ACCUSATION

The murder or assassination or execution of Julianus on the Kalends of June shocked Falco even more than the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax. As the June days passed I had to exercise my greatest adroitness to keep him from spending all his waking hours indoors, chiefly in moping about his collection of gems. I did pretty well with him, for I wheedled him into going to the Baths of Titus three afternoons out of four, into going out to dine one evening in three, and I even induced him to give several formal dinners, each of which was a great success.

But, if I left him to himself, I invariably found him glooming over the gems which no longer gave him any real pleasure. And I could not blame him. Indoors one felt reasonably safe in Rome that June, for no residences had been broken into anywhere in the city, though many shops had been looted and some burnt. But, in the streets, the insolence of the Praetorians was unendurable and their unbridled license and arrogance terrorized the entire population, especially the upper classes. Going anywhere in broad daylight was dangerous, even going to the Baths of Titus from the Esquiline was risky. Anyone like Falco was certain to feel safer indoors. And the tense uncertainty of those twenty-four days made everybody restless, feverish, fidgety and morose: civil war between Severus and Pescennius Niger, lord of the East, was inevitable. How Clodius Albinus, in control of Gaul, Spain and Britain, would act, was problematical. We were all keyed-up, apprehensive and wretched.

Our suspense was shorter since it turned out that Severus had made up his mind and begun to make his rapid and effective arrangements as soon as he heard of the murder of Pertinax. Pertinax was murdered on the fifth day before the Kalends of April and so swiftly travelled the imperial couriers who were his friends and who arranged to set out at once and carry Severus the news, that the first of them rode more than eight hundred miles in eight days and reached him at Caruntum in Pannonia on the Nones of April. Severus was cautious, kept secret what he had heard and moved seventy-two miles nearer Rome to Sabaria in Pannonia, where, after the news was confirmed beyond question, he harangued the soldiers and was by them saluted Emperor on the Ides of April. At once he assured himself of the support or acquiescence of his officers and won over the local authorities and garrisons all over Illyricum, Noricum and Rhaetia. Bands of his most trusted soldiers set off towards Rome by every road. He gathered his forces, made sure of their loyalty and began his march. He was already at Aquileia when the news of the death of Julianus reached him there on the Nones of June. He marched straight to Rome and on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, the day of the summer solstice, was outside the city, accompanied by the delegation of senators who had met him at Interamnia and surrounded by the six hundred picked men who acted as his personal guards, who, it was rumored, had not taken off their corselets day nor night since they left Sabaria.

The next day, the ninth day before the Kalends of July, we heard with amazement that the Praetorians had been cowed, had surrendered their standards to Severus and had been disarmed. Certainly knots of them hung about the streets and squares, all in ordinary tunics and rain hats, shorn of their uniforms as well as of their weapons, and looking not only humbled but frightened. It was rumored that all of those directly concerned with the murder of Pertinax had been not only disarmed and stripped of their uniforms, but actually stripped naked and scourged out of the camp by the Illyrian legionaries who had surrounded and cowed them, and ordered to flee the neighborhood of Rome and never again to approach within a hundred miles of the capitol.

From noon of that day the whole city was in a ferment, preparing for the entry on the morrow of our new Emperor. This was acclaimed the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld in Rome; certainly I was never spectator of anything so impressive. The day was fair, almost cloudless, mild and warm, but pleasant with a gentle breeze. From where Falco and I viewed the procession, nearer the Forum, we gazed about on a wondrous picture: the blue sky above, under it a frame of roofs, mostly of red tiles, some of green weathered bronze among them giving variety, and here and there a temple roof of silver gleaming in the sun, not a few gilded and flashing.

As far as we could see about us every balcony was hung with tapestries gay with particolored patterns, every doorway and window was wreathed in flowers, countless braziers sent up columns of scented smoke. The streets were lined with throngs habited in togas newly whitened; spectators of both sexes, the men in white togas, their women in the brightest silks, crowded every window, loggia, balcony, roof, and other viewpoint. The chattering of the crowds ceased when the head of the procession appeared, and, in a breathless hush, we saw leading it on horseback, with two mounted aides, Flavius Juvenalis, who had been third and last Prefect of the Praetorium to Julianus and who, as an honorable gentleman and loyal official, had been confirmed and continued in this post by Severus. Behind him tramped, in serried ranks, an entire legion of the Pannonian troops, in full armor with their great shields gleaming and the sun sparkling on their gilded helmets and their spear-points.

Behind them came ten of the elephants with which Julianus, in his futile, bungling attempts at preparations for resistance, had had some of his men drill. Each now carried in his tower eight Danubians, four tall Dacian spearmen and four Scythian archers, bow in hand, leaning over the edge of the howdah.

Behind the elephants came Norican legionaries carrying the surrendered standards of the disbanded Praetorian Guard; not held aloft, but trailed, half inverted.

Then, amid roars of cheers, came Severus himself, habited not in his general’s regalia, but in the gorgeous Imperial robes, as if already in the Palace and about to give a public levee. Though thus clad as in time of peace and walking all the way on foot, he was hedged about by his faithful six hundred, every man stepping alertly, helmet-plumes waving, helmets glittering, shields gleaming, spear-points asparkle, kilt-straps flapping, scabbards clanking, a grim advertisement of irresistible power.

After this guard walked our entire Senate, and, as the Emperor and Senate acknowledged the acclamations of the onlookers, passing amid thunders of cheering, behind we saw a long serpent ribbon of Illyrian legionaries, every man fully armed and armored as for instant battle, their even tramp sounding grim and monotonous when the cheerers paused for breath, their resistless might manifest. Indubitably Rome belonged to Severus, he was our master.

Falco, hopeful, yet awed, said little. Once inside his housewalls he fled to his beloved gems and solaced himself with them till it was time for his bath, which he took in his private bathrooms. He and I dined alone and talked chiefly of our hopes of the new Emperor. Falco particularly remarked his appearance of hard commonsense, ruthless decision and flinty resolve.

Next day, soon after dawn, we heard many rumors of disorders by the Illyrian troops, of their having used temples for barracks that night, of cook-shops forced to feed them without payment, of shops plundered and pedestrians robbed. Naturally the entire household kept indoors, except such slaves as went out for fresh vegetables, fruits and fish. I solaced myself by reading the Tragedies of Ennius. I read parts of his Hector, Achilles, Neoptolemus, Ajax and Andromache, with much emotion, and especially the Bellerophon, forgetting everything else. Then I slept until late in the afternoon.

Waking I bathed unhurriedly and then went to call Falco, who liked to bathe at the last possible moment before dinner. I walked round the rear gallery of the peristyle, sure of finding him among his jewels. The door of the middle room was not shut, and barely ajar. Against the sill of the door, on the brown and white mosaic pavement of the gallery, a glint of color caught my eye. I stooped and picked up a fine uncut emerald, one of Falco’s chief treasures.

A qualm of apprehension shot through me. I pushed the door, entered and swept the room with a glance. A confusion of jewel-trays cluttered the floor, no sign of Falco. Nor was he in the left-hand room, which had been similarly rifled.

But, when I turned and peered through the right-hand inner door I saw, across the marble center-table, horridly sprawled, what I instantly knew for his corpse, so unmistakably did the head hang loose, the arms dangle, the legs trail: he was manifestly a corpse, even without sight of the dagger-hilt projecting from his back.

I rushed to him and touched him.

He was yet warm, the blood still trickled from about the dagger, driven deep under the left shoulder blade, slanting upwards, the very stroke Agathemer had drilled me in early in our flight, the stroke with which I had slaughtered two of the five bullies at Nona’s hut!

I plucked out the dagger, gazing at it in horror.

As I did so I heard footsteps behind me and turned to face Casperius Asellio, and Vespronius Lustralis, two of the most persistent of the toadies who hung about Falco, both of whom hated me consumedly.

In a flash I realized my situation. Had I been a freeman I should have been commiserated by all as a gentleman who had had the misfortune to find his best friend foully murdered; as a slave I would be assumed by all Rome to have been caught in the act of assassinating my kind and indulgent master; and, recalling Tanno’s invectives against me at my last dinner at Villa Andivia, I knew I was liable to be tortured until I confessed my guilt!

Asellio and Lustralis flung themselves on me with exécrations and their yells brought the entire household. My protestations were unheeded. No one would listen to my valet’s assertion that he had found the janitor asleep in his cell and roused him just before Lustralis and Asellio reached the entrance, that he had but just finished dressing me when he went down to the vestibule. No one heeded my denials or my urgings that I could not have rifled the collection, that the looters and the murderers must be the same individuals, that I was clearly innocent. Asellio and Lustralis not merely seized me, but rained blows on me. I knew I could knock both senseless without half trying, but, in my character of effeminate oriental exquisite, I must not advertise my real strength. I struggled, but half-heartedly.

The house-boys and any of Falco’s retinue who could reach me, thumped me and mauled me. I was horrified to realize all of a sudden that those who had made most of me had always envied me in secret; that, to a man, they hated me; that each and all would use every effort to ensure my ruin; that I had to face perjury, unanimous perjury, gushing from an abundant well-head of malignity, spite, and enmity. My valet alone seemed on my side, and he could assist me not at all.

I was bound with ropes knotted till my hands and feet swelled, till the cords cut into my flesh. I was abused, my clothing torn till I was half naked. I was whacked and clawed till I was bleeding in a dozen places; I was reviled, jeered at and threatened. Trussed like a fowl to be roasted, I was half hustled half dragged, almost carried, down into the courtyard. From there, after no long wait, I was haled off to the slaves’ prison in the Slave-Dealers’ Exchange next the Slave-Market. There I was released from my bonds, heavy shackles were riveted on my ankles and I was cast into the lower dungeon.

I had had time to tell Dromo, my faithful valet, to inform Agathemer. I knew he, in turn, would inform Tanno and Vedia. I was certain that they would do all that they could. But I dreaded that they could do nothing. I was despondent, despairing. Actually, Dromo must have been clever, prompt and judicious, and Agathemer equally quick and resourceful, with the fullest possible help from Tanno and Vedia, and they must have taxed to the utmost their influence and their means.

After a night almost sleepless I was visited at dawn by no less a person than Galen himself.

“My boy,” he said, “you, are in a terrible situation and we were in a quandary how to advise you. But, after much discussion, we are agreed that you have some chance of life as Phorbas the slave, accused of murdering his master, whereas you have no chance at all as Andivius Hedulio, proscribed along with Egnatius Capito. Our new Emperor seems to feel that all enemies of former Princes are foes of his; he seems to have ordered his agents to be on the lookout for all living persons accused, relegated, or banished under Julianus, Pertinax and Commodus. Those taken in Rome have been promptly executed. By all means, whatever happens to you, whatever threatens you, give no hint that you are Andivius Hedulio. Endure what befalls and hope for life and safety and ultimate rehabilitation.

“Of course I can see you as often as I please without exciting any suspicion. You were, while yourself and prosperous, only one of my countless patients, never among those I made much of. You, as Phorbas, have been under my special care, as the darling of poor Falco, who was one of my best friends, though I had known him so short a time. My visits here cannot prejudice your welfare and may help you, even save you.

“Cheer up! Agathemer says that the real murderers are certain to betray themselves by attempting to dispose of some of the stolen gems. He is right. And he had taken measures to ensnare them. He has warned or is warning every gem-dealer in Rome, from Orontides himself down to the most disreputable scoundrel who makes a living by exchanging his cash for stolen gems. He has sent off despatches already along many postroads, by the couriers who set out at dawn, notifying all gem-dealers in the towns along these roads to be on the watch for the miscreants. He will continue this until the warning is all over Italy from Rhegium and Brundisium to the Alps, and that within a few days. Those precious gentry are certain to be nabbed either in Rome or elsewhere. Whenever they are identified and in durance it will be easy to clear you.

“Meanwhile you will be tried as a slave accused of murdering his master and the investigation will include the questioning of every slave in the house at the time of the murder. I know you are aquiver with dread of torture; there will be torture, but I assure you you will not be tortured. As much can be done today by influence and bribery as could be done under Perennis or Cleander, only it cannot be done so crudely and openly, and much else can be done openly.

“We have endeavored to arrange to have you tried by a bunch of jurymen presided over by a praetor, just as if you were a freeman, according to Hadrian’s law. But Commodus had repealed all such laws mitigating the rigors of procedure in the case of slaves and Severus has not had them reenacted. So you will be tried by a magistrate, a deputy of the Prefect of the City, as slaves were tried before Hadrian’s time.

“We shall have, at the trial, to cheer you up, to counsel you, and, if necessary, to intervene in your behalf, as clever an advocate as any in Rome. Keep up a good heart, and read these letters.”

And he went off.

I had a proof of the truth of what he said of bribery within half an hour, for I was bathed, my hurts dressed, and I was clothed in new, clean and comfortable garments and served with abundant eatable food and good wine.

I had promptly read the letters.

Agathemer’s Galen had anticipated, mostly. Besides briefly telling me of his measures for detecting the murderers, and prophesying their success, he assured me of his devotion and alertness to take advantage of any chance to help me.

Tanno pledged me his utmost efforts to assist me, and emphasized his hope that the influences which he and Vedia could enlist in my behalf and the cash at their disposal would protect me from the worst horrors of trial as a slave and would ultimately clear me and free me from danger.

Vedia wrote:

“The Leopard-Tamer’s bride gives greeting to the Leopard-Tamer. Keep up your courage! Do not be despondent, but have a hopeful heart. All that gold, all that influence can do for you, shall be done. Cheer up! You will live to see yourself a free man, unsmirched by any accusation, you and I will be married and live many years of happiness afterwards: Farewell.”

Investigations of murders are prompt in Rome and trials of accused slaves quickly disposed of. Before the next morning was half way to noon, on the fifth day before the Ides of July, I found myself, still shackled, but well fed and well clad, in the Basilica Sempronia, before the magistrate charged with deciding such cases. He turned out to be young Lollius Corbulo, whom I had not set eyes on until he came to know me as Phorbas, for he was an art amateur of high standing, considering his youth.

I never have discovered how much he was influenced by his natural kindliness of disposition, how much by personal regard for me, how much by Tanno, acting for himself and Vedia, whether he had been bribed or not. He, when I questioned him in after years, passed it off with a smile saying that anyone would accept a gift on condition of doing what he meant to do uninfluenced, that no one needed a gift to make him do the right thing. From Agathemer, Tanno and Vedia I have never been able to extract any admissions as to their activities in my behalf. Anyhow Corbulo gave a demonstration of the great latitude which is permitted both by law and custom to such a magistrate in such a case. He ordered my shackles removed, and, while they were being filed through, sent off three of his apparitors in charge of Dromo to fetch some of my own garments from my apartments in Falco’s house.

He went about his investigation like a fair-minded man who meant to favor no one and to ferret out the exact truth.

Corbulo in his full senatorial attire, the broad crimson stripe more conspicuous than the white of his toga, sat in his chair at the center of the apse of the basilica, his apparitors behind him. In the nave of the basilica, surrounded by guards, were herded those members of Falco’s retinue who had been in his house at the time of his murder. Further down the nave were many outsiders, come to listen to the trial. In the aisles were gathered hangers-on of the court. In the apse, to the left and right of the tribunal, stood many of Falco’s friends, among whom I recognized Casperius Asellio and Vespronius Lustralis. Among those on the other side of the magistrate were Tanno and Galen.

The bare, bleak interior of the ancient, old-fashioned basilica, with its blackened roof-beams, unadorned walls, Travertine columns of the severest Tuscan pattern, and plain window-lattices, made an austere setting for the trial. I saw nowhere any rack, winches, horse, or any other engine or torture; but, while Dromo was gone, four muscular court-slaves came tramping In, each supporting a pole end. The two long poles were passed through the four ear-handles of a bronze brazier all of five feet square, level full of glowing charcoal, the brilliant bed of coals radiating an intense heat perceptible as they passed near me. When they had set it down in full view of all and near the tribunal one of them shook out and folded four-thick a thin Spanish blanket of harsh wiry wool and spread the square of it by the brazier, squatting on it to tend the coals with a long-handled five pronged altar-hook.

When Dromo returned with my garments and I was clad as Phorbas, Corbulo questioned me as to when Falco had bought me, where and from whom. To my relief he did not ask me how Rufius Libo had acquired me. He did ask my age, but nothing else concerning my past. As to my life with Falco in Africa and at Rome, he questioned me closely. I told him all about Falco’s character, his gem-collecting, the effect on him of the murders of Commodus and Pertinax, his forebodings and his utterances to me about his will. When he felt that he knew all I had to tell along these lines, he said:

“Now tell me your version of your master’s death.”

He heard me out and said:

“I believe you. You speak like a truth-teller.”

He then questioned the janitor, who babbled and cringed, half unintelligibly, but stoutly denying that he had slept at his post on the seventh day before the Kalends of July.

“I am of the opinion,” said Corbulo, drily, “that you are lying.”

Then to his apparitors he said:

“Strip him.”

The court-slave, the charcoal-tender, stood up off his folded blanket and shook it out. The janitor, stripped and bound, ankles lashed, hands trussed behind him, was haled towards the brazier. The blanket was flung round him and four apparitors lifted him as if he had been a log and held him near the brazier, the enveloping blanket drawn tight over his left thigh and its outer underside nearest the coals, tilting him sideways to bring the soft thickness of the thigh closest to the heat. They watched the tight blanket over his thigh and moved him a little away from the brazier when the wool began to smoke.

I had never seen nor heard of this kind of torture, but it seemed effectual. The fellow writhed, groaned, squalled and protested. After Corbulo had him brought back before him he confessed that he had been asleep in his cell from some time before Falco’s murder until he was aroused by Dromo, just before the arrival of Casperius and Vespronius.

One by one the other slaves were questioned. Three declared that they had seen the janitor asleep not long before they heard the alarm.

Several more testified that the janitor had often been asleep. More than half of them confirmed my story of the theft of the silver on the Nones of May. Except the janitor not one was tortured, though Corbulo threatened with torture several who hesitated in their testimony.

After the slaves Corbulo questioned Asellio and Lustralis.

Then, when they had stood aside, he gazed about at the spectators in the nave, at the crowd behind them, interested in the next case or in others to come up later, at the hangers-on in the side aisles; for a time, mute, he stared at the glowing charcoal fire in the big brazier.

When he spoke he said:

“It is my opinion that Phorbas is innocent. I have inspected the house where the murder took place. From the condition of the looted rooms it is plain that more jewelry was stolen than any one man could carry off. Manifestly two men participated in the robbery and murder and escaped with their booty, very likely the same pair who robbed Falco’s triclinium on the Nones of May. The janitor’s confessed delinquency explains how they entered and got away unhindered and unseen. The dead man’s heirs should punish the janitor. I hold no other slave at fault. Has any man anything which he wishes to say before I pass formal judgment for official record?’ Lustralis asked permission to speak and amazed me by his fluency, his ingratiating delivery, his vehemence, his ingenuity and the fantastic malignity of his contentions. Corbulo heard him out to the end, unmoving as a statue.

“You do not look like a lunatic nor act like one, Lustralis,” he said, “but you talk like one. Phorbas has impressed me by every feature of his tale. He appears to have told the truth. He seems to have been a sincere friend to his late master. I cannot credit the wild suggestion that a man of his character would plot his master’s death, or that a man of his intelligence, with a full knowledge of the terms of his master’s will, would expose himself to suspicion by so plotting; far less that such a man as he would ignore the perils of such a crime and so desire his freedom and the legacies promised him as to league himself with two criminals, assist them to enter the house and to escape from it, and hope to come off unscathed and unsuspected and forever unbetrayed.

“But, suppose all you imagine and insinuate is true in fact. Prove it! Produce the two robbers. Prove them the robbers by recovering their booty. If they, so convicted of the robbery, are brought before me, if they accuse Phorbas of being their accomplice, if they tell a consistent and convincing tale, if any colorable motive for such association and such a crime can be alleged against Phorbas, then I’ll believe him guilty, and not till then.”

He eyed Lustralis, who spoke further.

“Torture Phorbas!” Corbulo cried. “Absurd! In my court I never torture men like him, any more than if they were freemen. And though it might be imperative to torture him for a confession if all the testimony pointed to his guilt, it is ridiculous to suggest torturing him merely to corroborate evidence demonstrating his innocence.

“I, hereby, officially as the representative of the Commonwealth, pronounce Phorbas cleared of all charges connected with this case. I hereby enjoin all men to assist the Republic to detect and apprehend the murderers who robbed Falco and killed him.”

Lustralis and Asellio looked baffled and sour. A murmur of approval ran through the bystanders. My fellow-slaves congratulated each other and rejoiced, save only the janitor.

Galen approached me.

“Phorbas,” he said, “as you are now a freeman by your late master’s will, which will soon be read and its provisions put into effect, at which reading I shall be present as one of the legatees, you may now go where you like. I invite you to come with me.”

I thanked Corbulo, who said:

“Don’t thank me. I did just what any sane, clear-headed, fair-minded magistrate must do, affirmed the manifest truth.”

Galen led me off to a modest apartment near the Carinae. I found everything prepared for my comfort, slaves to wait on me and nothing omitted. I thanked him.

“Tanno,” he said, “deputed me to hire this lodging for you. He has kept in the background. These are my slaves, put at your disposal and enjoined to obey you as they would obey me in person. Keep quiet here till I can arrange for you to take possession of your legacies from Falco. I think he left you all your personal belongings and the slaves who waited on you. As soon as the necessary formalities are completed I’ll send them to you.

“Do not attempt to communicate with Vedia or Tanno. Do nothing which might betray you as your actual self. Our new Emperor seems resolute to exterminate, to the last individual, all persons implicated in any conspiracy not only against Julianus or Pertinax, but against Commodus, from the date of his accession. All such persons apprehended are promptly executed. Keep quiet. Efface yourself till I give you the word. I can communicate with you freely, can see you daily, if need be, since I am one of poor Falco’s heirs and was your physician during his life here in Rome. I’ll do all I can for you.”

He left and I bathed, ate, and slept the rest of that day and slept sound all night.

Next day passed similarly. But, early on the following day, the third day before the Kalends of July, not long after sunrise, my new valet came to me his face ashen. He babbled some unintelligible syllables and before I could comprehend him, my bedroom was entered by a Pannonian sergeant, grim as the centurions from Britain who had liberated Agathemer and me from the ergastulum at Placentia. Behind him were four legionary soldiers. I was rearrested!