* * *
That evening I described the day’s events to Julia.
“It was probably a foreigner,” she said.
“Why?”
“Romans kill each other all the time, but they use the simplest means: a sword or dagger, a club, something crude and basic. Women sometimes employ poison. You’ve investigated scores of murders. How often were you unable to understand how the victim had died?”
“Only a few times, and usually that was because I was overlooking something obvious. If an expert like Asklepiodes is stymied, what hope have I?”
“None,” she said succinctly. “So for the moment you must forget about how and apply yourself to why. Why would someone want to kill a man like Demades, who from all appearances was a harmless astronomer?”
“That’s exactly what I have been asking myself. By the way, there was another curious matter on the island this morning.” I told her about Cassius and his odd errand and his diplomat friend.
“I do not understand why Caesar lets that man run around loose,” she said. “He is rabidly anti-Caesarian and does not care who knows it.” One of the few faults she would acknowledge in her uncle was his misplaced leniency.
“Maybe he’d rather have his enemies right where he can see them, not behind him professing friendship while they sharpen their knives for him.”
“Perhaps so, but the men he has pardoned and called back from exile! Any other man would have had the lot of them executed.”
“Maybe he wants a reputation for kinglike clemency.”
“Now you’re talking like them,” Julia said ominously. “They’re always saying Caesar wants to make himself king of Rome. They even interpret his mercy toward themselves as evidence of royal ambition.”
“Well, I for one don’t think he wants to be king,” I assured her. “He’s already dictator of Rome, and that makes him more powerful than any king in the world.”
Even so, Caesar’s power was not absolute. After conquering Gaul he had crushed his Roman enemies one after the other at Thapsus and Munda and many other, less famous fights. Nevertheless, there were still old Pompeians at large, some of them with considerable forces at their disposal.
“I think it strange that Caesar is so determined to prosecute this war with Parthia while so much is still unfinished at home,” I said. “I know he wants to take back the eagles that were captured at Carrhae, but there is no rush about that. Yet when Caesar speaks of war he is always serious.”
“Always,” she acknowledged. “So what does this Archelaus hope to accomplish?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “He is being paid to undertake this mission. Whether or not it succeeds, his pay is the same.” I left unsaid my own suspicions about Caesar and his ambitions. The reputation of Alexander the Great had lain over the heads of ambitious military men for almost three hundred years. Each of them longed to surpass Alexander, and Alexander’s conquests had been in the east, not the west. What was conquering Gaul compared to conquering Persia? And Parthia was the inheritor of the Persian Empire. If Caesar could conquer his way into India, then his empire would extend from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges and he would have outconquered Alexander the Great. His would be the new reputation for would-be conquerors to best.
Without a doubt, Caesar planned to establish a reputation at which rivals could only despair.
* * *
The next morning I confronted the man himself in his new Basilica Julia, which was to outshine all the other great buildings of Rome. Caesar looked an unlikely Alexander that morning. The Macedonian boy-king had accomplished his feats while very young. The years of war had aged Caesar terribly, and he was not all that young to begin with. I suppose he was about fifty-five that year and he looked older than that. I had seen Crassus just before he set out for Parthia, and the old moneybags had looked half dead. Caesar had lost none of his energy nor any of his mental acumen, but I did not think him fit for the rigors of campaigning. Oh, well, Caesar had surprised us before. Maybe he could still do it, or perhaps he would sit sensibly in Antioch and leave the actual fighting to his fire-eating subordinates like Marcus Antonius. He could let Cleopatra levy troops for him, not that Egyptians are good for much. He intended to accomplish it all somehow.
“How was my astronomer killed, Decius?” he asked bluntly.
“And a gracious good morning to you, Caius Julius,” I said, nettled. “I am working at that very question. He seemed a harmless old drudge, hardly worth killing, and his neck was broken in some mysterious fashion.”
“Yes, Cassius mentioned it. I want to know who killed him, Decius, and why. I want to know all about this very soon.”