A Capitol Death Read online

  Both tops provide fabulous views, but the Arx probably wins the contest. Both Capitol and Arx have steep sides running straight up, cliffs with limited footpaths and in part too rocky ever to have been built on. The Arx is specifically known as the citadel, because it can be defended. That even happened in modern memory, during the civil war after Nero: in the battle to be emperor, Vespasian’s supporters held out on the Capitol against his rival Vitellius; the Vitellians set fire to the whole hill, captured and murdered Vespasian’s brother, nearly caught his son Domitian (if only!), until only the arrival of the Flavian Army saved the day.

  The temples then stood in ruins. Restored by Vespasian, who famously shouldered away the first bucket of rubble himself, the still-new buildings were later lost again in a terrible fire that destroyed half of the city during the reign of his elder son Titus. Titus began a magnificent new restoration; when he died it was quickly finished by Domitian. His huge Temple of Jupiter stood on the foundations of the original Etruscan building but had the most lavish superstructure ever. It was entirely built in white Pentellic marble, with its bronze roof tiles gilded so it shone visibly from all parts of Rome.

  Although the great temple contains three internal shrines and shows Jupiter with Juno and Minerva on its pedestal, Juno has her own temple as well. For four hundred years all Rome’s silver currency was coined there. Domitian moved the mint. He would.

  The crags had once been crowned with trees, though now they were given over to temple enclosures. Thick groves used to run down into the middle dip. While Romulus was founding Rome, he established the saddle of ground between them as a place of asylum for fugitive slaves and criminals, who were invited to live in his new city. This bunch of pioneers stole and raped the Sabine women (what else does anyone expect of riff-raff?). When the Sabines tried to fetch their wives and daughters back, the citadel commander had a daughter of his own, Tarpeia, who approached the besiegers in their camp and offered them entry into Rome in exchange for “what they bore on their left arms”—she meant their gold bracelets. The Sabines threw heavy shields on her instead, and the greedy girl’s corpse was hurled from the Arx.

  Despite their principled refusal of Tarpeia’s offer, the Sabines (so it is said) were still unable to break into the Forum because its gates were miraculously protected by jets of boiling water created by Janus, the two-faced gate-guardian. That’s myth for you. No justice.

  Rome survived. Its inhabitants forgot they were descended from criminals, becoming the snobs we know today. Tarpeia is cited as a moral lesson by parents of girls who plead for jewellery. Young girls duly curse her.

  Tarpeia’s Rock stands on the Forum side, above the state prison called the Tullianum or the Lautumiae, where traitors are incarcerated; alongside are the Gemonian Stairs where those traitors’ bodies will be left to rot. This nice configuration of punishment places is perhaps what Juno is Warning us about. If, at the conclusion of his Triumph, Domitian’s chief captives were sacrificed, they would be strangled in the Tullianum by the jailer, though the word was that Our Master had not managed to bring home anybody who was that important or interesting. Certainly, as I stood in the street with Dillia, the prison appeared to be locked up and deserted.

  To my amazement, Dillia now informed me she was the official cleaner. That, she said, was why she came around the hill to here after buying her vegetables.

  “I am glad to have the point cleared up—but good grief! Is it a nasty job?”

  “No, it’s no trouble. One of the cells is a bit deep to get down into, especially at my age, but I manage. I keep them nice. The prisoners seem to respect that. They are always instructed to behave well, but they tend to suffer from nerves—you can imagine. Otherwise, they never stay long enough to make much mess. They just have a day or two until they are done in. After they are turfed out dead, I soon whisk around with a mop again. The jailer only comes in for stranglings. Lovely man, very clean habits. So on special occasions I do up the premises. He gives me a tip out of what he earns. We rub along well—we have done for years.”

  “Fascinating!”

  I had heard that if ever a prisoner was a young girl, for instance the teenage daughter of the disgraced Praetorian Sejanus, the jailer had to rape her to avoid the crime of killing a virgin. I decided not to ask Dillia, who might hate to think of her clean-habits man having to carry out anything so sordid.

  Then I did ask the question after all. Of course I was as curious as you are.

  “He would. It’s just a job,” she answered, not batting an eyelid. Learning about people’s different attitudes is an aspect of my work. As she saw me raise a cool eyebrow, Dillia insisted, “Sejanus tried to take over the Empire, didn’t he? What kind of behaviour is that? It was right that his children were killed too—I bet that taught him. The jailer at the time must have done it in the line of duty, not because he enjoyed it. Besides, it’s not going to affect the little girl for long, is it, not if she is strangled straight away?”

  This is a popular excuse among serial killers too: “The women never suffered.”

  I felt depressed now, but Dillia perked up. We stood at the bottom of the Gemonian Stairs, which climb up to the corner of the Tabularium, that huge construction at the top of the Forum where archives are kept. The Tabularium was above us on the left-hand side; the Tarpeian Rock soared on the right. I put myself into searching professional mode as I made Valeria Dillia give her statement of what she saw and where.

  V

  We stared up at the Rock. Valeria Dillia gestured to where she had thought she glimpsed two figures, then where she saw the body fall. Given how tragic it must have been, and how much she wanted to dwell on it, her gestures verged on vague. Still, I have had worse witnesses. It is quite common that they insist they possess priceless evidence yet, when challenged, it evaporates.

  I tested her eyesight. To Dillia, I blamed the aedile for suggesting this examination, though the idea was mine. I made her look down the street, across to the Temple of Saturn on the far side of the Forum, then tell me about people coming and going. She got about half of them right. She picked out the man in the long tunic who was turning up the Clivus Capitolinus; she counted the panniers on a donkey, though she could not tell whether the woman touting for business near the Curia was as young as she wanted men to think. Mind you, this is a regular problem for prostitutes’ punters, even when they are right up close.

  “The body is no longer here of course,” I mused, fairly sure Dillia would know what was done with it.

  “No, they took it away.”

  “You stayed to watch what happened?”

  “That’s natural, isn’t it?”

  “Who came?”

  “Men.”

  “Vigiles? Public slaves?”

  “I don’t know. There was a commotion. Some temple officials, it looked like, popped up on the top and had a look down, gabbling and pointing. Then people came scrambling down the steps. A bunch of the ones who are working up there for the Triumph, I suppose. Some of them managed to climb over to the bottom of the rock and they pulled the body out, hauling him by his heels onto the steps. The public had been shooed off by then.”

  “Not you?”

  “Nobody bothers about an old duck like me. The workmen stood around looking at the dead man for so long I nearly went home tired, but then someone must have said something. They picked him up and threw him on a barrow that had been wheeled down here, so away he went.”

  I opened my mouth, about to ask where he was being taken.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Dillia, sharper than she looked. I had interviewed people like her before. Now she would be over-confident, breaking in to answer the wrong question.

  “Did they seem to know who he was?”

  “They seemed like idiots.”

  “That sounds like a fair assessment,” I said. “I wonder if he ever had a funeral.”

  “I heard he did. I would have gone,” Dillia told me, “paid my respects, seen if the
y had a few bits to eat and any speeches. Only it was never advertised.”

  Thanking Dillia for her public-spiritedness in coming forward, I sent her on her way.

  Well, I tried. She clung on. “Will I have to help the aedile again?”

  “At this stage, I am not sure.”

  “Well, you know where to find me if he wants any more evidence. If I’m not at home, I shall be in the prison with my mop.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you going up on top now? Shall I come with you?”

  Over-hopeful, ever-helpful—for a bad moment I thought she was glued to me permanently. Luckily, I managed to shake her off.

  She had told me nothing new. I was now able to picture the man’s fall, but I could have come here alone and figured that out.

  * * *

  I climbed to the top of the Gemonian Stairs. As I laboured up the crumbly steps that curve around first the prison, then the side of the big Temple of Concord, I reflected that if the Citadel was ever attacked, this would indeed be a hard way to take it. There are other routes up, though all equally steep. A crag is a crag.

  At least it is until a Domitian comes along. He had new plans to dig out the ground that links the Arx to the Quirinal, boldly reconfiguring the hillside. To our emperor, Rome was a big sandpit where a boy as important as him was allowed to play all he liked. Juno’s Citadel had stood and looked the same for eight hundred years, but the emperor’s massive building programme never stopped. It showed no deference to sacred topography.

  Domitian had built more grandiose public buildings than anyone, with many new works still at the planning stage. He had the funds. His father had filled the Treasury. The Flavians possessed tax-collectors in their ancestry; they knew how to gather in masses of cash, then make it work for them.

  No one, I noticed, had bothered to repair the Gemonian Stairs. They are nicknamed the Stairs of Mourning. This may be because you can twist your ankle so easily and bust a sandal strap.

  I had been up these cranky steps many times, when taken by my father to see the Sacred Geese of Juno. Falco had a fondness for those birds. If he fancied an omelette for supper, his innocent-looking daughter would be assigned the task of carrying home the eggs in her stole.

  With my past-learned caution, I negotiated the cracked steps. At the top I paused, regaining my breath. Then I took a quick, wary look over the edge of the cliff, making sure not to fall down. There is no health-and-safety balustrade. A would-be suicide need not even take a run at it. All he had to do was be brave and jump.

  Murder would be possible. Stand near the edge. Distract or overpower your victim, then a sudden big shove … Just ensure they don’t grab your tunic and pull you over with them. Step away quickly. Dodge off before any witness can be certain they saw you.

  The Arx was useless for evidence. Below on the cliff there was nothing to see, no snagged clothing, not even a trail of battered bushes to mark the victim’s fall. Above, the ground was rough and rocky. Such a place could not retain footprints or other clues. All I found was goose-droppings and litter. Everything looked quite old.

  * * *

  What now? There seemed to be unusual activity everywhere, both here on the Arx and over on the Capitol. Extra staff were tidying the open spaces, while small groups of soldiers, in boots and red tunics but minus their armour, ambled about with no obvious purpose. Where could I start?

  Between the Temple of Juno Moneta and the cliff edge is a flattish open space, the Auguraculum. The college of augurs operates there, regarding the Arx in general as their roofless temple, a major site for the pursuit of Etruscan divination. They don’t practise as haruspices, who know about animal livers and how chickens feed; they are seers, who scan the heavens to interpret stars and the flights of birds. Favourable signs give validity to main events such as the appointment of consuls; claiming the signs are not favourable can be a useful device for politicians to delay proceedings …

  “Oh, never in our city!” I hear you cry.

  From the Arx, augurs who have avoided cataracts can see as far as the Alban Hills, more than twenty miles away. After Domitian built his fortress retreat at Alba Longa, they had a sightline straight there—but they would be aware of the terrible truth: if you can see Our Master, he can see you. And he will be looking. If he is in residence, he is always looking. Nobody needs to poke about inside a dead sheep to prophesy that.

  Almost certainly a ceremony would occur up there, immediately before the Triumph. Only a brave haruspex would tell Domitian he could not proceed because a spot on some steaming entrails had forbidden it, but sky-watching augury is a more fluid art. These augurs would fix it. Birds would fly in the right configuration, no doubt of that. No crow would cross Domitian.

  I saw that the standard preparations were being made so they could promise good luck for him. A small tent with an open top had been erected, squared to the compass points, within which an observer would position himself to stare at the sky. I could hear male voices coming from inside.

  Relatives of mine had served in the legions. They had taught me various handy tricks. When approaching a tent, it is always a good idea to cough: this gives the occupants a chance to stop anything naughty they may be doing.

  VI

  “Ahem! Coming in!” I cried cheerily, before opening the tent flap. “Is there room for a little one?”

  Two men were inside. One was an augur: his long special robe was folded up on the ground with his crooked stick on top of the pile. The other had to be his cheeky assistant. They were eating bread rolls. I suspected they had been discussing the races. It took me two beats to decide this was a right pair of confederates.

  “I hope I am not disrupting anything religious—oh, no, it’s your lunchbreak.”

  Being an augur is a sought-after post for senators. This incumbent had to be a patrician, despite looking as if he came from the rough end of the scale.

  Tall but gaunt, in a long black tunic and wearing sandals I wouldn’t give a dog to chew, he carried himself with world-weary hunched shoulders, even when sitting on his cross-legged augury stool. He had a certain look about him. I wouldn’t have left him in a room with my sister. Mind you, my brother would sort him: Postumus tends to fix people as if he is wondering which tool from his toy farm he will use to disembowel them. Don’t worry: we have explained that he must ask us first. He is an obedient boy. So long as we like people, they are safe.

  The assistant also gave off untrustworthy signals. If he were a mansio stable-lad, your horse would bite him—then you’d quickly learn he knew how to demand compensation. Done it before. Better cough up: he’s had more practice than you.

  He was using a stool, which he must have pinched from another augur. I presumed he helped to erect the observation hide, because he had a mallet under his seat, along with secretarial items that suggested he took notes of observations. He was around the same age as the first man, maybe fifty. Even so, this laddish chancer had persuaded his barber to shave his head up from his neck to above his sticking-out ears, leaving matted hair on top. It goes without saying that the remaining follicles were as oily as fish on a barbecue. If one of his lovers ran fingers through that thatch, the run-off would do to stop squeaks in cupboard hinges.

  “Your tent is a bit draughty,” I commented, as I came inside its leather walls to join them. Above us, the sky over Rome was blue—and completely empty of birdlife. Not that anyone was scanning for portents. The races were more important. They had been using a third augury stool as a camp-table for their food, so I moved the empty basket and sat down with them.

  “Greetings, prescient ones. My name is Flavia Albia. I have been engaged by the aediles to solve the mystery of what happened with that man who jumped off the Tarpeian Rock. Perhaps you have enough ancient wisdom to foresee where my task will lead me.” Clearly not. I sighed aloud. “No, that would have been too helpful.”

  They had been stuck in poses of surprise ever since I arrived. I must have been the first
woman to be chippy with an augur since Romulus came home to his shepherd mother after cheating his brother Remus over who should found Rome. As they continued to stare, I added brightly to the man with vision, “Validation: I am the wife of Manlius Faustus, the poor plebeian aedile who was struck by lightning on his wedding day. I imagine that incident caused hot interest in augury circles. Also, sir, I am related to your colleagues in the Senate, the noble Camillus Aelianus and Camillus Justinus, if you know them.”

  He did not. My uncles, who were only marginally noble, would not want acquaintance with him, either: both Camillus brothers regard state divination as mumbo-jumbo. Justinus comes right out and says he would campaign against offal-peering and sky-watching, but superstition is so popular he could count on no support. Aelianus can be pompous, but even he would rather see a sacred chicken bubbling in broth with tarragon leaves and wild garlic.

  The augur unbent: he introduced himself as Larth and his assistant as Lemni. I took these for Etruscan working names. The voice of Larth was slow and sonorous, the result of a life spent intoning. This man would make “Pass the salt” sound like a thousand-year-old prayer for abundant crops and fertile women.

  Lemni, piping up like a market porter, took it upon himself to relay answers for his superior, who seemed simply too tired to continue. Overnight augury must be as shattering as any shift-work. I asked if they were there on the evening of the supposed suicide. Lemni confirmed it, though they had been absorbed in putting up the tent for that night’s watch. It must be done correctly. Lemni boasted of his skills. I admired the tent’s taut walls.

  When the man jumped off the Rock, they heard a commotion so they went across to look as soon as they could. If you stop a ritual action you have to go right back to the beginning. By the time they had finished installing their tent according to the ancient rules, anyone else who had been present when the victim fell was gone. Lemni pretended the augur and he had behaved calmly at the top of the cliff, though Dillia had told me the reaction she saw was highly excitable. I believed her.