So he took us through the whole wonderful structure, explaining how the designers and architects and engineers had solved numerous problems involving weights and stresses and the problems of getting twenty thousand spectators seated and out of the building as quickly and efficiently as possible. They had even had the foresight to plant plane trees all over the plaza separating the amphitheater from the town proper. These trees, now mature, were not only very handsome additions, they provided shade for the vendors who set up their stalls to supply the needs of spectators during intermissions in the shows.
Rome had larger venues: the Circus Maximus and the Theater of Pompey, for instance, but the Circus was not so well designed and the theater was no more than a very large Greek building of the ordinary type. This was something new and I could only wish that Rome had a structure as fine. I thanked the builder and we went back to our horses.
“Well,” I told the men. “I wouldn’t have missed that, but it isn’t getting any work done, so let’s go find this duumvir Belasus.”
We rode along the south wall, through the Stabian Gate, and up a major street that traversed the town, then west along a cross street to the city forum. It was a beautiful city, but then it seems that all Campanian cities are, in contrast to Rome, which is a very large city with some very fine buildings, but lacking in overall grace and utterly unplanned, more like a cluster of villages crammed into walls that surround much too small an area. I love Rome, but I am not blind to her faults.
We found both duumviri in the town’s modest basilica, just finishing up some public business. Belasus was a small, portly man, with a fringe of white hair and the look of a prosperous merchant. Porcius was tall, thin, and aristocratic, a much younger man. I complimented Valgus on his restoration of the amphitheater, and Porcius on his father’s fine contribution to the city and to the district as a whole. Both seemed pleased.
“Now,” I said, “tell me about this dead Syrian.”
“His name was Elagabal, and he had an import-export business,” Belasus said.
“Dealing in what?”
“He speculated in cargoes. He’d buy a shipload of oranges from Spain, for instance, and hold them hoping the price would rise so he could sell them at a large profit. He’d buy grain and send it to someplace where his contacts informed him that the harvest had failed, that sort of thing.”
“It sounds like he ran a chancy business,” I commented. “You can’t hold on to oranges for very long, and anything that travels by ship is at hazard.”
“We have reason to doubt that he made very much money that way,” Porcius said. “But he made a lot of money anyway.”
“And how did he do that?” I asked.
“Local rumor has it that he was a receiver of stolen goods,” Belasus said. “His business was just a cover, and he could ship the stolen goods to places where they could be sold without raising suspicions about himself.”
“Yet suspicions were raised,” I noted.
“A fence can’t work alone,” Belasus said. “He must deal with thieves, and thieves talk.”
“So they do. This court case he had pending, did it involve his nefarious activities?”
“Hard to say,” said Porcius. “He had a citizen partner, as foreign businessmen must by law. He was a man named Sextus Aureus, a tanner. Aureus was bringing suit against Elagabal for defrauding him of his share of several years’ profits from the legitimate business.”
“You would think it would be Aureus who would end up conveniently murdered,” I observed. “I’ll want to speak with Aureus, but first I want to see the Syrian’s body and his place of business.”
“You want to see the body?” Porcius said. “Why?”
“You never know what you might learn from a dead body,” I said. They looked at me as if I were a prize loon. It is a look I had grown used to.
“Very well,” said Belasus. “If you will come with me, Praetor.”
“I will have Aureus summoned and sent to you,” Porcius said. “If there is any other way I can help you, please let me know.”
We took our leave of Porcius and followed Belasus into the city. Its forum was long and narrow and we passed the local Temple of Apollo (that local Greek influence again) and a small but exquisite temple to the public lares. Past the forum we came to a district of more small temples, these dedicated to gods associated with death, as is the Temple of Libitina in Rome. Here we found the facilities of the undertakers. In Campania they don’t wear the Etruscan costumes they wear in Rome. A man dressed like the rest in a black tunic took us to a table where the corpse of the Syrian lay covered by a shroud.