The Inquest (4 page)

Antioch, Capital of the Roman Province or Syria. March, A.D. 71

‘Come at once,’ said the message summoning Varro to the governor’s mansion on the eve of the expedition’s departure. The questor found his commander playing dice with six freedmen and a youth who looked vaguely familiar to Varro. Collega was never happier than when he was eating or when he was winning at dice.

“Ah, questor,” said the smiling Collega, turning on the stool where he sat before the gaming table with the
fritillus
, the dice box, in hand. “Just one more throw,” he said, shaking the box. With a jerk of the hand he cast a pair of dice onto the wooden gaming board. All eyes watched the ivory cubes tumble and roll to a standstill. Leaning forward to read each die, Collega roared with delight. “I win!” At the same time, his companions threw up their hands and groaned with despair. “
Par duplex!
Double evens!” Collega gloated. “Pay up, all of you.”

As the other players dug into purses, Collega came to his feet. Briefly he winced with pain and put a hand to his lower back. “The old back problem,” he said in explanation to Varro. “It is nothing.” Then, looping his arm up over the taller Varro’s shoulder, he steered him across the room, to stand in an open doorway looking out from a small balcony over a sunken garden decorated with exquisite topiary. Below, water cascaded into a circular pool. The aromas of lush perfumes wafted up from the greenery.

“You depart on the Nazarene mission tomorrow, Varro?” the general asked. It was a rhetorical question; Collega was intimately acquainted with all the details.

“At dawn, my lord,” Varro returned.

“Good, good. I have arranged for a physician to join your party. You may need a medical man where you are going.”

“Thank you, my lord. That physician would be…?”

“Diocles, the Corinthian. A very experienced and able man.”

“Ah, Diocles,” Varro responded. Apparently Collega had forgotten that this was the same Diocles he had labeled an incurable drunkard, the same physician whose judgment he had called into question. But Varro could not say as much, could only graciously accept the doctor’s appointment even though he suspected the general was only trying to rid himself of Diocles. “Thank you, my lord.”

“I also have another military officer for you.” Collega beckoned the young man who had been a spectator to the dice game.

The youngster slowly rose up from the gaming table and strolled to join the pair. Wearing an expensive multi-colored tunic, and, on his left hand, the gold ring of a member of the Equestrian Order, he was a handsome boy of eighteen, with rosy cheeks, soft skin, and black hair cut in a severe fringe.

“Questor, this is Gaius Licinius Venerius,” the general said in introduction, “the scion of a distinguished family.”

“I am the descendant of Licinius Lucullus,” the youth pompously announced as he joined the pair.

“Indeed?” said Varro, trying to sound impressed. He knew who the boy’s ancestor was; Lucullus had been one of Rome’s greatest generals, and one of her most extravagant spenders, in the time of Julius Caesar’s youth.

“My father was twice a consul. My uncle is Gaius Licinius Mucianus.”

“You are the nephew of my patron?” said Varro with surprise. “It occurred to me that I knew your face, Venerius. I must have seen you with Licinius Mucianus at Rome.”

“You are one of my uncle’s clients?” Venerius sniffed. “I do not recall having seen you before. My uncle has certainly never mentioned you.”

“Quite possibly,” Varro returned, determined to remain civil despite having taken an instant dislike to the priggish youth.

“Venerius has been serving out his six-month posting as a tribune of the thin stripe with the 4th Scythica at Zeugma, Varro,” Collega advised. “However, Licinius Mucianus has written to say that he wishes his nephew to gain the broadest possible experience while he is in Syria.”

“An admirable sentiment, my lord,” Varro remarked, dreading what he realized must be coming next.

“It is, is it not,” said Collega. “So, I am sending Venerius on your expedition.”

Varro gulped. “I see, general.” He looked at Venerius, inwardly cursing.

“He should prove useful; you can use another officer,” Collega added.

“Yes, thank you, general.” Varro tried to give the youngster a diplomatic smile. “It should prove interesting, Venerius. For us all.”

“You will find the questor has much to teach you, Venerius,” said Collega.

Venerius looked Varro up and down with a contemptuous expression.

“Perhaps you would care to join me for dinner, Venerius,” Varro suggested, “at the gladiatorial barracks. All my chief officers and senior freedman are dining with me tonight, as a prelude to our departure tomorrow.”

“No, thank you,” Venerius snapped back. “I shall be otherwise engaged.”

Varro shrugged. “As you prefer.” Determined not to say anything he would regret, he turned to Collega. “If that was all, general, with your permission…?”

“Yes, Varro, you must have a great deal to do prior to your departure.” Collega walked him toward the door. There was a cylindrical leather document case lying on a table by the entrance, and as they came to it Collega took up the case and handed it to Varro. “Your Authority, questor,” he said. “Use it wisely.” Then he held out his hand. “I will not be seeing you again before you leave. May the gods go with you.” He focused very deliberately on Varro, and lowered his voice. “Be sure to bring back the evidence I seek, Varro. As well you know, much hangs on the success of this mission as far as Rome is concerned.” His eyes transmitted the true meaning of his words. Collega was thinking about his career at Rome, first and foremost.

Varro returned the handshake. “Yes, general, for Rome. Thank you. I will do my utmost not to disappoint you.”

“Do not forget, I want you back here with your report before the last ship of the sailing season sets out for Italy. I bid you a good night and all success, questor.”

“Thank you, general. A good night to you.”

As Varro walked from the room with his Authority in hand, he cursed his luck. Collega was not doing anything to contribute to the success of the expedition, saddling him at the last moment with a drunkard and a brat, adding them to Pythagoras the spy and the devious Jew Antiochus. Varro resolved to be on his guard from this moment forward, knowing there would be few in his entourage apart from Martius he could rely on and trust, on what he had become convinced was close to an impossible mission.

The Road to Beirut, Roman Province of Syria.
March A.D. 71

With characteristic efficiency, Varro had begun as he meant to go on. The questor’s column had departed Antioch on time, in the light of a golden dawn. While the main body moved down the military highway at brisk marching pace, the mounted advance guard of ten Vettonian troopers led by their decurion Gains Pompeius cantered down the road ahead, accompanied by a centurion and several civilians.

Callidus rode with the advance guard, along with another freedman, Paris, the questor’s portly cook. The advance guard’s task was to clear the road of obstruction and to precede the main column into the place chosen for the next night’s camp. There, Callidus would make whatever logistical arrangements were necessary for the expedition as a whole, while Paris the cook acquired food for the questor’s personal table.

There was a smile on Callidus’ face as he rode. His thoughts were in Antioch, the previous night, in a small attic room in a house on the Street of the Olives, and Priscilla, the love of his life. Priscilla was a slave in the household of Pagan us, a freedman originally from Northern Gaul and now a grasping merchant and money-lender. While Callidus had frolicked in plump, playful Priscilla’s bed, his master Julius Varro had been below in the bedroom of Octavia, eldest daughter of Paganus. Callidus did not like Octavia. A beauty she might be, but she was arrogant and self-centered. But because she had been the questor’s bed partner for a year Callidus was certain his master would take Octavia back to Rome with him when he and Callidus went home, and would keep her there as his mistress even if he married a daughter of the nobility. And if Octavia went to Rome, so too would her favorite body servant Priscilla, and Callidus and Priscilla could be together. It would be a perfect outcome as far as Callidus was concerned.

Callidus smiled too as he remembered the words last evening of Priscilla’s mother, the ancient, toothless, sightless Aquila, who shared a tiny upper floor room with her daughter. Paganus had retained the crone because he valued her skills as a seer. The merchant would boast to friends that old Aquila only had to hold of a subject’s hands to receive messages containing often astonishingly accurate predictions about their future, and he would charge them for her ‘readings.’ Last evening, old Aquila had taken Callidus’ hands and, wide eyed and perspiring, she had predicted that he would soon go on a journey, and on that journey he would be in danger. The danger would not be from without, she had told him with quaking voice, it would be from within.

Now Callidus laughed out loud as he heard Aquila’s words replaying in his mind, so loud that Paris the cook riding beside him looked around with a question on his face. Callidus was as superstitious as the next man, but he had never been convinced of Aquila’s so-called talent for divination. For Priscilla’s sake he pretended to be awed by the old woman, but her forecasts had never impressed him. And so it was with her latest predictions. Danger, on a journey? He was always going on one journey or another. And in his job when was he not in danger from within? On the strength of that sort of prognostication, Callidus told himself,
he
could go into business telling fortunes.

As Callidus and the advance party rode on ahead, the expedition proper was led by another
troop of ten Vettonian cavalrymen, advancing two-by-two at walking pace on neat Spanish ponies. Each man was equipped with a sheathed
spatha
, the long Roman cavalry sword, a round shield, a lance, and a quiver of small throwing spears. Behind the horsemen walked Questor Varro’s grim-faced, gray-headed lictor, Lucius Pedius. Wearing a loose white tunic, the former 10th Legion centurion was tanned and fit, with calves like steel and thighs like tree trunks after two decades of military service. A scar down the left side of his neck was a permanent souvenir of that service. The unarmed Pedius bore the questor’s full-size
fasces
, a bundle of rods surrounding an ax, all bound with red chord, symbol of a magistrate’s ultimate power to punish and to execute. Just two men in all of Syria, Varro and his superior Collega, were endowed with that power. It meant that the
fasces
was a symbol sufficient to send a shiver down the spine of many a traveler standing at the roadside to let the column pass.

Pedius was not a happy man. For four years he had fought in General Vespasian’s battles in Galilee, had stormed Jericho, had slogged through the five-month siege of Jerusalem for Titus. Then, the previous December, he had retired at the end of his twenty-year enlistment, glad to leave behind the blood and death of legion life and start a new life with his savings and his retirement bonus. On his discharge he had quickly gone up to Antioch, where, permitted to marry now that he had left the army, he immediately wed Phoebe, a freedwoman and native of the Syrian capital whom he had met and fallen in love with seven years before while serving under General Corbulo. It was then that Questor Varro had offered him a one-year appointment as his lictor.

The offer had been attractive at the time. A good deal of prestige attached to the post of lictor, and it was not overly demanding. Even the annual tax gathering trip around the province was nothing more than a sociable ramble, with the questor and his staff made the guests of the communities they visited. Pedius had not hesitated to accept the appointment. Little had he known at the time that the questor would within three months be setting off on a journey which would take Pedius back into territory that held many unpleasant memories for him. His new bride had not complained. Phoebe had assured Pedius that he would soon be back with her, and had sent him on his way that morning with a loving kiss and a long embrace. He might even be able to do some good on this mission, she had told him. But as far as Pedius was concerned, the sooner this expedition was over and he was back with his new wife, the happier he would be.

Directly behind the lictor marched a bare-headed standard-bearer of the 4th Scythica Legion, proudly holding aloft his
vexillum
, a square cloth banner signifying a legion detachment. On the red cloth was painted the motif ‘COHVIII LEGIVSC’ denoting an element of the 8th Cohort of the 4th Scythica Legion, together with the symbols of a running boar and a fish. The boar was the legion’s emblem, a symbol with great significance to the Celtic ancestors of 4th Legion men, who all originated in the province of Cisalpine Gaul which extended from the Po River in northern Italy to the Alps. The symbol of the fish represented the zodiacal sign of Pisces, considered the legion’s birth sign because the unit had been founded in late February.

Three unarmed boy trumpeters of the 4th came immediately behind the standard-bearer, all in a line. Each youth was entwined with a
cornu
, the large G-shaped Roman military trumpet, which was almost as big as its player, and each wore a bearskin cape, with the upper part of the animal’s head affixed to their helmet, the front legs crossed over their chest, and the pelt trailing down their back. On the trumpeters’ heels came a group of riders. First of all, Questor Varro, wearing a simple tunic and cloak. Then, the tribune Marcus Martius, the prefect Crispus, the junior tribune Venerius, all three in uniform, armor, and helmet. Riding immediately behind the military officers came the secretaries Pythagoras and Artimedes, followed by Diocles the
physician, a chubby, pasty-faced man who appeared almost asleep in the saddle, and then Antiochus the Jewish magistrate, wearing a discomforted scowl.

The reason for the Jewish magistrate’s discomfort rode directly behind him—a massive, one-armed black Numidian. Columbus was his name, and he was a freedman and former gladiator of the Thracian school who had lost his left arm in the arena. Yet, so powerful was he with just one arm, and so imposing was his almost seven foot frame, that General Collega had employed Columbus as a personal bodyguard. As clear evidence that Collega did not trust Antiochus entirely, Columbus had been sent along with the express task of keeping an eye on the apostate Jew.

Astride mules, a group of freedmen functionaries rode close behind the official party. After them, in marching order, seventy-eight legionaries of the 4th Scythica came swinging down the roadway, their hob-nailed military sandals crunching the stone pavement. Marching six abreast in thirteen ranks, the soldiers wore the blood red tunic and cloak common to all soldiers of Rome’s legions. Gleaming segmented metal armor covered their torsos and shoulders, while a red scarf protected each man’s neck against the chafing effect of the heavy armor. A sheathed short sword hung on the right hip, a dagger on the left. A curved rectangular wooden shield with a central boss of iron hung on each man’s left shoulder. Weather covers of plain leather hid the running boar symbol of the 4th which decorated every shield. Suspended by a neck strap, each man’s helmet hung loosely about his neck. Over his right shoulder each legionary carried a long wooden pole. Javelins were strapped to the pole, while from it, behind him, dangled the man’s backpack, with bedroll, mess tin, water bucket, entrenching tools, rations, removable horsehair helmet plume, military decorations, and personal items, the lot weighing more than eighty pounds per man.

Immediately in the wake of the last rank marched a single optio, or sergeant major. Quintus Silius was his name. He was identically armed, attired and equipped to the men of the rank and file. Occasionally the duty-bound Silius would bark an order for silence, should a legionary dare to attempt to share a comment or joke with a colleague.

Behind the infantry came the column’s baggage train: forty heavily-laden pack mules led by non-combatant freedmen muleteers, then a succession of covered carts, twenty-one in all, carrying heavy equipment and supplies, also in the charge of mule-drivers. Most of the carts carried sacks of grain, full pots of water, jars of olive oil and lamp oil, amphorae of wine, grinding stones, cooking pots, folded tents and lumber for construction. One vehicle was stacked high with wax writing tablets wrapped in damp linen to keep them moist, and virgin scrolls of parchment in protective leather cases—the raw material of the questor’s ultimate report. Several carts were devoted to the questor’s personal needs, his tent, furniture, armor and clothing, and his silver dining plate.

Between the baggage train and the rearguard of another ten Vettonian cavalrymen walked the thirty male slaves serving the expedition. Some of these men had official duties. One group of three had the sole responsibility of the care and operation of the expedition’s water clock by night and sundial by day. Most of the others were the personal slaves of the officers and freedman officials. Varro had instructed his subordinates to keep their staff numbers down, for efficiency’s sake, but none had brought less than two slaves. Diolces the physician had brought five, including three medical orderlies. Martius had three: an armor-bearer, a handservant, and a cook. Young Venerius had a similar number. As for Varro himself, apart from Paris his freedman cook, he had brought along just two slaves, Timeus his baker, and Hostilis, a Briton, who, because he was the questor’s chief slave, acted as supervisor of the entire slave party.

Before dawn that morning, prior to leaving Antioch, Varro had gone to the city’s Temple of Mars. There, the augurs of the temple had performed the
lustratio
ceremony, purifying the 4th Scythica
vexillum
with perfumes and attaching sacred ribbons representing garlands of flowers to bring protection and good fortune to the unit on its mission. Varro had then presided over the obligatory ritual animal sacrifice before he set out on the expedition. The entrails of the sacrificial goat had been found to be clear, and the augurs had pronounced that the omens for the questor’s mission were fortuitous. The chief augur had then walked outside with Varro. Pointing to the cloudless early morning sky with its carpet of twinkling stars, the augur had proclaimed that the clear sky also boded well for Varro’s endeavor.

Riding the highway now, deep in contemplation of the augur’s words, the pragmatic Varro told himself that while the god of war may have been on his side success on this expedition would also depend on the flesh and blood people in his party. He knew from experience that Callidus was utterly dependable, as was Artimedes his faithful Greek secretary. As for Pedius, he had known his lictor for only a matter of months, but he felt sure that the officious former centurion would not let him down.

Pythagoras was pompous, but he excelled as a secretary, and Varro knew he would be loyal to General Collega’s purpose in all this. Knowing that Pythagoras would be sending reports back to Collega with Varro’s official dispatches, about the expedition and the way that Varro was handling it, Varro would be careful not to allow the secretary entry into his innermost thoughts. As for the military men, Martius would be a solid deputy, and Crispus would do his best to please.

Heading the other side of the ledger was Antiochus. The previous year, to obtain his appointment as magistrate of the Jewish community of Antioch, the man had sworn off Judaism and informed on his father, the incumbent holder of the post of Jewish magistrate, telling General Collega that Antiochus senior and other Jewish elders had been planning to put the capital of Syria to the torch in revenge for Rome’s suppression of the Jewish Revolt to the south. Believing the son’s accusation, Collega had executed Antiochus’ father and other leading Jews of Antioch, incinerating them in the amphitheater. The affair had given Antiochus his position of power, and had given the now deceased merchants Priscus and Plancus their incendiary inspiration for the subsequent Fire of Antioch, which they had hoped would be blamed on the Jews. Varro himself had never run foul of Antiochus, but the man’s duplicitous past and the fact that Governor Collega did not trust Antiochus implicitly were reason enough for Varro to handle his dealings with the man with judicious care.

As for the others, the reputation for drunkenness that had preceded Diocles the physician had caused Varro to issue strict instructions that all members of his party were to refrain from excessive drinking during the mission and that Diocles in particular was not to touch a single drop of wine until they had returned to Antioch. Then there was young Venerius, the spoilt, arrogant and lazy thin-stripe tribune. Varro was expecting to have difficulties with him, sooner or later. The other military officers serving under Varro were unknown quantities but came with good reports. Pompeius the cavalry decurion, Crispus’s deputy and a man with a fearsome battle scar from right ear to empty eye socket, was an aggressive cavalryman of fifteen years’ service. The commander of the 4th Scythica Legion detachment, Centurion Titus Gallo, also appeared to Varro to be a valuable man. The fifty-two-year-old had thirty-two years’ legion service to his credit. Right now, the centurion was out ahead of the main column with Decurion Pompeius, Callidus, and the advance guard, setting in train procedures designed to become routine on the march over the coming weeks and months.