The Tribune's Curse(36)

“Starting work a little early, aren’t you, Metellus?”

“I have no intention of assuming office one minute too early,” I assured him. “I’m here to look something up.”

“Ah! Here I can be of aid.” He turned his head and bellowed over his shoulder: “Demetrius! Come in here!”

A middle-aged slave came from the back. “Sir?”

“The honored senator Metellus, soon to be your supervisor, has something he wants to look up. Assist him.”

“Certainly. How may I help you, Senator?”

“I haven’t been here in a few years. I don’t recall seeing you before.”

“I have been here most of my life, but usually in the back rooms. I became head archivist last year. What might you be looking for?”

“I need to examine records concerning aedilician investigations or expulsions of sorcerers and priests of non-State cults.”

“Let me see,” Demetrius mused. “We have several centuries’ worth of such documents. I take it you do not wish to view them all?”

“Just the most recent will do,” I informed him. “When was the last such suppression?”

“Three years ago, when Calpurnius Piso and Gabinius were consuls,” said the slave. “You may recall that Piso was very keen to expel the Egyptian cults from Rome.”

“Actually, that was my first year with Caesar in Gaul. We were more concerned with the Gauls and Germans than with the Egyptians.”

“As generally happens in such operations, the expulsion took in foreign cults as a whole, including those of Italy outside Rome.”

“Then that is what I’m looking for. I’m not interested in the market women who tell fortunes or the poisoners or abortionists we’re always expelling from the City—just the major practitioners of magic and advocates of non-Roman gods. I’m especially interested in the Italian cultists, although I suppose the Egyptians will bear looking at.”

“I take it this has something to do with that business at the gate two days ago?” Paetus asked.

“Yes, the pontiffs want to know where Ateius got that elaborate curse. They’ve charged me to investigate.”

“What’s the authority?” he asked. “A pontifical investigation is rare. I’m not even sure of its legality.”

“This is informal, of course. I’m standing for aedile and will have access to the records after the elections, anyway.”

“With your family, I suppose you can take the election for granted,” he said enviously. “Well, I don’t see why not. Demetrius, the archives are at the noble senator’s disposal.”

“Who was charged with the task of routing the Egyptians?” I asked the slave.

“The curule aedile Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.”

“He must have been a busy man,” I said. “I’ve been to the baths he built that year, and they’re magnificent. I hear the same of his theater.”

“It was a remarkable tenure of office,” Demetrius said.

“His Games were of unmatched splendor,” Paetus said, “even by the standards Caesar set. Pity the poor Sardinians. They’re having to pay for it all, now.”

“Squeezing them pretty hard, is he?” I asked.

“Sardinian property owners he’s extorted are already in town, lining up prosecutors. He’ll be up before the courts the minute he sets foot inside the gates.”

“I’m always out of town when the best shows are on,” I groused.

“Of course, he had the leisure to plan his Games and build his baths and round up all the mountebanks,” Paetus said. “He was curule. He could sit around in the markets half the day and assess fines. Plebeian aediles have to spend all day inspecting every street, warehouse, and foul tenement in the City.” He seemed to be a man with a lot of grievances.

“If you will come with me, Senator,” Demetrius said. I followed him into the musty warren of rooms beneath the temple proper. Aemilius had been a curule aedile, while the temple was the headquarters of the plebeian aediles, but the records of both were kept there.

“Since it was a recent year,” Demetrius said, “the records will be easy to find.”

I wasn’t looking forward to going over the documents in a tiny room by the smoky light of an oil lamp and was much relieved when the slave showed me to a room with a large, latticed window through which I could see the imposing superstructure of the Circus Maximus.

“I shall be back in a few minutes, Senator,” Demetrius said. He disappeared into an adjoining room, and I heard him giving instructions to some other slaves.