Enemies at Home

39

I returned to the apartment, to find cypress bushes either side of the front doors and a corpse in the atrium: Polycarpus. Although he lived upstairs, the Aviola executors must have allowed him to be presented to mourners here. He was lying on a simple bier on the marble table, which at least meant that table had a function sometimes. He had been dressed in a plain white toga, and placed with his feet towards the door.

There was a strong smell of incense but I was glad to learn from Dromo that the funeral was to be tonight. According to strict tradition, it should take place on the eighth day after death — but tradition tends to be ignored at the height of summer. Don’t start complaining about the decline in religious observance. You try living for a week with a dead body lying in your house, in the middle of June in Rome.

I love the potential of a funeral. I had missed seeing Aviola and his bride going to the gods, but when their steward was cremated, I made sure I was right there. For an informer it can be vital. While people have to stand for hours watching a corpse burning, something in the insidious scent of the oils — and their boredom — is apt to loosen tongues. Even if they say nothing, the way people behave can be revealing.

I went upstairs and spoke to Graecina, who was getting ready. I helped arrange her veil, and since someone had to pay for this funeral, I asked how she was placed for money; she told me the family had savings tucked away. She and Polycarpus had been careful to provide for the future. (I noticed she said they had made financial plans together.) They had been an up-and-coming family, but were mindful how easily they and their children could be ruined by fate. It was clear, however, the widow and children would not face immediate hardship after their loss.

What they did need was social support. That was being provided by Galla Simplicia. She had even suggested Graecina might like to work for one her daughters. I did not mention that Polycarpus had told me the daughters were spoiled. Graecina was a free woman and had the right to quit if she found she hated the position.

Since tonight’s event was private, she also had control over who came to her husband’s funeral. Myself, I would have liked the slaves to be brought from the aediles’ office. I wanted to observe reactions. I offered to make overtures to Manlius Faustus, who could certainly have arranged it had there still been time. Graecina refused, I think because they were so closely associated with the deaths of Polycarpus’ master and mistress. She understood that there could be no accusation of them being involved in killing her husband, yet she was obviously prejudiced. If, as I suspected, Graecina started life working in a bar, her own background would be regarded as shameful; it was interesting that she chose to look down on slaves. Everyone needs someone to despise.

Graecina seemed to have made most of the funeral arrangements herself. She was organised. I wondered whether she had learned from Polycarpus, or whether that was always her character and he had liked it in her.

I managed to get some rest before the formalities started. I could have done with more. Informers have to be tireless, and work is unpredictable. You sometimes find nothing to do with yourself for a week, then you have a day that never seems to end. This was to be one of those.

Graecina wanted a ceremony with ‘nice people’, so she did invite Galla Simplicia, plus Galla’s cousin and all three of her children. The pregnant Valeria did not stay to the end, but both she and her husband thought it right to show their faces at the start. Mother’s Boy and the younger sister did stay. They were pleasant; even he behaved to the widow with good manners. Though Galla Simplicia had complained about the difficulties of bringing up children single-handed, she seemed to have done a good job.

Graecina was accompanied by her own young children, of whom there were two, a shy little boy and a girl who whimpered ceaselessly, though who could blame her? Both were only infants; they would never see their father again and must be terrified of the change that would devastate their once-settled lives. They found the walk to the necropolis too long and standing for several hours at the tomb tired them even more.

Present when we left the house was a large number of neighbourhood associates of Polycarpus, people in trade whom he had known and dealt with in the course of his work. They may not have fitted Graecina’s definition of ‘nice people’, but they all spoke of her husband with respect. I was there, shadowed by Dromo. Of the Aviola household, there was no time for anyone to return from Campania, so we were only graced by Myla, who attached herself to the procession as it was leaving, possibly unasked. She walked at the back, beside Graecina’s slave, Cosmus.

As we made our way, under cover of the racket from a couple of hired musicians, I took the opportunity to ask Dromo how he had managed when I told him to make friends with Cosmus.

‘No use. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me. He’s peculiar.’

I scoffed that that could be said about many people.

‘Who? You mean me?’ demanded Dromo, his field of vision as always confined to his own world.

‘No, the sun does not revolve around you, Dromo. I meant generally, there are a lot of odd people.’

I refrained from saying that rebuffing Dromo could be seen as sensible. Even so, Dromo gave me a sideways glance, as if by now he reckoned he could work out what I was thinking.

When he believed I was looking the other way, he turned around and made a rude gesture at Cosmus. Cosmus gave back as good as he got. Myla aimed a smack at Cosmus; I would have done the same to Dromo, but he had sidled out of reach. There were about two years between those boys, but otherwise I could see little difference.

No, that was wrong. I noticed, with interest, my attitude had altered. In an insidious way, through my dealings with Dromo he had become ‘mine’. Both young slaves behaved equally badly, but I felt more lenient towards him. I didn’t even own him.

This must have been how the idea developed that slaves should be considered part of a family.

The chosen necropolis was the nearest to the Esquiline Gate, but since the city boundary had shifted with time, we had to go out, cross the Fifth Region, and pass onto the Via Praenestina. As the bier passed the Second Cohort’s station house, Titianus and a group of his men marched out and joined us, looking sombre. It was neatly choreographed. They must have had a watchman looking out for the procession. The vigiles like going to funerals. It’s a day out. Titianus was not the type to come in the hope of spotting something useful.

I was constantly looking for clues, of course. However, I never noticed any, or none I could interpret. At least I knew I tried.

We sent Polycarpus in a haze of myrrh to whatever gods he had honoured. He may have had none at all, but everyone has gods imposed on them at their funeral. This is the divinities’ revenge for lack of belief.

When at last the flames died down, the ashes were gathered by none other than Marcus Valerius Simplicianus. Initially surprised, I realised it was proper. Aviola’s long-lashed son and heir had assumed the position of head of household; that made him patron to his father’s steward, and under his mother’s eagle eye, he carried out the necessary formal duties. He did it with due care. He conducted a sacrifice on a portable funeral altar. He made a polite speech, perhaps written by Sextus Simplicius for him, judging by the anxiety with which the cousin listened to its delivery.

I thought Sextus Simplicius was itching to take over. But this was Rome. A man of twenty-five inherited the paternal role even if he was a swine or an idiot. Valerius did tell a story of Polycarpus carrying him around on his shoulder when Valerius was a child and Polycarpus not yet a freedman; it made a touching anecdote, which the young man recalled with apparent sincerity. I started to have more feeling for these people as a long-established family, a family crushed by the tragedy of having three members murdered.

In theory it was four members, but I knew I was the only person here who gave a thought to the battered door porter.

There were grand tombs in this necropolis, though we had gathered by a simpler brick and tile tomb. The ashes were deposited in an urn in a multiple columbarium where the remains of Aviola and his bride already stood in a cubbyhole, among flowers that had only half withered since they were placed there as offerings. At one point, I noticed that Valerius Simplicianus stood alone in front of the larger, more expensive urn that contained his father’s ashes; he raised his hands, praying quietly. If he had been away in Campania with his mother, he must have missed his father’s funeral. I was pleased to see that even an effete playboy could honour his father. His mother noticed too; Galla turned away, hiding her face in her stole, as if even she was surprised and moved to tears.

Graecina announced she had ordered a large inscription for Polycarpus. She insisted on reciting everything it would say (it was currently with the stone-cutter) and describing alternative wordings that she had considered. She was losing her grip on her emotions. As she laboured, Galla Simplicia went up and hugged her, to rescue the situation. Unable to continue, the widow broke down in floods of tears. Galla’s younger daughter and I distracted the two little children; they came to us willingly then simply clung to our skirts in misery.

While we all waited, I gazed around the wider scene. Bodies cannot be buried inside the city boundary, so you always have that contrast between the tragic intimacy of the funeral and normal life as it continues nearby. The Via Praenestina was a busy road. As we gathered, many travellers passed on the highway, some on foot, some riding mules or donkeys. Some gawped, yet others seemed quite unaware of what we were doing. Commercial carts were already starting to gather, waiting to be let into Rome when the wheeled vehicle curfew lifted that evening. Occasionally, drivers jumped down to stretch their legs, staring at us curiously. One even relieved himself in full view during the oration.

The necropolis was as mixed as they always are, with grandiose monuments for millionaire families lining the main road, but humbler tombs packed in among them. And because people liked to live in the countryside, yet as close as possible to the city for convenience, there were the usual villas backing up against the tombs, built so close they were almost part of the cemetery. They were handsome, spacious places, some no doubt owned by imperial freedmen and women, or simply homes to people who wanted a pleasant rural situation, with guaranteed quiet neighbours.

I knew that when the Gardens of Maecenas were first created, bodies from the old graveyard had been dug up and reburied here. Broken into higgledy-piggledy pieces by inconsiderate workmen, those long dead bones would have worried me if I lived here. But people can overlook a lot, to gain covetable property.

Eventually Graecina stopped weeping, exhausted. Her considerate patroness released her, mopped her up, then invited us all to light refreshments back at the apartment.