“You mean like the Pythagoreans?” I asked. “I’ve known a few of those.” The slave returned with the wine and it was excellent.
Brutus snorted. “Pythagoreans are to real mathematicians what astrologers are to true astronomers. They are just mystics who cloak their mummery in some of the trappings of philosophy. They propound absurd doctrines of transmigration of souls and commerce with spirits and ridiculous dietary practices and try to justify it all with some basic geometry and progressions of musical notes.”
“I always thought it was rather silly,” I said.
“Men like Demades and Sosigenes are the farthest thing from all that trash. They draw their theories and conclusions only from observable phenomena, eschewing all mysticism and supernatural explanations. If their observable data cannot explain a thing, they look for more data instead of resorting to the supernatural.”
“Admirable,” I murmured.
“Exactly.”
“But where does that put our auguries?” I asked him. “Where does it put most of our religious practice, for that matter?”
“I would never suggest that the gods do not exist,” he said, “but as I told my mother, they are not petty creatures that take an interest in the affairs of individual mortals. They are not Homer’s Olympians. It may be that they take an interest in the fates of entire nations, though I rather doubt the efficacy of discerning their will in the flights of birds, or in thunder and flashes of lightning. These are the beliefs of our primitive ancestors.” He’d been hanging around those Greeks on the island, all right. “At least,” he went on, “the augurs are more dignified than the haruspices, with their examinations of the entrails of sacrificial animals.”
“I’ve never liked that business either,” I agreed.
“The people must have religion and they must see that their leaders are suitably pious. This is essential to social order. One of the wisest provisions of our constitution was to make the priesthoods a part of official office. Thus we have always avoided the dangers of religious fanaticism, and of hereditary priesthoods contending for power with legitimate government. You have been in places where these things prevail, have you not?”
“I have. Things can get quite awful. Egypt, Gaul, Judea, the list goes on.”
“Yes, religion has a place, but it must be a clearly restricted, controlled place. And I feel that the childishness of fortune-telling, divining, astrology, and so forth have no place at all. If I were censor I would drive them all from Rome, and from Roman territory.”
“They’d just come back,” I told him. “They always do. I’ve seen the mountebanks and the mystery cults expelled from Rome three or four times in my lifetime. I would say that right now they are more numerous than ever.”
“You are correct, of course. Something stronger than expulsion is called for. Caesar was rather thorough in cleansing Gaul of Druids.”
Caesar had considered the Druids’ habit of mass human sacrifices distasteful, but it was their political influence he could not countenance. Kings followed their counsel and they were a uniting force among the very disunited Gallic tribes. Caesar had solved the problem by slaughtering them all. I wondered whether that was the fate Brutus had planned for the fortune-tellers. I didn’t like them myself, but it seemed a bit drastic. I decided it was time for a change of subject.
“Did Demades have other admirers? Conversely, did he have enemies? I already know that he disputed with Polasser, but they are both dead, which pretty much clears Polasser of the charge.”
“Why so? Demades was killed first, wasn’t he? Perhaps Polasser killed him, then someone else killed Polasser.”
“That would be a consideration, were it not for the fact that they were killed identically and in a fashion so strange that even Asklepiodes, who knows all about killing people, is having a hard time figuring out how it was done.”
“Really? That is intriguing. What is so unique about it?”
I saw no harm in explaining about the broken necks and the odd marks flanking the vertebrae. Like many other aristocrats Brutus fancied himself an expert amateur wrestler, though he couldn’t have gone a single fall with an expert like Marcus Antonius. With his hands he pantomimed various grips and agreed that it didn’t seem possible with the hands alone. “And the garotte is ruled out, you say? I’ve known some Sicilians who are excellent with the garotte.”
“Asklepiodes says it would leave unmistakable marks.”
“I am sure that I heard Demades mention a person or persons with whom he was in dispute, but it doesn’t stick in my memory because I was far more interested in his teachings and discoveries than in his conflicts, which I assumed to be of an academic nature, not something that might cause his murder.”