The Tribune's Curse(40)
“What is that?”
So I explained to her about Aemilius Scaurus’s somewhat conditional zeal in suppressing the foreign cults.
“Then why are they still here?”
“Presumably, they were able to come up with Aemilius’s price.”
“That is a disgraceful way for a Roman official to carry on,” Julia said.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll be an aedile myself next year. I may have to accept the occasional handout from a questionable source, too.”
“But surely you would never deal with people as loathsome as these?” she said.
“Oh, I would never do that,” I murmured.
“Look. By all three names it says, ‘trafficker with the chthonians.’ None of the others has that particular description.”
I took the list and examined it. “You’re right. What a pity Aemilius Scaurus is in Sardinia and I can’t touch him. I’d love to question him as to why he let these three slide. Oh, well, I can do the next best thing, which is question the men themselves.”
“They’re an oddly assorted lot,” she noted. “A man from an old Carthaginian city with a Carthaginian name—Eschmoun was a god of Carthage, I believe—a Syrian, and an Italian Greek.”
“It does sound odd,” I agreed. “But then, they could be three slaves born within brick-throwing distance of this house, tricked out in foreign clothes, beards, and fake accents. That’s a pretty common dodge with frauds. Did you happen to find out where these three exotic specimens live?”
“Of course. Which will you begin with?”
“Whichever of them lives nearest. I have a suspicion that I won’t be up to much walking tomorrow.”
7
ELAGABAL THE SYRIAN, IT TURNED out, had his dwelling in the northern part of the Subura, near the Quirinal. This was a relief because, as I had predicted, I awakened in even worse shape than the day before. Amid much loud groaning I was once again massaged and shaved and shoved out the front door. I dismissed my solicitous clients and trudged through the cheerfully raucous morning bustle of my district. Here and there people recognized me and called out congratulations or wished me good fortune. Yes, it was good to be back in Rome, even in the poorest district.
There was no mistaking the house of Elagabal when I came to it. The facade was painted red, and flanking the doorway were a pair of man-headed, winged lions. Over the door was painted a serpent swallowing its tail. Not your typical, cozy little domus. It was two stories, and a trellis ran around its upper periphery, draped with climbing plants spangled with multicolored flowers.
When I tried to enter, a hulking brute stood in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. He had a black, square-cut beard and suspicious little eyes flanking a nose like a ship’s ram.
“Do you have business with my master?”
“Is your master Elagabal the Syrian?”
“He is.”
“Then I do.”
The man stood, unmoved. Perhaps the little exchange had been too complicated for him. While he sought to sort out its nuances, someone spoke up from behind him.
“This man is a senator. Let him in.”
The hulk stood aside, and I passed within. I found myself in an atrium that had been converted into something resembling a ceremonial temple entrance. Several statues stood there, in human form but in very stiff poses.
“I apologize for Bessas. He defends my privacy with great skill but little wisdom.” The man was thin with a vaguely Eastern cast of countenance, wearing a long robe and a pointed cap. His beard was likewise pointed.
“I take it that I address Elagabal?”
“At your service,” he said, bowing with the fingers of one hand spread over his breast.
“Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, senator and current candidate for next year’s aedileship.”
“Ah, a most important office,” he said.
“One with which you’ve had some official dealings, I understand.”
“Is this an official visit, Senator?” he asked.
“Of a sort.”
He appeared unapprehensive. “Official or social, there is no need to be uncomfortable. Please accept the hospitality of my house. If you will follow me, we may be comfortable above.”
We went up a flight of stairs and came out onto a splendid little roof garden, some of the plantings of which I had seen from the street below. At the corners, orange trees stood in great earthenware pots, and the trellises arched overhead so that, in summer, they would provide shade. Now, in November, the growth had been trimmed back but was still luxuriant. In its center a tiny stream of water bubbled in a delightful little fountain. There were few parts of Rome with sufficient water pressure to get even that much water up to what was, in effect, the third floor of a building.