“If you can make it from Rome to her temple on the lake,” I observed, “you will have recovered anyway.”
“She has a shrine here in Rome,” Julia said. She pondered the business for a while as she picked at dinner. “I think we should have a household snake. Some of the best families have them. The Claudians have always kept snakes.”
“The Claudians,” I observed, “are a family of insane hereditary criminals.”
“Appius Claudius the Censor wasn’t insane or a criminal,” she objected.
“A single, outstanding exception to an otherwise inflexible rule,” I said. The estimable Appius had been brother to my old enemy Clodius, who had been both criminal and insane, and that was only the start of it. “No snakes for us. Neither the Caecilians nor the Julians have been serpent fanciers. In any case, I think it is unfitting for holy icons to crawl out of a swamp. Sacred tokens should fall from the heavens, like the Palladium and the sacred shields of Mars.”
“Only one of the sacred shields fell from the sky,” Julia pointed out. “The rest are counterfeits to fool thieves and jealous gods.”
“We are getting away from the problem here,” I said. My head was beginning to hurt. “Your uncle Caius Julius wants me to find a snake. Rome is a rather large city, and it seems to me a snake must be fairly easy to hide. Any long, narrow space or container would do. Snakes can arrange themselves in compact coils, so a basket or jar would suffice. Where to begin?”
“A good place might be the snake market,” Julia suggested.
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I wondered.
So the next morning Julia and I, accompanied by one of her girls and my freedman Hermes, set out for this exotic destination. Since Julia was going along, we had to have a litter, of course, instead of walking on our own perfectly good feet. Well, my feet had fallen somewhat short of perfection by that time. In fact, just getting about the city was enough effort for me.
The snake market was just off the Forum Boarium, not far from the northern end of the Circus Maximus. The old forum was bustling with livestock. Everywhere you looked there were pens for cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, and donkeys and hutches full of rabbits. There were beautiful specimens for sacrifice and others, less attractive, for eating, some of these specially fattened on olive pulp. There was a section for poultry: peacocks, chickens, cages of songbirds. One area was devoted to exotics: monkeys, gazelles, Egyptian ibises, cheetahs, and so forth. It was fashionable for the wealthy to adorn their estates with such creatures. It was noisy and smelly, and I was grateful that our house was on the other side of the city.
“I think it’s down this street somewhere,” I said, directing the litter slaves. I knew my native city intimately, but there were still a few parts of it I had never visited, and the snake market was one of them. This was because I had never been in the market for a snake.
“Ah, here we are.” We had come to a large shop with a striped awning above its portico. Spelled out in mosaic on the doorstep was the legend Sergius Poplicola, Purveyor of Fine Snakes.
The possessor of this imposing name greeted us at the door, his eyes going wide at the sight of our fine carriage and my senatorial insignia. “Welcome, Senator! Welcome, my lady!”
I took both of his hands in a hearty politician’s handshake. “My friend Sergius, I am here to see you about a snake.”
“Of course, of course, please come inside.” He bustled within, clapping his hands and calling for his slaves to step lively. The interior was spacious and cool, with open skylights. Here and there about the floor were small pits, their bottoms strewn with cedar shavings. Over all hung the scent of fragrant cedar, but beneath it there was a slight but disagreeable musky odor. Snakes, no doubt. While the slaves set up chairs and a table and loaded it with refreshments, I examined a large clay pot from which came a rustling noise. I peered within and saw that it was half full of grain, barley, and wheat by the look of it, and it swarmed with mice.
I took one of the chairs and accepted a cup of wine. It turned out to be an unusually fine Cretan, powerful enough to put anyone into a buying mood. “I am looking for a very particular snake,” I began.
“But naturally,” said Sergius. “Whether you need a snake for divination, for communication with the chthonian gods, for keeping the pantry free of mice, for eating, for whatever purpose, rest assured I have just the snake for you, and as many of them as you may require.”
“For eating?” Julia said.
“Certain of our African snakes are esteemed as delicacies,” he assured her.
“Oh, we’ve been to Egyptian banquets,” I told him. “It’s just not what one expects to see in Rome.”
“Rome is a very cosmopolitan city,” he reminded me.
“So it is. No, snakes for the table are not on my agenda today, nor for the pantry, but a snake for the altar, that is different. Do you happen to have a swamp adder on the premises?”
“A swamp adder?” He seemed taken aback. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a cobra? We have plenty of those, of several varieties, in fact.”
“Who buys cobras?” Julia asked, seemingly intrigued.
“The Isis cult is growing quite popular in Roman territory, my lady. Cobras are an absolute necessity for the rituals of Isis. If you have visited Egypt you have observed that the cobra, along with the vulture, is prominently featured on the uraeus crown of the pharaohs, since adopted by the Ptolemys. The cobra goddess, Wadjet, has been the patroness of the royal family since earliest antiquity.”
Here was another man about to launch into an oration on his favorite subject, so I took quick action to forestall him. “Is there some sort of problem with the swamp adder? It is, after all, native to Italy, not some exotic foreign breed. Rather prolific around Lake Fucinus, I hear.”
“Decidedly so. There is a reason the Marsi need a goddess of their own just for snakebite. Do you know much about venomous serpents, Senator?”
“Only that I don’t like them much.”
“Well, people think that cobras and asps and such are terribly deadly creatures. In truth, they are fairly easy to avoid, and their venom, while quite dangerous, will seldom kill a healthy adult. Their victims are usually the very young, the very old, and the infirm. Often, snakebitten people simply frighten themselves to death because they believe all snakes to be deadly.”
“Really?” I said. This was fascinating.
“Absolutely, Senator. I know of many cases in which people have died after being bitten by perfectly harmless snakes. For this reason, the common ratsnake that farmers keep in their barns for vermin control have probably killed more people than all the cobras in Egypt.”
“I see. But the swamp adder actually lives up to its reputation?”
“Beyond question. Its venom is more than powerful enough to kill a man in a few moments. In fact, the Marsi have an annual ritual in which a bull is sacrificed by placing it in a pit with a large swamp adder. It is a rather small pit, so it doesn’t take long for the bull to annoy the adder and be bitten. The priests of Angitia draw a great many omens for the coming year according to where the bite or bites are located on the bull, whether it staggers for a while, or has violent convulsions, or just drops down dead. The best omen is if the bull falls down dead instantly from a single bite.”
“What does this signify?” Julia asked.
“That nothing much will happen in the coming year. The Marsi consider this a good forecast.”
“As should we all,” I affirmed. “Is the serpent used in this rite the sacred specimen kept in Angitia’s temple?”
“Oh, no. There is too much danger of the snake being injured or killed, as sometimes happens when the bull falls. That is a portentous event in itself, meaning disaster to come. No, an adder is captured wild in the swamp by a team specially trained for this hazardous activity. If it lives, it is released back into the swamp, bearing the prayers of the people along with messages for their dead.”