A Point of Law

6

By morning no lictors had appeared to arrest me, so I presumed I was free to go around as I pleased, which I proceeded to do.

That morning featured a new distraction for the citizens, the arrival of Caesar’s men on the Campus Martius. For the moment I was forgotten as everyone flocked out through the northwestern gates to the old drill field to welcome the heroes of Gaul. Being under arms they could not enter the City, but elections were held on the Campus Martius so they didn’t have to.

The field had become greatly built up in the last generation, with the homes and businesses around the Circus Flaminius and Pompey’s theater complex, which was practically a village in itself, but there was still plenty of ground devoted to military drill. By the time I got there, at least two cohorts’ tents were already pitched, and more soldiers were arriving, an endless stream of them coming down the Via Flaminia.

They were veterans and they looked it. Their arms were dingy, their shield covers weather stained, their helmet crests and plumes drooping, their cloaks every shade of red from scarlet to rust brown. But their boots and swords were immaculate, and if their equipment wasn’t spruced up for parade, it was in perfect battle order. They looked supremely competent and dangerous.

I went out through the Fontinalis Gate with a knot of fellow senators I’d joined in the Forum.

“Jupiter protect us!” said one, as we caught sight of them. “I am glad to know that Caesar is still north of the Rubicon!”

For some reason, we never feared a Roman army as long as its general was somewhere else. Caesar’s imperium ended at the Rubicon. If he crossed it, he would be just another citizen. Or so we thought.

A good-sized fair was taking shape on the Campus Martius that morning, as the itinerant vendors and mountebanks descended upon this cornucopia of soldiery, marched all the way from Gaul with their pay in their purses.

The men themselves were from all over Italy and Sicily, from the tip of Calabria to the northern edge of Umbria. They were the men of the villages and countryside, from towns that had borne Roman citizenship for centuries and others whose fathers had been at war with Rome within living memory. Most of them probably had never laid eyes on Rome.

That was getting to be more and more common of late. In Hannibal’s day, the consuls had been able to whistle up ten legions within a day’s march of the City, so densely was Latium peopled with prosperous peasant families. Now we had to scour the whole peninsula for enough men to fill that many legions, and few real Romans served except as officers. Perhaps Caesar was right, and someday we would have to recruit Gauls. If he didn’t kill them all first, that is.

I searched for familiar faces, but in an army so vast I knew only a relative handful of men. Most of my time in Gaul I had spent in command of auxilia or else working in Caesar’s headquarters. The first soldiers to arrive belonged to legions that hadn’t even been in Gaul when I was last there. The war, originally a fairly modest campaign to support our allies and drive the Germans back beyond the Rhenus, had turned into a vast war of conquest that had spread out to reach the obscure island of Britannia.

Despite their victories, there were no laurels, trophies, or other triumphal insignia in evidence. That would have been too arrogant even for Caesar, and he must have given strict orders for his men to make no such presumptuous display. The Senate still guarded jealously its right to grant or withhold a triumph, and Caesar was not ready to break completely with the Senate. Not yet, anyway.

In fact, as soon as their camp was made, the men made tripods of their spears, leaned their shields against them, put their helmets on the spear points, and stored their armor and swords inside the tents. When they circulated among the crowds, they retained only their military belts and boots as insignia of their status. At this demonstration of goodwill, the most ardent anti-Caesarians breathed a sigh of relief and joined in the general festivity. Thus disarmed, the soldiers were free to enter the City.

The soldiers, like soldiers of all times and places, showed off their awards and souvenirs and loot. Torques-the twisted neck rings worn by all Gallic warriors-were everywhere, from simple bronze pieces worn by the humbler Gauls to magnificent specimens of highly worked gold and silver taken from the necks of chieftains, often by the simple operation of removing the head at the same time. Within days it seemed as if every boy in Rome was wearing a big, bronze ring around his thin neck.

Others displayed beautiful shields of enameled bronze and long, narrow swords that looked exotic to eyes accustomed to the short, broad gladius. Gauls are passionately fond of jewelry, and these men had brought back tons of it, as well as yards of extravagantly dyed cloth worked in bewildering patterns of stripes and checks. Rome soon had the most colorful, glittering whores in the world.

I suppose it must have been the same when the Greeks returned from Troy.

“Very clever,” remarked Scribonius Libo, another candidate for praetor and a friend of Pompey. “It’s just like Caesar to accomplish several things with a single act. First, all these men will weight the polls in favor of his candidates. Second, it will remind everyone of how powerful he has grown. Third, it’s a recruiting campaign: these men are proclaiming, ‘Look how rich a soldier can become by serving with Caesar.’ ”

“Caesar uses his resources efficiently,” I agreed, “but it’s all perfectly legal.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Scribonius grumbled. “We need a law that keeps the legions on the frontiers as long as they’re under arms.”

There was a lot of such talk in those years. Our old system of raising legions for each new war and then disbanding them upon their return was terribly outdated. We still raised them that way for a really large-scale war like Caesar’s, or for an impromptu campaign like that of Crassus against Parthia, but settling the veterans of victorious wars proved to be a perpetual headache. Usually they had no land to return to, much of Italy having been bought up by plantation owners. These, having got the land cheap, were reluctant to see any of it parceled out to veterans. Many of the greatest of these landlords were senators. This was one more way in which my own class was busily cutting its own throat during those years.

The legionaries rarely had any trade save farming or fighting. Since land was scarce, they did their best to stay under arms as long as possible. Some legions had become permanent institutions, passed on from one proconsul to the next, remaining under their standards for twenty years or more. Others, disbanded, stayed together with their arms handy, waiting for the next call to the eagles.

Somehow, we had acquired a class of professional soldiers. They were a constant danger to the stability of the Republic, and Scribonius was not alone in calling for their virtual banishment from Italy, locating them instead in permanent forts along our frontiers. It was an argument with merit, but thus far nobody had the courage or the power to implement such a plan. Pompey could have done it, but his power was heavily invested in the old system. His demobilized veterans were his clients and his power base. He could call them back to arms at any time, and everybody knew it.

What nobody mentioned was the greatest source of wealth for Caesar’s rampaging legions: slaves. After the larger battles, in which great numbers of prisoners were taken, Caesar sometimes gave each man a prisoner as a slave, to sell or keep as he saw fit. Of course, men constantly under arms and on the march had little use for slaves and no convenient way to send them home, so they usually sold them immediately to the slave traders who followed the legions like vultures hovering over a battlefield.

These prisoners, I must add, were not captive warriors. Those were regarded as too dangerous for field or domestic service, so they were usually killed on the spot, if they had not killed themselves already to avoid disgrace. Those survivors Caesar selected to fight in his triumphal games were sent to Italy in chains under heavy guard. One need not waste much pity on them. Some of them actually survived the combats and won their freedom. In any case, Gallic warriors had no objection to death in combat. It was work they feared. To men of their class, common labor was unutterably dishonorable and degrading.

The captives were mostly the women and children of the tribe, or people who were already slaves, and these last were the most numerous. Unlike the Germans, among whom all freeborn men were warriors, the Gallic warriors were aristocrats. The bulk of the population were Gauls born to slavery or to a sort of degraded serfdom that was little better.

The upshot of it all was that, once again, Italy was being inundated by a flood of cheap slaves, with consequent effects on the economy and on society in general, making it harder for freeborn Italians to make a living, throwing yet more peasants out of work. It always happened after a big war. You would think we’d learn better, but we never have.

Cato showed up, plodding around barefooted, walking up and down the rows of tents like a new commander on his first inspection. He came to join us where we watched the market taking shape in front of Pompey’s Portico, just north of his theater. For once, Cato’s ugly face wasn’t scowling.

“These are real Roman soldiers,” he said approvingly. “These men could have gone toe-to-toe with Hannibal’s.”

“Hurts to say it, eh, Cato?” said Scribonius Libo.

“The times are decadent,” Cato answered, “but there is nothing wrong with Italian manhood. I disapprove of Caesar, and I’ve never made a secret of it. He is a man with too much ambition and too little respect for the Senate. But he knows how to use an army. He knows how to train and discipline soldiers, too. He doesn’t spoil and flatter and bribe them like Pompey.”

“You’ll notice,” I commented, “that they are comporting themselves perfectly. Pompey’s veterans have been known to tromp around here at election time fully armed and scowling balefully.”

“Caesar just knows how to make a point more tactfully,” Scribonius Libo said.

“Decius Caecilius, might I have a word with you?” Cato said, placing his hand on my shoulder in that let’s-talk-in-private gesture.

“Certainly.”

We walked up the steps of the Portico and into the shade of the colonnade. Its rear wall was beautifully adorned with frescoes. Displaying uncharacteristic taste, Pompey had chosen mythological subjects instead of glorifying his own victories.

“I attended the contio yesterday,” Cato began. “I think you should challenge its constitutionality. First, it was quite informal. There were no sacrifices, no taking of auguries, so its decisions cannot have the binding power of law.”

“By custom,” I said, “a contio is held to discuss a pending matter and decide whether a meeting of the comitia is called for. Sacrifices and auguries are not necessary.”

“Exactly. Yet Manilius proceeded as if he had the power to call for a trial at the contio, when it requires a vote in the full comitia to do that. Oh, he was very smooth. He acted like the gravest, most deliberate magistrate since Fabius Cunctator, but his tactics were radical! In the first place, the comitia tributa has no right to try a capital case.”

“But is it truly a capital case?” I asked. “It’s just a common murder. It’s not parricide, so there is no sacrilege involved. He wasn’t killed by poison or magic. It was nothing but an ordinary stabbing, although it was carried out with rare zeal. It’s not as if I was charged with a really serious crime like arson or treason.”

“Nonsense! The victim, though obscure, was a man of good family. You, too, are a man of good family and high reputation. If you are not to be tried in one of the standing courts, you should appeal for trial before the whole comitia centuriata, with all classes represented, where the tribunes don’t control everything.”

“There’s no time. Not if I’m to stand in the election. If I stall, Manilius and Fulvius’s faction will use it as grounds for impeachment and try to keep me from assuming office.” A sitting magistrate could not be prosecuted; but if the election itself were to be invalidated, he could be prevented from taking his place.

“Then what will you do? You haven’t time to formulate a good defense, and they’ve had plenty of time to work up their plot, whatever it is.”

“I intend to prove myself innocent before it comes to trial.”

He looked skeptical. Like Julia, Cato had little faith in the concept of mere innocence.

Foreigners were often mystified by our old Republican system, with its welter of popular assemblies, courts, officials with rival jurisdictions, political factions, and competing clientela, but it all made perfect sense to us. Well, almost perfect. As in this case, there was often dispute about anyone’s right to do anything.

Over the generations, the various classes had fought over political power; first, patrician against plebeian; then the nobiles and senators against the equites and lower plebs; until now the classes were hopelessly intertwined. I was a perfect example: a plebeian by birth, a nobiles by heritage, having many consuls among my ancestors; an eques by property qualification, and a senator by election. I was not a patrician, but by that year the patrician families were all but extinct, and the only exclusive privileges they had left were certain priesthoods, which suited me perfectly. Only a fool wanted to be Flamen Dialis or Rex Sacrorum.

Most foreigners assumed that the Senate ran things. While the Senate was full of powerful men, its own powers were restricted almost completely to foreign affairs. Cicero got into huge trouble by trying the Catilinarian conspirators in the Senate and executing them without appeal. Even though the immensely conservative Cato fully approved of his actions, Cicero was exiled by the comitia tribute, then later recalled by a vote of the comitia centuriata.

SPQR, our ancient civic insignia, stood for “the Senate and People of Rome,” and we meant it.

Now, of course, it is all changed. Most of the old bodies and institutions remain, but they all just do what the First Citizen tells them to. Once we savaged each other so thoroughly that it is no wonder we were such a terror to our enemies. I fear that Rome has no great future now that it is a monarchy in all but name.

But such thoughts did not disturb me at the time. This accusation of murder was just one more excitement in the general excitement of election time. It was an annoyance, but anything was better than being in Gaul.

“Cato, you recall the crowd that denounced me on the basilica steps yesterday? Were they at the contio?”

“They were there. Still denouncing you, too.”

“Did they happen to mention that they caught me in the house of Fulvius, rifling through his belongings?”

“Never said a word about it. Oh, there was some gossip going around that you and your boy Hermes were seen leaping from a balcony and running like the Furies were after you, but I’ve heard that so often that I discounted it. What were you up to?”

“Gathering evidence. The door wasn’t locked and no one was there to forbid me to enter, so it wasn’t housebreaking. What interests me is that they said nothing about it.”

“It does seem odd. What did you find?”

“Nothing immediately useful. But he was living unusually well for a penurious man, in a house owned by Caius Claudius Marcellus.”

“A political favor then,” he said. “But of what sort? He’s an ardent anti-Caesarian, but like you he has a marriage tie with Caesar.”

“Really? I was unaware of that.”

“Yes, his wife is Octavia. She is a granddaughter of Caesar’s sister.”

“A great-niece? That’s not much of a connection.”

“In this case it could be. Caesar has shown great favor toward her brother, young Caius Octavius. If he doesn’t breed an heir soon, he may adopt the boy. A few months ago the lad gave the funeral eulogy for his grandmother, Julia. Did a splendid job of it for one so young.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” I said. And that was true of most of us. It was just as well for our peace of mind that we didn’t know what the future had in store for that particular brat, who was all of twelve years old at the time.

“A couple of years ago, when Caesar and Pompey were patching up one of their breaches, Caesar wanted Octavia to divorce Marcellus and marry Pompey. Caesar would set aside Calpurnia and marry Pompey’s daughter. But it didn’t work out somehow.”

“That must have made for some tense domestic suppers at Caesar’s house,” I said.

“Why?” Cato was honestly mystified at the suggestion that these women might resent being ordered to divorce and remarry at someone’s political whim. Pompey’s daughter was married to Faustus Sulla and had two children by him. In the event, Pompey had actually married the daughter of Metellus Scipio. She was the widow of Publius Crassus, who had died with his father at Carrhae. Our political marriages were as complicated as our electoral politics.

“Claudius Marcellus bids fair to be one of next year’s consuls,” I said. “What is he likely to do?”

“Now that Caesar’s soldiers are here, his colleague will be Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus. You’ve seen the huge renovations going on at the Basilica Aemilia?”

“It’s hard to miss.”

“Well, Lucius will preside at its rededication, and his name will be carved on it as restorer, but it’s Caesar’s money that’s paid for the work.”

Erection or restoration of monuments was enormously important to any man’s prestige. Families traditionally saw to the upkeep of the monuments of their ancestors, as witness my new roof on the Porticus Metelli. By restoring the old basilica, Lucius Aemilius not only glorified himself, but he received credit for his piety in honoring his ancestors.

Something else occurred to me. Like many of Rome’s older structures, the Basilica Aemilia had more than one name. People sometimes called it the Basilica Fulvia.

It was barely noon when I went to the house of Callista. I had intended to call later, but since I might be arrested at anytime I thought it prudent to stop by early. Hermes was with me as usual, and the long walk to the Trans-Tiber took us through an almost deserted Rome because so much of the population had flocked to the Campus Martius to see the soldiers from Gaul. Like most of Caesar’s self-glorifying schemes, this one had proved to be a resounding success.

The majordomo greeted me at the door and guided me toward the peristyle garden. From that direction I could hear the sound of feminine voices in conversation. One of them said something, another laughed. Ordinarily I find such sounds pleasant, even soothing. But one of those voices sounded disturbingly familiar.

The two women were seated at a table next to a beautiful pool. One of them, naturally, was Callista. The other was Julia.

“Why, Senator!” Callista exclaimed, “I was not expecting you so early. How wonderful to have you and your lovely wife as my guests at the same time!”

“An unexpected pleasure indeed,” I said. “Julia, I am surprised you didn’t go out to see all those brawny, sweaty legionaries.”

“Oh, soldiers are such a common sight, even my uncle’s. But I couldn’t pass up a chance to meet the most learned lady in Rome. We have been having the most marvelous discussion on the work of Archimedes.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment.” During our stay in Alexandria, Julia had dragged me along to see every tiresome philosopher and scholar in that whole overeducated city. She had an enthusiasm for learning that entirely eluded me.

“Once I began to study your documents, Senator,” Callista said, “I found myself so enthralled that I quite forgot the time. Eventually, my servants tired of replenishing the lamps and forced me to go to bed. But I was up at dawn and right back to work.”

“I never expected such zeal and cannot adequately thank you,” I said. “So you now have them translated?”

“I am afraid not. But I have made an excellent beginning. And I’ve made the most interesting discovery!”

“How so?” I asked, trying to mask my disappointment. Such rapid success was far too much to hope for.

She took the pages from a small chest upon the table. “You recall that I was puzzled by the repetition of the letter delta?”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Well, I was in despair when I finally went to bed last night. But I must have been visited by a god while I slept because when I awoke this morning I knew what it meant. It is something quite unprecedented.” She had a look of almost daemonic enthusiasm.

“What might this have been?” I asked her.

“Nothing!”

I was stunned. “I fail to-”

“Let her explain, dear,” Julia said. “We’ve discussed a bit of this, and I want to hear more.”

I sat and a servant brought me a cup. “Please do,” I urged.

“I know that it sounds absurd, but that delta means nothing at all, and that is what is so exciting. You see, I noticed that the delta was always repeated after a string of other letters, three to eight or so, and that nowhere was a delta doubled. When I woke this morning I realized that whoever encoded these documents intended to simplify decoding by separating the words with the delta, rather the way that some people, when writing, leave a small space between individual words.”

“I see,” I said. “It seems simple enough.”

“It is deceptively simple. But the implications are astounding. It is the use of a symbol to mean nothing at all! I think this is quite unprecedented. There is a subset of philosophy involving the meaning of symbols. I intend to correspond with some philosophers I know to discuss the implications of this. I think it could have great applications in mathematics as well.”

“I daresay it could,” I said, trying to sound wise. I had no idea what the woman was babbling about. To this day I have no idea. A symbol for nothing?It was as ridiculous as the paradoxes of Zeno.

Julia spoke up. “Callista thinks this might have been the very concept Archimedes was working on when that horrible soldier killed him.”

“Well,” I said, “that sort of thing happens in a war. He shouldn’t have spoken rudely to the man. Callista, were you able to make any other headway on the letters?”

“I am almost certain that the language is common Latin. The length and arrangement of the words suggest this. I haven’t yet discovered the key to the letter substitution though. I had thought it would be simple, but now I am sure it is not. A mind subtle enough to invent this delta symbol probably devised something more complex.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but you might be giving him too much credit. He may have hit on the delta as a handy way to separate words without giving a consideration to the deeper implications.” Whatever on earth those might be, I thought.

“You could be right,” she said doubtfully. “Did you happen to see, where you found these documents, any books, poems, other writings?”

“Why?”

“I believe this code employs substitution of one letter for another-in this case each Greek letter stands for a letter of the Latin alphabet-but in order to decipher it, I must have the key.”

“Key?” I said. “What might that be?”

“It could be a written instruction, but more likely what has been used will be a well-known book, such as the Homeric poems, Pindar, something like that. If one has the book and knows the system of substitution, decipherment becomes an easy if tedious process.”

I was not following this, but I trusted the woman to know what she was talking about.

“Now that I think of it, there were a few scrolls in a holder next to the desk. And one lying on it.” I searched my mind for memories of that stimulating afternoon. “The one on the desk was partially unrolled and it looked like it was one he read a lot. You know how it is with a favorite book-the papyrus was like cloth, and the edges had turned fuzzy. But it wasn’t some famous work like the Iliad.”

“It isn’t necessary that it be a famous work,” Callista said. “Merely that each correspondent have a copy, and the copies must be identical-no copyist’s errors, and ideally each line of each column should begin with exactly the same word. Sometimes a letter substitution involves counting inward from the first character in a specific line.”

She had lost me again. “Then the books would almost have to come from the same copyist.”

“That would be best. What sort of book was it?”

“It was a textbook of court speeches. They’re standard teaching tools for the rhetoric schools that specialize in teaching lawyers. They use famous legal speeches, or sometimes hypothetical speeches appropriate for hypothetical cases, to demonstrate how to build logical arguments for or against particular positions. This one seemed to be about points of law-the sort of legal hairsplitting that keeps expert pleaders in demand.”

“Law is not a specialty of mine,” she said. “Is there a standard text for these things?”

“No, but I happen to know who trained the man in question: Aulus Sulpicius Galba, now duumvir of Baiae.”

“And has this man written such a text?” Callista asked. “Almost any book can be used for encoding, and it would make sense for a man to use the work most familiar to him.”

“Almost certainly, since he is a law teacher. I could probably find a copy. I might even be able to get the original that I saw yesterday.”

“Decius,” Julia said, “you will do nothing of the sort. You are far too old for burglary. Send Hermes to steal it.”

Callista was looking from one to the other of us as if we were specimens of some exotic beast she was studying. Julia caught her look. “It is quite all right,” she assured the woman. “The man is dead.”

“Of course it might not be the key,” Callista said, “but it seems to be a good candidate for the job, and I have little hope of making a quick translation without it.”

“Then I’ll get it for you,” I said. I turned around. “Where’s Hermes?”

“If I know him,” Julia said, “he’s wherever the best-looking women in this house are kept.”

“But that’s right in this courtyard,” Hermes said gallantly. He was standing just within a doorway that led to a dining room. He had, however, been chatting up a pretty slave girl.

“Curb your insolence,” Julia said. “Can you go find us that book without being seen?”

He thought a moment, going over the urban terrain. “I’ll bribe my way into one of the houses that opens on another street, then cross the common courtyard. If there’s nobody in the house and the book is still there, I’ll get it.”

“Then go and come back here as quickly as you can-no stopping on the way, mind.”

“I shall be as my namesake,” he said, hurrying from the poolside as swiftly and silently as a leopard.

“He seems to be a versatile lad,” Callista noted with some approval.

“Every politician needs one,” I told her.

While we waited for Hermes to return with his loot, we fell to discussing my situation. I told them of my conversation with Cato, about the confusion of marriages and planned marriages that decorated the recent past.

“I know Octavia and her brother only slightly,” Julia admitted, referring to the wife of Caius Marcellus. “Caesar’s sister, another Julia, married Atius Balbus and their daughter, Atia, married Caius Octavius. The younger Caius Octavius and Octavia are their children. The elder Octavius died some time back. Atia is now married to Lucius Philippus, I believe.”

“I know their father,” I said. “A few years ago, when Octavius was praetor, Clodius and I brawled our way right into his court. I’d have cut his throat right there in public if the lictors hadn’t separated us.”

“Just as well you didn’t succeed,” Julia observed. “I heard there was a Vestal present in the court that day.”

“Right,” I said. “They’d probably have hurled me off the Tarpeian Rock or tied me in a weighted sack and tossed me off the Sublician Bridge.”

“You Romans have such imaginative punishments,” Callista said.

“That’s nothing,” I told her. “You ought to see what we do to parricides or arsonists.”

“And yet you are not under arrest even though you are charged with murder.”

“We Romans,” Julia told her, “have a robust sense of justice. We reserve our harshest punishments for crimes that endanger the whole community. Rome is a firetrap so arson is the most serious of crimes. Treason endangers us all. Sacrilege, parricide, and incest anger the gods and draw the wrath of the immortals upon the whole City.”

“Exactly,” I put in. “But a grown citizen is expected to be able to take care of himself. If someone tries to kill you, you should kill him first. You’re a poor prospect for the legions if you’re unable to defend yourself.”

“There are exceptions,” Julia pointed out. “Murder by subterfuge, especially if poison or magic are involved, are not tolerated. Likewise, violence toward sacrosanct personages, such as Tribunes of the People or Vestals, draws harsh punishment.”

“Ordinary senators, on the other hand,” I said, “get no such consideration. In really rough times, I’ve seen as many as half a dozen senators carried dead out of alleys. There are always plenty more where they came from. The Curia is too crowded as it is.”

“I see. And these political marriages of yours: Just what is the point of them since they are so easily dissolved?”

“They’re traditional,” I told her. “They hark back to a day when divorce was much more difficult. At one time only patricians had full citizenship, and they had a special form of marriage-conferratio-that was indissoluble. In those days a political marriage genuinely bound the two families.”

“We Roman women of the great families put up with a great deal from our men,” Julia said. “It is bad enough being pawns in a political game, but it would be nice if we were at least pawns that counted for something.”

“Between your multiple marriages and divorces, and your habit of adopting each other’s sons, I’m surprised you bother with these family names at all. They can hardly have much meaning by this time.”

“It is odd, isn’t it?” I agreed. “Yet we still behave as if our names were of utmost significance.”

“I suspect,” Julia put in, “that is because adoption takes place only among a limited number of families, ones that have traditional relationships and a good deal of shared blood.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Metellus Scipio, for instance, is the last of the Cornelia Scipiones, but he is a Metellus on his mother’s side, so he’s a cousin with or without the name.”

“I find it all very confusing,” Callista said.

“Be happy that you don’t have to worry about such things,” Julia advised her.

“Greek women have been known to seek revenge when treated in such a fashion. We remember Medea.”

“Upper class Roman wives are usually ready for a change of husbands after a year or two.” I saw Julia glowering at me. “There are exceptions, of course.”

For another hour or so Julia and Callista talked of philosophical subjects upon which I wisely declined to intrude, save to make occasional noncommittal noises, as if I were following their discussion intently. To my great amazement, Julia seemed to genuinely like the Alexandrian woman. Of course, she had come calling that morning to see what sort of woman I was visiting. She must have been surprised to find a kindred spirit instead of some foreign temptress. Not that Callista wouldn’t have made a fine foreign temptress had she chosen to adopt that role.

Then Hermes returned, having flown upon winged heels, as promised. He entered the peristyle with a bulky bundle over one shoulder and grinning like an African ape.

“I told you to bring back that scroll,” I told him, “not to sack the house.”

“I thought as long as I was taking one book, I might as well take them all.”

“There’s no stopping a born thief,” I said. “Actually, it isn’t such a bad idea. One of these others might be the key.”

Callista had her servants bring a large table into the peristyle and we spread Hermes’s loot out for inspection. There were about fifteen books altogether, some of them being sizable volumes requiring more than one scroll.

“Here’s the one you asked for,” Hermes said, taking the scroll from inside his tunic.

I unrolled it on the table, and we studied it first. Like most books of better quality, it was written on Alexandrian papyrus of the finest sort. I had seen papyrus being manufactured in Egypt, and it is a most exacting process. The versatile papyrus plant is split open and its pith is peeled away in long strips. A layer of strips is laid side-by-side, slightly overlapped. A second layer is laid atop the first, at right angles to it. This delicate mat is soaked, then pressed between planks with a great weight laid atop the upper plank. The resulting sheet, now bound together firmly by the natural glue in the plant, is placed in the sun to dry and bleach until it is almost white.

The best quality of papyrus is made from the largest plants, so that the fewest strips are needed for the upper surface, the one that is written on. On this surface the strips run in the same direction as the writing. No matter how well the papyrus is rubbed with pumice to obliterate irregularities, the joins between the strips always tend to catch the tip of the pen.

For books of the best sort, the papyrus is trimmed into sheets about ten inches by twelve. They may be written upon as individual sheets, then glued together along their shorter sides into long sheets suitable for binding into scrolls, or they can be purchased ready-made in the form of blank scrolls, ready to be written upon. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, but the latter is now the most common.

While I studied this, Julia and Callista looked over the other books. “I see Cicero here,” Julia said, “and Hortalus. Here’s a study of the Twelve Tables, together with commentaries and disputes concerning interpretation.”

“This,” said Callista, “seems to be a text on the use of the Sybilline Books in Roman law, written almost two hundred years ago by one Valgus of Lanuvium.”

“Single-minded bastard, wasn’t he?” I said. “It sounds like he was planning a Caesar-like conquest of the Roman legal profession.”

“Let me see this,” Callista said. She began to examine the opening sheets of the scroll. Its first sheet, in the usual fashion, gave the title, Certain Points of Law, and its author, who was indeed Aulus Sulpicius Galba. Apparently it was written before he became duumvir of Baiae, for he did not include this dignity among his honors.

It also contained the usual dedication: “This work I dedicate to the immortal gods and the muses, to my revered ancestors, and to my esteemed friends and patrons, Publius Fulvius Flaccus and Sextus Manilius.”

“Manilius!” I said. “I knew I’d trip over that name sooner or later.”

“It could be a coincidence,” Julia said. “It’s not an uncommon name.”

“When did you start believing in coincidence?” I asked her. “Fulvius and Manilius right here on the same page? That sounds like conspiracy to me. What do you want to bet these two are the fathers of the dead man and our young Tribune of the People?”

“I know better than to take a bet like that.”

Callista wasn’t interested in the dedication. She was scanning the text with great speed. She was one of those people who could read silently, a talent I have always admired.

“What are you looking for?” I asked her.

“The first sheet that contains every letter in the Latin alphabet. That one is most likely to be the key.”

She had lost me again. I rose and beckoned to Hermes. “Ladies, I will take my leave of you now.”

“I’ll stay here and help Callista with this,” Julia said. “What will you do now?”

“I’m going to find out what I can about young Manilius. Come, Hermes.”

We left them absorbed in their work, their heads together like two lifelong friends.