A Coin for the Ferryman (2 page)

Poor men, of course, could not afford such luxuries, but a proper funeral was an important thing and even slaves were often members of a funeral guild which would see that their bodies were decently disposed of with at least the minimum ritual required, to ensure that the ghost could rest in peace and was not required to walk the earth without a home.

Such superstition still played a major part in Roman life: every Roman householder began his day with due oblations to the household gods, every serious problem demanded a sacrifice, and proper care was taken to observe the rituals. On ‘inauspicious’ days – when the omens were not good – even the law courts did not operate.

Few days were less auspicious than 9 May, since that marked the beginning of the Lemuria, the second and more dangerous Festival of the Dead. In contrast to the first Festival, or Paternalia, (where the family brought gifts and homage to their departed loved ones every year) this was the time when the homeless, vengeful spirits of those who had died unloved – and had therefore not received a proper funeral – were thought to walk the earth. These ghosts were called the Lemures, and their festival was so ill-omened that the temples closed, marriages were forbidden, lawsuits ceased, and curious midnight rituals (as in the book) had to be performed in every house to keep the ghosts at bay. The ceremony outlined in the story is mentioned in a contemporary account.

The Romano-British background in this book has been derived from a wide variety of (sometimes contradictory) written and pictorial sources. However, although I have done my best to create an accurate picture, this remains a work of fiction and there is no claim to total academic authenticity.

Relata refero. Ne Jupiter quidem omnibus placet
. (I only tell you what I heard. Jove himself can’t please everybody.)

I stood at the entrance to the huge basilica and sighed. In a moment I was going to have to walk the length of that impressive central aisle, with its massive pillars towering up on either side. I knew that all eyes would be upon me as I went. There are few things more impressive than a Roman ritual, and this occasion was as formal as they come.

Not that I usually have much to do with ceremonial, apart from the public sacrifices which all citizens are expected to attend; and even then – as a humble ex-slave and mosaic-maker – I am generally watching from behind a pillar, or some other inconspicuous position at the back.

Today, however, I was centre stage, dressed in my best toga, which was still giving off a whiff of the sulphur fumes in which it had been whitened specially for the occasion. (Fortunately the other cleaning agent – the urine collected in great pots from the households and businesses around – had been largely rinsed out of it by the fuller’s slaves who trampled the garment afterwards in clean water and fullers’ earth.) My wife had insisted on my having new sandals for the day, and also at her behest I had submitted to a painful hour at the barber’s shop – having my nose- and ear-hairs plucked, my cheeks rasped and my thin grey hair rubbed with bats’ blood and grease to stimulate its growth. I felt as scrubbed and polished as a turnip ready for the pot.

My appearance was as nothing, though, compared to the resplendent glory of the presiding magistrate. His Excellence Marcus Aurelius Septimus sat enthroned at the dais end of the great basilica, flanked by a dozen other eminent officials and councillors – including an ambassador from Rome – and accompanied by a bevy of attendant slaves. His toga was woven of the finest wool, white as milk and boasting a purple border so wide that it put the lesser magistrates to shame. He had his favourite golden torc round his neck – a present from some Celtic vassal chief – an imperial seal ring on his hand and a wreath of fresh bay leaves anchored in his boyish curling hair, to signify his great authority.

And certainly he had authority. As the local representative and personal friend of Pertinax, the previous governor of the province, he had always been a person to be reckoned with; and now – since Pertinax was promoted to the prefecture of Rome, second only in importance to the Emperor himself – Marcus Septimus had become overnight one of the most powerful men in the entire Empire. This ceremony was the last over which he would preside before he journeyed to the imperial city to congratulate his friend, and it seemed the whole of Glevum had come out to stare.

People were jostling behind the pillars, elbowing and craning to get a better view. Even the official copy-scribes and account-clerks for the town, who usually worked in the little rooms which flanked the area, had given up all pretence of writing anything today and had come out of their offices to watch.

A trumpeter came forward and blew a long, high note. The crowd stopped fidgeting and there was a sudden hush.

‘In the name of the Divine Emperor Commodus Antoninus Pius Felix Exsuperatorius, ruler of Commodiana and all the provinces overseas . . .’

There was a little snigger from the assembled company at this, and a muffled jeer or two as well. People had become accustomed to the titles Commodus gave himself – the Dutiful, the Fortunate, the Excellent – and even when he declared himself to be a god, the reincarnation of Hercules (instead of decently waiting until he died for deification, like other emperors), few of his subjects really minded very much. Renaming all the months in honour of himself had not had much effect; unless there was imperial business to be done, most people conveniently forgot and went on using the familiar names. But this latest whim, of changing the name of mighty Rome itself to ‘Commodiana’, was a step too far. Somebody was bold enough to hiss ‘For shame!’ and was carried off struggling between a pair of guards. The fellow would pay dearly for his impudence, no doubt.

The herald looked discomfited at the interruption, but went on manfully, ‘This special court is now in session. Let the first supplicants approach the magistrates.’

It was my cue. Slowly I walked up between the crowds towards the central group. I was carrying a ceremonial wand, and my sandals were ringing on the patterned floor. The air was still full of the sacrificial smoke from the official offering on the imperial shrine, and the light struck slantways from the high windows overhead. It illuminated the official inscriptions carved in stone, the vivid red and ochre of the semicircular ‘tribunal’ alcoves at each end – with their wall paintings of simulated drapes – and the life-size statue of the frowning Emperor. It was intended to be awesome, and I was duly awed.

However, I made my way to stand before my patron, in the place which the chief petitioner always occupied. ‘I bring a petition against Lucius Julianus Catilius in the matter of a slave he claims to own,’ I muttered. A little frisson ran around the room. Lucius Julianus Catilius was the visitor from Rome.

The man in question looked at me impassively but rose with dignity, and came down to stand beside me in front of the dais on which he had so recently occupied a chair. The fashionable magnificence of his cloak and shoes, and the width of his aristocratic stripe, which rivalled Marcus’s own, brought a gasp of admiration from the onlookers. Lucius Julianus was a patrician through and through: smooth, tall, silver-haired, with a hooked nose and an air of permanent disdain.

I had met him only once before, and that was this morning on the forum steps, when he had used an age-old formula to buy my slave from me for the minimum possible amount. He acknowledged me now with a distant nod, and an arch of his aristocratic eyebrow.

His Excellence Marcus Septimus looked unsmilingly at me. ‘You are Longinus Flavius Libertus?’ he enquired, as though I were a stranger, and not a trusted confidant who had been under his personal protection for years.

I made the expected obeisance, cleared my throat and agreed that this was indeed my name. I even remembered not to look behind me as I spoke. I knew what I would see if I did so: the slave in question, my servant-cum-assistant Junio, standing behind me like a sacrificial lamb between two self-important officials of the court.

He was dressed in a humiliating fashion now, I was aware – no tunic, only a loincloth wrapped round his waist, his feet bare and a sort of conical slave cap on his head. It was the sort of thing I’d never asked of him in all the years since I acquired him. I had him from the slave market when he was very young – how old, exactly, he did not know himself. He might have been six or seven at the most, but he was so small and underfed and terrified that I’d taken pity on his plight and parted with some coins. Not many, even so. I think the slave-trader was grateful to be rid of the pathetic little wretch. I wonder what he would have thought to see the strapping, tousle-haired young man walking dutifully behind me in the basilica today.

It had proved the best bargain that I had ever made, I thought. Junio had been the most faithful of attendants and he was intelligent besides: quick to learn and adept at helping me with my designs in my mosaic workshop in the town. He had slept on a mat beside my bed and served my every need. And now it was all over. He was my slave no more.

Lucius Julianus identified himself and then said in his well-bred Roman tones, ‘It concerns the matter of the slave named Junio, here present. Let Marcus be the judge.’

Junio came forward between the two of us and prostrated himself at Marcus’s feet, as if to kiss his sandals. He did not rise but stayed there on hands and knees.

I looked at Marcus and I swallowed hard. He was my patron but I was still in awe of him. ‘I assert that this man is not a slave, but free according to the law of the Quirites.’ It was an ambiguous formula, of course: what I was really claiming was that he was a slave no more, but my throat tightened as I struck the boy lightly on the shoulder with the rod. Junio was legally the possession of the Roman visitor now, and it was still possible that he would play us false and simply decide to keep the boy.

Marcus looked at Lucius. ‘Do you deny this claim?’

The man from Rome said nothing, but looked at us with all the condescension of a senator forced to join a children’s game. Marcus asked again. Again there was no answer. Then – as I held my breath – Marcus challenged for the third and final time, and still the senator made no reply at all.

The law was satisfied and it all seemed to happen very quickly after that. Marcus took the rod and touched Junio on the back. ‘Then, by the power invested in me by the Emperor, I rule that all impediments to manumission are in this case void, and before all witnesses I adjudge him free.’ He touched the rod on Junio’s shoulders one by one. ‘You may arise.’

Junio rose slowly to his feet, a free man for the first time in his life. Vindicated, literally – by the staff or
vindicta
. One of Marcus’s red-haired slaves appeared, bearing a tunic and a pair of shoes, and Junio followed him into a vacant writing room to put them on. There was a little smattering of applause, but not a lot. The crowd had come to see the visitor from Rome and hear Marcus’s farewell speech. This little household drama had bewildered them.

However, it wasn’t over yet. I stepped up once again to the petitioner’s place and presently my ex-slave came to join me there, now dressed like any other freeman in the town.

‘Libertus, you have a further petition to bring before this court?’ Marcus was obliged to ask the question, although the whole form of these proceedings had been his idea.

‘I have, Excellence.’ In fact, the most important part was yet to come. I cleared my throat and started on my plea. I had practised the speech so many times that I could say it in my sleep. I was childless, I argued, and thus legally entitled to abrogate an heir. (I could not acquire the one I wanted by
adoptio
– buying a child from his father fictitiously three times – since Junio didn’t have a father I could buy him from.)

I advanced the proofs that I met the requirements of the law – one of which, these days, was that he should not be my slave. As a freeman, however, he could give his own consent. ‘I am clearly more than eighteen years his senior,’ I said, not dwelling on the matter, since I had no formal proof of Junio’s age, ‘and I am demonstrably capable of marriage since I have a wife. Furthermore,’ I added wickedly, ‘by permitting me to abrogate the boy, the court would also save itself expense, since it would otherwise have to appoint a legal curator for him until he’s twenty-five.’ Again I did not raise the issue of how one might determine when that age was reached.

It was all an elaborate, but necessary, charade. The laws were fashioned to protect the young (unscrupulous men had adopted wealthy orphans in the past and, having thus legally acquired the estate, promptly disinherited the child) but Junio had no possessions of his own in any case.

My patron listened carefully to what I had to say, though he had coached me in every word of it. ‘Normally such abrogations should be heard in Rome,’ he said ‘but the Emperor has granted a rescript in this case, and has written in answer to my formal preliminary request to say that the petition is approved, provided that the Praetor and magistrates are satisfied?’

It was another fiction, naturally. Once the agreement of the Emperor had been obtained, the opinion of the council hardly mattered. It was unlikely that Commodus had really taken any personal interest in the case, I knew, but Marcus had powerful friends in Rome these days. The consenting seal on the letter had probably been granted at Pertinax’s behest.

It did the trick. A spokesman for the council rose and agreed that they approved. Clearly – given the circumstances – they hadn’t needed to consult.

Marcus turned to Junio. ‘Do you consent to this arrangement?’

Junio could hardly speak for grinning, but he managed, ‘I consent.’

Marcus turned to the assembled company. ‘Then I pronounce that Longinus Flavius Junio should be henceforth the legal son and heir of Libertus the pavement-maker, with full rights as a Roman citizen.’

So it was done. I was a
paterfamilias
at last. Another little red-haired slave appeared, this time with a toga for my adopted son. It was a present from Marcus, or more probably the lady Julia – she was far more generous than her husband and understood how much this gesture meant to me. Junio was clearly absolutely thrilled. From the moment that he put it on, assisted by the slave, he looked more like a proper citizen than I had ever done and I realised for the first time that he probably did have Roman blood in him. After all, he was born into slavery – no doubt the product of his owner and some female serving girl.