“So,” I said, “their necks were broken before they dropped into the basement.”
“Exactly. This is confirmed by another curious factor.” The wine had warmed him, and he was slipping into his enthusiastic teaching mode.
“Tell me about it.” Asklepiodes was always interesting, even when he carried on to excessive length.
“You must understand, here I speak of an area that is not within my realm of expertise. As physician to the gladiators, I am accustomed to treating wounds almost immediately after their infiiction. However, I have studied the writings of scholars dealing with every aspect of medicine, attended lectures by all the greatest physicians, held long and extensive discussions with many of them, so I am not entirely unacquainted with the subject of postmortem medical study.”
“This being?” I inquired.
“The study of the changes that take place in a body after death. There are few experts on the subject.”
“I can well imagine,” I said. “Most people pay a physician to make them well again, not to keep track of how they rot.”
“It is a popular misconception that bodies merely decay immediately after death,” he said.
I thought of the Puticuli. “From recent experience, I can assure you that they rot.” I poured myself another cup.
“So they do, and we are in the habit of burning corpses within a day or two of death for that reason. But there is a quite regular and predictable sequence of stages through which corpses pass in the progress of bodily dissolution, and much may be inferred from these. The Libitinarii informed me, for instance, that the bodies of Lucius Folius and his wife were discolored on the dorsal surface. That is, there were deep purple, bruiselike discolorations of the back, the buttocks, the rear surface of the thighs, and so forth.
“This postmortem condition is common and is called ‘lividity.’ The learned Simonides of Antioch has written extensively of this condition, and it seems to come about thus: During life, blood is distributed somewhat evenly throughout the tissues and organs of the body. It is also under a certain amount of pressure. We have all seen how blood oozes from a minor cut, pours freely from a larger blood vessel, and when an artery is severed, will actually spurt for several feet. The exact mechanism by which this occurs is a matter of considerable philosophical dispute.
“Upon cessation of life, this pressure and distribution cease, and the blood settles to the lowest part of the body. In the case of a supine individual, such as the late couple, that would be the rearmost area of the body. Living blood is bright red. When the body is dead, it quickly turns rust colored, then an almost blackish brown, resulting in the bruise color.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve been in command of details when we had to gather Roman dead from a battlefield a day or two after the fighting. If a man died lying on his side, that side was dark, the other was pale. And once I saw the body of a man who had fallen head down into a well and drowned that way. His head and shoulders had turned almost black.”
“Exactly the phenomenon I mean. Simonides has written in some detail of the progression of this condition, with allowances for the time of year, bodily dissolution being far more rapid in hot weather than in cold. Degree of lividity can tell one with an experienced eye how long the deceased has lain in the same posture dead.”
“And your conclusion?”
He held up an admonitory finger. “Bear with me yet a little longer. The corpse handlers told me that the necks of both were broken quite cleanly, a severing of the neck vertebrae usually characteristic of a sharp, twisting action. A blow shatters the bones and hanging pulls them apart. It takes a rather freakish accident to wring the neck in such a fashion. I have seen it when, for instance, a charioteer is thrown headfirst into the spokes of a competitor’s vehicle. In the absence of any other injury to the head, I can only conclude that someone grasped the chin and the back of the skull of each victim and twisted violently.”
“And would this feat require great muscular strength?” I asked him. This was exactly the train of thought my wrestling bout with Antonius had set in motion.
“If the victims were soundly asleep, with all muscles perfectly relaxed, any person of moderate strength could have accomplished it, provided he had been instructed in the proper technique.”
“And is there a special technique?”
“Allow me to demonstrate.” He rose and fiexed his fingers.
“Easy, now,” I cautioned him. “You’ve had a bit to drink and your control may not be all it should be.” Asklepiodes loved to demonstrate obscure and exotic means of killing people. More than once he had infiicted minor injuries upon me doing this.