Marcus Aurelius Betrayed (7 page)

“I could select the others,” continued Selene. “But he specifically said that Chloe was to go to Serpentinus this time and that there should be only one girl for each guest. At some past parties he had ordered two women for some of the guests, particularly for himself.

“He didn’t give me a guest list, so I was hampered in selecting just the right girl for each guest. But,” she swept her arm to encompass the assembled women, “you can see that any guest would be pleased with my selections.”

There was no possible doubt about that, thought Severus.

“When we arrived at the Hadrianum, we were met by one of the Prefect’s slaves and kept in a side room until we were called.”

“When you entered,” asked Severus looking at a tall blonde girl on the couch of the slave with the placard ‘Pudens’, how did you know which couch to go to?”

She answered. “My name is Zoe,
kyrie
. Aurora knew she was to go to the Prefect, Eudoxia to Secundus and Chloe to Serpentinus. But the rest of us went in and took any empty place or went with whoever motioned toward her. The men were, quite naturally, looking us over when we came in.

“I just happened to take the spot on Pudens’ couch. He looked too frightened of us to be forward. I gathered that this sort of party was rather a new experience for him and I know I made him nervous. At least at first.” She smiled ingratiatingly.

“How did he die?” asked the judge directly. “Did you see what happened?”

Zoe answered. “He had just had an orgasm and lay back on the couch. I took a clump of grapes from a bowl on the table and fed them to him, one by one. Then he stretched out his hand for a cup on the table. He just took the nearest one, or someone handed him a cup, I didn’t really see, and he took a long drink. Then he gasped, clutched at his throat and went into a horrible spasm.” She paled just recalling it. “I stood up and screamed and he half fell off the couch.” The Prefect and a few others gathered around and examined him for life, but he was dead. The party then broke up.”

“What about that cup he drank from? Try to remember again. Did he select that one deliberately or was it handed to him?”

“As I said, I don’t know. I don’t think even he glanced at it. He just reached out for a cup.”

“Where was
his
cup?”

“Nearby. But apparently not as near as the one he ended up drinking from. They all looked pretty much alike. The same size, shape and color, but with different designs on the sides. One had a horse, another a dolphin, a third fruit, you know. The mix-up must have occurred during the brawl.”

“What brawl?”

“When things started getting wild, when the revels began.”

Aurora joined in. “After we came in,
kyrie
, we found our places, I began to sing a song. But it was obvious that most, if not all the men, were already quite drunk and weren’t interested in music. They started shouting, yelling, making obscene gestures and then throwing things. Food, garlands and clothes were flying all over the place.”

She looked at the girl on Isarion’s couch. “Demetria was even chased around the couches. Isn’t that right, Demetria?”

Demetria nodded. “That’s right,
kyrie
. There was a grape fight between Secundus and Isarion. I think Secundus started it by throwing his garland across the table at us. Isarion then picked the grapes from a cluster and threw a whole handful at once at Secundus. He was shouting and laughing. That is, until Secundus hit him in the face with a whole cluster of grapes. Do you remember that, Eudoxia?”

The young girl on Secundus’ couch recalled the incident. “Of course. I was the one who was hit by Isarion’s barrage of grapes.”

“Then,” continued Demetria from Isarion’s couch, “Isarion tried to shove a bunch of grapes in my face. I backed away and then he chased me around the couches.

“But he didn’t catch me. When he circled behind the Prefect’s couch, the Prefect tripped him. Isarion fell flat on his face and everyone burst out laughing.”

“What were the other guests doing during the grape fight?” asked Severus. He looked at the girl on Philogenes’ couch. “How did the Homeric scholar react to all this?”

The girl next to the slave placarded ‘Philogenes’ shrugged her shoulders. “I’m Andromache. He didn’t
participate in it. He seemed taken aback, actually. He was a very small man, but he tried to curl himself up and make himself smaller. Almost like he was trying to hide. He began to make some comment to me to show his distaste when a tunic came flying in our direction and knocked the wine cup out of my hand, spilling wine all over Philogenes.”

“Who threw the tunic?” asked Severus.

“Secundus did,” said Eudoxia. “He was standing on our couch, jumping up and own, and taking off his clothes and yelling drunkenly. He threw one garment in one direction and one in another. His tunic landed on Andromache’s wine cup and his silk
synthesis
floated down in front of Pudens. Then he began to do an obscene dance, yelling for the musicians to play louder. He danced on the couch, on the table and on the floor.”

“How did Pudens react?” Severus asked the blonde girl on the victim’s couch.

“If Philogenes showed distaste,” replied Zoe wryly, “then Pudens was almost in a state of shock. It was as if he couldn’t believe his eyes at the goings-on. I don’t think he was the sort that cared for a wild orgy. I took pity on him and began to caress him to calm him down. Then, I remember, I caught the Prefect’s glance and he smiled and nodded as if to say I should continue what I was doing. I smiled back and did and Pudens submitted. I remember he kept his eyes shut during the whole thing.”

“Aurora,” asked the judge. “What did the Prefect do during all this, besides trip Isarion?”

“Well, he wasn’t throwing things, but he was having a good time. He was laughing and making encouraging comments and generally participating. For instance,
when Secundus was doing that dance on the table the Prefect was clapping time. He was also leaning back and forth, shouting comments to Pudens on his right and to the Isis priest on his left, encouraging them to join in the fun. I’m sure he was totally drunk. But then I didn’t see everything. The Prefect pushed my head down to service him and I couldn’t see what was happening.”

“Did the Isis priest Petamon join in?” asked the judge of a beautiful, light-haired, dark-eyed girl on the couch to the left of the Prefect.

“My name is Pulcheria. No. The Isis priest just watched.” She thought for a moment. “It wasn’t that he was shocked or anything like that. He was just calmly reclining, watching everything with an amused smile. Then he excused himself to me and said it was necessary for him to leave the room. He had to make a ritual ablution before engaging in sex.”

“And he walked out the door?” asked Severus, tracing the route with his eyes. It led from Petamon’s couch behind the Prefect’s, Pudens’ and Secundus’ couches.

“Yes, although he stopped briefly to whisper something into the Prefect’s ear.”

“Was the door in the Prefect’s triclinium in the same position as the one in this room?”

“Yes,” answered the girls in unison.

“How long was the priest gone?”

“Not too long,” answered Pulcheria. “But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy trying to dodge flying objects.” She laughed.

“What did Serpentinus do?” asked Severus to Chloe, the girl on the couch next to Isarion’s, who had been with the Prefect at the previous party but had been given to Serpentinus by the Prefect this time.

“He was eating all the fish patties,” she answered with a distasteful expression. “In fact, when Isarion was chasing Demetria around the room, he leaned over and stole their platter of fish patties. I wondered at the time how someone who eats like that could be as scrawny as he was. He looked like his name too, serpent-like, thin and creepy, with sunken eyes and sunken cheeks. And he treated me very roughly. He forced me down on the couch, held my arm in a painful grip and brutalized me from behind more than once. He was deliberately hurting me and my cries of pain stimulated him. I endured it with my eyes closed and stayed that way even after he finished with me. So I really didn’t see much.”

Severus turned to his assessor. “Flaccus, let me have the painting.”

Flaccus opened a cylindrical box on his lap and extracted a rolled sheaf of papyrus. He handed it to the judge.

“This is a painting of the Prefect’s slave Ganymede,” said the judge as he unrolled it. He handed it first to Selene. “Please pass it among yourselves and tell me if you remember him from the party.”

“Is he the slave who confessed?” asked Selene as she studied the painting.

Severus nodded. “Weren’t you questioned about him?”

“Not really,” she answered. “Secundus came by one day with some clerks and told us that one of the Prefect’s slaves had confessed. He asked whether any of us had seen him do it. He didn’t really question us like you’re doing.” She passed the painting to Chloe, the girl on Serpentinus’ couch.

“I don’t notice slaves,” said Chloe with a touch of haughtiness as she looked at the painting, and then passed it to Demetria. Neither Demetria nor Pulcheria remembered him. Aurora, on the Prefect’s couch, commented, “I remember some of the slaves, but not this one.”

The girls on the Pudens and Secundus couches couldn’t remember him either.

“It’s beginning to look,” commented the judge nervously, “as if he wasn’t there at all.”

“But I remember him,” said Andromache from Philogenes’ couch. “He was the one who refilled my wine glass after it was spilled by the flying tunic. And he was directing a young boy to wipe the wine off Philogenes and to clean up the floor.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m positive. It’s him. It’s a good likeness too.”

“Did you drink the wine he poured into your cup?”

“Of course,” she answered. “And I’m still here,” she added, catching the judge’s meaning.

Severus looked at the Prefect’s couch. “Aurora, think again. Send her back the picture. Did Ganymede fill the Prefect’s wine cup? The one with the dolphin on it. Or yours, perhaps?”

Aurora stared at the picture a long time. “I never noticed this person at all, and certainly not at our couch. Our couch was attended by two young slave-girls, who were stationed along the wall behind us. I think one was about 12-years-old and the other about 9 or so. I remember the child filled my cup and the older one attended the Prefect. They did it at past parties too.”

“Did you and the Prefect drink from your cups after they were refilled?”

“Yes.”

“Did no other slaves approach the Prefect’s couch? Perhaps when sex was going on?”

“They wouldn’t have dared,” said several women at once. “And they couldn’t have done it without being noticed,” commented Andromache, “at least by the other slaves.”

“What about the time that Secundus threw his clothes about. His tunic landed on Andromache on his right and his silk
synthesis
landed on Pudens’ couch on his left. Is that right?”

“Yes,” answered Eudoxia on Secundus’ couch.

“That’s right,” joined in Zoe from Pudens’ couch. “It must have been of a very fine gauzy material because it sort of floated down. It landed right at the edge of the table and the couch, covering some cups and half the food platters.”

“Who removed it?” asked the judge, leaning forward in his chair.

No one could say.

“Ganymede?” asked Severus.

“Not very likely,” said Andromache. “If he was servicing my couch with Philogenes, what would he be doing over at Pudens’ or the Prefect’s couches, on a different side of the table.”

“And I don’t remember him ever at my couch with Pudens,” said Zoe. “Some of the other guests passed by at various times like Secundus or Petamon or Isarion or Serpentinus. I remember that, but none of the slaves that attended us were Ganymede.”

“But not Philogenes,” interjected Andromache, who had been on the same couch as the Homeric scholar. “He never left our couch at all.”

“I agree,” said Aurora. “At one time or another all the guests except Philogenes came to the Prefect’s couch to say a word or two.”

“So let me sum this up,” said Severus, “and tell me if any of you disagree. Of the guests, everyone except Philogenes passed by the Prefect’s couch. Of the slaves, they all stayed where they were assigned so only the two young girls were at the Prefect’s couch. Ganymede only served the couches he was behind and was never at the Prefect’s or Pudens’ couch.”

Severus looked at the
hetairai
, one after the other. No one disagreed.

“But then,” said Selene, “if Ganymede never was at the Prefect’s couch or at Pudens’, how could he possibly have poisoned...?” She stopped in mid-sentence.

The girls all looked at each other quizzically.

Judge Severus didn’t say a word. His face flashed a brief show of triumph and then he fought to contain rising anger. His fists clenched involuntarily. He rose from his chair, turned and stalked out.

IX

QUESTIONING THE
QUAESTIONARIUS
AND CONFRONTING SECUNDUS

T
here was just one more piece of evidence the judge was after. “If Ganymede was innocent,” Severus put it to his staff, “why would he confess?”

“He was tortured,” said Vulso. “He couldn’t take it.”

“Exactly,” replied the judge with a wan smile. “So now we’ll question his torturer.”

Though most judicial torture was carried out in public as a salutary example of judicial authority and power to show the populace that the government was doing everything possible to solve crimes, there were also inside torture chambers for more secretive interrogations.

Severus and Flaccus descended the steps to the basement of the Hadrianum, where the inside judicial torture chamber was located. The court
quaestionarius
was waiting for them at the door. He was a short stocky man, with enormous shoulders, a neck like a bull, and the small red cap of his low profession on
his head. He introduced himself as Rufus, opened the door with a key that hung from his belt and let them in the room.

As a judge, Severus was familiar with the arrangement. One part was the exact replica of a courtroom, with the Tribunal, a low platform for the magistrate, with three camp chairs on it; one for the judge, one for his assessor and one for the stenographer. On one side of the Tribunal was the statue of Jupiter Fidius, whose presence was necessary for an official Roman court, and on the other the court’s water clock.