I added, “One insane killer was believable, but no one could credit a whole group of them.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Athens had its fair share of crazy people, but that would be stretching it even for us.
“This took us back to the first motive,” I said. “That Romanos had been killed because of his work as an actor. Here we had more luck. We discovered that Romanos the actor was prepared to do anything to claw his way to the top of his profession. Romanos was blackmailing Lakon.”
“Here now!” Lakon objected. “Surely we don’t need to go into that.”
“But I’m intrigued,” said the Basileus. He was obviously a gossip. “What did Romanos have against Lakon?”
Lakon looked into my eyes, imploringly.
“It was a … er … personal peccadillo,” I said. “One that might reflect on the first actor’s popularity with theatergoers.” It was technically true, while at the same time being a complete lie. Yet Lakon didn’t deserve to have his life destroyed.
Every man in the room contemplated Lakon with varying expressions of interest and intrigue. I could almost see the speculation running riot in their heads.
To quell it I said, “Gentlemen, we all have one or two little peccadilloes in our past, do we not? Ones that we’d rather our friends and acquaintances didn’t know about?”
Every man present older than thirty nodded.
I said, “Imagine how much harder such things must be for an actor, who relies on his good name for work.”
“Then it should be Lakon who murdered Romanos,” Sophocles said.
Lakon turned bright red with anger.
“This is a lie!” he shouted.
I shook my head.
“Your idea is very natural, Sophocles,” I said. “But there’s an objection to Lakon killing Romanos: why would he choose the moment that did himself the greatest possible harm? Lakon would have been better off waiting until after the Dionysia was over. Lakon himself pointed this out, and he was right.”
“Sometimes men act too soon,” Aeschylus said. “Or they act against their own interests. We all know the old saying, whom the Gods would destroy, they first cloud their minds and muddy their senses, so that their mistakes betray them.”
I said, “Aeschylus is correct that Lakon might have decided to murder Romanos. But we know that he didn’t, because of the evidence of the theater fan, the rather intense fellow I mentioned before. I can produce him for court. He was there that night. He saw a group kill Romanos, not a single actor. What group could that possibly be?”
There were expressions of bewilderment among my audience.
I said, “That brings us to the final version of Romanos: the private man. The most obvious candidate for a group of killers was the family of Romanos: the Phrygians.”
Everyone turned to stare at Petros and Maia, who stood side by side in a corner of the courtyard. They glanced at each other in open-mouthed surprise, then they said as one, “That’s not true!” Maia added, “I loved my brother.”
I ignored that and said to the assembly, “The Phrygians would certainly be convenient. Metics never get a fair trial, do they?”
“But what of a motive?” asked the Polemarch, whose job was to manage the affairs of metics. He was also a fair-minded man.
“The Phrygians are followers of Sabazios, who is a rival god to Dionysos,” I told them. “Maia and Petros and the other Phrygians had long been planning to hijack the Dionysia to promote their own faith … and their own drink.” I paused, then added, “We all know what that led to.”
There were growls of unhappiness from around the room, particularly from Pericles, whose party it was that had been destroyed.
I said, “Of course Romanos must have known of his family’s plan to spread the word of Sabazios by distributing beer. But the same grasping ambition that caused him to blackmail Lakon then surfaced against his own sister. Romanos decided to make beer and sell it, like we do wine.”
“What’s this?” Petros and Maia exclaimed.
I had no choice but to tell Maia of her brother’s plan to turn beer into a money-making venture. She didn’t believe me until I produced his notes, and told her of the hideaway he kept secret. I finished by saying, as gently as I could, “No doubt he did it to promote his own interests to become a citizen.”
Maia was visibly shaken.
“Then the case is simple,” said the Eponymous Archon. “The Phrygians, having learned that one of their number was set to betray them, killed the man before he could do so. Nothing could be simpler.” The city’s highest official spoke with obvious relief. “Any jury would convict them on that evidence.”
“Yes, sir, but the jury would be wrong,” I said. “The Phrygians had no idea what Romanos was planning. You need only look at Maia and Petros here to see how surprised and devastated they are by this news.”
“That’s not evidence,” the archon scoffed. “They could be acting.”
“They could be,” I agreed. “But it’s definitely evidence that the Phrygians invited my wife and me to attend their … er … religious observances.”
“So they’re a religious people,” said the Basileus.
“You could say that, sir,” I said with feeling. “The point is they made no attempt to hide their beer. If you had killed a man for such a reason, you would hide your motive, would you not? The fact that they went ahead and gave away the beer at the festival shows that they didn’t think they had anything to hide.”
“Who else, then?” the Basileus challenged.
I said, “Theokritos the High Priest of Dionysos is a popular man. The workers at his vineyards would do anything for him.”
I paused, then added. “Theokritos also leads the association of vintners.”
“Surely you are not about to accuse all of our winemakers!” the Eponymous Archon said.
Athens would still need her winemakers after this was over. I said, “I merely point out the economic motive, sir. Theokritos himself was moved by his religious devotion. Anyone who’s spoken to him can tell you he is devoted to Dionysos.”
“That’s fairly normal for a high priest, don’t you think?” the Eponymous Archon said sarcastically.
“Yes, sir. But the point is Theokritos had a ready-made group of followers, if he chose to use it.” I quickly drew breath before he could argue again and carried on. “Then there is Thodis, the choregos, who also has a group: the friends who advised him to get into the theatrical business.”
Thodis scowled angrily but remained silent. No doubt he would speak after he’d taken advice from his friends.
“What of Lakon?” Aeschylus asked.
I said, “Lakon might have been able to persuade his fellow actors to join him in revenge on Romanos, particularly if they knew it had been Romanos who was sabotaging them. The family of Phellis might happily have joined in.”
That completed the list of possible murderous conspiracies. Everybody whom I’d mentioned was glaring at me.
“Which of these groups, then?” I asked. “Or more to the point, which of their leaders? Theokritos, Thodis, Petros, or Lakon?
“None of them make any sense,” Sophocles said. “You forget, Nicolaos, that my play was sabotaged right from the start. Thodis would not wish to destroy the play; he paid for it! Lakon would not damage his biggest role. The High Priest of Dionysos would sooner die than harm the Great Dionysia, and I dare say the metics desperately needed the income Romanos brought in.”
“Yes, that confused me too, sir,” I said. “But there was another possibility: Romanos himself. Romanos yearned above all else to become a citizen of Athens. We know this because he said so, to Diotima and me, under a rain-soaked stoa. He questioned Diotima closely as to how her father Pythax had achieved his citizenship.”
“Through his vast merit,” Aeschylus said. “I know Pythax and I would be proud to stand beside him in the line as a fellow citizen.”
“I said the same thing,” I said ruefully. “I didn’t know then that Romanos had already reached the same conclusion. How many men are gifted with an opportunity to display their talents in the way that makes a whole city admire them? It’s not a question of merit, it’s a question of a crisis occurring that brings you to the fore, or being in the right place at the right time.”