Saturnalia(72)

“If I may make so bold, certain men have come to me desirous of avoiding hazardous service. The usual expedient is to amputate the thumb of the right hand and pretend that it occurred in an accident. I am quite skilled at the operation, should you …”

“Asklepiodes!” I said. “How utterly unethical!”

“This presents a problem?”

“No, I’d just rather not lose my thumb.” I held up that unique digit and exercised it. “It comes in handy. Nothing like it for jabbing a man’s eye in a street fight. No, I’d feel incomplete without it. Besides, nobody would believe it was accidental. I’d be accused of cowardice and barred from public office.”

“Even heroes resort to stratagems to avoid particularly onerous or foolhardy military adventures. Odysseus feigned madness, and Achilles dressed as a woman.”

“People already think I’m insane. Anyway, if I dressed like a woman, everyone would think I was just one of Clodia’s odd friends.”

“Then I fear I run short of suggestions. Why not go? You might find it amusing, and a countryside filled with howling savages is no more dangerous than Rome in unsettled times.”

“Yes, why not? Shall I suggest to Caesar that you accompany the expedition as army surgeon?”

“And here I must leave you,” he said, turning abruptly. “I must go prepare to operate on the unfortunate Marcus Celsius.” He walked off in the direction of the Sublician Bridge.

I proceeded to the Forum, where Rome was beginning to come shakily to life. Most of the drunks had risen like animated corpses to totter off and seek dark corners to continue their recovery. The business of the City was resuming, after a somewhat late start. Everywhere, state slaves were listlessly but steadily plying their brooms and mops, repairing the wreckage of Saturnalia.

I went to the basilicas and asked questions and eventually ended up in the Basilica Opimia, where several of the praetors-elect were conferring, making their final arrangements for the ordering of their courts. Some of them had already assumed the purple-bordered toga of curule office; others were waiting until the beginning of the new year.

A slave pointed out the man I was seeking. He was one of the stripe wearers, tall and craggy-featured, with unruly, graying hair that stuck out from his scalp in stiff waves. His beak of a nose was flanked by the sort of cold, blue eyes you don’t want to see looking at you over the top of a shield. I walked up and presented myself for his attention.

“Lucius Flavius?” I asked, not bothering with his title since he had yet to assume office.

“That is correct,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“I am Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger.”

“Then you are a man of distinguished lineage.” Clearly, his warmth toward the Metelli was limited.

“I am looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of Metellus Celer. I understand you had some rather notable run-ins with him.”

“That was last year. I am busy preparing for next. By whom have you been commissioned to investigate?”

“By the tribune Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica and …”

“A tribune is not a curule officer,” he snapped. “He cannot appoint an iudex.”

“This is an informal investigation requested by my family,” I told him. “Including Metellus Nepos, who would appreciate your cooperation.”

That gave him pause. “I know Nepos. He’s a good man.” As long as both supported Pompey, they would be colleagues. Flavius put a hand on my shoulder and guided me to a relatively uncrowded alcove of the vast, echoing building. “Is it true that Nepos will stand for next year’s consular election?”

“It is.”

He rubbed his stubbly chin. He hadn’t dared to trust a barber that morning either. “It will be an important year to have such a man in office, if he wins.”

“He will win,” I said. “When a Metellus stands for consul, he usually gets the office. It’s been that way for more than two centuries.”

“All too true,” he mused. “Very well, what do you want to know?”

“I understand that your disputes with Celer were occasions of public violence.”

“Not all of them, but a few times. What’s unusual about that? If our debates didn’t involve a little blood on the pavement from time to time, we’d all turn into a pack of effeminate, philosophy-spouting Greeks.”

“We certainly wouldn’t want that. Do I understand correctly that the gist of your dispute was the land settlement for Pompey’s veterans?”

“You do. And a more just and politically wise policy could hardly be imagined. Celer was the leader of the loony end of the aristocratic party. They’d rather face civil war than give public land to hungry veterans who’ve earned it. And for all their protestations, it’s because they’ve been using that land themselves at a nominal rent or wanted to buy it up cheap. They …”