Saturnalia (12 page)

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, knowing he could go on all morning. “Strabo was a savage of the old school. But have you heard anyone talking like that lately?”

He shrugged. “Just about every day. The Sabellian lands aren’t far from here, and they bring their livestock and produce to the markets in Rome all the time. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I had a few words with some men who spoke that way recently and I was curious.” The market was probably where I had heard the dialect, among a score of others. Like most Romans I separated accents into “City” and “country” and seldom drew further distinction. The Sabellians were among the many ancient races of Italy, their most prominent people being the Marsi, with whom we had fought a terrible war thirty years before over the demands of the Marsi and other peoples to have their rights as Rome’s allies acknowledged. They were ruthlessly put down, and then, in an almost whimsical fashion, almost all of their demands were granted. Now they were full citizens and an invaluable well of manpower for our legions.

I needed to be able to move about freely that day so I dismissed my clients, reminding them that I would require
them all to attend me for the upcoming rites at the Temple of Saturn. Then, with Hermes at my heels, I went out for my morning shave and a walk to the Forum.

The whole month of December is sacred to Saturn, so very little official business is transacted in that month. There are no Senate meetings unless there is an emergency; there are few trials or other judicial proceedings. The outgoing officials are wrapping up their affairs and preparing to be sued for their actions in office, and the incoming ones are preparing for a year of unrelenting toil. December is Rome’s breathing space. In the old days, it was a time of recovery from the sheer physical exhaustion of the harvest and the vintage. Now slaves do most of that work. At least they get a holiday on Saturnalia, although not for the whole month of December.

The Forum was filled with citizenry, many of them putting up decorations, the rest gawking at those doing the work. Everywhere there were sheaves of grain and quaint figures made of plaited corn stalks. Wreaths and garlands of vine leaves were draped from all of the Forum’s many points of attachment. Marquees, stalls, and booths were being set up, bright with dyed awnings and new paint. For the holiday, most restrictions on vending in the Forum were relaxed. Most of the booths would be hawking food, but many would sell masks, wreaths, and chaplets. Others sold the wax candles and the little earthenware figurines that were the traditional Saturnalia gifts.

“Hermes,” I said as we surveyed the preparations, “I plan to be in the archive for a while. I want you to wander among these vendors and keep your ears open. You remember how those two louts last night sounded?”

“I’m not likely to forget”

“Find out if there are many speakers of that Marsian
dialect in town selling their wares. If you see those two, come running to get me.”

“The light wasn’t very good last night,” he said doubtfully. “I’m not sure I’d recognize them if I saw them. Peasants mostly look alike.”

“Do your best.” I went to the
tabularium,
trudging up the lower slope of the Capitoline, where the temples clustered thick on our most sacred ground. The state archive was housed in a huge, sprawling building graced with rows of imposing arches and columns and statues on the side overlooking the Forum. The rest of it was as undecorated, inside and out, as a warehouse.

And warehouse it was, after a fashion. In it reposed all the records of state that were not kept by ancient tradition in one of the temples. There were various religious explanations given why the treasury records were in the Temple of Saturn and the archive of the aediles was in the Temple of Ceres and so forth, but I think it was just so that we wouldn’t lose all our records in a single fire. The walls of the
tabularium
were lined with shelves and honeycombed with cubbyholes containing documents in every conceivable form: Scrolls predominated, but there were wooden tablets, parchments, even foreign treaties written on palm leaves. Those of a more grandiose frame of mind left tablets inscribed on sheets of lead, impressed on slabs of baked clay and carved in stone. Those wishing special magnificence for their documents had them carved on polished marble.

Much of this was an exercise in futility. Personally, I think the clay slabs will last the longest. Lead melts at a low temperature, and many people are unaware of how easily marble is damaged by fire. Not that much of the stuff cluttering
the
tabularium
would be missed anyway, however it might perish.

On the second floor, on the airy side facing the Forum, was the Hall of Court Documents. Like the rest of the establishment, this division was presided over by state freedman and slaves. They were all experts in the sole task of storing and caring for the documents and memorizing where everything was. At the time the freedman in charge was one Ulpius, a man of dry and musty manner, no doubt absorbed from his surroundings.

“How may I help you, Senator?” he asked. His Latin had the faintest Spanish tinge, although he must have come to Rome as a child.

“My friend, I need information about one Harmodia.” I smiled at him benevolently. It is customary to be chummy with slaves and freedmen around Saturnalia.

He blinked, not buying it. “Harmodia? Is this a woman?”

“The form of the name makes this the logical conclusion,” I said. “I am looking for any court records concerning a woman named Harmodia.”

“I see. And you have no information concerning this woman save her name?”

“That is correct,” I told him happily.

“Hm. It might help to know if she is slave, freedwoman, or freeborn.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

“Living or dead, perhaps?”

“Wouldn’t have the foggiest.”

“Have you considered consulting the Cumaean sibyl?” Still dusty dry, but with a definite edge of sarcasm.

“Listen,” I told him, “I am engaged upon an important investigation …”

“For which consul, praetor, tribune,
iudex
, investigative committee, or other authorized person or body? Or have you, perhaps, a special commission from the Senate?”

Trust a fussy bureaucrat like Ulpius to ask questions like that. I was so accustomed to talking my way around such embarrassing inquiries that I had to think for a moment before I remembered that I actually
had
official backing, of a sort.

“I am acting for the tribune Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica”—ah, that great, thumping name—“… and the tribune-elect Publius Clodius Pulcher.”

“I see,” Ulpius said, sighing, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to turn me away with a few withering words. “But I have very little hope of assisting you if you have nothing but a name.”

“As I was about to say, one of my informants in this investigation mentioned a Harmodia who may have met with a lamentable fate. I think it must have been within recent weeks.”

“Anything else that might narrow the field, as it were?”

“She was probably from the countryside or the nearby villages, and I think she may have been an herb seller.”

“I suppose that helps,” he said, gloomily. “It would help further if we knew what district the woman is, or was, from. That would at least tell us whether a case involving her was brought before the
praetor peregrinus
or one of the others.” He turned and snapped his fingers. Immediately, six men sprang forward. He reeled off instructions, as if they were needed. Of course, all of them had been listening. They went to their shelves and began sifting the documents with amazing speed and efficiency. This called for prodigious feats of memory, because there was very little system in the way the documents were filed. Each slave or freedman and his apprentice simply
had to keep a mental picture of everything in his area.

While they searched, I walked over to one of the arches and looked down over the bustle of the Forum while leaning against a bust of Herodotus. The old Greek didn’t seem to approve of Rome’s prosperity from the way he was scowling. He probably thought Athens should be running things. Well, it’s just what they deserved for being political and military idiots.

Despite Ulpius’s gloomy forecast, a young slave boy was back in a few minutes with a papyrus that looked almost new.

“This is the morning report brought before the
praetor urbanus
on the ninth day of November,” the boy said. “On that morning, a woman named Harmodia was found murdered on the Field of Mars, near the Circus Flaminius. Nearby stall keepers identified the woman as an herb seller from Marruvium.”

I felt that little surge that I get when a piece of the puzzle fits. Philosophers probably have a Greek term for it. Marruvium is the very heart of Marsian territory.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

“I checked the morning reports and court records. No one has been apprehended as the murderer.” No surprise there. Criminal investigation in Rome was a haphazard affair at best and a peasant woman who wasn’t even from the city would have rated even less attention than most victims.

“If you need to learn anything more about the woman,” Ulpius said with deep satisfaction, “then you will have to consult the archives of the aediles.”

“And so I shall,” I told him. “I thank you all.” I made certain to memorize the face of the boy who had found the report so quickly. Next time I needed to find something in the
tabularium
I would know who to ask.

I found Hermes prowling the Forum and told him to come with me.

“Any Marsi?” I asked him.

“Quite a few, although I didn’t spot anyone who looked like those two from last night. They’re mostly selling herbs and medicines. I asked around. Everyone says the Marsi are famous for it.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised. Hermes, we aristocrats are losing contact with our Italian roots. We’ve been employing Greek physicians for so long that we forgot what every other Italian knows: that the Marsi are famed herbalists.”

“If you say so.”

While we spoke, we walked at a fast pace toward the Circus Maximus. “And I’ll wager,” I went on, “that they are poisoners and abortionists of note, as well as witches and general practitioners of magic, for those things always seem to go together.”

“Makes sense to me,” Hermes mumbled.

The Temple of Ceres is a structure of great beauty and dignity, and its basement holds the cramped offices of the aediles. Inside I learned, without surprise, that there were no aediles present. Like everyone else who could, they were taking an early holiday. Not so the freedman who had charge of keeping an eye on the records and the slave boy who swept out the offices.

The archive of the aediles was nowhere near as voluminous as the great
tabularia
but it was extensive enough. Luckily, I now knew exactly what date I wanted, and the old man shuffled off to fetch what I demanded. A few minutes later, he shuffled back.

“Sorry, Senator. There’s nothing about this dead woman.”

“What?” I said, astounded. “There must be! This happened in the market area on the Campus Martius, and it involved a stall keeper who must have paid her … fees, I suppose, to the aediles. How could there not be a report?”

“I couldn’t say. The aediles are only in charge of markets and streets and so forth; they don’t handle criminal investigations.”

I left very dissatisfied. Granted that it is always difficult to find anything in the state archives, something this recent should be available. We were almost to the plaza surrounding the circus when the slave boy from the temple ran up to us.

“What do you want, you little mouse?” Hermes said, with the usual contempt of a personal slave for one owned by the state.

“I have something that may be of use to the senator,” the boy said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, they don’t give me much back there,” he said insinuatingly.

“You’re a slave,” I informed him. “They don’t have to give you anything.”

“I’m owned by the state, so they have to feed me and give me a place to live. On the other hand, I don’t have to tell you anything if I don’t feel like it.”

Hermes was about to punch the boy, but I grabbed his shoulder.

“What makes you think you have something worth paying for?”

“You want to know about that report, don’t you? The one about the woman Harmodia?”

I took out a copper and tossed it to him. He tossed it back. “You’ll have to do better than that.” This time Hermes
did punch him. He merely got up off the pavement and held his hand out. I dropped a silver denarius in it.

“The woman Harmodia was found by the Circus Flaminius, murdered,” he said.

“I already know that, you little twit,” I said. “What else?”

“The aedile Caius Licinius Murena was in the offices that morning and he went out to the Field of Mars to look into it. He came back a couple of hours later and dictated a report to his secretary and gave it to me to file. A couple of days later, a slave from the court of the
praetor urbanus
came and said the aedile needed the report for his presentation to the praetor. I was the only one in the offices that hour and I fetched it. It never came back.”

“Who came to report the killing?” I asked him.

“A watchman. I think he was one employed at the Circus Flaminius.” The primitive organization of
vigiles
we had in those days did not extend beyond the old City walls. They weren’t very efficient within the walls, for that matter.

“Do you know the name of the man who came to get the report?”

The boy shrugged. “He was just a court slave.” Court slaves, obviously, were inferior to temple slaves.

“Anything else?”

“I told you what happened to the report, didn’t I?”

“Away with you, then,” Hermes said, jealous of the boy’s financial success. “That wasn’t worth a denarius,” he said when the temple slave was gone.

“You never know,” I told him. “Let’s go pay a visit to the Circus Flaminius.”

As we walked I thought about the aedile, Caius Licinius Murena. The name was vaguely familiar to me. Gradually, I straightened it out. During the Catilinarian fiasco he had been
a legate in Transalpine Gaul and had arrested some of Catiline’s envoys who had been stirring up the tribes. His brother, Lucius, had been proconsul there but had returned to Rome early for the elections, leaving Caius in charge. Lucius had been elected consul for the next year along with Junius Silanus, Afterward he had been prosecuted for using bribery to get elected, but Cicero had gotten him acquitted. And that was as much as I knew about the aedile Murena.