A murder on the Appian way

IX

Caelius and Milo soon arrived, surrounded by a large retinue. As they made their way through the crowd, people craned their necks to get a look at Milo, and when they saw him many began to cheer. Their excitement seemed genuine, and why not? For better or worse, Milo was the man of the hour, and this was his first appearance in public since the incident on the Appian Way. All eyes were on him. All ears were eager to hear him speak.

With or without bribery, Milo had many supporters. He had been campaigning for the consulship for a long time, and in an effort to expand his support beyond the Best People he had spent a fortune on extravagant games and shows. Rome loves a politician who knows how to stage a spectacle. Some magistrates are required to put on shows at various annual festivals, at their own expense, as part of their official duties for the year. Other men put on shows as private citizens, in the guise of funeral games. Whatever the pretext, every politician ascending the rungs of the magistracies is obligated to outdo his rivals in producing the most memorable races and comedies and gladiatorial combats. The practice is so accepted that no one ever seems to notice that providing expensive public entertainments is just as much a kind of electoral bribery as putting coins directly into the purses of voters. Nowadays, people seem to have lost the will to object even to that.

Marcus Caelius ascended the platform and called the contio to order.

Caelius had been trained in oratory from boyhood by both Cicero and the late Marcus Crassus. He was their most brilliant pupil. He had mastered the formal challenges of constructing a speech, as well as the technical skills of modulating his voice and casting it to great distances, but more notably, over the years he had crafted a wickedly sarcastic style which set the tone for his whole generation. When older orators striving for new effects attempted to emulate this style, the result was often blatant and shrill, but it was. never so when practised by Caelius himself This was his genius, that he was able to cast over a large crowd the same charm that he emanated in closer quarters, but without the ironical undercutting that one often felt in his immediate presence. He was able to utter the most vicious innuendoes and obscene double entendres at a public gathering without seeming vindictive or vulgar. Instead, he seemed only effortlessly clever and witty, and quite sincere. This gave him tremendous power as an orator.

Caelius was not really in his element playing the rabble-rousing tribune at a contio. He was more suited to courts of law, especially as a prosecutor, where he could pour his acid over a squirming victim before an appreciative audience of cultured jurors, educated men like himself who appreciated swift, convoluted wordplay. Still, Caelius commenced his contio displaying the self-assurance he was known for, of the sort that cannot be faked.

"Good citizens of Rome! You see beside me on the platform today a man you all know — Titus Annius Milo. His name has been on all your lips of late. You have gone to bed at night thinking about him, asking yourselves just what sort of man is this Milo? You've awakened in the morning wondering where on earth he might be. And every hour of every day you have considered the same pressing question which you must be considering even now: When will this madness be over?

"Well, we are here to get some answers. Not tomorrow, not somewhere eke, but here and now. First, wonder no more where Milo is — he's standing right in front of you, his head held high, proudly showing himself in the heart of the city he has served so long and so faithfully. You may have heard a wild rumour that Milo had left Rome for good and was never coming back. Yes, I see some of you nodding; you know the rumour. Ridiculous! Think of that which you love best in all the world. Would you ever let yourself be parted from it, or abandon it for any reason? No! Not if you had to die first. Not even" — he lowered his voice — "if you had to kill. That is how much Milo loves Rome. He will never forsake her.

"Which brings us back to the first question: What sort of fellow is Milo, what is his character? That's something each of you may decide for yourself, when you have had a chance to hear him out. Yes, Milo himself shall speak to you today. The rules allow him to speak, since Milo is himself the subject of this contio, and I demand that he speak, since I am the tribune who called this contio. Demand him to speak, I say, because Milo did not come here willingly. Oh no! I had to drag him here today, against his will. Do you think he wanted to leave his safe house to go walking in a city where madmen run riot, crying out for his death? Milo is exceedingly brave, but he's not a fool. No, he came only because I insisted that he come, only because I, as your tribune, demanded it.

"Which brings us to the third question, which weighs like a stone on all of us, which fills our heads like the stench from the smoking ruins of the Senate House over yonder When will this madness be over? Not until something is done about the death of Clodius, I'm afraid. Not until the whole ugly incident is put to rest, as the shade of Clodius himself was supposedly put to rest when his friends set fire to him like a faggot in the Senate House. How did Clodius die, and why, and who killed him? The friends of Clodius claim that he was viciously attacked and killed without cause. They point the finger of blame at Milo. They call him a murderer. They insinuate that he intends to kill again, and that next time his victim will be a man far more revered, far greater than Clodius ever was.

"Then let us put Titus Annius Milo on trial. Yes! Right here, right now, let us put him on trial for murder. Not a trial such as the magistrates hold, with jurors chosen from the Senate and the higher orders. It is you, the people, citizens of Rome, who have suffered most from the chaos of the last few days, and so I bring this matter directly to you, the people, and earnestly solicit your judgment You see, I have not come to praise Milo; I have come to try him! And if you should determine that he is a vicious murderer, that he plots more murders, then let him leave our midst. Yes! Let him be banished, let us send him into exile and make that vicious rumour real. Let us drive Milo from the heart of the city he loves into the wilderness!"

At this there were scattered cries of indignation from the crowd, as if the idea of Milo in exile outraged them. I noticed that our friend the fuller was among the first to raise his voice in protest. He was soon joined by a swelling chorus of dissent. Someone had done a thorough job of seeding the crowd. But I noticed that the man I had called a banker was yelling in protest, too, and gesturing for those in his retinue to raise their voices; surely a man of his means had not been bought with a mere fifty sesterces.

Caelius raised his hands for silence and put on an expression of dismay. "Citizens! Please, restrain yourselves! You love Milo, as Milo loves Rome; I understand that. Still, he must be called to account. He must be judged, and we must be sober in our verdict. No more cheering or jeering, I beg you. This is not a candidate's rally. This is a contio held in time of dire emergency, a solemn inquiry into a matter that has crippled our city with riot and fire. What we do here today will be talked about all over the seven hills and beyond the city walls. Those who cannot be here today, great and small alike, will take notice of your judgment. Remember that!"

Eco spoke in my ear: "Another reference to Pompey?"

Caelius stepped to one side of the platform. "Milo, come forwards!"

Proud and with head held high — that was how Caelius had described Milo. Certainly he did not have the scurrying gait or furtive look of a man haunted by guilt. He swept forwards without hesitation and with a grand, almost swaggering air of confidence. His toga was better fitted than the one he had worn at Cicero's house, draped and folded to give the best impression of his short, stocky physique. His usually beard-shadowed jaw looked so pale that I wondered if he had applied some sort of cosmetic.

At a real trial he would have been expected to put on his shabbiest toga, shamble about like an old man, wear his hair unkempt and let his beard grow stubbly; jurors expect an accused man to exploit their sympathies. Clearly, Milo was having none of that. To show himself at a trial, even a mock trial, looking more like a proud candidate than an anxious defendant, was an act of pure defiance. This partisan crowd loved it. Despite Caelius's admonitions, a loud and seemingly spontaneous cheer echoed through the Forum. Milo's lips twitched into a smirk and he lifted his chin several degrees higher.

Caelius put on a stern face and raised his arms for silence. "Citizens, must I remind you what we are here for? Let us proceed. Let Titus Annius Milo make an accounting of his actions."

Caelius stepped back to allow Milo full run of the platform; Milo was of the arm-swinging school of oratory which requires an expansive stage, in many ways the opposite of Caelius. His forte was not the small jest that only later in the speech blossoms into hilarity, or the elegant understatement that veils a pointed dagger. Milo represented what Cicero had once jokingly ridiculed as the hammer and yoke school of oratory: "Pound home every point with a heavy hammer, then yoke up the metaphors and flog them all the way to market"

But not every speaker can be a Cicero or Caelius; every orator has to find the style that suits him, and dogged earnestness bordering on stolid defiance suited Milo. That morning, striding back and forth across the platform waving his arms, he seemed utterly blunt and candid, though I knew that his every word and gesture must have been carefully scripted and rehearsed again and again in Cicero's study.

"Fellow citizens of this beloved city! My friend Marcus Caelius is right — the madness that threatens us all will never be dispelled until the true circumstances of the death of Publius Clodius are made known. I don't know what you've heard about his death -1 can only imagine the ugly rumours that have been flying and the vicious aspersions that have been cast against me, and against my loyal servants, who bravely risked their lives to save my own.

"I'm not the sort to give pretty speeches. I will be brief and to the point. I can only tell you what I know.

"Nine days ago I left Rome and set out on a short journey down the Appian Way. Some of you may know that I hold a local office back in my home town, Lanuvium. Last year my fellow Lanuvines elected me their 'dictator' — a quaint way of saying chief magistrate. The office is not demanding, but occasionally I do have to go home to fulfil my obligations. This was such an occasion. I was called upon to nominate a priest to the local cult of Juno to preside over her festival next month. Juno's patronage of Lanuvium goes back to ancient times, before the Lanuvines were conquered by Rome. Her festival is the biggest day of the year in Lanuvium. Traditionally the Roman consuls attend. So I intend to return to Lanuvium next month, in that capacity — because there will be elections, and I will be elected consul!"

There was an outburst of cheering. Milo waited for it to subside.

"That morning I attended the regular meeting of the Senate, which broke up around the fourth hour of the day. Then I went home to change into travelling clothes. My wife was going with me. I would have preferred to start right away — the trip to Lanuvium is about eighteen miles, an easy day's journey if you get an early enough start. But with all her last-minute preparations- isn't that always the way with a wife? — we didn't leave Rome until well after midday. For her comfort, we rode in an open carriage bundled up in heavy cloaks. I should like to have travelled lighter, but my wife insisted on bringing her serving maids and boys along, so we had quite a long retinue.

"As you all know, the Appian Way heads south, straight as an arrow's flight and flat as a table. It's not until you reach the vicinity of Mount Alba that the road takes a few turns and you begin to ascend a bit. There are some grand homes in that area. Pompey has a villa in the woods not too far off the road. So did Publius Clodius. I wish I had remembered that, and been more cautious.

"Clodius must have known of my plan to go to Lanuvium that day-it was no secret. Perhaps he also knew that I would be accompanied by my wife and her servants, encumbered with a most unwarlike retinue. I'm told that Clodius had said outright and in public, only a few days previously, that he intended to kill me within a matter of days. 'We can't take the consulship from Milo, but we can take his life!' That's what he said. And this was the day he intended to make good on that threat, at that lonely spot on the Appian Way.

"I found out later that Clodius had left Rome — suddenly, quietly — the previous day. To be ready for me, to he in wait. He must have had scouts posted along the way, running ahead to let him know that I was coming. He chose a spot where the higher ground gave him the advantage. There I was, in a carriage, with all those women and servant boys, and there was Clodius with his troop of trained killers on horseback, hidden in the trees off the road, waiting and watching.

"The ambush occurred at about the eleventh hour of the day. The sun was already beginning to dip below the higher trees. And then the attack-confusion, screaming, blood. If I'd been a bird flying overhead, I might be able to tell you exactly what happened. But to me, sitting in that carriage with my wife, it all began in the blink of an eye. All at once there were men with swords standing in the road, blocking our way. My driver shouted at them. They rushed at him, pulled him from the carriage and stabbed him to death right before my eyes! I threw off my cloak. I found my sword and leaped from the vehicle. By Hercules, the screams of my wife still echo in my ears! The men who'd killed my driver came after me, but the fellows were cowards at heart A few swings of my sword and they fled like rabbits!" When Milo mimed the action with broad strokes through the air, it wasn't hard to imagine men fleeing from him.

"Then I realized that more men were attacking the retinue behind me. Amid the confusion I saw Clodius himself astride a hone. He turned and saw my beloved Fausta. He heard her screaming. He didn't see me — the carriage blocked his view. But he must have seen my rumpled cloak and thought that I was still in the carriage with Fausta, slumped over, dead — because he cried out to his companions, 'We've got him! Milo's dead! At last, he's dead!'

"Let me tell you, citizens, it's a strange thing, hearing a man proclaim your death in a gleeful voice. My bodyguards farther back in the retinue tried to fight their way to the carriage to help me, until they heard Clodius gloating that I was dead. Can you blame them for what happened next? They fought to defend themselves, yes, but they also fought because they were furious, because they thought that their master had been murdered and their mistress was in terrible danger. In the midst of the skirmish they came upon Clodius himself, and when the skirmish was over, Clodius was dead. I didn't order his death. It happened without my knowledge and outside my presence. Are my slaves to blame? No! They did exactly what every man here would have wanted his own slaves to do in the same situation. Am I not right?"

There was a roar of agreement from the crowd. I noticed that the banker was especially enthusiastic.

Milo seemed to draw strength from the crowd. He continued to shout above the roar. Veins bulged on neck and his face turned red. "If Clodius had succeeded with his ambush, it's I who would be dead today!" He poked his chest repeatedly with his forefinger, hard enough to bruise himself. "It would be Clodius that everyone would be pointing at. They'd all be accusing Clodius of murder, and saying Clodius was a threat to…" Milo restrained himself. It wouldn't do to say the Great One's name out loud. "But Clodius failed! Clodius lost! He paid the price for his wickedness. He was the cause of his own death, and I won't take responsibility for it!"

This brought even louder cheers. Milo stood on tiptoe, clenching his fists at his sides and shouting to be heard. He had remarkably powerful lungs. "I regret nothing! I apologize for nothing! And I refuse to mouth empty words of comfort to his widow or his children, and certainly not to that vile sister of his. His death was the greatest gift the gods could give to Rome. If I'd strangled him with my own hands, I wouldn't be ashamed to say so! If I'd killed him in cold blood, caught him by surprise and stabbed him in the back, still I would be proud of the act!"

Caelius hurriedly stepped forwards, his face rigid. I leaned towards Eco. "I think Milo has gone beyond his script."

Caelius raised his left hand for silence. With his right hand he reached for Milo's shoulder. When Milo tried to shrug him off, Caelius tightened his grip until I saw Milo wince and shoot him an angry glance.

The crowd ignored the signal for silence. They began to chant as if they were at an election rally. Several different chants started up at once. The result was deafening. The fuller joined in with those reciting an old piece of doggerel about Clodius and his sister:

Clodius played the little girl While he was still a boy! Then Clodia made the little man into her private toy!

This chant was repeated over and over, punctuated by whoops of laughter and shouted louder and louder to compete with another chant taken up by the banker and his retinue:

Grain dole, grain dole, It's all just shit From Clodius's hole! Big pole, little pole, They all disappear Up Clodius's hole!

Up on the platform, Milo burst into laughter. His face turned an apoplectic shade of red. He laughed so hard he began to weep. He seemed to me like a man who has been holding a torturous pose that strains every tendon to agony for hour after hour, and suddenly cannot hold the pose any longer. He shook so convulsively that he seemed hardly able to stand up.

Caelius gave up on quieting the crowd. He wore a bemused, vaguely anxious expression, as if to say: This was not exactly what I intended, but I suppose it will do…

I turned to Eco, curious to see my unflappable son's reaction, but he had reverted to muteness, as confounded as I was. To ridicule the dead is to mock the gods. There was something frightening in the sudden, raging hilarity of the mob, a vertiginous sensation of teetering at the edge of a dark precipice.

The raucous chanting continued, but was suddenly joined by a noise more like screaming than laughter. An invisible, palpable tremor passed through the crowd, a quiver of anxiety. Heads turned in confusion, trying to discern the source. The ripple of apprehension was quickly followed by a wave of panic.

How had Milo described the ambush on the Appian Way? Confusion, screaming, blood — if I'd been a bird flying overhead, I might be able to tell you exactly what happened — but it all began in the blink of an eye…

So it was in the Forum that day, when the Clodians descended with flashing swords like a vengeful army on the contio of Caelius and Milo.

I have never been a military man, but I am not a stranger to battle. In the year that Cicero was consul, I was with my son Meto when he fought for Catilina at the battle of Pistoria. I carried a sword. I saw Romans slaughter Romans.

I have seen battle. I know what a battle looks like, sounds like, smells like. What happened in the Forum that day was nothing like a battle. It was a massacre.

During the massacre itself there was no time to think about anything but escape. It was only afterwards that I was able to ponder exactly what happened.

Some said that the Clodians' attack was spontaneous, spurred by reports of what Milo and Caelius were saying at the contio. Infuriated at the allegation that Clodius had staged an ambush, his grieving followers decided to show the crowd at the contio just what an ambush was like. Others argued that the attack was premeditated, just as Clodius's ambush on the Appian Way had been premeditated, and that the Clodians had only been waiting for Milo's appearance and the first public gathering of his supporters to launch their assault.

Premeditated or not, the attack was well staged. The Clodians arrived heavily armed. They made no attempt to hide their weapons. They carried short swords, daggers and clubs. Some carried bags of stones. Some carried torches. They seemed to appear from all sides at once. The panicked crowd contracted into itself) so that at first there was as great a danger of being crushed or trampled underfoot by friends as there was of being cut open or clubbed to death by foes.

Of course, despite the law which forbids carrying weapons inside the city walls, many at the contio were secretly armed or had armed

bodyguards, and many of them (especially those who were part of Milo's regular gang), had as much experience of street fighting as the Clodians, so the engagement was not entirely one-sided. But the Clodians had the strategic advantage of surprise and the tactical advantage of having the crowd surrounded. They may also have had a considerable advantage in numbers — that was what the bruised and battered adherents of Milo claimed afterwards, but at the time I doubt that anyone bothered to count heads.

Milo's adherents would also claim afterwards that the attackingforce was made up largely of slaves. Clodius's lieutenants, they claimed, now commanded whole armies of slaves and former slaves who owed them allegiance thanks to Clodius's radical innovations, like the grain dole. That was the true crime of what happened that day, Milo's people said: that slaves and ex-slaves had disrupted a peaceable public assembly of citizens conducting state business. What had the Republic come to when such low-born rabble ruled the streets?

But as I say, all these considerations came as afterthoughts. At the time, panic reigned.

Eco and I sensed the danger at the same moment, even though there was nothing yet to see. He reached for my arm. I reached for his. His bodyguards turned outward in a ring and reached for the daggers hidden in their tunics.

Eco pressed his mouth to my ear. "Whatever happens, Papa, stay close to me!"

More easily said than done, I thought, as bodies pressed together and were wrenched this way and that, like links of armour being tested by a smith. To be caught in such a crowd must be something like the sensation of drowning in rough waters. A sea of bodies is a solid, writhing thing that presses back against you, struggling, like you, to stay alive.

The noise became deafening- oaths, curses, screams, grunts, sudden high-pitched wails and guttural, choking sounds. The fuller and his slave were suddenly next to me. He was yelling, to no one in particular, "I knew this would happen! I knew it!"

Suddenly there was a break in the crowd nearby, like a rip through a piece of cloth. The Clodians broke through. Wild-eyed men with upright daggers in their fists rushed towards me. Their hps were drawn back, their teeth clenched. They growled like dogs.

Eco's bodyguards seemed to have vanished, along with Eco. The panicked crowd was at my back, like a solid wall; I could no more melt into it than I could melt into stone. "That one!" cried one of

the attackers, pointing with his knife. "Get the bastard!" He rushed towards me.

I braced myself, fighting the impulse to turn away. I have always promised myself that I would not end up as one of those corpses discovered with wounds in the back. I stared at the man's face, trying to look into his eyes, but his wild gaze was fixed on something beyond me. He veered past me, his knife whistling a shrill note a finger's-width from my ear. His friends followed, shoving me out of the way. From the comer of my eye I saw flashing daggers rise into the air one after another, like long-necked birds craning skyward.

I pressed myself into the fleeing crowd, trying to merge again into its anonymity, trying not to watch. An even stronger impulse compelled me to look back.

The daggers rose and fell, rose and fell. They were met by other daggers. Streamers of blood shot upward like screams congealing in the frosty air. In the midst of the turmoil I saw the man I had taken for a banker. He was the one the Clodians had rushed to attack. His cordon of bodyguards had been breached and decimated. The slaves who fell defending him were crumpled in a mass around him, their bloodstained bodies trapping his legs so that he could not flee. The Clodians circled him like vultures, their knives like pecking beaks. They stabbed him again and again. As he twisted and writhed, his mouth gaping in a soundless scream, greedy hands reached to snatch the silver necklace from his throat and pull a bag of coins from inside his toga.

His assailants circled him once more and then moved on, like a whirlwind. By some miracle the banker remained upright. His eyes and mouth were wide open in astonishment, his toga covered with blood. Suddenly one of his assailants rushed back and quickly, skdlfuly, like a dutiful slave caring for his master's accoutrements, took the man's hand and slipped the gold signet ring from his finger.

The thief might have left it at that, but having come back to finish his business he seemed determined to strike a final blow. He slipped behind the stupefied banker and raised his dagger high, gripping it with both hands. I cringed and braced myself as if the blow were aimed at me.

But I never saw it fell. A strong hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around. I faced a hulking young man with glinting eyes and a grimly set jaw. At the bottom edge of my sight I saw flashing steel and knew he held a dagger.

I have faced the prospect of imminent death on several occasions in my near-sixty years. It always seems to provoke the same chain of thoughts in my head. You fool, I always think-because it seems that such situations could always, somehow, have been avoided or at least postponed-you fool, this is the end of you at last. The gods have lost interest in the little story of your life. You no longer amuse them. You shall now be snuffed out like a guttering lamp…

It is always the same: the names of my loved ones echo in my head. I hear the sweet sound of my father's voice, which I have not heard for many, many years. And sometimes, in such moments, and this was such a moment, I see the face of my mother, who died when I was very young, and whose face I can otherwise never quite recall. I remembered it vividly in that instant, and knew that my father had been right when he had told me, as he had often done, that she was beautiful, very beautiful…

But of course A part of me knew that I was not yet destined to die, and understood at once when the hulking young man, in a gruff desperate voice, said, "Thank Jupiter I found you! The master is furious! Come on!"

The fellow was one of Eco's young bodyguards, of course. In my confusion I had not recognized him.

Eco had retreated behind a nearby temple, where a lean-to shed attached to the plain rear wall offered a degree of concealment. We could still be seen from two directions, since the shed was open at either end, but the spot was at least more defensible than standing in the open.

"Papa! Thank the gods Davus found you!"

"Never mind the gods. Thank Davus." I smiled at the sturdy young fellow, who grinned back at me. "What now?"

Eco peered out glumly. There was nothing and no one to be seen except blank walls which cast back the echoes of the rioting mob. "I suppose we could stay here. Not a bad spot to make a stand, though there's no knowing what we might come up against."

"Should we make a run for it?"

"Maybe. To your house or mine?"

"Mine's closer," I said. "But we'd have to cross the Forum somehow, and I imagine there's more chance of the riot spreading up that way, towards Milo's house." I felt a chill as I thought of my wife and daughter alone at the house, with only a barred door and Belbo to protect them.

"To my house then, Papa?"

"No. I have to get back to Bethesda and Diana."

He nodded. The sound of the not seemed to grow louder, though it might have been only a trick of the acoustics. Suddenly two figures appeared from around the corner of the temple. We ducked into the shadows.

From their plain tunics, the two appeared to be slaves. They rounded the corner so fast they bumped into each other and almost fell. The taller one saw the shed and pointed. "There! We could hide there!"

The shorter, stockier one saw the shed and rushed towards it, pushing his companion out of the way. They were almost like comic slaves out of Plautus, except that in a play they would be fleeing a just beating from their master, not a bloody riot.

"Jupiter's balls!" said the taller one, hurrying to catch up. "You needn't push me down, Milo!"

"And you needn't shout my name out loud, you idiot! Come on, before someone sees us."

Milo was inside the shed before he realized it was occupied. The first thing he saw were four daggers pointing towards him as Eco's bodyguards advanced. Caelius, coming up from behind, bumped into him and knocked him forwards. Milo's eyebrows shot up and he bared his teeth in a grimace as he tripped forwards and very nearly impaled himself on the nearest dagger. Caelius, glimpsing steel, skittered back and peered wide-eyed into the shed.

"Draw back!" said Eco, calling off the bodyguards. "These two won't hurt us."

Milo scanned the faces confronting him and stopped at mine. "Gordianus? Is that you? Cicero's man?"

"Gordianus, yes. Cicero's man, no. And you're Milo, though who would know it to look at you? Where's your toga?"

"Are you joking? The mob is going after anybody in a toga. They're all a bunch of cut-throat slaves and thieves, killing and robbing every citizen they come to. I threw off my toga the first chance I got. Thank Jupiter I was wearing this tunic underneath."

"You took off your ring of citizenship as well," I said, looking at his bare finger.

"Yes, well…"

"I see that Marcus Caelius followed your inspiration." I shook my head. Two of the most powerful men in Rome were deliberately posing as slaves, and behaving like slaves as well. I suddenly had to laugh.

"Stop that!" said Milo.

"Sony. It's the tension of the moment." But I started laughing again, and was soon joined not only by Eco but by Eco's slaves. Even Caelius, always ready to see the absurdity in any situation, barked out a laugh.

"But where's your retinue, your bodyguards?" I said.

"Slaughtered. Scattered. Who knows?" said Milo.

"I don't suppose that could be them?" I said, all laughter dying from my voice. A group of dagger-wielding men had just appeared from around the corner.

"Oh, Jupiter's balls!" Caelius groaned. He and Milo shoved their way through the shed and fled out the other side. I followed with Eco and his bodyguards bringing up the rear. Behind us I heard a clash of steel and turned to see one of the pursuers stagger and fall, clutching his chest where Davus had wounded him. At the sight of one of their own gushing blood, the brigands lost heart and fell back.

Caelius and Milo had disappeared. We found ourselves at the edge of the riot, amid the scattered bodies of the wounded and dead. The paving stones were slick with blood. Smoke belched from the entrance to the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Next door, atop the House of the Vestal Virgins, the Virgo Maxima and her priestesses had gathered on the roof and were watching the scene below with expressions of horror and outrage.

"Come! This way!" I said, pointing to the paved walkway between the two buildings. It took us to the base of the Palatine Hill and onto the Ramp. Others were ahead of us, fleeing up the long sloping path like refugees from a sacked city. I thought I glimpsed Caelius and Milo far ahead, travelling at a breakneck pace and knocking people out of their way right and left.

I was completely out of breath before I reached the top of the Ramp. Eco saw my distress and signalled to his bodyguards to help me along. They seized my arms and practically carried me the last few steps. We hurried across the street, towards my house.

Suddenly, ahead of us, from out of one of my neighbours' houses, a group of armed men burst into the street. Their leader clutched a handful of jewellery — strands of pearls and silver links dangled from his grubby fingers. In his other hand he held a dagger dripping blood. The door behind him had been knocked from its hinges.

"You there!" he shouted at us. Though he was some distance away I smelled wine and garlic on his breath. Garlic for strength, an old gladiator's trick; wine to fortify his courage. He had a red face and ice-blue eyes. "Have you seen him?"

"Seen who?" I gestured to the bodyguards to give the party a wide berth but to keep moving forwards.

"Milo, of course! We're going from house to house searching for him. When we find him we shall crucify him for killing Clodius."

"Searching for Milo, are you?" said Eco. He was looking at the fistful of stolen jewellery; the sarcasm in his voice made me cringe.

The thief held up his hand and shook it. "What, these? Who ever said that justice should be free, eh? We deserve our payment, don't we? As much as these rich folk deserve their pretty things." He made such an ugly face that I thought he was about to come after us with his dagger. Instead he threw the handful of jewellery at our feet. The silver clinked against the paving stones and the strand of pearls burst. Pink and white baubles bounced everywhere like bits of hail. The men behind him yelled and cursed.

"Who cares?" he shouted. "There'll be plenty more where that came from." He turned and led his raiding party down the street away from us, towards the next house.

My heart began to pound in my chest. If they were headed in the opposite direction, that meant they had already been to my house…

My head felt light. I blinked at oily spots before my eyes. Confronted with the possibility of my own death, a part of me always reacted with sceptical resignation. Facing the possibility of something terrible happening to Bethesda and Diana, I felt an overwhelming dread.

Eco understood. He clutched my hand and squeezed it. As we approached the house I looked for signs of fire or smoke and saw none. Then I saw the double doors of the entrance. They were standing wide open. The lock had been broken. So had the bar, which lay across the threshold broken in two pieces.

I stepped into the foyer, which seemed very dark after the daylight outside. Rushing forwards, I tripped over something large and solid. Eco and Davus helped me up. "Papa — " said Eco.

I hurried on. "Bethesda! Diana!"

No one answered. I ran from room to room, only vaguely aware that Eco and his men followed after me. Couches and chairs had been knocked over. Cabinets lay on their sides with their doors open.

In my bedroom, the sleeping couch had been senselessly ripped open and the sniffing pulled out in handfuls. A pool of something dark and slick shimmered on the floor in front of Bethesda's dressing table. Blood? I shuddered, close to tears, then realized that it was only unguent from a broken jar which had fallen to the floor.

There was no one in the kitchens, no one in the sleeping quarters. "Where were the slaves?

I hurried on to Diana's room. The door of her wardrobe stood open and her clothes were scattered all over the floor. The little silver box where she kept her few pieces of jewellery was gone. I called her name. There was no answer.

I came to my study. The scroll cases were empty. They had plucked every scroll from its pigeonhole, probably looking for hidden valuables. Having found none, they had at least left my scrolls and writing instruments intact. Of what use were such things to thieves? Everything lay in piles on the floor, scattered but undamaged, the scrolls still tightly rolled and tied with ribbons.

Then I caught a whiff of something foul. I wrinkled my nose and followed the smell to the corner of the room. Someone had defecated on the floor and then used a torn piece of parchment to wipe himself. I carefully picked up the scrap by a corner to see what it was and read a few lines:

Father, what wretchedness is on us now! I mourn for you still more than for the dead.

Poor Antigone! Poor Euripides!

I stepped from my study into the garden at the centre of the house. The bronze statue of Minerva, which I had inherited from my dear friend Lucius Claudius along with the house, which had been his pride and joy and mine, which had elicited the envy of Cicero himself) had been pulled from its pedestal. Did they think to find some secret treasure chamber beneath it, or did they act out of sheer, wanton destructiveness? The bronze should have survived the fell, but there must have been some hidden flaw in its casting. The virgin goddess of wisdom lay broken in two pieces.

"Papa!"

"What, Eco? Have you found them?"

"No, Papa. Not Bethesda or Diana. But in the foyer — you should come and see for yourself…" "See what?"

Before he could answer, a voice from the sky called both our names. I looked up and saw Diana peering over the edge of the roof. My throat constricted and I almost sobbed with relief.

"Diana! Oh, Diana! But what — how did you get up there?"

"The ladder, of course. Then we pulled it up after us. And then we kept out of sight and stayed quiet. The thieves never even knew we were here."

"Your mother as well?"

"Yes. She wasn't afraid to climb the ladder at all! And the slaves, too. It was my idea."

"And a brilliant idea it was." Tears welled in my eyes until Diana became a blur.

"And look, Papa! I even thought to save my jewellery box." She held it proudly before her.

"Yes, very good. Go get your mother now," I said, impatient to see with my own eyes that Bethesda was safe. "Tell Belbo to come, too."

Eco spoke softly in my ear. "Papa, come to the foyer." "What?"

"Come." He took my arm and led me there.

When I first rushed into the house, I had tripped over something large and heavy. The thing I had tripped over was a body. Eco's men had rolled him onto his back and pulled him into the light.

Belbo's face, normally so bovine and amenable, was frozen in a grimace of fierce determination. In his right hand he clenched a dagger with blood on it. The front of his pale tunic was spotted with great blossoms of red.

He had died just inside the broken door, defending the breach, striving to keep them out. His dagger testified that he had inflicted at least one wound, but he had taken many more.

The tears which I had been holding back, which I had begrudgingly released in my relief at seeing Diana, now came in a blinding flood. The simple, cheerful man who had been my loyal companion for twenty-five years and the protector of my loved ones, who had saved my life more than once, who had always seemed lit from within by a steady flame which nothing could extinguish, lay lifeless at my feet. Belbo was dead.