A murder on the Appian way

IV

Whipped by the cold wind, the blazes shot higher and higher until the whole Senate House was engulfed by flames. The mob danced on the marble steps, hooting and laughing while they dodged cascades of cinders and ash.

The fire began to spread, first to the complex of senatorial offices to the south of the Senate House. The threat of the mob had already emptied most of the buildings, but after the flames started a few panic-stricken clerks came rushing out, carrying armloads of documents. Some tripped and fell, others zigzagged madly, dodging the taunting mob, dropping their burdens. Wax tablets scattered like tumbling dice. Scrolls unfurled and streamed like pennants in the breeze.

Then the wind changed. The flames spread west of the Senate House, to the Porcian Basilica. One of the great buildings of the Forum, it was a hundred and thirty years old, the first basilica ever built. Its distinguishing features — the long nave terminating in an apse with colonnaded aisles on either side — are now duplicated in buildings all over the empire. Many of the wealthiest bankers in the world kept their headquarters in the Porcian Basilica. It took hardly an hour for the fire to reduce its venerable majesty to a smouldering pile of rubble.

It was the bankers, I learnedlater, desperate to salvage what remained of their records, who finally organized a large contingent of freedmen and slaves to battle the flames. Acting out of pure selfishness, they may have saved a large part of Rome from going up in smoke. The firefighters formed long, snaking lines across the Forum and through the cattle market all the way to the banks of the Tiber, where they filled buckets with water and passed them up to pour on the flames, then passed the empty buckets back again. From time to time a few rowdies broke away from the mourners' frenzied revelry to harass the firefighters, pelting them with stones and spitting on them. Scuffles broke out. A cordon of bodyguards, also sent by the bankers, arrived to protect the bucket-passers.

It was a mad day. Rome seemed racked with fever, delirious. With Clodius consigned to the purifying flames, and the Senate House along with him, his mourners carried on their unconventional funeral celebration. Could they have planned such madness in advance, or did they make it up as they went along, inspired by the dancing flames and the billowing smoke, invigorated by the charred tang in the air? At mid-afternoon, they held a funeral feast. Before the smouldering Senate House they set up tables, covered the tables with black cloths and spread out a banquet.

While the firefighters continued their frantic efforts, the Clodians drank and ate in honour of their dead leader. The poor and hungry of the city came out to join them, at first meekly and then, seeing that they were welcome, in jubilation. Vast quantities of food arrived — great urns full of blood-black sausages, pots of black beans, loaves of black bread, all suitably black for a feast to honour the dead, washed down with blood-red wine. Meanwhile the confused, frightened, curious citizens of Rome — those who lacked the safe vantage of a Palatine rooftop to watch what was going on — skirted the edges of the Forum, cautiously peeking around comers and peering over walls, gawking variously in outrage, delight, disbelief and consternation.

I spent much of the day on my root watching. So did Cicero. He would disappear for a while, then reappear with various visitors, many of them senators, as I could tell from the purple border on their togas. They would take in the view, shake their heads in disgust or gasp in horror, then disappear again, talking and gesticulating. There seemed to be some sort of all-day meeting going on in Cicero's house.

Eco came by to see me for a while. I told him he was mad to venture out on such a day. He had stayed clear of the Forum, and though he had heard the rumour that the Senate House was destroyed, he had thought it was only that, a rumour. I took him up on the.roof so he could see the spectacle for himself. He headed back to Menenia and the twins soon after.

Even Bethesda overcame her distrust of the ladder and ventured up on the roof for a while to see what all the fuss was about. I teased her that the sight of so much rioting must have made her homesick for Alexandria, seeing that the Alexandrians were so famous for rioting. She didn't laugh at the joke. Neither did I.

The feasting and the firefighting down in the Forum continued until well after nightfall. Towards evening Belbo brought me a bowl of hot soup and climbed back down. A little later Diana joined me with her own steaming bowl. As we sat alone on the roof the sky darkened to deeper and deeper shades of blue verging into black. In every season, twilight is the most beautiful hour in Rome. The stars began to show in the firmament, glittering like bits of frost. There was even a kind of prettiness about the nickering lights down in the Forum, now that darkness hid the ugliness of charred wood and blackened stone. The fires had largely died down, but the deepening gloom revealed smouldering patches of flame in the ruins of the Porcian Basilica and the senatorial office buildings.

Diana finished her soup. She put down the bowl and pulled a blanket over her shoulders. "How did Clodius die, Papa?"

"From his wounds, I should think: Surely you don't want me to describe them again."

"No. I mean, how did it happen?"

"I don't know, really. I'm not sure that anyone does, except whoever killed him, of course. There seemed to be quite a bit of confusion about it at his house last night. Clodia said there was a skirmish of some sort down on the Appian Way, near a place called Bovillae, where Clodius had a villa. Clodius and some of his men had an altercation with Milo and some of his men. Clodius got the worst of it."

"But why did they fight?"

"Clodius and Milo have been enemies for a long time, Diana." "Why?"

"Why are two men usually enemies? Because they want the same thing." "A woman?"

"In some cases. Or a boy. Or a father's love. Or an inheritance, or a piece of land. In this case, Clodius and Milo both wanted power." "And they couldn't both have it?"

" Apparently not. Sometimes when two ambitious men are enemies, one of them has to die if the other's to go on living. At least that's how it usually works out, sooner or later. It's what we Romans call politics." I smiled without mirth.

"You hate politics, don't you, Papa?" "I like to say I do." "But I thought — "

"I'm like the man who says he hates the theatre but never misses a play. He claims it's his friends who drag him along. Even so, he can quote every line of Terence."

"So you secretly love politics."

"No! But it's in the air I breathe, and I don't care to stop breathing. Put it another way: politics is the Roman disease, and I'm no more immune than anyone else."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Certain diseases are peculiar to certain tribes and nations. Your brother Meto says that up in Gaul there's a tribe in which every person is born deaf in one ear. You've heard your mother say that there's a village on the Nile where everyone breaks out in hives at the approach of a cat. And I read once that Spaniards suffer a form of tooth rot that can only be cured by drinking their own urine."

"Papa!" Diana wrinkled her nose.

"Not all diseases are grossly physical. The Athenians are addicted to art; without it they become irritable and constipated. Alexandrians live for commerce; they'd sell a virgin's sigh if they could find a way to bottle it. I hear the Parthians suffer from hippomania; whole clans go to war with each other to lay claim to a fine breeding stud.

"Well, politics is the Roman disease. Everyone in the city catches it sooner or later, even women nowadays. No one ever recovers. It's an insidious sickness, with perverse symptoms. Different people suffer in different ways, and some don't suffer at all; it cripples one man, kills another, and makes yet another man grow fat and strong."

"So is it a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Just a Roman thing, Diana. And whether it's good or bad for Rome, I can't say. It's made us the rulers of the world. But I begin to wonder if it won't be the end of us." I stared down at the Forum, no longer like Jupiter watching the plain of Ida — more now like Pluto surveying the fiery pits of Hades.

Diana leaned back. Her jet-black hair made a pillow for her head as she studied the sky above. Her dark eyes reflected glimmers of cold starlight.

"I like it when you talk to me like this, Papa."

"Do you?"

"This is how you used to talk to Meto sometimes, before he left for the army."

"I suppose."

She turned on her side, propped her head on her hand and looked at me earnestly. "Is something bad going to happen, Papa?"

"I imagine the people around Clodius think something bad has already happened."

"To us, I mean. Are we in danger, Papa?"

"Not if I can help it." I ran my hand over the side of her face and stroked her hair.

"But things are getting worse, aren't they? That's what you and Eco always say to each other, when you talk politics. And now it's worse than ever — Clodius dead, the Senate House burned down. Is something awful about to happen?"

"Something awful is always about to happen — to someone, somewhere. The only escape is to make a friend of Fortune, if she'll have you, and run the other way whenever you see a politician coming."

"I'm serious, Papa. Are things about to — I don't know, about to fall apart? For us, for everybody?"

How could I answer her? Out of the past I suddenly remembered a scene from the Forum when I was a young man, after Sulla won the civil war: rows and rows of heads mounted on pikes, the enemies of the dictator paying gaping witness to his triumph. Afterwards, people swore that such a thing would never happen again. That was thirty years ago.

"I can't see the future, Diana."

"But you know the past, enough to understand about Clodius and Milo. Explain it to me. If I could understand what's happening, perhaps it wouldn't worry me so much."

"Very well, Diana. Clodius and Milo: where to begin? Well, we shall have to start with Caesar and Pompey. You know who they are."

"Of course. Gaius Julius Caesar is the man Meto serves, up in Gaul. The greatest general since Alexander the Great."

I smiled. "So Meto says. Pompey might not agree."

"Pompey cleared the seas of the pirates and conquered the East."

I nodded. "And surnamed himself Magnus — 'the Great,' just like Alexander. As I said a moment ago, sometime when two men want the same thing — "

"You mean Caesar and Pompey both want to be Alexander the Great?"

"Yes, exactly, since you put it like that. And there can't be two at once. The world is not big enough."

"But don't Caesar and Pompey both serve the Senate and the people of Rome?"

"Nominally, yes. They receive their commands and permission to raise their armies from the Senate, and between them they've conquered the world in the name of the Senate. But sometimes servants outgrow their master. Caesar and Pompey have both grown too big for the Senate. So far, the salvation of the Republic has been that the two generals have held one another in check — neither can grow too powerful for fear of riling the other. And there have been other factors figured into the balance."

"Pompey married Caesar's daughter, didn't he?"

"Yes: Julia. Apparently it was a genuine love match. That marriage link smoothed over the two men's differences. Family connections mean everything, especially to patricians like Caesar. And another factor: the two rivals used to be three. There was Marcus Crassus."

"The man who owned Meto when he was a little boy. He was the one who put down Spartacus and the slave rebellion."

"Yes, but despite that victory Crassus was never much of a general. But he did manage to make himself the richest man in the world. Crassus, Caesar and Pompey formed what they called the Triumvirate, sharing power between the three of them. That seemed to work for a while. A table with three legЈ is steady."

"But a table with just two legs…"

"Sooner or later has to fall. Last spring Crassus was killed in Parthia, at the eastern end of the world, trying to prove his military prowess once and for all by conquering some of the same lands that Alexander conquered. But the Parthian cavalry defeated him. They killed his son, along with forty thousand Roman soldiers. They chopped off Crassus's head and used it for a stage prop to amuse their king. Exit Crassus."

"Leaving the Triumvirate with only two feet."

"But at least those two feet were still bound together by the marriage link between Pompey and Caesar — until Julia died in childbirth. Now nothing holds the two of them together, and there's nothing to keep them from coming to blows sooner or later. Rome holds its breath, like a hedgehog watching two eagles circle overhead, ready to battle it out to see which of them gets to eat the hedgehog."

"I think you must be the first man ever to compare Rome to a hedgehog, Papa!" Diana studied the stars. "Is there a hedgehog constellation?" "I don't think so."

"So you've told me all this about Caesar and Pompey the Great. But what about Clodius and Milo?"

"Caesar and Pompey are eagles up in the sky, soaring over mountains and seas. Down here on solid ground, it's Clodius and Milo who've been fighting over Rome itself — the city, not the empire. They fought with gangs instead of armies. Instead of mountain ranges and seas, they squabbled over the seven hills and the markets on the riverfront. Instead of battles, they staged riots in the Forum. Instead of campaigning against barbarians, they campaigned against each other for office — bullying and bribing voters, pandering to their constituents, postponing elections, pulling every possible trick to get the better of each other.

"Milo represents those who call themselves the Best People — old families, old money, the most conservative elements in the Senate. The kind of people Pompey likes to associate with, so it's not surprising that from time to time Milo has more or less acted as Pompey's henchman here in Rome.

"Clodius is-was-a radical, despite his patrician blood. He appealed to the mob. When he was in the military, he staged an uprising of common soldiers against their commander, who happened to be his own brother-in-law. The year the plebeians elected him tribune, he promised to set up a free grain dole, and he did, by annexing Cyprus to finance the scheme. Clodius was always out to better the lot of common foot soldiers and farmers and the city poor, and in return they were always there to vote when he needed them, sometimes with ballots, more often with fists. The rabble loved him. And the Best People hated him.

"From time to time Clodius found himself on the same side as Caesar, another patrician with populist leanings, and so they assisted each other, mostly behind the scenes. People came to think of them as allies — Caesar and Clodius against Pompey and Milo. The two great men moving all over the world, each allied with a lesser man with a gang at his disposal here in Rome to fight for control of the capital."

"Like the heroes of the Iliad," said Diana. "The gods allied with mortals: one god looking out for Hector, another god on the side of Achilles. And Hector and Achilles each haying an army."

"All these references to Troy — I take it you've been reading Homer?"

"I need to practise my Greek. Mother helps me." "Your mother can't read."

"Yes, but she speaks Greek. She helps me with pronunciation."

"I see. Well, a little literary allusion goes a long way. But if I can compare Rome to a hedgehog, I suppose we can also compare our local gang leaders to Hector and Achilles. It's apt, in a way. The gods withdrew their favour from Hector in the end, didn't they? So fell the House of Priam, and Troy along with it. The gods can be fickle, like any ally; it's all politics in the end. Allegiances shift like sand underfoot. Loyalty slips through your fingers."

"And a man dies."

"Yes. Then more men die, usually."

"And buildings burn."

We watched the Forum in silence for a while.

"Caesar and Pompey, Clodius and Milo," said Diana. "Still, how did it come to this, Papa? The Senate House burned to the ground…"

I sighed. The young think there must always be a simple answer. "You know how the elections are held, Diana, or at least how they're supposed to be held: citizens gather on the Field of Mars to cast their ballots for the various magistrates who run the government. There are different elections, on different days, for the various magistrates. Most of the elections are held in the summer; good weather for gathering out of doors. The voters elect two consuls, who have the highest power. After the consuls come the praetors, and then the aediles and the quaestors and so on, all with different powers and duties.

"The old year ends. At the beginning of Januarius the elected magistrates take office. They serve for one year and then step down or move on to govern foreign provinces. So it's been, for hundreds and hundreds of years, going all the way back to the fall of the kings and the founding of the Republic.

"That's how it's supposed to work, anyway. But today Rome is a city without magistrates. We're halfway through the month of Januarius, and still there are no magistrates to run the state."

"What about the tribunes?" said Diana.

I hummed, stalling while I thought of the answer. The Roman constitution is so damnably complicated! "Technically, tribunes are not magistrates. The tribunate was established long ago when only patricians could be magistrates, and the plebeians demanded to have their own representatives. Nowadays the magistracies are open to both classes, but tribunes must still be plebeians. There are ten of them each year, chosen by a special assembly of plebeians only. They still tend to represent the interests of the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich. Clodius himself served a term as tribune — that was the year he managed to get Cicero sent into exile and established the grain dole."

"But Clodius and his sister are patricians."

"Ah, but Clodius fixed that; he had himself adopted by a plebeian practically young enough to be his son just so that he could run for the tribunate. Even his enemies had to admire his ingenuity! It's a natural office for a rabble-rouser. I dare say some of our more ambitious tribunes are down in the Forum right now, haranguing that mob. Anyway, the selection of tribunes was carried out as usual last year, with no disruptions. But not so with the regular magistrates."

"What happened?"

"Last year Milo chose to run for consul. Clodius ran for praetor. If each had won, they'd have cancelled each other out. Milo would have vetoed Clodius's radical schemes, and Clodius would have undermined Milo's efforts on behalf of the Best People."

"Each would have been a thorn in the side of the other," said Diana.

"Exacdy. So each was determined to keep the other from winning. Yet each was a formidable candidate, likely to win his office. So every time an election was scheduled, something occurred to postpone it. An augur would read the signs in the sky and say the omens were bad — election cancelled. A new day would be chosen, but on the eve of the election someone in the Senate would come up with an obscure point of calendar law to show that no voting could be held on that day after all. Much debate — a new date is finally chosen. The day arrives — riots break out on the Field of Mars. And on and on. In previous years' elections there have been gross irregularities — voters bribed or intimidated, lawsuits used to keep men from running for office or from serving out their terms, all sorts of manoeuvres to tilt and skew the process. But there's never been a year like this last one — pure chaos. A republic that can't even manage to hold elections is a very sick republic."

As if to punctuate that sentiment, a smouldering pocket of flame down in the Porcian Basilica suddenly flared up. The fire must have eaten through to a cache of lamp oil and ignited it. The concussion reached the Palatine a moment later, like the muffled boom of a drumbeat. By the glare of the towering flames I saw the tiny figures of startled firefighters scattering. A cheer went up from the feasting Clodians. The snakelike line of bucket-carriers altered course to douse the new flare-up, which spat back at them with steam and tongues of flame. In the gathering darkness the struggle between the fire and those who fought it began to take on fantastical shapes.

"So it's no surprise," I went on, "if Milo should, have killed Clodius. The only thing less surprising would have been if Clodius had killed Milo."

Diana nodded thoughtfully.

A little while later Bethesda called up from the garden. It was nearly time for dinner. Diana went down to help her mother. She seemed satisfied with the answers I had given her, though I was quite aware that I had not answered her most important questions.

Are we in danger, Papa?

Is something awful about to happen?

The fiery explosion down in the Forum seemed to have ignited a fresh burst of excitement among the Clodians. They finished their feast. Speakers mounted the Rostra again. Chants echoed up from the mob.

A strange ceremony began. Men marched in single file up to the smouldering ruins of the Senate House, then descended the blackened steps holding fiery torches aloft. After a while I realized what was happening: they were lighting their torches from the same purifying fire that had consumed Clodius's remains. Out of piety and devotion, they would take it home with them, to add to their own hearth fires. Or so I thought, until I saw that the mob had another use in mind for the sacred fire.

From the steps of the Senate House the torchbearers headed towards the Palatine. It was easy to follow their progress; they moved like creeping rivers of flame between the temples and across the paved squares. They returned by the ways they had come, some heading up the Ramp, others disappearing from my sight around the edge of the hill, heading for the paths that would take them up the western flank of the Palatine. The torchlight in that direction made such a glow that over on Cicero's roof I could see the figures of Cicero and Tiro in silhouette, their backs turned towards me as they put their heads together.

Those who ascended the Ramp turned west, away from my house, and ran in the direction of Cicero's house. I held my breath. I saw Cicero's silhouette stiffen. But the torchbearers ran on. Following the street, making a circumference of the crest of the hill, they would meet up with the rest of the mob at some point on the farther side.

Who had a house in that vicinity?

Milo.

With the same cleansing fire that had turned the bloody remains of Clodius to ash, the mob intended to burn down Milo's house, and Milo with it, if he had dared to return to the city.

Diana called to me from below. "Papa! Mother says it's time to eat."

"Yes, Diana. In a moment."

Milo's house was far away, measuring by a stone's throw; not far at all, measuring by the speed of flames riding a cold breeze to jump from roof to roof If the mob set fire to Milo's house, the blaze could easily spread all over the Palatine…

The safest course might be to take the family to Eco's house over on the Esquiline. But what would happen then if my house did catch fire? Who would fight the flames? And what reason was there to think that we could cross the Subura and reach Eco's house in safety on such a night, with such a mob on the loose?

"Papa, are you coming down? Do you see something?"

A few stragglers came running up the Ramp. Their torches crackled in the air like flapping pennants as they took the sharp turn towards Cicero's house and beyond.

"I'm coming," I said. I took a last look in the direction of Milo's house. I seemed to hear sounds of conflict — clattering, shouting — but the echoes were confused and distant.

"Papa?"

I turned and stepped onto the top rung of the ladder.

It was a sombre meal. I tasted nothing. Afterwards, when Diana and Bethesda had retired for the night, I stole up to the roof again. I looked in the direction of Milo's house but saw no sign of flames. Still, when I was ready to come down, I called for Belbo to take my place. We took turns through the night, one fitfully dozing beneath a mound of blankets on a couch in the garden, one up on the roof watching the skyline for any telltale orange glow. But when it finally came, the glow was in the opposite direction. The sun came up, and my house still stood.

I went up to the roof to have a final look. In the cold, hazy morning air, the Forum was like a smeared painting. I could hardly make out any details at all. But when I took a deep breath I caught the scent of burned wood and baked stone, the smell of what had once been the Senate House, which had become the crematorium of the rabble's fallen champion.