"The moral is. only eat salad. If a travel group are going on to see Troy,' said Helena, "Olympia makes an appropriate starting point.'
"Yes, the Seven Sights group don't just get sport; they are on a drama-rich route. After a detour to Sparta, their next stop is Mycenae, Agamemnon's palace. Then Aulis, whence the Greek ships departed, and on to Troy – Troy is rubbish nowadays, I have heard, just touts and tacky souvenir stalls. So tell me, Helena, is that why you were fascinated with Pelops?' I asked.
"Well, he represents heroic mortal man. He seems to have had a bad conscience; there are a host of memorials he set up – Myrtilos, Oenomaus, the previous suitors.
"Big of him. I'm damned if I'd honour your old lovers!'
"Didius Falco, you are an informer; you don't have a conscience.' Untrue. Helena knew that very well.
"The whole Peloponnese is named after Pelops!' chirped Cornelius. He had taken to showing off.
Gaius stretched out full length on his back. "This place is stuffed with relics. As well as his shoulder bone we saw his ceremonial dagger with a gold pommel, in the Treasury of Sikyon'
"And Hippodameia's couch,' said Albia. "And her shrine.'
"Girls' stuff!' I mocked. "Now look. I am glad you are all having a good time as sightseers, but we came to Greece on a case.'
"I am pursuing the case,' Helena growled. "Imagine it. The men on the tour had become obsessed with all the bloody sports – boxing, wrestling, and ghastly pankration. The women were sick of the men coming home, prattling about violence and blood. They fixed up a Pelops tour as a distraction. Later that evening, Valeria went to her death – so I am trying to deduce what was in her mind that day.'
"Get anywhere with this theory?'
"I am wondering,' she carried on regardless, "did the courtship of Hippodameia hold a special resonance for Valeria? If she had found she was unhappy with her own new husband, was she affected by the story of a spirited young woman who gained herself a man who really wanted her? Perhaps it made Valeria restless.'
I gazed at my girl thoughtfully. Helena herself had had an arranged marriage, to a weak man who failed her. She stuck it out miserably for a few years, then divorced him. I knew Helena remembered how depressed she had been, both in her marriage and after it fell through.
"Sweetheart, are you suggesting that Valeria Ventidia was afraid she had committed herself to second-best for ever, so became reckless of
her own safety? She wanted to ditch Statianus and find herself an old-style hero?'
"No, I just suspect that while the women were trailing around the Altis hearing about Pelops, poor little Valeria accidentally caught her killer's eye.'
"So this brute offered her a ride in his racing chariot?' I suggested with a leer. Then more seriously, "No, because whoever he was, I'm certain he drew her to the palaestra with sportsman's gossip about long jumps.'
"Couldn't afford a chariot,' Gaius intoned, with envy. "Uncle Marcus, you have to own millions to race chariots. So much, it is the owners and not the drivers who receive the crowns for winning.'
"Right. Not a charioteer then.'
Helena pressed on. "Another question. who took the women on the tour? None of the guides will own up.'
"Still, you managed to find the various relics by yourself
Gaius rolled on to his stomach as he and Cornelius chorused, "Helena is clever!'
"Well, why are the guides so sneery? Pelops is the founder of the Games.'
"Or it's Hercules!' Helena told me. "Anyway, the cult adherents want to keep this site as primarily dedicated to Zeus. Pelops is relegated, a mere symbol of human endeavour. The gods rule this grove.'
"And Zeus is top god… Well, I'd say the women's Pelops excursion has no bearing on what happened to Valeria.'
Cornelius was looking anxious. "At least she wasn't chopped up and eaten in a stew!' It was a shock to discover that I had a nephew who was sensitive. "Uncle Marcus, is it safe here? I won't end up in a pot being eaten, will I?'
"You take care. Even Zeus himself had a narrow escape,' Helena teased him. "Cronus, his father, who used to be king of the heavens, had been warned that a son of his would depose him. Every time a child was born, he ate it. After she bore Zeus, his mother had to hide the baby, disguised as a stone, hung between heaven and earth where Cronus would not find him and gobble him up.'
Cornelius covered his ears and ran off, squealing.
That grisly tale brought my attention back to the Hill of Cronus, where Marcella Caesia had died, with her body laid out under the stars, until her stubborn father came at last and found her. A Roman parent, more caring of his daughter than the average mythical Greek.
Gloomily I wondered what was happening to Julia Junilla and Sosia Favonia back in Rome. My mother-in-law kept a quiet house. I was fairly sure the noble Julia would not issue any challenge to the gods at a pot-luck picnic. Her cook would be spoiling my daughters with treats – our worst problem would be bringing them back to normality when we returned home.
XV
We were running out of options. We were low on food too. Helena had told the doorman we would skip having meals from his sister. She had put together a scratch supper with purchases from site vendors. There was bread, and some vine leaf parcels, with the remains of our Roman sausage.
"I need to have meat!' Young Glaucus complained, ranting that Milo of Croton, the most famous Olympic athlete of all time, had eaten twenty pounds of meat and twenty pounds of bread a day, washed down with eighteen pints of wine. "Milo trained by carrying a calf on his shoulders. As it grew day by day and week by week into a full-size ox, the effect was like cumulative weight training. In the end, he ate the whole ox in a single sitting.'
"We are not lugging a bull calf around with us, Glaucus, even if you volunteer to carry him. Anyway, Milo of Croton was a wrestler. Anyone can tell from your pretty face that you are not.'
"Pentathlon,' Glaucus disabused me. "Discus, javelin, long jump, foot race – and wrestling.'
"So how come your beautiful physiognomy has never been ruined?'
"It's three out of five. First athlete to win three events, wins overall. Remaining trials are cancelled. I try to come through in the early bouts, so I won't have to wrestle.' He gave a slow grin. "Or when the opponent looks like a crusher or a gouger, I always concede.'
"But secretly,' demanded Gaius, "are you a crack crusher yourself?'
"Not really,' said Glaucus.
Then he went out to hang around the many shrines in the Altis, hoping for a sacrifice in process. Even when the hundred oxen were slaughtered at the Games, only the legs, tails and guts were carried up the steps on the Altar of Zeus. The body steaks were used to feed the crowd.
Before he left, Glaucus said, "Falco, the killer of Valeria is probably an athlete, yes? Assume he chose a sport he knew. only a pentathlete
would use the jumping weights. Long-jumping only happens in the pentathlon.'
"Thanks, Glaucus. I agree he is most likely an athlete – is now, or has been in the past. A pentathlete would fit neatly, but life isn't like that. I think he could be anyone familiar with the palaestra – boxer, wrestler, even a pankration fighter. It's depressing. I don't fancy trying to interrogate every hardened Olympic champion, in case one of them kills girls.'
"All the current champions will have gone on the circuit,' Glaucus reminded me.
"How many Games on the circuit, Glaucus?'
He grinned. "Well, the big four are the Pan-Hellenics. Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and the Isthmus, which don't happen every year. The Panathenaic in Athens is annual. Add in all the other cities – well, you are looking at about fifty, Falco.'
Oh, easy then!