Read Online Murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Saylor
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Mount Ida and watched the mad clash of mortals below.
IV
Whipped by the cold wind, the blazes shot higher and higher until the whole Senate House was engulfed by flames. The mob danced on the marble steps, hooting and laughing while they dodged cascades of cinders and ash.
The fire began to spread, first to the complex of senatorial offices to the south of the Senate House. The threat of the mob had already emptied most of the buildings, but after the flames started a few panic-stricken clerks came rushing out, carrying armloads of documents. Some tripped and fell, others zigzagged madly, dodging the taunting mob, dropping their burdens. Wax tablets scattered like tumbling dice. Scrolls unfurled and streamed like pennants in the breeze.
Then the wind changed. The flames spread west of the Senate House, to the Porcian Basilica. One of the great buildings of the Forum, it was a hundred and thirty years old, the first basilica ever built. Its distinguishing features — the long nave terminating in an apse with colonnaded aisles on either side - are now duplicated in buildings all over the empire. Many of the wealthiest bankers in the world kept their headquarters in the Porcian Basilica. It took hardly an hour for the fire to reduce its venerable majesty to a smouldering pile of rubble.
It was the bankers, I learnedlater, desperate to salvage what remained of their records, who finally organized a large contingent of freedmen and slaves to battle the flames. Acting out of pure selfishness, they may have saved a large part of Rome from going up in smoke. The firefighters formed long, snaking lines across the Forum and through the cattle market all the way to the banks of the Tiber, where they filled buckets with water and passed them up to pour on the flames, then passed the empty buckets back again. From time to time a few rowdies broke away from the mourners' frenzied revelry to harass the firefighters, pelting them with stones and spitting on them. Scuffles broke out. A cordon of bodyguards, also sent by the bankers, arrived to protect the bucket-passers.
It was a mad day. Rome seemed racked with fever, delirious. With Clodius consigned to the purifying flames, and the Senate House along with him, his mourners carried on their unconventional funeral celebration. Could they have planned such madness in advance, or did they make it up as they went along, inspired by the dancing flames and the billowing smoke, invigorated by the charred tang in the air? At mid-afternoon, they held a funeral feast. Before the smouldering Senate House they set up tables, covered the tables with black cloths and spread out a banquet.
While the firefighters continued their frantic efforts, the Clodians drank and ate in honour of their dead leader. The poor and hungry of the city came out to join them, at first meekly and then, seeing that they were welcome, in jubilation. Vast quantities of food arrived -great urns full of blood-black sausages, pots of black beans, loaves of black bread, all suitably black for a feast to honour the dead, washed down with blood-red wine. Meanwhile the confused, frightened, curious citizens of Rome — those who lacked the safe vantage of a Palatine rooftop to watch what was going on - skirted the edges of the Forum, cautiously peeking around comers and peering over walls, gawking variously in outrage, delight, disbelief and consternation.
I spent much of the day on my root watching. So did Cicero. He would disappear for a while, then reappear with various visitors, many of them senators, as I could tell from the purple border on their togas. They would take in the view, shake their heads in disgust or gasp in horror, then disappear again, talking and gesticulating. There seemed to be some sort of all-day meeting going on in Cicero's house.
Eco came by to see me for a while. I told him he was mad to venture out on such a day. He had stayed clear of the Forum, and though he had heard the rumour that the Senate
IV
Whipped by the cold wind, the blazes shot higher and higher until the whole Senate House was engulfed by flames. The mob danced on the marble steps, hooting and laughing while they dodged cascades of cinders and ash.
The fire began to spread, first to the complex of senatorial offices to the south of the Senate House. The threat of the mob had already emptied most of the buildings, but after the flames started a few panic-stricken clerks came rushing out, carrying armloads of documents. Some tripped and fell, others zigzagged madly, dodging the taunting mob, dropping their burdens. Wax tablets scattered like tumbling dice. Scrolls unfurled and streamed like pennants in the breeze.
Then the wind changed. The flames spread west of the Senate House, to the Porcian Basilica. One of the great buildings of the Forum, it was a hundred and thirty years old, the first basilica ever built. Its distinguishing features — the long nave terminating in an apse with colonnaded aisles on either side - are now duplicated in buildings all over the empire. Many of the wealthiest bankers in the world kept their headquarters in the Porcian Basilica. It took hardly an hour for the fire to reduce its venerable majesty to a smouldering pile of rubble.
It was the bankers, I learnedlater, desperate to salvage what remained of their records, who finally organized a large contingent of freedmen and slaves to battle the flames. Acting out of pure selfishness, they may have saved a large part of Rome from going up in smoke. The firefighters formed long, snaking lines across the Forum and through the cattle market all the way to the banks of the Tiber, where they filled buckets with water and passed them up to pour on the flames, then passed the empty buckets back again. From time to time a few rowdies broke away from the mourners' frenzied revelry to harass the firefighters, pelting them with stones and spitting on them. Scuffles broke out. A cordon of bodyguards, also sent by the bankers, arrived to protect the bucket-passers.
It was a mad day. Rome seemed racked with fever, delirious. With Clodius consigned to the purifying flames, and the Senate House along with him, his mourners carried on their unconventional funeral celebration. Could they have planned such madness in advance, or did they make it up as they went along, inspired by the dancing flames and the billowing smoke, invigorated by the charred tang in the air? At mid-afternoon, they held a funeral feast. Before the smouldering Senate House they set up tables, covered the tables with black cloths and spread out a banquet.
While the firefighters continued their frantic efforts, the Clodians drank and ate in honour of their dead leader. The poor and hungry of the city came out to join them, at first meekly and then, seeing that they were welcome, in jubilation. Vast quantities of food arrived -great urns full of blood-black sausages, pots of black beans, loaves of black bread, all suitably black for a feast to honour the dead, washed down with blood-red wine. Meanwhile the confused, frightened, curious citizens of Rome — those who lacked the safe vantage of a Palatine rooftop to watch what was going on - skirted the edges of the Forum, cautiously peeking around comers and peering over walls, gawking variously in outrage, delight, disbelief and consternation.
I spent much of the day on my root watching. So did Cicero. He would disappear for a while, then reappear with various visitors, many of them senators, as I could tell from the purple border on their togas. They would take in the view, shake their heads in disgust or gasp in horror, then disappear again, talking and gesticulating. There seemed to be some sort of all-day meeting going on in Cicero's house.
Eco came by to see me for a while. I told him he was mad to venture out on such a day. He had stayed clear of the Forum, and though he had heard the rumour that the Senate
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