Beyond the theater stretched the sprawling buildings of the Campus Martius. They were not stacked as high as those crowded within the walls and so gave a finer sense of space. Largest of them was the Circus Flaminius. It was smaller than the Circus Maximus, but constructed largely of stone, while the Maximus was mostly of wood. Between the clusters of buildings were broad stretches of greenery. This part of Rome was actually far more pleasant to live in than Rome within the pomerium, but a native just didn’t feel that he was in Rome unless he was within the walls.
“An imposing view, is it not?”
I turned to see Asklepiodes behind me. He was a small man, wearing a traditional physician’s robe, his gray hair and beard dressed in the Greek fashion, with a fillet of plaited silver encircling his brow. He was physician to the gladiatorial school of Statilius Taurus and an old friend. He was also, by his own modest claim, the world’s leading authority on wounds inflicted by weapons. In this professional capacity he had aided me in many investigations. In his other capacity he had bandaged, stitched, and anointed me more times than I could readily count. I took his hand, which was astonishingly strong for a man his size.
“It is good to see you again,” I said, studying him. “You’re a little grayer, but otherwise unchanged.”
“You are likewise the same except for a few new scars. Young Hermes tells me the two of you have been conquering Gaul virtually without help.”
“He’s young and inclined to boast. Right now it seems as if someone is trying to start a good-sized war right here in Rome.”
“Truly? How might that be?”
“You haven’t heard of what’s been happening? The departure of Crassus and the curse and last night’s murder?”
“I heard some rumors at the school, but I am very busy and pay little attention to the political life of Rome. I am a foreigner and cannot vote, so what would be the point?” We strolled toward the catafalque, and he looked over the temple with a critical eye. “This is a very strange place to build a temple, is it not?”
“You don’t know that story, either?”
“There is much about Rome that I do not understand, long though I have lived here.”
“Well, for centuries the Censors have fought any attempt to build a theater in Rome. They say that plays are a passing frivolity, and besides, they’re foreign and degenerate and, if you will forgive me, Greek. So Pompey, when he wanted to polish up his reputation by giving us a permanent theater, put this temple at the top of the seats so he could say that the seats are actually a stairway leading to the temple.”
He smiled. “That is a tortuous subterfuge, considering the reputation you Romans have as a straightforward people.”
“We have our moments.”
“And your concept of corrupting influence mystifies me. I spend my days patching up the men who fight in your funeral Games, who die by the score in those spectacles and whose practice bouts are as bloody as some conventional battles. You enjoy chariot races that are scarcely less dangerous than wars and are conducive to mob violence. Yet you fear contamination from Sophocles and Aeschylus?”
“But the munera are religious services in placation of our dead,” I told him.
“Drama and comedy are likewise celebrations to honor the gods.”
“But,” I pointed out, “they encourage the softer emotions, like fear and pity, whereas our Games encourage the virtues of sternness and manliness. Believe me, with the way we’ve treated the rest of the world, if we show a moment’s softness, we’ll have Persians and Syrians and Libyans and Iberians at our throats in seconds, and that’s not mentioning the Gauls and Germans, who are halfway to our jugulars already.”
“If you insist,” he muttered, grumpily. “But how you can reconcile your abhorrence of human sacrifice with dosing the shades of the dead with human blood challenges my powers of rationalization.”
“But the gladiator has a better-than-even chance of coming out of the fight alive,” I told him. “You see? It’s different.” Sometimes I just don’t understand Greeks.
“I shall defer to your command of the subject. Now, let’s have a look at this unfortunate politician.” He clapped his hands, and two men came running up the steps. They were his slaves—Egyptians who spoke only the native tongue of that land and who were expert surgeons in their own right. They had a skill of bandaging possible only to the people who invented mummies. At Asklepiodes’ wordless gesture they peeled the ragged cloak and clothing from the corpse, leaving it all but naked. Unlike Romans, they had no superstitious dread of touching corpses. The thugs looked on curiously.