"Yes," I told him. "Now, where do her slave girls sleep?"
He seemed astonished. "Why, in the next room. Why do you ask?"
"All part of the investigation. I would like to see it."
"Very well."
We went into another small room, this one crowded with three sleeping pallets and a single large clothes chest. We repeated the earlier search.
"Where is Charmian?" I asked as I checked the pallets.
"That one is being disciplined," Diocles said.
I felt a stab of guilt. I should have spoken to him sooner. "Last night, I told the girls you would not punish them so long as they told me exactly what happened. It is not my practice to tell a man how to discipline his own household, but this is a criminal investigation."
"No, Praetor, it is not about- what happened last night. It concerned another matter entirely."
"I see. Well, I think we are clone here. Diocles, I apologize and I thank you for your forbearance. This had to be done."
He inclined his head gracefully. "You need not apologize for performing your duty, Praetor, and, again, I thank you for your discretion."
We took our leave of him. On our way back to the villa, we compared
notes.
"What did you find?" I asked.
Julia took out a small scroll tied with ribbon. "Just this. It was in the bottom of the slave girls' chest, tucked into an old purse. I stuck it beneath my stola while you distracted the priest. You?"
"There was a hard lump in Gorgo's pallet. I'll send Hermes to find out what it is this evening. He's an accomplished burglar, and the household will all be at the funeral."
"You noticed the altar?" she said.
"Oh, yes. There was a big fire burning on it just an hour or two ago, and it's past midafternoon. Apollo's sacrifices are performed just at sunrise and just at sunset."
"Exactly. Afternoon sacrifices to Apollo occur only during an eclipse and I don't recall one today. So what was being burned with such haste?"
"I'll have Hermes go through the ashes. Maybe something will be left. Now, let's have a look at that scroll."
We sat on the parapet of one of the smaller fish pools. The fat inhabitants swam up in hopes of food and then, disappointed, resumed their endless circling around a statue of Neptune in the pool's center.
Julia untied the ribbon and unrolled the scroll. It was made of the finest Egyptian papyrus, the writing done with a reed pen using red ink of excellent quality. It was in Greek, the writing precise, arranged in short lines. I read a few verses aloud and glanced at Julia to see if her face had reddened, but she was too sophisticated for that.
"This," she commented, "is some of the most heated erotic verse since Sappho."
I frowned in fake puzzlement. "So it seems, but why would one want to lick a doe's hoof?"
"As you know perfectly well," she said, "in erotic verse, the doe's hoof is a traditional symbol for the female genitals. All these other symbols are similarly inclined. Rather too many of them for good taste, but the verse is excellent."
"Do you think it's original or a copy of some poet's work?"
"I don't recognize the poem, but the style resembles the Corinthian."
"It's addressed to one Chryseis," I said.
"Of course. It's traditional to give your lover a pseudonym in such poetry. Everyone knows that Catullus's Lesbia was really Clodia."
"It was in the slave girls' room," I pointed out. "Do you suppose it might have been meant for one of them? They're all attractive girls, and some local swain might be paying court to one of them."
"Don't be dense, dear. Don't you remember who Briseis was?"
"Oh. Right." In the Iliad, of course, Briseis was the captive girl seized from Achilles by Agamemnon, setting off the chain of events that ended with the funeral of Hector.
Chryseis was the daughter of Apollo's priest.
5
In the evening, with the cool offshore breeze making the flames of the new-lit torches flutter, we attended the funeral of Gorgo, daughter of Diocles. The family tomb was located beside the road to Baiae, about a mile from the temple. A large contingent of the local Greek community had turned out, along with all the usual notables.
It is not Greek custom (or Roman, for that matter) to give women elaborate funerals, especially if they are not married and mothers. Still, it was a simple, dignified ceremony and I found it more congenial than the elaborate sort. The quietly sobbing slaves were infinitely preferable to the wailings of hired professional mourners. Their grief seemed to be genuine.
Diocles gave the eulogy, speaking of Gorgo as a virtuous, blameless girl, one who had never caused gossip or given her father (the mother, apparently being long dead) any cause for displeasure, worthy to bear the
name of the famous Spartan queen, and so on in this vein. It was a conventional oration, but most funeral eulogies are.
When the final words were pronounced, Diocles took a torch from an attendant and touched it to the pyre. This, too, was modest, merely enough wood to cremate the body decently, not an ostentatious construction of logs stacked twenty feet high. But the wood had been soaked in cedar oil, and the slaves threw frankincense onto the flames by the double handful from bags donated, along with the soaked wood, by Manius Silva.
When the ceremonies were over, I invited the attendees to partake of some refreshment. Earlier in the day I had had slaves from the villa set up tables near the tomb, beneath an awning in case of rain. There we served sweet cakes and honeyed wine, traditional Roman funeral fare at least since the obsequies of Scipio Africanus, more than 130 years before. (In Scipio's day, these sweets were esteemed great luxuries.)
"It's good to have the facilities of the villa," Julia said. "We've never before been able to afford this sort of liberality." She wore a dark stola, with her palla covering her head. Most of the ladies present were thus attired. Even the usually flamboyant Quadrilla, Jocasta, and Rutilia dressed somberly.
"I can't argue with that," I agreed. Being able to live and act like a grandee has its attractions, and I warned myself not to grow too fond of its seductions. Once accustomed to such a life, one begins to make excuses to prolong it. It becomes easy to overlook ethical lapses and to seek the favor of unworthy persons. It is, in short, deeply corrupting.
Of course, some men were not at all disturbed by the allure of corruption, as witness my benefactor, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. He'd made a career of corruption and done very well out of it.
Mopsus, the silk importer, came forward to thank us for our generosity. "Praetor, I know this raises your credit with the populace, and it was already high. Tell me, has the slaver's son confessed yet?"
"He maintains his innocence firmly," I told him.
"Well, I guess we could expect that. I suppose there must be a trial."
"All will be done according to law," I assured him.
"Naturally, naturally. Still, the sooner the wretch is condemned and executed, the sooner the place will return to normal."
He was the first. One notable after another came up, took me by the hand, and informed me that a trial was scarcely necessary, the boy was guilty, why waste everybody's time?
"There seems to be a strange unanimity of opinion," I told Julia when the funeral guests were making their way back toward Baiae and the other towns.
"The slaver is a despised figure," she said. "It's natural that people would suspect the worst of his son."
"Yet there seems to be little real malice. It's as if-as if people just want it to be over."
"Why?" she asked. "It isn't causing all that much unrest; the tenor of life here hasn't altered a great deal."
"As you said earlier, most people are guilty of something; they all have something to hide. Maybe they are uneasy at the prospect of an investigation."