Oracle of the Dead

3

Of course the whole buggering lot of party guests, including half of the slaves, had to come along. You don’t get to see a spectacle like this every day, and all my protests and fulminations did no good. So much for the dignity and majesty of Roman office. Like some great traveling festival, we all descended upon the precincts of the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle of the Dead.

The evening was well advanced, and thus the uncanniness of the venue all the more pronounced. A mild wind blew, causing a sinister rustling among the funereal trees and shrubs, like small deities of the underworld conversing just below the level of human hearing. I was just as happy to bypass the gloomy grove and go to the temple instead.

“So close,” Julia said, stepping down from her litter. “Just a few steps from where it all started.”

“I felt it must be so,” I told her. “There was just no time for them to have gotten far, or that no one would have seen them.”

My lictors arrived from our quarters and I directed them to stand guard on the steps of the temple and let no one enter save myself and the members of my party.

Hermes came to join us, accompanied by a few of my other young men. They had that smug look of men who know something important that nobody else knows yet. I suppose I’ve worn that expression myself from time to time.

“It was easy to miss,” Hermes said. “The Oracle isn’t the only place around here with odd passageways.”

We followed him into the temple. The lamps glowed warmly and the god smiled down upon us benignly, above all human foolishness.

“Well, let’s get to it before the word spreads and the sightseers start to gather,” I said.

Hermes nodded to young Sextus Vespillo, and the boy, trying not to swell with importance, went to a decorated paving stone just before the plinth supporting the statue of Apollo. He bent and fiddled a moment with a bit of carved ornamentation. Then he worked free what looked like a loop of stone vinework. He twisted the loop and tugged and up came the stone, and not just that one but about eight adjacent blocks. The whole must have weighed the better part of a ton, but the boy raised it as easily as a wooden trapdoor in a house. Another piece of that mysterious engineering we had come to so admire.

Julia and the other women gasped. The men muttered. I merely asked, “It’s well hidden. How did you discover it?”

“I am a brilliant investigator like you and-” he caught my look. “Actually, Sextus Lucretius here got on rather well with one of the temple slave girls. She told him she’d spied on the priests opening this trap one night.”

“If only all my assistants exercised their gifts to such beneficial effect,” I said. The boy blushed furiously. “Where is the girl?”

Hermes signaled and the girl stepped from the shadow of a column. “Her name is Hypatia.”

“Come here, child.” The girl was about sixteen, and quite beautiful. This was to be expected. Apollo is associated with all that is beautiful, so his temples never employ ugly slaves. Any physical imperfection bars one not only from Apollo’s service but from his priesthood as well. This girl had hair as yellow as that of a German princess and huge blue eyes. Her simple white shift was modest enough, but it left no doubt as to the perfection of her body. She stepped near me and lowered her beautiful eyes.

“Hypatia, how did you come to be spying on your master?”

“I did not spy, Praetor,” she said softly. “I was new here, and did not know the rules. One of my duties is to extinguish the lamps just before we slaves retire to our quarters for the night. I did not know that upon certain nights, no one was to enter the temple except for the priests. That night I came in and went to the first lamp niche.” She pointed to one of a pair that flanked the doorway. “But I heard a noise. I looked up here toward the god’s statue and I saw all the priests gathered before it with lamps and torches. The high priest, Eugaeon, stooped and twisted the stone loop that I revealed to your assistant. I saw him raise the doorway and I was amazed. I thought he must be very strong to lift such a weight. They went down and never even glanced in my direction. I left the lamps alight and hurried to my quarters.”

“I see. Did they close the doorway behind them?”

She thought for a moment. “No, they lowered it but it seemed to me that they left it slightly ajar. I didn’t go close to look. I was afraid.”

“And why did you not come forward when the priests disappeared?”

“Again, I was afraid. I feared that just speaking of it might violate some ritual law. This place has many such rules. And I feared being called to testify.” That I could understand. A slave can testify in court only after being tortured. It’s nothing severe, but certainly not an experience to be anticipated with pleasure.

The irrepressible Porcia stepped over to young Sextus Lucretius Vespillo and tickled him under the chin. “And this lad had just the thing to get you talking, eh? Praetor, may I borrow him when you’re done with him?” Everyone laughed, but a little nervously. Vespillo’s face flushed scarlet.

“How long have you been here at the temple?” I asked the girl.

“About two months.”

“And who was your former master?”

“Aulus Plantius, sir.”

Duronius spoke up. “Plantius is an itinerant slave trader who comes through here two or three times a year. I remember he was here about two months ago. He deals in high-quality stock. I bought a cook from him.”

“I see. Girl, I may want to question you further, so don’t go anywhere.”

“Where would I go, Praetor? I belong to the temple.”

“So you do. Just don’t let yourself get sold anywhere else. Now,” I said, turning to my audience, “let’s have a look at this new tunnel.”

I stepped cautiously to the lip of the opening. The light from the lamps revealed a steep stairway descending into obscurity. “Bring a torch. I want only Hermes with me for now.” There were sounds of disappointment behind me. I was used to such sounds. Luckily I was not wearing my ponderous official toga. The synthesis had recently come into fashion for dinner party wear and the lightweight garment is much easier for negotiating steep stairways. I thought of simply removing it, but dignity of office forbade going about in only a tunic.

Hermes preceded me down the stairs. In the smoky, uncertain light of the torch I examined the walls and ceiling. I was no expert on the subject of stonework, but the workmanship appeared identical to that of the tunnel leading to the chamber of the Oracle. I did notice one difference: there were no niches for lamps. This was never intended for regular ritual use, I thought. So what was its purpose?

Without the ceremony, the chanting, the smoke, and all the other appurtenances of my earlier journey underground, this one was not as frightening. It was, however, uncomfortable, cramping and confining. Though there was no real reason for it, I found it hard to breathe. The weight of the stone above seemed to bear down upon me. Clearly, I was never meant to be a miner.

I became aware of a faint breeze in the tunnel. It made the torch flicker and it was coming from below. Above the smell of the torch it carried a disagreeable but all too familiar scent: blood and death. But below these there was yet another scent: water. I had expected something like this and the philosopher’s remarks that very evening had suggested it.

As we descended, I tried to keep the layout of the whole double temple compound in my head: how far and to what extent this tunnel paralleled the Oracle’s. It seemed to be far steeper and thus required a stairway. As near as I could judge, its direction was almost parallel to the lower one, but I had no idea of its depth.

After what seemed an interminable descent, we came to a large chamber, and now I could hear the sound of water. There was a thin fog, not as dense as that in the chamber of the Oracle. The blackness all but swallowed the light of Hermes’ torch. “They’re over here,” he said.

He stood beside a round hole in the floor about five feet in diameter. It was a fine piece of masonry, with a slightly raised lip all around. It was from this hole that the fog and the sound of water issued. Lined up just before the hole, in a neat row, were five white-clad bodies.

“Did anyone touch them?” I asked.

“We found them exactly like this. Laid out for a funeral. Has a ritual look, don’t you think?”

“This place is about nothing but ritual,” I groused. “Oracles, temples, ancient, forgotten gods, and Aborigines. .”

“Aborigines?” Hermes asked.

“Oh, yes, you weren’t at the dinner party.”

“No, I was out doing your work, and very productive, if I may say so.”

“Yes, well done. I want to examine them in better light, but first I want a look around this chamber before anyone else comes down here. Let’s start by walking the periphery.”

Hermes leading with the torch, we went to the wall and began to pace it. The chamber proved to be circular, with the hole in its exact middle. The wall sloped gently inward, so that it was shaped like the rustic beehives farmers weave from wicker. Like the tunnel and chamber of the Oracle, it had been hewn from solid rock, resembling certain tombs I had seen in Egypt. The hole in the center reminded me horribly of the trap in the Tullianum prison, where the bodies of strangled enemy kings are thrown after taking part in the victor’s triumph. Some have been thrown in while still alive. Nobody has ever come out, living or dead.

We began to pace back and forth across the floor, searching it for any sort of evidence. Long before, I had learned that people are careless and often leave behind evidence of their deeds. I had tried to teach my methods to other investigators, but they could never quite understand what I was getting at. Only my old friend the physician Asklepiodes understood, because he used a similar technique in his medical diagnostics and prognostics..

We went over the floor, but found nothing. Except for the bodies the place was incredibly neat, as if it had been thoroughly swept, perhaps even scrubbed. Why go to such trouble to tidy a place but leave dead bodies behind? I told Hermes to leave the torch and go summon the rest.

“It looks like this floor has been swept recently. There’s some dust in the angle where the wall meets the floor, but the rest is clean.”

“You’re right. Even a place like this should collect a little dust over the ages.”

Hermes went back up the stairway and left me brooding in the chamber. Several things about the place disturbed me. Here we had a second tunnel driven down through solid stone to water, yet there were numerous differences between them. For one thing, there was the shape of the chamber. The chamber of the Oracle was an elongated, irregular rectangle. This one was circular. It reminded me of a very ancient tomb I had been shown in Greece, one rumored to date to the time of Agamemnon. That one had the same beehive shape, though it had been built of massive stone blocks. The chamber of the Oracle had been cut down to the surface of the river. This one ended above it, with a well in its center. It was approached by a stair, not a ramped tunnel. And somehow-I cannot quite describe this-it did not have precisely the feel of antiquity that the other oozed like dampness from its walls. It was certainly not recent, but it did not feel so ancient.

Minutes later, the rest of the party arrived. I had decided to let a number of people see this rather than allow rumors to run rampant through the district.

“Well, this settles it,” Duronius said. “It wasn’t accident or suicide. It was murder.”

“But why kill a whole temple staff?” said Pedianus, still wearing his purple mantle and ivy wreath.

“More to the point,” Julia said, “why kill five and lay them out like this but throw Eugaeon down this well into the river?” She walked around the corpses, stepped to the lip of the hole, and peered down. Roman ladies of those days weren’t upset by dead bodies, what with all the disorder and combat in the City. These days they are more delicate. With all the peace and quiet enforced by the First Citizen, everyone has gotten disgracefully soft. I’ve seen patrician ladies turn pale at the sight of a gladiator being killed.

“Perhaps he wasn’t thrown down there,” said Gitiadas. “Perhaps he jumped in, hoping to escape the fate meted out to these five.”

“A valid speculation,” I approved.

“I’m not so sure,” Julia said. “Sextus Vespillo, bring that torch.” At her direction, the boy knelt at the lip of the well and lowered his torch inside. “The river is only a few feet down,” she reported. “The current seems fairly swift. I don’t think the chamber of the Oracle can be more than a few paces from here. Yet he was thoroughly dead when he arrived in our midst.”

“Another valid point,” I mused, “but Gitiadas was right about one thing: he said there had to be another access to the river near the chamber to account for all those bubbles. Now, has anybody here ever heard of a second tunnel? Even an old tale or rumor? I find it hard to believe that the Oracle’s tunnel to the Styx is so famous while this one is unknown.” The locals looked at one another and shrugged. No help there. Our host had thoughtfully brought along some burly slaves who carried sizable jugs of wine and others with cups; girls passed around cups to us all, and soon we were standing around the bodies sipping at the excellent vintage like guests at an embassy reception.

“Praetor,” Hermes said, “do you want to examine the bodies here or shall I have them carried above so you can see them when the sun is up?”

“Take them up,” I told him. “Torchlight is never adequate for a thorough examination.” That, and my aging eyes, I thought glumly. I was nearing my fortieth year.

Hermes went up to fetch some slaves. A while later he returned with them and the chamber grew very crowded. Already, the torches and lamps were making the air very close and we were all glad to vacate the premises. Once outside, everyone breathed deeply and with relief.

“Hermes,” I said, “first thing tomorrow, I want you to find the master of the local stoneworkers’ guild and summon him here.”

“Why?” Hermes asked.

“To answer some questions, of course. I also want to speak with Iola as well.” Then I addressed the others. “This is likely to get very ugly. As long as it seemed likely the other priests did Eugaeon in, things were under control. It might have been some personal vendetta. But now we know they were all murdered. The different factions will be accusing each other and we may have the countryside up in arms.”

“There is still a possibility that they were not murdered, Praetor,” said Gitiadas.

“Eh? If you can tell me how that may be, I will be grateful.”

“We all saw how close and confined that room is, how quickly the torches and our own exhalations staled the air. Perhaps they were engaged in some ceremony that involved burning some noxious substance. In fact, an ordinary charcoal brazier has been known to suffocate people in a confined space. Eugaeon may have fallen down the well when he was overcome, ending up in the Oracle’s chamber.”

“But there was no sign of such a thing,” I said. “And how would it account for the bodies being laid out as they were?”

“It does not, but it may be the best story to put about, to keep things quiet until you can fathom what really happened.”

“Sly as well as philosophical, I see. Not a bad idea. It would account for the lack of any marks on the bodies, not that I’ve examined these others thoroughly as yet. All right, everybody. For official purposes, we shall maintain the pose that these men met their fate through misadventure. I don’t believe it for a minute, but it’s in all our interests to maintain the fiction. I want no wild speculations or rumormongering. As far as the public is concerned, the staff of the Temple of Apollo died through some frightful accident. Maybe we can keep things from getting riotous for a few days while I sort all of this out.” They all nodded and promised to heed my warning. Fat chance of that happening. Futhermore, I knew the slaves would talk to other slaves. The district would hum with rumors before the sun was up. No help for that.

I just hoped I would not have to call any soldiers in.

At first light we examined the bodies. As with Eugaeon, there were no wounds to account for the fatalities, but the hands of two of them were somewhat battered. Hermes pointed this out. “Looks like there was some fighting down there.”

“So they resisted,” I noted. “But how did the killers overcome and kill them without leaving more marks on the bodies? They haven’t been strangled. Their necks aren’t bruised. Even smothering with pillows should have left their faces darkened and their eyes red.”

“Poisoned?” Hermes hazarded.

“Possibly, though how it was administered remains perplexing.”

“We had to drink that stuff before we were allowed to go down the tunnel. Maybe they had a similar rite and someone poisoned the drink.”

“Not impossible, though most poisons have rather violent effects. You would expect them to have thrashed about a bit, perhaps foam at the mouth. There also was their neat, side-by-side arrangement.”

Hermes shrugged. “Whoever did it had plenty of time to clean up before we found the bodies.”

“Exactly.” I sighed. “There are just too many explanations for everything. We need to narrow them down somewhat.”

“That’s what you are supposed to be good at,” he pointed out.

The master stoneworker was named Ansidius Perna. He was a big man with scarred hands and eyes permanently reddened by rockdust. Hermes had needed to do some searching to find the right man. It turned out that there were all sorts of stoneworkers: quarrymen, drillers, cutters, smoothers, polishers, fine carvers, and decorators, men who did nothing except cut the precise holes for placing the drumlike stones of pillars, and, of course, the masons who stacked the prepared stones into buildings and temples. Perna was head of the guild that represented quarrymen, drillers, and cutters. He stood before me as I lounged in my curule chair, draped in my purple-bordered toga, attended by my lictors.

We were in the temporary headquarters I had set up next to the double temple. The minor festival of a few days before had turned into a veritable regional bazaar and more people were arriving every day. The place buzzed with word of the new killings, but so far no riot had broken out. The news was too fresh. Everyone was agog to hear more about the matter that had them all enthralled. Probably, I thought, they are hoping for even more killings.

“Perna,” I said, “have you been in the tunnel that leads down to the chamber of the Oracle and the St-that river?”

“I have, Praetor.” He was well dressed, barbered and bathed, as befitted the master of an important guild, but the dust was embedded in the creases of his skin as permanently as any tattoo. Plainly, he had been a common hammer-and-chisel man in his younger days.

“And what is your impression of the stonework?”

“Well, it was cut by men who knew their business. Every stroke is straight and true, the marks are still there to see. Strange how they did it, one or maybe two men working at the rockface. Must have taken them twenty years to drive that tunnel in such a fashion. With a good team of a dozen cutters I could drive a tunnel that long in a year. It would have to be wider, of course. But then, how can we judge the way ancient people did things? They must’ve thought the gods wanted it done that way, and who’s going to argue with the gods?”

“Quite so,” I mused. I had been inside one of the great pyramids outside Thebes, and none of it made any sense at all, with shafts leading nowhere and chambers containing nothing and slots no wider than your hand that led a hundred feet or more through solid stone to the outside, and nothing to be seen through them but a star or two. They were different people with different gods and how are we to understand them?

“Perna,” I said, “I heard a rumor that the tunnel was cut upward, from below. Any way that could have happened?”

“How is that possible?”

“I didn’t say it was possible,” I said testily. “I just wondered if it could be true.”

He chuckled. “No, sir. I know how to read chisel cuts, and that tunnel was driven downward like any other, and it was done with normal mallet-and-chisel work. Hard to even swing a sledge in such a narrow space.”

“Have you any idea how it was driven straight to the river?”

He shrugged. “That I couldn’t tell you. I suspect the gods were involved.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” I rose from my seat. “Come with me. I want you to tell me what you think of this new tunnel we’ve found beneath the temple.” My lictors followed us.

“I’ve never heard of this tunnel,” Perna said, “and I’ve lived in this district all my life.”

“That’s what everyone says. Somebody has been very good at keeping a secret.”

Inside the temple, I had one of my lictors raise the trap. Perna grunted and examined the door, then peered into the hinging arrangements. “The counterweight is hidden in the foundation,” he pronounced. “This is Greek work, but not local. I’ve heard of this sort of device being used in Alexandrian temples. They’re fond of spectacular effects like raising the god up through the floor during ceremonies.”

“Yes, I’ve been in Alexandria and have seen that sort of thing. Now for the tunnel.” We went down the ramp and Perna examined the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Greek work again,” he said. “The pattern of cuts is the same that’s been taught by Greek stonecutters for generations. Very different from the cutting done in the Oracle’s tunnel.”

“That’s as I suspected. Is there any way to judge how old this work is?”

“That’s harder to say. Under the surface like this, there’s no natural wearing to age the stones.”

I nodded, remembering the pyramid. It was more than two thousand years old, the priests said, yet the stonework in the interior looked as if it had been finished the day before.

“It’s much newer than the Oracle’s tunnel,” said Perna. “And this temple is far older as well. It’s a Greek temple now, but a lot of the stonework is pre-Greek. The foundation here is made of huge blocks, nothing like native work, more like something Egyptians would use. The temple dates from later than that. It’s pure Campanian work. Then the Greeks came along and altered it to their own taste.”

It was not an uncommon thing in a place like this, which had been overrun so many times by various conquerors as well as peaceful immigrants. I had seen more complicated structures in Sicily. Why waste a good, solid foundation or sound walls when you can just build on top and redecorate?

“How long has your family been in the district?” I asked him.

“You mean how was this tunnel built without anyone outside knowing about it?” He was not without a certain native intelligence. He rubbed his chin. “I’d say it could be done without great difficulty. If someone were to give me a contract to accomplish such a task, I’d bring in foreign workmen and keep them here in barracks under guard. They could work at night, since night and day are the same thing underground. The rubble could be carried out in baskets and scattered in fields or in the nearby rivers.” He thought for a while. “But I can think of an even better way.”

“What might that be?”

“Do it when the temple is being restored. That way, nobody at all would wonder about the work going on. You wouldn’t have to disguise the rubble. Just keep sightseers away. Priests can always do that by threatening curses, or promising ritual contamination or talking about omens.”

“You possess a certain sophistication in these matters,” I told him.

Perna grinned. “One of the plagues of the building trades is that, for some reason, idlers always want to hang about construction sites, gawk, and get in the way.”

“I’ve noticed the phenomenon.”

“Well, I’ve hired more than one priest or soothsayer to keep them away. Usually, it works.”

“Thank you, my friend,” I said, with a hearty politician’s clap on the shoulder. “You have given me much to think about.”

“I am happy to be of help,” he said. “But, if you don’t mind my asking, what has the stonework to do with what happened here?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted, “and ultimately this may be of no assistance. But I long ago discovered that learning everything there is to know about a place or a scene or a family can have great bearing upon the solution of a crime.”

“If you say so, Praetor,” he said doubtfully. Another one who didn’t understand.

Next I summoned Hermes. “Find me the local historian,” I ordered him, and this time he knew better than to question me. I knew that there would be one. There always is. Usually it is some tiresome old pedant, one with nothing better to do, who busies his normally worthless time with compiling the trivia of local history: its mythical antecedents, the wars fought and social movements, local genealogies. Rome was full of them, having so much history. Having created so much history, for that matter. The virtue of such people was that they needed little provocation to talk about their favorite subject. The problem was to narrow their recitations to the topic you were interested in.

About lunchtime, Julia appeared with Iola. The priestess looked considerably less haughty than before. Her eyes were haunted rather than illuminated with a self-induced religious fire. “Praetor, how may I help you in this terrible matter?”

“First of all, please, both of you, be seated.” Julia conducted her to a chair, then took one herself. Julia was usually not slow to assert herself, but when I was seated in the curule chair she had to comport herself humbly. Cato at his most patriotic never had greater respect for Republican traditions than Julia.

“Now, first,” I said, “Iola, I want you to swear to me, before all the gods, that you and your people had nothing to do with the killing of the entire staff of the Temple of Apollo. I will summon whatever priests or other sacerdotes you require to make your oath binding. But you must know that to make such an oath before a Roman magistrate, you already swear before Jupiter, Juno, and Mars.”

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. “I am quite aware of this, Praetor. Your gods are not mine, but I acknowledge their sovereignty. I swear by Hecate that I will tell you nothing but the truth-and I swear by the Styx.” Julia jerked a look at her. By tradition, only the gods of Greece swore by the Styx, but her cult was a peculiar one, with a special relationship to that dread river.

“That will do. Now, has your cult any knowledge of the tunnel leading from the Temple of Apollo to the subterranean river?”

“We have-long suspected such a thing,” she said uncertainly.

“How so?”

“The adepts of our religion can detect disturbances in our communications with our goddess. We felt that someone was conducting ceremonies concurrent with our own, to destroy our communion with Hecate.”

This was exactly the sort of supernatural drivel I was hoping to keep out of my investigation, but it seemed to be unavoidable. “Had the staff of Apollo’s temple threatened you?”

“Never directly. There has always been a policy of strict silence between us.”

“Indirectly?”

She was silent for a while. “While the priests themselves would never speak to us, the people of the district who follow their god made no secret of their hostility.”

“Yes, I’ve heard a bit about the local religious rivalries. But that’s been going on forever. Were there any threats, serious threats, quite recently?”

“No, Praetor, there were not.”

I had to take her word for it, but I held my reservations. It was not in her best interests to admit that she had a good reason to kill the priests. I dismissed her and sat brooding for a while.

“What are you thinking?” Julia asked at length. It was a question I heard often from her. Usually, I kept a store of innocuous answers in readiness for it. This time, though, I saw no particular reason to prevaricate.

“The girl saw the priests go down into their tunnel carrying torches and lamps. We found none down there. Not only the bodies but the whole chamber had been tidied up. It suggests that a number of people conspired in the murders. Yet so far as we have been able to ascertain, no parties of visitors arrived while we were consulting with the Oracle. It suggests that the murderers were already in the temple.”

“Then you should put the whole temple staff to the question,” she advised.

“I am not ready to go to such an extreme yet. Perhaps only one person was required to administer the poison or whatever method was used. Accomplices could have come in later, while we were scouring the countryside.”

“You are too softhearted to be a praetor,” she said, not without affection.

The local historian arrived just in time for lunch. Scholars have a way of doing that. His name was Lucius Cordus, and he was a small man with ink on his fingers and eyes permanently asquint from constant reading, even by lamplight. After exchanging the customary amenities, we sat at a table set up beneath my canopy. It was laid with a plentiful lunch, to which Cordus applied himself as if he intended to do it full justice. I waited until he was replete and well lubricated with wine before broaching the matter of the day.

“How may I be of service to the noble praetor?” he said, when the edge was off his appetite.

“I am told that you are the foremost authority on the history of this district.”

“I would not style myself so,” he said modestly. “I have some small knowledge of the subject, and what I know is of course at your service.”

“You are familiar with the events of recent days here at the temple?”

“Several versions of them, in fact. I could not say which if any are correct. As a historian, I am all too aware of the mutability of information.”

“Facts can be slippery indeed,” I agreed. “What I need to know is something of the history of these two oddly juxtaposed holy sites.”

“Ah, this is a fascinating subject,” he said, taking a quick bite of cheese and bread, and washing it down with an even quicker swig of his wine.

“I take it the tunnel of the Oracle is far older than the temple?”

“By a great margin. As you may have discerned, there have been at least three temples on the site, possibly more.”

“I’ve noted that the foundation blocks are quite different from Campanian stonework, and that the Greek temple was adapted from an earlier one of Campanian style.”

“Exactly,” Cordus agreed.” It is my theory that the tunnel was dug at the same time that the Cyclopean stones of the foundation were put in place. The method of stonecutting seems to be the same. Whether these great stones supported an earlier temple, or were just a platform for the image of a god, or were for some other purpose entirely, we cannot know. It dates from long before the art of writing came to Italy. The earliest writings I have found, inscribed in a very archaic Campanian dialect, speak of the tunnel as being ancient even then. There is one curiosity, though.”

“What might that be?” I asked him.

“There is no mention of an Oracle, nor of an association with Hecate. The subterranean river is mentioned, but is not called the Styx.”

“Interesting, indeed,” I said. “Have you any idea when these ideas became associated with the location?”

“The Greeks came to southern Italy about seven hundred years ago. Some were Dorians, others Achaeans and Corinthians. First they settled in the east, founding Brundisium, Then up and down the eastern coast, then into the Bay of Tarentum, finally through the strait of Messina to found the towns of this district. Those were wild and dangerous times, and the sea swarmed with pirates, so they built inland roads to connect their settlements. Soon all of southern Italy was known as Magna Graecia. I do not think that Hecate moved in down there before this time, because her devotees are Greek, as are her ceremonies and all of the terminology used in her worship.” He shook his head. “No, I think that tunnel was there for many centuries before the Greeks came. And there is another discrepancy.”

“And that would be?” I asked, fascinated. At least this fellow did not drone on endlessly like so many scholars of my acquaintance.

“Hecate is not an oracular goddess. Oracles are usually associated with snakes and there is no snake cult here. She is one of the true Greek autochthonoi, but she doesn’t speak to petitioners. Only here. In fact, I have found no mention of her Oracle here earlier than about three hundred years ago, and that was only in the form of a reference to the sacrifice of black dogs, her traditional tutelary animals.”

“Do you believe the Oracle could be fraudulent?”

“I hesitate to make pronouncements concerning the doings of the immortals. If it is fraudulent, it has succeeded longer than most. The human will to believe is a powerful thing.”

I sat back in my chair and mused. “So, we have a tunnel of great antiquity, of unknown purpose, which may have lain unused until the cult of Hecate moved in.”

“Needless to say, the writings are very fragmentary, but I can hardly believe that something so remarkable would escape more frequent mention. As for local traditions, I would grant them no credence whatever. Anywhere peasants live, they create mythologies around their district and their ancestors, often mutually contradictory. Few people are trained in the art of rigorous thinking.”

“So it would seem,” I agreed. “What of the Campanian temple erected atop the foundation?”

“The Campanians pushed their territory southward and reached this area about the same time as the Greeks. Before, there had been only the primitive settlements of the Aborigines.”

“You believe the Aborigines really existed?”

“They must have. There are many burials that predate the people we have been discussing. Whether they were the people of legend I cannot say, but the burials I have examined indicate a very low level of culture. They built nothing in stone that has survived.”

“So, things got lively here between Greeks and Campanians around the time Romulus and Remus founded Rome.” The official date of that event was some 704 years before this time.

“Very lively, I would say. They were two aggressive, warlike people who wanted the same land. Plus, the Greek cities, being Greek, fought endlessly among themselves. That temple may have been erected and demolished a number of times. It was dedicated to the god Mamers, who can be identified with Mars. But a far grander Temple of Mamers was erected at Cumae, and eventually this one was abandoned. In time, the Greeks turned it into the Temple of Apollo. That was about two hundred years ago.”

“Did the rivalry between the followers of Apollo and those of Hecate date from the time that the Campanians and Greeks were fighting over this territory?”

“Something like that. I think that it came to serve as a substitute for open hostilities, especially after Rome imposed peace on the region.”

“Well, sometimes you can keep people from fighting, but you can’t stop them from hating one another. The Greeks and the Trojans would probably still hate each other, if there were any Trojans left.”

“Such seems to be the nature of men,” Cordus said.

“So it’s always good to be the strongest. That is what Rome determined to do. Always be the strongest. That way it doesn’t matter if people hate you, because you can always whip them and they know it and don’t dare say anything aloud.”

“Ah, that is very true, Praetor. We are the terror of the world.” This to remind me that he was a citizen, too. “A terror in a good way, of course. Where Rome has conquered, Rome establishes peace.”

“Yes, well, we seem to be straying from the subject. In all your studies, have you seen any mention of this tunnel beneath the temple, where we found the dead priests?”

“In fact, I have.”

“What? The thing seems to have been a mystery to everybody else!”

He smiled. “How many people bother to read records of construction work from two hundred years ago? In the city archive of Baiae I ran across a contract between the founders of the temple and one Skopas of Alexandria for ‘the construction of a crypt beneath the Temple of Apollo by the Bay of Baiae.’ It does not specify a tunnel, but as far as I know, there is no rule limiting how far down a crypt can be.”

“Wonderful!” I said. “This is the virtue of paying attention to paperwork. One document is worth any number of legends.”

“And this knowledge will be of use in your investigation?”

“I have no idea. But it is wonderful to actually know something in this maze of myths. Earlier today the master stoneworker said that the workmanship on the trapdoor looked Alexandrian. He also said that the easiest way to do it without the locals noticing would have been when it was remodeled to Greek taste.”

“Very sagacious,” he said, nodding. “The question remains: Why did they do it?”

“I don’t know, and I certainly hope that it has no bearing on the investigation.”

We spoke a while longer but he had nothing further to offer, though he promised to pitch into his studies with great zeal to find me more information. I thanked him profusely, for he had proven to be of real assistance. I gave him a small sack of gold and silver “in case he had to travel,” and he went away beaming, happy to have the money, a full stomach, and, above all, to have his wisdom praised and appreciated by one in authority. The path of scholarship can be thankless and unrewarding.

That evening, my kinsman Marcus Caecilius Metellus came down from Rome for a visit. He was a young man just setting out on his political career, and he had been in my traveling entourage since I entered the praetorship. A month before, I had sent him to Rome to gather the latest gossip for me. For true Romans, being separated from the City is an almost physical affliction. One can stand being separated from the center of the world for only so long. This is why we consider exile such a terrible punishment. Many exiles go insane or commit suicide in despair. At dinner, we were all ears to hear the latest.

“First, the best news, Decius,” he began. Here at dinner, among close friends and relatives, he was free to address me by my praenomen instead of my title. “You know that Appius Claudius has been going through the senatorial roll like a great scythe, expelling senators for corruption, bribery, debt, and immorality?”

“Everybody knows that,” I said. This Appius Claudius was the brother of my old enemy Clodius, but was a man of the highest rectitude for whom I always had the greatest respect.

“Well, among others, he expelled Sallustius for immorality!”

I laughed so hard that wine shot out of my nose and it was a few minutes before I regained possession of myself. “Wonderful! Too bad it was only immorality, though. He’s guilty of every one of the practices Claudius is so determined to stamp out.”

“One was enough,” said Marcus. “He doesn’t dare show his face in the Forum.”

This Sallustius was a wretched climber I had known for far too long. He was as corrupt as any senator who had ever disgraced the curia, and in those years that was very corrupt indeed. He was always trying to ingratiate himself with me and I could not stand his insinuating manner. In later years, with no further political or criminal activity to distract him, he styled himself a historian.

“On a less happy note,” Marcus went on, “Caesar and the Senate seem to be on a collision course.”

“Well,” I said resignedly, “it’s been coming.” Caesar wanted to retain his extraordinary command in Gaul and Illyria. He also wanted to stand for consul in the elections for the coming year. The problem was, the Senate demanded that he return to Rome to stand for office in the traditional manner, but a Roman propraetor or proconsul lost his imperium the moment he stepped across the pomerium. The Senate already had Caesar’s successor picked out.

“The Senate has decreed that Caesar, if he wants to keep his proconsulship, is to stay north of the Rubicon.” This river was the border between Italy and Caesar’s province.

“He won’t,” I said. “He’ll cross, and he’ll bring all his legions with him. I know him and I know his soldiers. After what he’s accomplished the last ten years, all the victory and loot he’s brought them, those men will lay siege to Rome if he asks them. And he will.”

“Rubbish!” Julia said heatedly. “Caesar will never oppose the Senate with armed force. He has too great a respect for Roman traditions. There are senators who foolishly wish to dishonor him, but he respects that august body like any good Roman. What has Lepidus to say?” Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus, one of that year’s consuls, tried to support Caesar, who had, among other favors, given him the money to restore the ancestral Basilica Aemilia. Unfortunately his colleague, Claudius Marcellus, was Caesar’s deadly enemy and a much more forceful man. Julia’s affection for her uncle led her into the dangerous paths of wishful thinking.

“Lepidus tries, as always, to support Caesar. But that is getting to be a minority position in the Senate. The Assemblies, as always, favor Caesar.”

“Cicero,” Marcus went on, trying to lighten the mood, “has already run from Cilicia. He made huge efforts to prevent having his proconsulship prorogued. He’s already petitioned the Senate for a triumph.”

“A triumph?” I said. “For that trifling victory?” Cicero, that most reluctant of soldiers, had gone to govern Cilicia and had eventually scored a win over what amounted to a pack of bandits.

“His troops hailed him as imperator.” Marcus said.

“The standards of Roman legionaries have fallen if that lot declared Cicero imperator.” Ordinarily I did not speak disparagingly of Cicero, whom I admired above most Romans and counted as a friend. Although in his later career he became foolishly grandiose and self-important. The very thought of the spindly, unmilitary Cicero riding in triumph through Rome for so trifling a victory was deeply embarrassing.

“Curio continues to be controversial,” Marcus went on. “He’s gone over to Caesar wholeheartedly now, after months of vacillating.” Scribonius Curio was the most remarkable Tribune of the People in a long time. His rise to power had been phenomenal, and he was uncommonly effective, proposing and ramming through the Assemblies a program of legislation unprecedented in its scope and volume. Rumor had it that Caesar had suborned him with a bribe of unprecedented extravagance and now it appeared that the bribe had been successful. If so, Curio was a man of character, for in the years to come he hewed faithfully to Caesar, right until his death in Africa. I had always liked him, even when we ran afoul of one another.

“Oh, enough of this dreary political blather!” Antonia cried. “Let’s have the real gossip! What’s Fulvia been up to?” This Fulvia was one of those scandalous women who livened Roman discourse of the day. She had been briefly involved with some ill-fated political rogues and had been a center of attention ever since.

“Well,” Marcus began, “she has been linked with the aedile Caelius Rufus, who has been prosecuting those who illegally divert water from the aqueducts. And, since her own family are notorious for just that crime-” and so on. I was eager for the political news, but petty gossip about who was sleeping with whom, who was bribing whom for financial gain, who had murdered whom for banal motives, left me utterly unconcerned.

Still, I was grateful for the way Marcus had turned the conversation to lighter subjects. It was well that we ended the evening on a cheerful note, because the next morning brought us yet another murder at the temple.