The aedile and my uncle were in the tribune’s office, looking tight-lipped, while Scaurus, a loud-voiced, long-in-the-tooth ex-centurion, bragged about what his men’s brilliant interrogation had achieved. As Faustus muttered under his breath to me, there was no guarantee anything their now blood-spattered prisoner had told them was true. I agreed, but pulling limbs out of sockets and cutting off fingers is what makes the vigiles feel comfortably professional. Scaurus was a caring commander, who liked to think his men were happy in their work.
Fairly early on in what the vigiles shyly called ‘processing’, the prisoner had claimed that to his certain knowledge nobody from the Rabirius gang (to whom he had admitted he belonged) had broken into the Aviola house. No one of theirs took the silver. No one murdered the householders. That was all Faustus and I wanted to know, though for Aulus and the tribune there were bigger questions.
The man had agreed — wisely, given the circumstances of his capture − that he took part in battering Camillus Justinus but he would not name who gave him orders. Whoever despatched him must be more frightening than the vigiles. Cassius Scaurus said dolefully, ‘My lads could put more pressure on — but the pathetic lump would only go and die on us. I’m not going to tolerate do-gooders asking how a prisoner came to expire in custody before the praetor even knew we had him, when I can wait for the parts we toasted to heal over, then have him nicely executed as a treat for the public — well, am I?’
No, we answered.
The praetor, holding a post second only to consul, was Rome’s chief law officer. His role was to examine suspects that the vigiles said should be sent for trial. In public order cases, outside their remit of imposing set fines for basic misdemeanours, this gave their victims a tier of appeal − not that most praetors troubled to look closely at pleas of innocence. Well, not without strong inducements of a kind I won’t mention.
This prisoner expected to avoid seeing the praetor. He thought he would be rescued. It seemed he was right. Just then the man I talked to at the Galatea, Gallo, paid the Fourth Cohort a visitation, full of swagger and hung about with an expensive-looking legal team: a couple of shiny lawyers wearing togas with a fancy nap. They must have earned a lot of fees to pay for those outsize signet rings. The entire party was belching after what must have been a good breakfast.
Gallo was so blunt and straightforward he could have just come from reading a tract on republican values. What happened to criminal deviousness? The direct furrow he ploughed here from the Esquiline would have impressed Romulus. Why muck about? He came to pick up their man. When Gallo arrived at a vigiles barracks, his aim was to walk away with what he wanted, plus a sack of compensation money. His lawyers were mouthing that dire speech about ‘loss of reputation’ and ‘mental distress’. They hadn’t even seen the physical damage yet. As soon as they did, they would be charging double for consulting their lexicon of indignant adjectives.
Aelianus, Faustus and I stood back in silence to watch how Scaurus dealt with this. Doubts must have been running through all our minds. I was sure the useless slob of a tribune would either cave in just to save himself bother, or he would be influenced by gain. When Gallo asked ‘How much?’ that seemed to be the clincher.
But Gallo was about to be caught out by a technicality. The Rabirii did not extend their criminal reach to the Aventine, so they had never bought off Cassius Scaurus, tribune of the Fourth. As a result, he could pretend to a high-mindedness that was, for those of us who knew him, a revolting spectacle.
‘Gallo, when I want to have a sweetener slipped into the contingency fund, I can get it from my own despicable crooks — if I let them. The Second may like you all cosied up under one blanket, but the Second are stupid bastards and I don’t run their kind of show. Shove off, Gallo!’
This was the way Rome kept a degree of control over chaos, with no single group of villains able to take over the whole city. Each criminal gang would have to buy off not only its own local cohort, but six others. It would be too expensive and not worth the bother.
The fancy lawyers spoke up again, earning their keep in front of Gallo. I could not bear to listen. I knew Scaurus would happily let them bleat all day without him getting a sweat on. Camillus Aelianus, being a lawyer himself, stubbornly wanted an argument, so I tipped the wink to the aedile to stay with him and ensure my uncle did not resort to libel, or even to thumping the opposition. Aulus was chunky, more muscular than his brother, and what happened to Quintus had made him genuinely angry.
I took myself across to the Esquiline to oversee the local search.
Manlius Faustus had told me the orders he intended giving. He provided a mix of men, as many as he could muster in a hurry. He must have sent out notes last night to organise this. Aulus’ wife would have had to provide stationery and messengers; it is a usual courtesy for a guest who needs to contact his associates, be they friends, aunts-in-law, or hapless farm managers. She must have been relieved that Manlius Faustus was not a man penning endless letters so one day he could publish his collected correspondence. Imagine the nightmare of having Cicero or that tacky show-off Pliny to stay.
With a normal law and order search, doors are shoved in with their latches broken before people have time to come and open up. There is much noise, damage and aggression — a supposed aid to public order. Property is smashed on purpose, other property is later found to have gone missing. Women are routinely felt up; dogs are kicked in the ribs; scared children are bawled at until they scream their heads off. From time to time wise men, or men who think they are, have explained to me why this approach is regarded as efficient. I once told Uncle Petro it was bull’s bollocks. He just grinned.
Some of the men were from the aediles’ office, others seemed to be Faustus’ own staff or at least his uncle’s. They were all so careful they never had to shake off protesting housewives and never became nervously hysterical themselves. Everything went smoothly. That was so like Manlius Faustus.
No complaints arose. No stolen silver drinks vessels turned up either. A couple of householders were cautioned about other items, mainly unused materials that had obviously walked off building sites, plus five wine amphorae of unknown provenance that were found hidden under hay. No arrests were made. We wanted people to be on our side, and stressed our willingness to listen to anyone who might have witnessed something useful — where ‘listening’ meant giving modest payment for information.
Towards the end it became clear there was one horrible place left to inspect. All the men put a copper into a bowl, then sticks were cut and they drew lots. The lucky winner of the sweep had to lift off the wooden seat then go down the hole to empty Aviola’s kitchen lavatory.
Nobody in Rome uses a household latrine if there is any alternative. They are disgusting. The man was given a bucket and a scoop to remove the contents; we sieved the sordid products of his labour. I helped. I don’t hang back. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the household’s eating habits, until I feared I would never manage dinner myself again. What we produced was the usuaclass="underline" apart from fish and meat bones, vegetable husks and nut shells, horrible pot and bowl scrapings, dead rats, and enough human pooh for an army cohort, there was lost jewellery, oil lamps that had fallen in at night, fresco painters’ leavings that ought to have been taken off site, odd shoes, snapped styluses, tablets that could have been fascinating love letters or signifi-cant lists of property but which were too indecipherable now to be clues for me, and a big group of broken potsherds that must be the end result of the quarrels between slaves that I had heard about.
There was no silver. Still, it could not be called a waste of time. I had nothing else to do that afternoon. At least we would be leaving the apartment with a spotless, free-running home facility.