Lindsey Davis - The Silver Pigs

On it went. Row after row of bearers in crimson uniforms and laurel wreaths marched through the city from the Plain of Mars, past the theatres where crowds crammed the outer walls, through the Cattle Market, round the Circus, up between the Palatine and the Caelian, then on into the Forum by the Sacred Way. They brought banners and hangings in rich Babylonian stuffs, painted by fine artists or encrusted with jewelled embroidery. Swaying on palanquins, statues of the city's most cherished gods were carried by in festive dress. And flaunted in such quanitities that it became almost meaningless, came treasure by the ton: not only the rich gold and jewellery excavated from the rubble of devastated Jerusalem, but priceless marvels extracted with steely diplomacy at Vespasian's command from cities in the wealthiest corners of the world. Loose gemstones were tumbled in mounds on litters just as they came, as if all the mines of India had hiccupped overnight: onyx and sardonyx, amethysts and agate, emeralds, jasper, jacinth, sapphires and lapis lazuli. Then followed, on stretchers in casual heaps, the gold crowns of conquest, diadems spiked like glittering sunbursts, coronets set with monstrous rubies and great sea pearls. After that more gold, until the streets flickered with the glow of it as the molten tide flowed on towards the Capitol in one slow, swollen meander of heroic extravagance.

I remember that towards the afternoon the noise dimmed not because the crowds were hoarse (though they were) or losing interest (they were not), but as if folk could no longer contemplate this lavish show of Empire with the simple exuberance that first brought them to cheer. Applause no longer seemed enough. At the same time, the endless marching feet pressed past with increased pride at the climax of this, the main part of the procession: the treasures from the sacred Temple at Jerusalem the strange seven-branched candelabrum, a golden table weighing several hundredweight, and the Five Scrolls of the Jewish law.

"Festus should be here!" Galla whimpered, and they all sniffed. (The wine gourds were well drained by this point.)

There seemed to be a pause. Maia and I jumped all the children down to street level and marshalled them by families to the nearest public latrine. We took them back and filled them up with water again before they died of dehydration and excitement.

"Uncle Marcus! That man's got his hand up that lady's skirt!" Marcia. What an observant child. This sort of embarrassment had been happening all day. Her mother Marina said nothing; worn down by Marcia's constant piping indiscretions, Marina rarely does.

"Picking that lady's pocket, I dare say," I remarked recklessly.

Maia exploded. "Gods, Marcus, you're so lewd!"

Dazzling white animals, with flowers round their horns, were led by on crimson streamers by light-footed priests from all the sacred colleges. Flute players escorted them in a swirl of incense fumes, while dancers exultantly cavorted in handsprings wherever there was room. Acolytes carried golden censors and implements for the sacrifice.

"Uncle Marcus, that man's there! That man who stinks!"

A face in the crowd. Well, a smell.

I saw him as soon as she shouted. He lounged against a portico pillar across the street. His long face, sallow skin and thin disgusting hair were unmistakable: the hot-wine waiter I found in my room after my British trip. It struck me at last that it was no coincidence Smaractus found a spare tenant when I was away. That rank piece of pungency had been planted, planted to watch me. He was watching me still. Unclamping a two-year-old who was sitting on my shoulders, I whispered to Maia that I was leaving her in charge while I slipped off to see a man about a racing tip.

I don't think our Maia has ever forgiven me; one way and another I never got back.

I crossed the street under the toes of the first ranks of the captives from Judaea. Seven hundred prisoners, specially selected for their impressive stature to be brought overseas and displayed by Titus in his victory parade. They were smothered in expensive robes to hide the bruises where soldiery had assaulted them on the journey; as I tumbled over the pavements before they ground me down, I could smell their fear. They must have known it was part of the Triumphal ceremony that before the Emperor made sacrifice on Capitol Hill, he would pause until word was brought that his enemies had been ritually executed in the Mamertine Jail. For all these poor blighters could tell, all seven hundred of them faced the noose, not just one token leader of their revolt.

A certain Simon son of Gioras had in fact been selected for strangulation today. Already getting their pecker up to thrash him in the kidneys as they dragged him out of the line at the Gemonian Steps, the prisoners' escort flailed viciously at me as I scurried across the road just in front of them. I barely made it intact to the crush on the other side. The waiter had spotted me coming and was squeezing off towards the Sacred Way. Packed as the street was, he had no difficulty persuading citizens to allow him a space to ooze by. Without the advantage of his personal fragrance my task was stickier, but frustration with this filthy case was giving me an edge; I elbowed people mercilessly out of my own way.

I trailed him all along the street that used to go north, under the shadow of what we called the Upper Palace, through part of the grounds of Nero's Golden House. We hit the Sacred Way. On the corner by the Temple of Vesta, with its mock thatched roof and lattices, the crowds craning their necks for the approach of Vespasian and Titus had clustered so thickly there was only one way my quarry could turn into the Forum on its southern edge. We were hemmed back against the public buildings as the prisoners overtook us. We were both struggling now. Our only way to move was to be eased along by muscular contortions in the crowd, like a recent dinner undulating inside a snake.

There was no hope of concealment as from time to time the waiter glanced anxiously back. He bludgeoned across the front of the Julian Courts, and I sweated after him. On the processional way I could hear the stamp of twenty-four members of the college of lictors, the escort for the Emperor presumably all in red tunics and shouldering their bundles of staves, though they were hidden from my view by the press of the crowd. Vespasian himself was coming now. The excitement rose, and with it my desperate mood. I tried to fight my way forwards, yet to do anything but stand still and applaud Vespasian like everybody else was virtually impossible. By the Temple of Saturn, I had made up no ground on the waiter and as I turned, distracted by the racket of the Emperor's chariot, I finally lost sight of him for the last time.

I let him go. Life was too precious to waste. Fighting to keep my feet, I found myself on the steps, almost where I had been standing on that summer day when Sosia Camillina ran towards me and all this began.

There I stood, squeezed breathless, while the Emperor in whom she so dearly believed rode up to meet the senate at the Temple of Jupiter, to celebrate his victory as a champion of the city and dedicate himself in his role as Chief Priest to the peace and prosperity of Rome. Four powerful white horses dragged his mighty chariot into the grateful roar of the crowd. The old man stood in his richly embroidered robes, beneath a golden oak leaf wreath held over his head; it was the Crown of Jupiter, and too heavy for a mortal man to wear. On his sturdy arm lay the laurel bough he would place in the lap of the gods on Capitol Hill; in his great firm hand he carried the traditional ivory sceptre with its eagle taking flight. The public slave whose task was to murmur reminders of the Emperor's own immortality seemed to have given up. There was no point. Vespasian was a grim old cynic; he knew.