The River God's Vengeance(20)

“Infamous!” I said, meaning it. Not that murder was so great a crime, and the exposure of unwanted infants was lawful if distasteful, but to deny proper burial even to the lowliest was impious and could draw down the wrath of the gods. “The whole City could suffer for this!”

“I’d say it was suffering right now,” Hermes said, gagging.

“We’ve seen enough, let’s get away from here,” I told the boatman. He began to pole us back toward the main channel. Soon we were breathing what seemed to be, by contrast, almost clean air. I ordered Charon to take us to the river.

“Who is responsible for scouring out these channels?” I asked.

“Like most such work,” Acilius said, “it is done on a basis of public contracts let every five years by the censors, then overseen by the aediles. A thorough cleaning of the whole system should have been undertaken, at latest, two years ago, during the censorship of—”

“Don’t tell me,” I interrupted. “It was Messala Niger and Servilius Vatia. Didn’t those two do anything while they were in office?”

“Not much,” Festus commented. “But what’s new about that? You were back from Gaul while they were in office, weren’t you, Patron?”

“They’d been sitting for about six months when I returned. They were supposed to get the public contracts settled in their first month or two, then conduct the census and purge the senatorial lists, and wind up with the lustrum. When my father and Hortalus were censors, they got the whole task done in their first six months.”

“Not every Roman magistrate is as energetic and conscientious as your father, Patron,” Festus observed. “And Vatia Isauricus was awfully old, you’ll recall.”

“Messala was lively enough,” I said. “And still is, for that matter. I may have to speak with him.” One more thing to look for in those documents I’d bribed away from the Tabularium.

Ahead of us, the half circle of the river portal seemed as bright as the rising sun. Charon nudged the boat alongside the raised walkway that formed an elongated landing. The old boatman squinted, dazzled by the clear light. We disembarked and walked toward the light. The tour of the sewer had been so oppressive that I had to restrain myself from breaking into a run.

Moments later we were standing by the river, filling our lungs with clean air, blowing like so many porpoises to clear our heads of the nauseous miasma. The daylight seemed incredibly clean and clear.

“You will do something about this, Aedile?” Acilius asked.

“Decidedly. What we just saw is a menace to the health of all Romans and an affront to the gods. Why”—I gestured toward the river before us—”Father Tiber himself must be insulted that the unburied dead are committed to him.”

“He doesn’t look too happy as it is,” Hermes said. “Look, he’s risen since we crossed this morning.”

He was right. The waterline was noticeably higher than that morning. “Come along, Hermes. We need to speak with the rivermen.” I dismissed the rest of the party with further assurances that I would do something about the condition of the sewers, although just what was unclear even as I promised it.

We had emerged into daylight with the Aemilian Bridge to our right. Turning left, we passed under the Sublician Bridge, walking along the great westward bend of the river. Beyond the Sublician lay the river wharves, where the barges up from Ostia unloaded their cargoes then reloaded them with the products of Rome and the inland farm country to be taken down to the harbor for export.

This was one of the liveliest, most active districts of the City, most of it outside the walls. The natives spoke a river dialect all their own, and a score of foreign languages could be heard. Sailors from every nation touched by the sea coming upriver to trade or see the sights are among our most numerous visitors. The factors of many foreign companies had their offices along the wharves.

Foreign tongues were not the only alien sounds to be heard. The cries, roars, bellows, and squawks of exotic beasts and birds were everywhere, as cages from Africa, Egypt, Spain, Syria, Phrygia, and places even more remote were brought in for the gardens and estates of the rich and, more often, for the hunts in the Circus. There were lions and leopards, peacocks, ostriches, bears, bulls, racing horses, zebras, camels, and even stranger creatures.

About as many slaves were being unloaded for the markets, but they walked off the barges under their own power and were far quieter than the beasts. This was a sight I found far less agreeable than that of odd animals. I am quite aware that civilization cannot exist without slaves, but some limits should be observed. There were far too many slaves in Rome already, and the recent wars had fiooded the markets with even more, so cheap that even poor households could afford a few.