloth. He was still naked except for a loincloth, and still filthy and smeared with dried blood.

Some of the mourners broke away to take the Ramp down to the Forum, but the main procession with the corpse of Clodius kept to the street in front of my house, which runs along the crest of the Palatine. They were making a slow, deliberate circuit of the hill, I realized, passing by the houses of the rich and powerful in a sombre procession, letting his friends and foes alike take a final look at the man who had caused so much disruption to the orderly life of the Republic.

A few houses farther on, their course would take them directly past the front door of the man who had been Clodius's most implacable enemy in the Senate and the courts. Clodius had made himself the champion of the lowly, of foot soldiers and freedmen; always against him there had been Cicero, the loyal spokesman for those who proudly called themselves the Best People. The funeral procession seemed orderly, but in the mob that preceded it I had seen men with daggers and torches. I held my breath, wondering what might happen when they reached Cicero's house.

When I looked towards Cicero's house, I saw that I was not alone in my apprehension. Intervening houses and trees blocked my view of the street, but of the house itself I could clearly see some shuttered windows in the upper storey and a portion of the roof. Two figures were perched there, as Belbo and I were perched on my root peering over the edge at the street below. By the glare of the slanting morning light I instandy discerned the thick-necked, grim-jawed silhouette of Cicero. Crouching close behind him, reaching out to make sure that his master did not lean too far, was the slighter silhouette of Cicero's lifelong secretary, Tiro. They were still for a long moment, as if frozen by the cold morning air; then Cicero reached back for Tiro's shoulder. They put their heads together and anxiously conferred. From the way they drew back and craned their necks, trying to see but not be seen, I gathered that the bizarre funeral cortege was passing directly below them. The dirge of the horns and flutes became shriller, the shivering of the distant tambourines more manic. Intent on the spectacle below, Cicero and Tiro took no notice of my scrutiny.

The procession apparently came to a halt before Cicero's house. Cicero bobbed his head forwards and back, like a nervous quail. I could imagine his dilemma — he was afraid to take his eyes away from the mob, and yet the merest glimpse of him might incite them to violence. Horns blared, flutes trilled, tambourines rattled.

At last the cortege moved on and the dirge faded away.

Cicero and Tiro sat back, sighing with relief. Then Cicero winced and gripped his stomach. As the heel to Achilles, so the belly to Cicero; his breakfast had turned against him. He rose, still crouching, and moved crablike up the roof with Tiro following behind. Tiro turned his head and saw us watching. He touched his master's sleeve and spoke. Cicero paused and turned his face towards us. I raised my hand in neighbourly greeting. Tiro waved back. Cicero stayed motionless for a moment, then clutched his stomach and hurried on, disappearing over the edge of the roof.

Meanwhile, below us in the street, more men in black kept running by in parties of two and three, stragglers rushing to catch up. Most of them took the Ramp. I tried to see where they were all headed, but my view of the Forum was mostly of beaten copper roofs gleaming in the sunlight; every now and again I could catch a glimpse of tiny figures moving in the spaces between. They all seemed to be gathering before the Senate House at the far end of the Forum, where the sheer rock face of the Capitoline Hill forms a natural wall.

From my position, I had a clear view of the front of the Senate House. Broad marble steps led up to the massive bronze doors, which were closed. I could see only a tiny portion of the open space in front of the Senate House, but this included a clear view of the Rostra, the raised platform from which speakers address the populace. Already the space between the Rostra and the Senate House was filled with a crush of black-clad mourners.

The funeral dirge, which for a while had faded out of hearing, now returned, rising from the Forum. Echoing up from the valley, the harsh music sounded more confused and discordant than ever.

Suddenly it was overwhelmed by a great shout from the crowd. The body of Clodius had arrived. A little later I saw the bier as it was carried onto the Rostra and propped up for the crowd to see, just as it had been displayed on the steps of Clodius's house the night before. What a tiny thing it looked, and yet even at such a distance there was still something shocking about that glimpse of naked flesh amid so many black-clad mourners and so much cold, chiselled stone.

A speaker mounted the Rostra. I could hear only faint echoes of his voice. As he paced back and forth across the Rostra, waving his arms, pointing to the corpse of Clodius and raising his fists, the crowd broke into a thunderous roar. From that point on the noise of the mob rose and fell but never quite subsided.

"What's going on?"

I turned my head; startled. "Diana, go back down the ladder at once!"

"Why? Is it dangerous up here?" "Very. Your mother would have a fit."

"Oh, I hardly think so. She held the ladder for me. But I think she's afraid to come up herself." "As well she might be."

"And how about you, Papa? I should think an old fellow like you would be more likely to lose his balance than I would be."

"How did I ever come to have such an impertinent child?"

"I'm not impertinent. Just curious. It's like the siege of Troy, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Like Jupiter up on Mount Ida, watching the battlefield down below. They're all so tiny. It makes one feel… godlike."

"Does it? Jupiter could send down thunderbolts or messengers with wings. And he could hear what was being said. Having a view hardly makes me feel godlike. Quite the opposite. It makes me feel powerless, watching from a distance like this."