The roar of the crowd erupted like a Vesuvian shudder. The noise was visceral. Thundering across the long, narrow arena like an audible tidal wave. Ten thousand Romans came to their feet in a spontaneous clatter of excitement when, some distance below on the damp and dark soil of the Circus Maximus’ floor, the Green’s best charioteer overtook the Red’s number one chariot team deep in the south corner turn and slipped past to take the lead.
It was one of those typical bright Roman summer days. The sun was hot and brilliant in a cloudless blue sky. Not a breath of air stirred the hundreds of colorful pennants which hung limp from the surrounding hippodrome flagpoles. The Palatine hill gleamed in dark greens, white marble and deep red brick from the numerous mansions with their park like gardens surrounding the rich overlooking the hippodrome. The crowd was in a festive mood today. The assorted aromas of spicy delicacies, cheap wine, and ten thousand people packed into the steep confines of the hippodrome’s hard stone seats assaulted the nostrils of all as the thunder and glory of the chariot races below held everyone’s full attention raptly.
Except for three of the soldiers of the city Urban Cohort soldiers, who, following the purple clad back of a burly looking Praetorian guardsman, threaded their way haltingly along one of the narrow stadium walkways toward a gaily decorated covered box of a high dignitary. The leading Cohort officer, dressed in the working attire of a tribune, was a formidable looking individual of average height with a receding hairline of dark hair and a high forehead. On his face was an indecipherable mask of someone used to commanding men. A trait all too many Roman citizens recognized instantly. But there was no denying the hard lines of experience carved into his face around his eyes, or the thin scar running horizontally across his chin just below his bottom lip. One look was enough. A soldier. An experienced, hardened old ex-legionnaire officer now serving in the Urbani.
Behind the tribune strode a taller, younger, more naturally athletic looking junior officer of the Urban Cohort. A centurion in rank. A decidedly handsome young officer with a flashing natural smile coming often to his thin lips as they pushed and shoved their way through the raucous crowd. Finally, behind the centurion, strolled a much older, smaller man of the enlisted ranks of the Cohort. An old, grizzled looking piece of leather who, at one glance, was an open book to read. Ex-legionnaire. An old veteran of the wars. Someone who had slogged through the mud and snows of a hundred different campaigns across a dozen different countries. Someone who was, even at his age, still very dangerous to confront in almost any situation.
The Praetorian leading the entourage through the crowd was not polite to those of the crowd who found themselves blocking his way. He forced his way through the yielding crowd mercilessly, leaving behind him a wake of hard stares and mumbling faces in the process. But eventually he arrived at the ring of purple clad guardsmen surrounding Caesar’s ornate box and quickly ushered the three following him into the secured area with a swift hand gesture.
Caesar, the Augustus, attended the races today. Because he was here the crowd’s presence had increased threefold in attendance. The presence of the old man had this effect on Rome’s populous. Octavius Caesar, old and bent with arthritis and rheumatism as he was, was nevertheless well loved by one and all. Well into his seventies, the old man rarely left his personal residence anymore. But when he did he always generated an immense crowd around him. Thus the large presence of Caesar’s bodyguards. Taking the old concept of a general’s personally bodyguards, called the Praetorian Guards, and expanded it dramatically, Caesar had created an elite force of 6,000 officers and men whose sole occupation was to maintain the safety of the government and the ruling parties within the city.
It had also been Caesar’s idea in creating the city’s Urban Cohort. A police force organized along the lines of a Roman legion, their primary goal aimed at keeping the city’s population under control. Caesar, finally plucking the crown of authority from the outstretched fingers of his dead foes, both amazed and dazzled the Roman world with his brilliance and imagination as a ruler of a vast empire. An empire once racked by incessant civil wars now dwelled in an aura of peace and tranquility. An aura of peace and tranquility kept in check by the velvety covered steel grip of one man.
“Ah, see who is here? Cousin Decimus bearing sad news,” the old man said when he turned and saw the approach of the three Cohort officers.
With assistance from a junior officer of the guards Caesar came to his feet and, with open arms, embraced the tribune fondly for all to see. Decimus, for his part, gently held the fragile old man for a moment or two with one arm, making sure to press too firmly in the process.
“Well cousin,” the old man said, his voice surprisingly strong and his eyes surprisingly clear as he stepped back and looked up into the tribune’s face. “Something troubles you. It is not sad news you come to report. But something else. Ah! Perhaps something more sinister?”
“Caesar, you are aware of the death of Claudius Publius Sejanus, son of the father to the same name. The man just announced to be the next legate in the Levant.”
“I am indeed,” nodded the old man as he shuffled around the tribune and quietly shook hands both with the young centurion and the old veteran. An act which, again, was observed by one in all in the hippodrome. “A shocking event. Taking his own life in on the marble steps of the Mars Ultor temple. And newly commissioned as well. A centurion wasn’t he? To follow his father to the Orient as one of his father’s military aides? Such a tragedy.”
Caesar came back to stand beside the quiet but powerful calm of Decimus Virilis, in the process reaching up with an ancient hand and gripping the younger man’s upper arm firmly.
“But you think this may be more than a suicide, eh cousin? I know you, Decimus. We’ve soldiered together far too long for me not to see your talents. That’s why I asked you to investigate the moment word reached me of the lad’s death. So tell me everything. From the beginning.”
As ordered, Decimus outlined the last few hours of his investigation.
An hour before the cock crowed. The fist of an impatient guardsman pounding on the wooden door of his small villa’s outer garden gate demanding immediate entrance. Servants, with torches in their hands, sleepy eyed but genuinely frightened, swarmed into the garden to see who so rudely clamored to enter. To their surprise they found a Urban Cohort enlisted man demanding to see the tribune. He was being summoned and was needed immediately.
Upon his arrival at the base of the temple’s steps the vision before him was surreal. The last beams of a fading moonlight bathed the magnificent columned temple of Mars Ultor in the heart of the city. White moon beams gleamed off the bronze chariot of Mars at the centermost apex of the temple’s roofline. Equally the bronze statue of Julius Caesar atop his three meter high stone pedestal, situated at the base of the temple’s marble steps, seemed almost alive in the moon light.
But the body of the young Sejanus lying on the steps at the half way mark, his white toga bathed in the blackness of his own blood, held the attention of all. Several of the city’s Vigilies and Urban Cohort soldiery created a rough circle surrounding the dead body. Many of them held burning torches above their heads. A bubble of bright light in the middle of the moonlit semi-darkness of Rome was, as Decimus could see in their faces, an obvious omen of bad luck. He almost laughed, observing the faces of the guardsmen who were trying desperately not to stare at the dead man lying on the blood stained steps of the temple. Romans were notoriously superstitious. Doubly so if an unnatural death occurred which could somehow be associated with a Roman deity.
Death, lying on the temple steps of the city’s most revered god, Mars Ultor . . . Mars the Avenger . . . foretold terrible misfortune was to come to someone.
“Cousin, you have most wondrous way with words. Almost poetic,” the old Caesar chuckled just as the hippodrome’s crowd exploded a raucous chorus of cheering. The old man looked down at the racing chariots below and then turned his attention back to Decimus, leaning toward him in the process. “But how did you know it was murder and not the suicide that was originally reported to me?”
It was his protégé, the young Quintus Flavius, who first alerted him to the possibility of murder. The centurion and he examined the body as it lay on the bloody steps together. As guardsmen held burning torches near by Quintus discovered the bandaged arm of the young nobleman. The man’s right arm . . . his sword arm . . . hidden in the folds of his expensive toga. It was a deep cut, from the edge of a slashing Gladius, which had bit deep into the young nobleman’s upper arm. Bit deep all the way to the bone. It had happened hours before his untimely death. It had been expertly cleaned and bandaged by a physician. But to Decimus it confirmed his suspicions. The young Claudius Publius Sejanus had been murdered.
“Ah! I see a glimmer of your talents, cousin,” the old Caesar nodded, disregarding those occupying the emperor’s booth with and the ten thousand who filled the hippodrome. “It was reported to me that the boy used his own sword and pushed it into his body. A ritualistic death, as some would say. But it takes two hands to ram the sharp point of a Gladius into one’s flesh. A severely injured arm heavily bandaged would make such a death almost impossible to achieve. But was there something else as well? Another clue you found?”
Indeed, Caesar.
In the dark blood which had ran down the steps below the fallen nobleman he found the barest outline of a small scandal, a woman’s scandal, imprinted in the half congealed liquid. A woman discovered the body and had fled from the scene. A few meters away they found the second faint imprint of the same bloody scandal on the stone pavement. The woman was running. Running away from the corpse of the young Sejanus.
The old man’s face clouded over thoughtfully as he leaned again closer to speak to Decimus. But the sagacious tribune already knew what his elderly cousin was about to ask him.
No, Caesar.
This lover of Claudius Publius Sejanus, for she was indeed his lover, had not assisted him in ramming the sword into his belly. The foul deed had already been committed by the time she found her lover lying on the steps.
How, you ask, could anyone possibly know this?
The blood, Caesar; the blood. By the time of her appearance the blood of Sejanus had ran down a number of the stone steps and had began to congeal. Her late arrival, and subsequent horrific discovery, compelled her to flee from the scene in haste before anyone discovered her. In fleeing, she stepped into the congealed blood, leaving a permanent imprint in the dark fluid in the process.
“You searched for this woman, yes? Did you find her?”
Before the regal tribune of the Urbani could answer the hippodrome’s crowd thundered into life. The crowd roared a second time. There was the cracking and splintering fury wood smashing and grinding, along with the screams of horses and men down below the emperor’s balcony. The Blues number three driver tried to push his way past the Green’s number two driver. But the Greens driver resisted. Chariot wheels became entwined and the horrendous crash following delighted the crowd immensely.
Assuredly, Caesar. Through the night they searched. Urbani troopers were sent down the side streets and alleyways leading away from the temple to question potential witnesses. He, accompanied by Quintus Flavius, adjourned to the home of Claudius Publius Sejanus the senior to inform him of his son’s death. To their surprise they found the older Sejanus awake and in his study, already informed of his son’s suicide.
Entering the Legate’s private study the found the white haired, gaunt frame of the senator standing behind his desk with a frown on his face. The desk was piled with numerous scrolls. On the corner of the desk was a large leather pouch half filled with rolled parchment.
“You have come at a bad time, tribune. I pack my things for the approaching journey to the Palestine. Duty calls and I cannot delay.”
“Not even delay a few days to preside over your son’s funeral?” Decimus asked, his dark eyes running up and down the Legate’s frame as he studied him closely.
“I cannot. Word has come that there may be trouble with the Parthians again. Besides, why should I linger and preside over the funeral of a defective son? He was a disgrace to the family’s name and a disgrace to me. Better to put such unpleasantries behind us I say.”
“In what way was your son . . . defective?” the tall Quintus Flavius asked as he stood in back and to one side of the older man in front of him.
Decimus Virilis’ expression remained unreadable as he waited the general’s response. The hardened old legionnaire, a twenty-five year veteran of Rome’s wars, silently approved of the young centurion’s query. The two made a good investigative team. Quintus Flavius was naturally inquisitive. He had a good eye for detail and an innate ability to sense falsehoods from others. The only thing he lacked was experience. That quantity the young centurion would receive in abundance assisting in the investigations Caesar Augustus assigned his distant cousin, Decimus Julius Virilis, to investigate.
“My son, may the gods forgive him, was a weakling. He was not much of a soldier. He had no love for politics. He preferred ‘Poetry and Beauty.’ His own words . . . Poetry and Beauty. Foolish. Foolish and silly. The empire’s affairs has no time for Beauty and Poetry. What it needs is men. Hard men with a clear vision on how the empire works.”
“Harsh, wouldn’t you say, Legate?” the curly haired centurion behind Decimus answered. “The tribune here is a hard man. A much decorated veteran of the wars. Yet he enjoys poetry and beauty. As do I.”
The general’s hard eyes lifted up for the first time and took in the image of the men standing across from him. His eyes came to rest on the scarred, darkly tanned, high sloping forehead and thinning hairline of Decimus Virilis.
“Your exploits are well known, Tribune. Especially your handling of the IXth Brundisi in the last Dalmatian Wars. It must have been quite a fight. Surrounded by Dalmation tribesmen on a lonely hilltop. Commanding the remnants of an undermanned legion, its Legate and second in command cruelly murdered just before the attack. Yes, your exploits are well known. But I stand by my words. My son was weak.Too weak to survive.”
Claudius Publius Sejanus was a hard man. Hard as stone. Hard as the tempered blade of a Gladius. But Decimus saw in the older man’s eyes something else. Something deeper and hidden. Worry. Something was playing on the general’s emotions deep within his soul. He was skillfully masking it. It was barely perceptible. But it was there. And it had a discordant vibration to it. Related, somehow, to the death of his son. But not in any sense of a man grieving over the loss of an only child.
Curious. Most curious.
“Weak or not, legate. Something must have triggered your son in taking his life so cruelly on the steps of the temple. Have you a hint of what that might have been?”
“News came earlier tonight his current lover and her family had been killed, actually slaughtered, in their own home. Apparently brigands broke in to rob the place. They killed everyone. Including the servants. I’m afraid the news shattered him. He went flying out of the house the moment he heard. I never saw him again. Only the news, just arrived, of his death.”
“Who, if I may ask, was your son’s current lover?” the centurion asked not so discreetly.
“Amelia. Daughter of the Greek banker and shipping magnate, Phillip Themistocles.” the general growled, picking up two heavy rolls of parchment and stuffing them into the leather pouch viciously. “Now, gentlemen, if there are no other questions, I must continue with my packing. I am scheduled to depart the day after tomorrow and I have much to do.”
“Then we will leave you to your thoughts, general. We offer you our sincerest condolences as well,” Decimus answered, bowing his head slightly before turning and withdrawing from the general’s study.
The crowd, again, came to their feet with a roar of pleasure at the antics of the horsemen below. Caesar, his old eyes afire with curiosity, glanced at the action down on the hippodrome’s floor before returning to stare into his cousin’s face.
“You did not believe Sejanus, cousin? And what of this death of the Greek banker and his family? I heard just a vague reference to it earlier in the day. But what of the details, cousin? How does this play into your investigation?”
They are intricately tied together, Caesar.
Half way across the city in our journey to the Themistocles house we were set up by a gallery of rogues intent on killing us. They came armed with swords and clubs. Six of them. They were not the common hoodlum unusually found lurking in some dark city alley waiting for a fat merchant or lowly tradesman to fall into their hands. These men armed with swords were legionaries. The were confident in the sword work. They fought as a unit and not as some rabble.
They thought the odds, six to two, were in their favor. They even joked among themselves who would first draw blood. They surrounded us and attacked.
As you can see, cousin, they were unsuccessful in their assignment. My protégé and I fought, back to back, in the darkness of a lonely Roman street. Steel rang against steel and blood flowed hot and raw on the cobblestones beneath our sandals. After twenty five years serving in your armies, Caesar, I have become somewhat proficient with the sword. But my young aide, Claudius Flavius, is without equal in his swordplay. His family owns several gladiator schools in and around Ostia. The best swordsmen in the empire taught the lad how to handle a Gladius. In the initial attack the tall centurion cut down three of them with three strokes of the blade.
I was fortunate to remove two more from the fight. The remaining attacker fled, dropping his sword and running for his life in the process.
The crowd was growing listless in the stands. It was the idle time between races. Below, in the dirt of the track, crews were cleaning up the debris from the previous debacle. The day was hot and without a cooling breeze. But underneath the brightly colored canopy of Caesar’s box sitting at the mid point high in the stands, the old man’s eyes turned and gazed upon the handsome face of the young centurion. Silently the old man nodded his head approvingly and then returned his attention back to Decimus.
“An assassination attempt, cousin? On you and your young friend here?”
Indeed so, Caesar. Hastily organized, to be sure. But necessitated by the need for haste from those who wished to stop my investigation as quickly as possible. The Goddess of Fortuna smiled upon us last night. It just so happened I had assigned a spy to covertly watch the House of Sejanus. My spy saw a dark form of a wounded man enter the back gate of the villa’s privacy walls. Some minutes later the same wounded man, freshly bandaged and wearing clean clothing, and one other departed from the same gate in haste. My spy thought it wise to follow.
“That is one thing I’ve always admired about you, Decimus. You surround yourself with good men. What did this man find at the end of his trail?”
Phillip Themistocles, Caesar. Very much alive and apparently quite agitated. He was on the ship carrying the elder Sejanus to the Levant. As soon as word reached me that a supposedly recently slain dead man was found alive and occupying the most elaborate of cabins on the ship owned by Sejanus, I had a detachment of the Urbani arrest everyone on board. It did not take long to pull the truth out of several willing to talk in exchange for one more day’s worth of living.
Phillip Themistocles turns out to be the step-father to the young Amilia who was with the younger Sejanus earlier in the morning. Themistocles and the elder Sejanus have been agents for the King of Parthia now for the last six years. The elder was to lead your legions, once he settled himself into his new command, deep into Parthian territory where the Parthian king and his armies would be lying in wait. The legions would be destroyed, ever man killed, thus leaving wide open the Parthian take over of all of Rome’s conquest in the Levant.
For his part in the treachery the elder Sejanus would become a very wealthy man, as would Themistocles. I see in your eyes, Caesar, your thoughts. Why, you wonder, was Sejanus the younger murdered so cruelly? And why was everyone in the Themistocles household slaughtered except Amilia?
Happenstance, cousin. Sheer luck. The younger Sejanus whisked away his love only moments before the hired assassins descended upon the house and slaughter them all. He had just discovered the treachery his father was about to commit. With all traces of the Themistocles family apparently slain . . . Phillip, by the way, finding a slave who looked remarkably like him to take his place . . . there would be no evidence to link the elder Sejanus to the Parthian king. But Amelia left the house just before her scheduled death. She miraculously escaping her fate terrified her step father. Agents were sent out to find her and remove her from the living as quickly as possible.
Both young lovers raced to the Temple of Mars in the hopes of claiming sanctuary from their pursuing killers. On the steps leading up to the temple the assassins closed in. The younger Sejanus fought off the assassins long enough to cut a path wide enough for Amelia to escape. She ran, disappearing into the night, only to return much later to find her lover and betrothed so cruelly slaughtered.
“Ah . . . ,” the old man hummed, nodding his head sagely. A servant came foward with a silver tray in his hands holding two goblets of wine. The old Caesar took one and offered it to the tribune before taking one for himself. “So now you come to me, no doubt asking for permission to do . . . what, cousin?”
“The elder Sejanus is still unaware that we have full knowledge of his treachery. He should be boarding his ship later tonight to depart for his new command. Since he is a Roman citizen of some repute, I am required to solicit permission from you before I may arrest him. I have come asking for that permission.”
The crowd roared in delight. A dozen long bronze trumpets lifted their loud notes into the hot afternoon air announcing the next set of races were about to begin. Caesar paid no attention to the crowd nor to the races. Sipping his wine for a moment the old man nodded as if making a decision and stepped close to speak to the taller tribune quietly.
“I am told that ships are lost at sea with all hands occasionally even when the seas are as calm as they are today. It would be a terrible tragedy to hear that our recently appointed Legate to Palestine was so suddenly ripped from our bosom. Tragic . . . but understandable.”
“Understandable, cousin. And of Themistocles and his band of vipers?”
“The mines in Hispania are always in need of laborers, Decimus. Always.”
Neither Decimus, nor the centurion standing behind the still handsome old tribune, nor the grizzled old soldier standing beside the centurion, appeared in any way disturbed by Caesar’s decree. This was Rome. Caesar was Rome.
Everyone knew Roman Justice was a cruel wench to satisfy. Especially for traitors.
by 
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