We went down the Vicus Tuscus toward the river and passed the Temple of Janus, god of beginnings and endings, busy with the usual sacrifices and ceremonies of the new year. I learned that the ceremonies were rather confused since the previous year had ended so abruptly and the priests had not even had time to conclude the year-end ceremonies. I decided that it would be a bad idea to present myself at the Temple of Janus that day after all.
Then we passed the City end of the Aemilian Bridge and through a vegetable market, all but empty at that time of year, and out the Flumentana Gate in the ancient wall and up the Vicus Aesculeti along the river bank to the Fabrician Bridge and across it to the Tiber Island. The high priest of the temple came to meet us, with Sosigenes right behind him.
“Senator,” the priest began, “the sacred precincts of Aesculapius have been polluted by blood! I cannot express my outrage!”
“What’s so outrageous?” I asked him. “Aesculapius is the god of healing. People bleed here all the time.”
“But they are not attacked and killed here!” he cried, still in high dudgeon.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? Anyway, it wasn’t one of your priests or your staff who died, so I hear. It was a foreigner.”
“There is some solace in that,” he agreed.
“Senator,” said Sosigenes, “my friend, Demades, whom you know, is the victim.”
“So I understand. Please accept my condolences. Now, if you would be so good, please lead me to the murder site. I wish to view the body.”
So we walked down toward the “stern” of the island, where I had first met the astronomers in conclave. There we found a little group of men clustered around a recumbent body, which had been decently covered with a white sheet. Most of the men were astronomers, but I recognized some who were not, including a senator whose presence surprised me: Cassius Longinus.
“I didn’t expect to find you here, Cassius,” I said.
“Hello, Decius Caecilius,” he said. “I take it Caesar has appointed you to investigate this matter?”
“I came before he had the chance.” I had known Cassius for some time. We were on friendly terms, though we had never been close. He detested the dictatorship of Caesar and made no attempt to hide it. “What brings you here to the Island?” I asked him. “No illness in the family, I hope?”
“No, as a matter of fact I came here this morning to consult with Polasser of Kish.” He nodded toward the man in Babylonian attire, who bowed back. “He is the most distinguished astrologer now in Rome and has been casting a horoscope for me.” I caught the faint expression of derision on the face of Sosigenes. He considered the whole Babylonian astrology business to be fraudulent.
I squatted by the body. “A good thing Demades wasn’t your astrologer. Has the purification been performed?”
“It has,” Sosigenes said. “There are priests here qualified to purify the dead.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “People do tend to die here. Hermes, remove this shroud.” He grimaced with distaste, but complied. For such a bloody-minded wretch, Hermes was finicky about touching the dead.
Poor old Demades was not looking his best, which is often true of the dead. He was all but unmarked, but his head lay at an odd angle. Somehow, his neck had been cleanly snapped. I could see no other wound, and he had the waxy pallor of one who has been dead for several hours.
“Hermes,” I said, “go get Asklepiodes. He should be in town.” Hermes hurried off, eager as always to visit the gladiatorial school where my old physician friend lived. There was something about that broken neck that bothered me.
“Might this have been an accident?” I said.
“A fall severe enough to have broken his neck should have left him badly bloodied.” Cassius said. He gestured around us. “And there’s no place to fall from around here. I suppose a strong wrestler could have done it easily enough.” Although still young, Cassius had seen enough slaughter not to be disturbed by a common murder. He had seen an entire Roman army exterminated at Carrhae and had barely escaped with his life. “What do you think, Archelaus?” He addressed thus a man who stood near him, a tall, saturnine specimen whose dress and grooming were Roman despite his Greek name.
“I’ve seen necks broken that way with the edge of a shield, and once in Ephesus I saw a pankration where a man broke his opponent’s neck with a blow from the edge of the hand.” He spoke of the roughest of all the Greek unarmed combative sports, in which the fighters are permitted to kick, gouge, and bite.
“Decius,” Cassius said, “this is Archelaus, a grandson of Nicomedes of Bithynia. He is here in Rome on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Parthia.”
I took the man’s hand. “Good luck. Caesar has every intention of resuming the war with Parthia.” The man’s status was clear to me now. He was a nobleman of a Roman province that had been an independent kingdom under his grandfather. The king of Parthia would not wish to send a deputation of his countrymen, who would be treated with hostility in Rome, so he sent a professional diplomat instead, one conversant with Roman customs. I had known others like him.
“I have every hope of effecting a reconciliation,” he said, his expression belying his words. Rome did not forgive a military defeat, and a humiliation like Carrhae could not be wiped out with words and treaties. Rather than speak of this hopeless subject I turned back to Cassius.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a follower of the astrologers.” Cassius was as old-fashioned a Roman as you could ask for, and among our class we believed the gods spoke in lightning and thunder and the flight of birds and the entrails of sacrificial animals. Astrology and other forms of fortune-telling were the province of bored, high-born ladies.
He looked sheepish, an oddity on his scarred, craggy face. “Actually, this is not for me. A certain high-placed Roman who must remain nameless sent me to consult with Polasser of Kish.”
“Not-” but I knew better than to pronounce the name. It made a sort of sense. Caesar believed all sorts of odd things and he was obsessed by what he thought of as his destiny. He wanted to put Alexander in the shade and he wanted assurance of that from the gods. Sometimes, he came dangerously close to counting himself among their number.
“Why have you sent for this Asklepiodes?” Archelaus wanted to know.
“He is the foremost authority in the world on wounds,” I told him. “I am hoping he can enlighten me on how this man met his death.” I hadn’t given up on the hope that it might prove to be an accident. It would make my life so much simpler. By now all the other astronomers had assembled around the corpse of their colleague and I addressed them. “Does anyone here know if Demades had an enemy or anyone with ill will toward him?”
To my surprise, the yellow-turbanned Indian cleared his throat. “I know of no one who bore him personal enmity, Senator,” he said, speaking Greek in an odd, singsong accent, “but he was rather vehement in his denunciations of the astrologers, of whom there are a number here.”
“This was a mere academic dispute,” Sosigenes objected. “If scholars settled their arguments with violence there would be none left in the world. We argue endlessly about our own fields of study.”
“I’ve known men to murder one another for the most trifling of reasons,” I informed them. “I have been charged with this case and I may wish to question each of you separately or severally. Please do not be offended if I ask that you all stay where I can find you. I should take it very ill should anyone be seized with a need to visit Alexandria or Antioch. I should hate to have to dispatch a naval vessel to fetch you back at public expense.”
“I assure you, Senator,” said Sosigenes, “no one here has anything to hide.”
“If only I had a denarius for every time I’ve heard that assurance,” I muttered.
“Did you say something, Senator?” Sosigenes asked.