Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 73

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 a.s.sumed by all Rome to have been caught in the act of a.s.sa.s.sinating 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 l.u.s.tralis flung themselves on me with execrations and their yells brought the entire household. My protestations were unheeded. No one would listen to my valet's a.s.sertion that he had found the janitor asleep in his cell and roused him just before l.u.s.tralis 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 l.u.s.tralis 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, gus.h.i.+ng from an abundant well- head of malignity, spite, and enmity. My valet alone seemed on my side, and he could a.s.sist 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 Julia.n.u.s, 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 a.s.sure 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 antic.i.p.ated, mostly. Besides briefly telling me of his measures for detecting the murderers, and prophesying their success, he a.s.sured me of his devotion and alertness to take advantage of any chance to help me.

Tanno pledged me his utmost efforts to a.s.sist 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 Semp.r.o.nia, 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, pa.s.sed 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 lat.i.tude 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 Vesp.r.o.nius l.u.s.tralis. Among those on the other side of the magistrate were Tanno and Galen.

The bare, bleak interior of the ancient, old-fas.h.i.+oned 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nged 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 Vesp.r.o.nius.

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 l.u.s.tralis.

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 partic.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.s formal judgment for official record?' l.u.s.tralis 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, l.u.s.tralis," 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, a.s.sist 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 a.s.sociation and such a crime can be alleged against Phorbas, then I'll believe him guilty, and not till then."

He eyed l.u.s.tralis, 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, p.r.o.nounce Phorbas cleared of all charges connected with this case. I hereby enjoin all men to a.s.sist the Republic to detect and apprehend the murderers who robbed Falco and killed him."

l.u.s.tralis 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.