Lindsey Davis - Scandal Takes a Holiday

I could not count the forest of masts and towering beaked prows, but there must be sixty or seventy sizeable ships tied up inside the harbour, plus a few strays anchored offshore and various vessels plying up and down at sea. I had travelled the world, but seen nowhere like this. Ostia was the hub of the widest trade market ever known. The Republic had been an era of modest prosperity which ended in civil war and hardship; the emperors, who were backed by legendary financiers and flush with spoils, soon taught us sumptuous spending.

Rome now gorged itself on produce. Marbles and fine timbers were bought in endless quantities from every corner of the Empire. Artwork and glassware, ivory, minerals, jewels and oriental pearls poured into our city. Fabulous spices, roots and balsams were brought in by the shipload. Brave men imported oysters from the northern waters, carried alive in barrels of murky salt water. Amphorae laden with salt fish, pickles and olives jostled for notice among thousand upon thousand of other amphorae brimming with olive oil. Dusky traders coaxed elephants down gangplanks, among cages of furious lions and panthers. Whole libraries of scrolls were delivered for great men who were too busy to read them, along with refined librarians and papyrus menders. Cloths and exorbitant dyes arrived. Slave dealers brought their human traffic. Some of these commodities were re-exported to enlighten distant provinces.

Goods created in Rome were sent abroad by smart entrepreneurs. Italian wines and sauces were dispatched to the army, to overseas administrators, to provincials in need of educating in what Romans valued. Tools, household goods, turnips, meats, potted plants, cats and rabbits went out in mixed cargoes of lawyers and legionaries to places that had once lacked all of them, places that would one day be exporting their local versions back to us.

When they did, a treat awaited. Gaius Baebius would be here. They would find him lying in wait on the quay at Portus, seated behind his customs table with his soft smile and his maddening attitude, ready to give them their first long, slow, unbearable experience of a Roman clerk. Only if they were very, very lucky would I turn up to drag him away.

'Come and have a drink, Gaius.'

'Steady on, Marcus; I have to be at my post.'

'You're the supervisor. Give your staff an opportunity to make mistakes. How can you put them right otherwise? This is for their own good

The underlings gazed at me with mixed feelings. A small queue of traders let out an ironic cheer. Oh Hades. Junia had made Gaius have Ajax for the afternoon. When I pulled him from his seat behind the tablets and money caskets, the dreadful dog came too. An uncontrollable tail knocked over two inkwells, as Gaius lifted off his wide-beamed backside and stood up reluctantly from his stool. That enormous wet tongue caught the back of my knees as the loopy creature bumbled after us. Every time we passed a porter with a handcart, Ajax had to bark.

'Leaving the desk is bad practice, Marcus.'

'Have a breather. Enjoy bumming off for once, like everyone else.'

'Ajax! Drop it! Good boy…' Portus was Elysium for an excitable dog. The harbour walkways were stuffed with bollards to pee against, sacks to jump on, amphorae to lick, cranes to wind a lead around. Short men who looked suspicious lurked everywhere, begging to be harassed with growls and bared teeth. There were wild smells, sudden loud noises, and unseen vermin scuttling in dark corners.

Eventually the dog found a bit of ragged rope to carry, then he calmed down.

'He needs discipline, Gaius. My Nux would be walking sedately at my side now.' Gaius Baebius was annoying, but not daft.

'If that's true, you must have got a new dog since I saw you last, Falco.' He sidetracked himself, wondering when our last meeting had been. Saturnalia, apparently. Julia had broken one of her deaf cousin's toys, and Favonia gave the dear little boy a nasty cold.

'Well, that was children,' I said callously, dragging the brother-in-law to the counter of a streetside foodshop. I ordered. I didn't bother upsetting myself by waiting for Gaius Baebius to play the host; we would have ended up being asked to leave the counter to make way for paying customers. I asked for a small dish of nuts and a spiced wine. Gaius Baebius held a lengthy debate about whether he wanted the lentil mash or something they called the pulse of the day, which looked like pork chunks to me. Gaius, unconvinced, expressed his uncertainty at great length, failing to interest anybody else in his dilemma.

I had tried solving problems for him in the past. I had no wish to end up dribbling with delirium again, so I just ate my nuts. Meat stews were banned in fast-food outlets, in case enjoying a decent meal incited people to relax their guard and express disapproval of the government. No food-seller was going to admit to Gaius Baebius that he was flouting the edict; every word Gaius uttered gave the impression of an inspector sent by some unpleasant aedile to check on infringements of the Emperor's hotpot regulations.

Eventually he decided on a bowl of nuts too. The proprietor gave us both a filthy glare and banged it down, only half full, at which Gaius cavilled stubbornly for a while. Dark plans for murdering him seeped into my brain. One customer edged away from us, declined a refill and fled. The other walked aside in a huff, and lapped up his potage while leaning on a bollard and shouting insults at seagulls. Ajax joined in, barking so loudly that heads popped out of the nearby grain and spice negotiators' offices, while the bouncer at the Damson Flower Boarding-House [which looked like a brothel] came outside to glare.

Ajax had been imbued with my sister's stiff morals. He hated the brothel bouncer; hurling into attack mode, he dragged at his lead until it pulled so tight he was frothing and half choked. Oblivious, Gaius Baebius fixed me, wagging his finger.

'Now come on, Marcus, stop holding up the issue. You want to ask me about that fellow called Damagoras. So why can't you get on with it?'

It took me some time to stop choking on my wine, then a few more moments of reflection on why it would be unwise to throttle Gaius Baebius. [Junia would turn me in.] Then I solemnly asked the crucial question, so Gaius Baebius gravely told me what he knew. I thought he told me everything. Later, I knew better. My brother-in-law mentioned a large maritime villa somewhere out of town. Holiday homes owned by wealthy grandees and the imperial family had long occupied the stretch of coast near Ostia. There was an attractive mix of forests full of huntable game and an ocean panorama; holidays could provide exercise and relaxation, and when they palled, Rome was only a few hours distant. That property lover, Augustus, had owned a spread which passed to Claudius, who kept elephants in the grounds. A nosy tourist, Gaius Baebius had once taken a trip to gape at these places, which were mainly deserted nowadays; a local had pointed out one great house that was actually occupied, where a man called Damagoras lived.

'I remember this, Marcus, because of the rather unusual name; it seemed to have a foreign ring.'

'So give me directions to the incomer's villa, Gaius.'

'You'll never find it. I'll have to take you there.'

'I wouldn't hear of it.'

'Oh it's no trouble,' declared Gaius [implying it was enormous trouble, so that I would feel guilty.] 'As you said so wisely, Marcus, my work can wait. They very much rely on me, but I should take time off occasionally.'

I was stuck. My dead-weight relation was now looking forward to a leisurely seaside day out. There was no alternative. I had no other clues to the whereabouts of Diocles. The mysterious Damagoras was my sole lead.

Once I prised him from his desk, Gaius decided to make the most of it. He suggested we take picnics, sunhats and our families. I said that would look unprofessional. Respecting the work concept, he agreed even though he had always thought my sphere of activity had all the glamour of the mighty mound of horse manure outside the Circus Maximus. I managed to persuade him we still had enough daylight to hire donkeys, visit the villa, and be back before dinner. We could make up a bathing party some other day…