Текст книги "The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome)"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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“So, gentlemen, is this really the spot where the distraught Boisca slew her daughter Rhodope and then committed suicide? Probably not, since both women are most likely fictional creations. The poet’s intent was not to memorialize two actual women, but to remind us of the pathos and terror that must have attended that final day here in Corinth, when the Roman legionnaires under Lucius Mummius pulled down the walls and, under orders from the Senate, proceeded to raze the city to the ground, slaying the men and enslaving the women and children. Any questions?”

“Other Greek cities joined Corinth in the insurgency against Roman rule,” said one of the men, “and yet those cities weren’t destroyed. Why Corinth?”

“First of all, it was Corinth who started the war by attacking her peaceable neighbors, who were perfectly content under Roman rule, and inciting others to revolt. Also, the Senate never forgot a rather nasty incident that occurred in Corinth before the insurrection, when Roman ambassadors, passing by a private house, had feces and urine dumped on them. Sooner or later, there is a price to be paid for such disrespect! And, finally, it was decided that any future insurrections in Greece could best be forestalled by making a strict example of Corinth. As you will recall, in the very same year, Rome’s ancient rival Carthage was utterly destroyed and her people enslaved. As Carthage was annihilated to the west, so Corinth was annihilated to the east. The result: more than fifty years later, the cities of Greece remain firmly under Rome’s control—and greatly to their benefit, I might add, since Rome put an end to centuries of bloody squabbling among them. Sometimes, as terrible as the consequences may be, an example must be made.”

The men around Tullius nodded thoughtfully and grunted in agreement.

“What utter nonsense!” muttered Antipater.

“Of course,” Tullius went on, “when any city meets it end, there are deeper causes at work. Some contend that divine will engineered the destruction of Corinth, but others argue that her own reckless leadership was quite capable of causing the city’s downfall without any intervention from the gods. That the Corinthians had grown corrupt and decadent, no one can deny. There is a theory that proximity to the sea, while it may bring commerce and riches to a city, may also bring the vices of luxury and exotic temptations. Men are distracted from the virtues of discipline and bravery and spurred to compete instead in extravagant shows of wealth. The same decay afflicted Carthage, another maritime city, where the love of commerce and foreign goods made the people soft. Corinth was perhaps doubly at risk in this regard, having not one but two ports on either side of the isthmus, only a few miles apart.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I am reminded of another of Antipater of Sidon’s laments for Corinth, which alludes to the city’s special relationship with the sea. In that poem, the beautiful Nereids, daughters of Ocean, bemoan the city’s fate.”

Tullius paused and cleared his throat. “I shall quote the poem now—that is, if Zoticus here does not object?” He smiled, but this rhetorical flourish was strictly for the amusement of his listeners; he did not even glance in Antipater’s direction. “Well, then—

“Where, O Corinth, is your fabled beauty now?

Where the battlements and ramparts—”

“Oh, really, this is too much to bear!” said Antipater, who turned about and stalked off. I followed him. The laughter and the quips of the Romans (“Silly old Greek!”) rang in my ears.

“Teacher!” I cried, but rather than halting, Antipater quickened his stride. The way became steeper and steeper as we began to ascend toward Acrocorinth, and still he hurried on. We appeared to be following the course of what had once been a well-maintained road that skirted the steep face of the mountain and circled around to its far side before reaching the top. The road became little more than a poorly kept footpath, switching back and forth as it wound its way up the slope. I began to think Antipater would reach the top without stopping, but eventually he paused for breath. Whether from exertion or anger at the Romans, his face was bright red.

“Do you know the tale of Sisyphus?” he asked me.

“The name is familiar.…”

He shook his head, dismayed yet again at my ignorance.

“Sisyphus was the founder of Corinth, the city’s first king. Somehow he offended Zeus—the tales vary—and he was given a terrible punishment, forced to roll a boulder up a steep hill only to see it slip away and roll back down again, so that he had to repeat the pointless task over and over again. Some believe this was the very hill where Sisyphus carried out the impossible labor Zeus set for him. That is why this is called the Slope of Sisyphus.”

I looked down the rocky incline, then looked upward. We were more than halfway to the top, but the steepest part was yet to come. Antipater resumed the ascent.

We passed the ruined walls of what must have been a fortress, and at length we arrived at the summit and stood atop the sheer cliff that towered above the remains of Corinth. To the north lay the sea. The wharves at Lechaeum were tiny in the distance, with tiny Roman galleys moored alongside them; the walls of the waterfront garrison were manned by Roman soldiers almost too small to be seen. Below us, at the foot of the cliff, I could clearly discern the course of the old walls and the layout of Corinth.

The sun was directly overhead. The harsh light and the lack of shadows made everything look stark and slightly unreal, drained of color and parched by the warm, dry wind. From the ruins below I imagined I could hear a sound like many voices whispering and moaning. The ruins themselves appeared to shimmer, an illusion caused by the rising heat and the undulation of high grass amid the stones. I shivered, and felt dizzy from the heat.

“What really happened here, Antipater?”

He sighed. “According to our friend Tullius, the Corinthians brought about their own destruction. Typical Roman reasoning: blame the victims!

“When the Corinthians and their allies in the Achaean League revolted, they lashed out against the Spartans, who remained loyal to Rome. The Romans used that incident as a pretext to mount a full-scale invasion of the Peloponnesus—they claimed they were merely coming to the defense of an ally. There were several battles. The Achaean League was crushed, and its leaders were either killed or committed suicide. The climax occurred here, at Corinth. The city opened its gates in surrender, but Lucius Mummius had been given orders by the Senate to make an example of Corinth. His soldiers poured into the city and utterly destroyed it.

“Men were rounded up and slaughtered. Women were raped; if they survived, they were sold into slavery. The same thing was done to the children. Houses and temples were looted, then burned. The soldiers were allowed to stuff their pockets with all the jewelry and gold they could carry, but the choicest works of art were claimed by Mummius and sent back to the Senate. Rome was enriched beyond measure. Look inside any temple in Rome; all the best paintings and statues came from Corinth. And half of them are mislabeled, because the ignorant Mummius couldn’t tell a statue of Zeus from one of Poseidon!”

Antipater paused for a long moment, lost in thought. “There’s a painting by an artist named Aristeides, a stunning work. Hercules is in agony, trying to rip off the poisoned shirt given him by his wife, who thought the magical garment would merely make him faithful to her. Deianira is in the background, horrified by what she’s done. The scheming centaur Nessus looks on from his hiding place in the woods, laughing. When I was a boy, my father took me to see that painting here in Corinth. How that image fascinated and terrified me! I never forgot it. Then, a few years ago, I had occasion to enter a temple in Rome, and there in the vestibule, I saw it again—not a copy or imitation, but the very painting by Aristeides! That was when my boyhood memories of Corinth came flooding back. That was when I wrote this poem.”

Antipater stepped to the very edge of the precipice. I held my breath, fearful that a gust of wind might push him over, but I didn’t dare interrupt him. The words that had sounded pompous and hollow coming from Tullius sounded very different as they poured from Antipater.

“Where, O Corinth, is your fabled beauty now?

Where the battlements and ramparts, temples and towers?

Where the multitudes that lived within your walls?

Where the matrons holding vigil in your sacred bowers?

City of Sisyphus, not a trace is left of you.

War seizes and devours, takes some and then takes more.

Ocean’s daughters alone remain to mourn for you.

The salt tears of the Nereids lash the lonely shore.”

I stepped beside Antipater. Together we gazed down at vanished Corinth with the moaning of the wind in our ears.

A movement amid the ruins caught my eye. It was the party of Tullius—or so I presumed. The tiny figures were too distant to be clearly discerned, but among them I thought I recognized Tullius by his red hair and bristling beard. They were no longer standing in a group, listening to Tullius, or following him from place to place. They seemed to be poking amid the rubble and moving bits of it about, but toward what purpose I couldn’t imagine. I thought of asking Antipater’s opinion, but his gaze was elsewhere, and I didn’t wish to agitate him by returning his attention to Tullius.

The wind continued to rise. Antipater at last stepped back from the precipice and we headed down the slope.

On the way down, a little off the path I noticed some ruins that had escaped my attention on the way up. Antipater saw them, too, and we left the path to take a closer look.

The largest of the ruins had once been a small temple or sanctuary. Drums from a fallen column lay amid the tumbled stones, and in a much-worn painting on a fragment of a wall Antipater claimed to recognize the image of Persephone, wife of Hades and queen of the underworld.

“Can you not see her regal headband, Gordianus, and the winnowing fan in her hands? Harvesters use such an implement to sift grain. Persephone uses it to winnow the dead as they descend to Hades, revealing some souls to be wheat and others chaff. Ceremonial winnowing fans like that are used in rituals at sacred sites all over Greece.”

“What happens at these rituals?”

“No man knows, since the acolytes are all women. Presumably they call upon the powers of the underworld.”

“But that’s witchcraft, not worship.”

Antipater shrugged. “Who’s to say where one ends and the other begins?”

The remains of several other small buildings were nearby. Antipater speculated that these might have been used as dining halls and meeting rooms by the women who worshipped at the sanctuary of Persephone. The buildings had all collapsed except one. It was half-buried in rubble but the roof remained intact. It was hardly more than a shack with a door and a window. Antipater pushed open the door and we stepped inside.

It was normal that the air in the room should be cool, but to me it felt unnaturally so. At first glance the dim little chamber appeared to be empty. But as my eyes adjusted, I saw a few objects scattered about the floor—clay lamps, incense burners, and some thin, flattened pieces of black metal. I picked up one of these tablets, surprised at how heavy it was, and at how soft. The metal was easily bent.

“Put that down!” said Antipater.

His tone was so urgent that I did so at once. “What is it?”

“A sheet of lead, for writing on. Don’t you realize where we are? We’ve stumbled into a witch’s den!”

I looked about the room. “Are you sure? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Why would anyone—”

“The Romans demolished her sanctuary, but this spot is still sacred to Persephone. The women of Corinth must have practiced magic here for centuries. Ever since Jason brought the witch Medea back from Colchis and made her his queen, there have been witches in Corinth.”

“But Corinth no longer exists.”

“Yet the witches do. These things have been used recently. See the ash in the incense burners? See the dark spots on the ceiling made by the smoke of the lamps? They meet here at night. Someone is casting spells. While chanting incantations to the forces of darkness, they use the point of a blade to scratch curses on lead tablets, which are then placed near the person whom they wish to destroy.”

“But all these tablets are blank—except for this one.”

I picked up a tablet that was lying apart from the others. The crabbed letters were difficult to read, especially by the dim light, but the Greek was simple. “‘I call upon Ananke. I call upon Moira. I call upon Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name. Destroy my enemy Eudocia! Destroy her utterly, from the hair on her head to the nails of her toes. Fill her mouth with sawdust. Fill her womb with sand. Fill her veins with black puss and vinegar. Make her—’ And then it ends, just like that.”

“Put that thing down, Gordianus!”

“But why is it still here?”

“Who knows? Perhaps the curse was interrupted, or the spell went awry, or the person cursing Eudocia changed her mind. Now put it back where you found it, and let’s get out of here at once.”

I would have stayed longer, curious to see if there was yet more evidence of magic to be found, but Antipater insisted I follow him. Emerging from the chill and darkness, I was dazzled by the harsh sunlight. Stifling waves of heat rose from the rock-strewn hillside.

“When is the driver returning for us?” said Antipater. “I’ve seen enough of Corinth.”

The sun was still high in the sky when we reached the place where we were to await the driver. Antipater found a shady spot under an olive tree and took a nap. I sat against the trunk and listened to the chirring of cicadas in the grass.

At one point, a Roman soldier came by on horseback. His helmet kept me from recognizing him, until he gave me a mock-salute and spoke. “Hot enough for you?”

I realized it was Marcus, the soldier at the tavern who had made fun of his comrade for being so fearful of witches. “What are you doing out here?” I said, keeping my voice low so as not to wake Antipater.

“Just making the rounds.” Marcus gave his mount a gentle kick and ambled on. Horse and rider soon disappeared beyond a low hill.

Every now and again I imagined I heard sounds coming from the ruins—men talking, and a clatter like metal implements being struck against stones. Was it possible that Tullius and his party were still nosing about the ruins? If so, what could they be up to? I thought about going to look for them, but decided it would be irresponsible to leave Antipater alone. It also occurred to me that perhaps the sounds I heard were not being made by the Romans at all, but by the ghosts of vanished Corinth. A foolish idea, I had no doubt; but I stayed where I was.

Like Antipater, I had seen enough of that desolate, melancholy place. I was glad when the wagon finally arrived to carry us back to the inn at Lechaeum.

*   *   *

Antipater and I ate an early dinner. Before we headed to bed, we made arrangements to be taken the next morning to the port of Cenchrea on the opposite side of the isthmus, where the wagon driver was sure we could hire a small vessel to take us as far as Piraeus, the port of Athens. Just as I laid my head on the pillow, I heard Tullius’s party arrive downstairs, talking loudly and laughing. I feared their carousing would keep me up, but as soon as I shut my eyes I fell asleep.

I woke at dawn. Nightmares clung to me like a shroud. What had I been dreaming about? Witches and curses, no doubt, but my head was such a muddle I couldn’t remember. I regretted having consumed so much wine the night before—then remembered that I had drunk only a single cup of watered wine with my dinner. Nearby, Antipater continued to snore.

I rose from the bed, feeling a bit unsteady, and unlatched the simple lock on the door. I made my way down the stairs, wondering if Gnaeus or Ismene would be stirring yet. My mouth was parched and I craved water.

I reached the foot of the stairs, crossed the small vestibule, and stepped into the tavern. What I saw bewildered me at first—my mind could make no sense of it. Then I staggered backward, retching and clutching my stomach.

The room was a scene of utter carnage. Bodies lay in heaps, covered with blood. Among them I saw Titus Tullius. His head was thrown back, his eyes and mouth wide open, his limbs twisted. His throat had been cut. The front of his tunic was so soaked with blood that no trace of its original color remained.

Even as a spectator at gladiator games, I had never seen so much death in one place. Suppressing my nausea, I counted the bodies. There were twelve. The entire party of Romans lay dead on the tavern floor. Every one of them had his throat cut.

I ran upstairs to wake Antipater. He clung to sleep, but finally I was able to rouse him. He seemed confused and unsteady on his feet, as I had been after waking. By the time we went downstairs, the innkeeper was up. He stood in the tavern, gaping at the slaughter and shaking his head.

“It’s like a battlefield,” he whispered.

“Great Zeus!” cried Antipater. “They’ve all been murdered. Gordianus, did you hear anything last night?”

“I slept like a stone.”

“So did I. But how could the noise have failed to wake us? There must have been a struggle. Surely these men cried out.”

I frowned. “And yet, I see no signs of a fight. No benches overturned, nothing broken—and no weapons drawn. It’s as if they submitted to what was done to them.”

“Or were taken by surprise,” said Antipater. “Who was here last night, Gnaeus?”

“Only these men, no one else.”

“No soldiers from the garrison?”

The innkeeper shook his head.

“What about your serving woman?”

“Ismene was here, of course.”

“Where is she now?” said Antipater.

“I don’t know. At night she goes home to a little hut on the outskirts of town. But she’s an early riser. She’s usually in the tavern before I get up.”

“Perhaps something’s happened to her,” said Antipater.

“Or perhaps she’s fled,” I said. “You don’t think Ismene could have—”

Gnaeus snorted. “If you think Ismene played some part in this, you’re mad. Why would she want to harm these men? Why would anyone have done this?”

I thought of the way Tullius had talked about the destruction of Corinth, disparaging its people and blaming them for their own demise. Antipater had been offended by his remarks. Whom else had Tullius offended, here at the tavern or elsewhere? Had the ghosts of Corinth themselves been stirred to retribution by his slanders? Horrified by the inexplicable slaughter, my imagination ran wild.

Antipater thought of a simpler motive. “Perhaps they were robbed.”

Gnaeus ran upstairs and returned a few moments later. “Their rooms appear to be untouched. No one’s taken their things.” He shook his head. “The garrison commander will have to be told. I’ll go to him myself.”

Not caring to remain in a room full of corpses, Antipater and I waited in the street outside until the innkeeper returned. He was followed by a troop of armed soldiers marching in formation. The dogs yelped and scattered at their approach. Among the men I recognized Marcus and his superstitious friend Lucius. At their head was a silver-haired officer with a weak chin and a patrician bearing.

The officer took a good look at Antipater and me. “You two are witnesses?”

“I found the bodies,” I said. “But we didn’t witness anything.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Quintus Menenius, commander of the garrison here at Lechaeum. And who are you?”

“I’m Gordianus of Rome. This is my old tutor, Zoticus. We’ve just come from the Games at Olympia. We were going to cross the isthmus this morning and catch a ship over at Cenchrea—”

“Not today, you won’t. Show me these bodies, Centurion Gnaeus,” he said, paying the innkeeper the courtesy of using his old title. “And you two, come along. I may have more questions for you.”

Quintus Menenius had surely witnessed bloodier spectacles in his years of military service, but when he saw the carnage in the tavern he drew a sharp breath and shuddered.

“All these men were your guests here at the inn, Centurion Gnaeus?”

“Yes.”

“Were they robbed?”

“Their rooms appear to be untouched. I don’t know about their persons.”

“Lucius! Marcus! Examine the bodies. See if you find any coin purses.”

Moving from corpse to corpse, the two soldiers found small money bags on each, all apparently intact.

The commander furrowed his brow. “No robbery? Then why were they killed? And how was it done, without a struggle?” He shook his head. “Put the coin purses back where you found them, men. These are Roman citizens. There will have to be a scrupulous inventory of each victim’s property—for the inquest.” He uttered the final word with a tone of dread, and sighed, as if weary already of the mountain of reports he would be obliged to file.

Stuffing a coin purse back where he had found it, Lucius suddenly drew back.

“What do you see, soldier?” said Menenius.

At the same moment, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Marcus; he, too, was returning a coin purse, this one to the body of Titus Tullius—but did I see him remove an object from the little leather bag? I wasn’t sure, and no one else seemed to notice. Then I was distracted, for Lucius, having previously drawn back, now cautiously reached for something beneath the body at his feet, then snatched back his hand as if scalded.

“By Hercules, man, what is it?” Stepping over corpses, Menenius stooped down and pulled a thin, flat object from beneath the body. It was a lead tablet such as I had seen in the witch’s den.

Menenius heard me gasp. He gave me a sharp look, then returned his attention to the tablet, squinting at the letters scraped into the lead. With a snort, he abruptly crossed the room and shoved the tablet into my hands. “Here, you have young eyes—and you seem to know what this is. Read it aloud.”

I scanned the words. Hackles rose on my neck. “I’m not sure I should.”

“Read it!”

I took a deep breath. “‘Ananke, I call on you. Moira, I call on you. Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name, I call on you. Strike down these impious Romans! Rob them of their lives and let them join the dead whom they besmirch. Open their throats and let the blood of life pour out of them—’”

Lucius emitted a stifled shriek and began to shake. He looked as if he might bolt from the room. Only his commander’s glowering gaze held him in check.

“Go on!” shouted Menenius.

“‘Destroy these Romans, Ananke. Destroy them utterly, Moira. Annihilate the impious defamers of the dead, Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name—’”

Lucius began to sway. His eyes rolled up in his head. He crumpled to the floor amid the dead bodies.

“By Hercules, the man’s fainted!” said Menenius with disgust. He ordered a couple of his soldiers to tend to Lucius, then snatched the lead tablet from me. “Witchcraft!” he declared. “The local women are mad for it. Was this the work of your serving woman, Centurion Gnaeus?”

The innkeeper looked back at him, speechless.

“It will all come out at the inquest.” Menenius sighed. “We’ll have to round up the local women and make them talk. Extracting evidence from females suspected of practicing magic—a nasty business, hardly suitable work for Roman soldiers, but there you have it. Garrison life!” He ordered the soldiers to clear the bodies from the room and take an inventory of their belongings, then asked the innkeeper to show him the dead men’s rooms. Antipater and I were dismissed, for the time being.

While Antipater stepped outside, saying he needed fresh air, I drew Marcus aside. “Your friend Lucius was terrified when I read that curse.”

Marcus grinned. “He’d hide behind his shadow if he thought a witch was in the room.”

“So you don’t think what happened here was the result of a curse?”

He shrugged. “Who can say? The commander will determine who, or what, killed these men.”

“What did you take from Tullius’s coin purse?”

The question caught him off guard. He tried to feign innocence. I tried to feign certainty, since I was not at all sure of what I’d seen. I kept my gaze steady, and it was Marcus who gave way. With a crooked smile and a shrug, he produced a finely crafted bronze image of Hercules the size of a man’s finger.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” he said.

“Where do you think Tullius got such a thing?”

“Perhaps he brought it with him, as a lucky charm.”

“Then little good it did him,” I said. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

For a moment, Marcus maintained his good-natured mask, then abruptly let it drop. “If I say no, I suppose you’ll tell the commander, eh?” He glared at me. “Go ahead then, take it. That makes you a thief, too, and no better than me. I suppose we all have a bit of magpie in us, eh? Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

Marcus rejoined the others in the gruesome task of moving the dead bodies.

*   *   *

Even though we had told him all we knew, Menenius would not allow Antipater and me to move on until the inquest took place. The driver refused to stay any longer, and headed home to Olympia with his wagon early the next morning.

There could hardly have been a more boring place to get stuck. A full day exploring the ruins of Corinth had been quite enough for me. Lechaeum itself had little to offer beyond the tavern, which I could no longer enter without becoming nauseated. The dusty, sparsely stocked little shops clustered around the garrison offered nothing to tempt me; nor did the brothel on the waterfront, to judge by the haggard women I saw coming and going by the back entrance.

On the bright side, it appeared that the inquest would be held in short order. Things did not look good for Ismene, the serving woman at the tavern. A search of her little hut turned up materials used in witchcraft—the same types of lamps, incense burners, and blank lead tablets that Antipater and I had discovered in the witch’s den on the Slope of Sisyphus, along with small lead boxes containing wooden dolls, which according to Antipater could also be used to cast spells. Obviously, Ismene was a witch, and presumably had written the curse tablet discovered in the tavern—but she was nowhere to be found. The soldiers searched every house in the vicinity and questioned all the locals. Ismene had vanished into thin air.

According to Gnaeus, the locals all agreed that witchcraft had killed the Romans. Absent evidence to the contrary, it seemed that the commander was prepared to go along with this idea.

“Do we really believe all those men were killed by a curse?” I asked Antipater. We were sitting under the shade of a fig tree outside the inn, enduring the heat of the day along with the dogs lying in the dust nearby.

“You read the tablet yourself, Gordianus. It called upon the forces of necessity and fate, as well as this Egyptian Ufer, whoever he is, to ‘open their throats.’ Isn’t that exactly what happened—in the middle of the night, with no resistance from the victims, and so quietly that neither you nor I was awakened? That sounds like witchcraft to me.” Antipater shuddered. “What’s that in your hand?”

Absentmindedly, I had pulled out the little figure of Hercules I had taken from Marcus and was fiddling with it. There was no use trying to hide it, so I explained to Antipater how I came to have it.

“I’ve been thinking I should give it to the commander, to be restored to Tullius’s property, but it’s awkward. If I tell him Marcus took it, he’ll probably be flogged, or worse. But if I don’t tell the commander the truth, he may think I stole it myself. If I say I simply found it, how do I explain that I know it belonged to Tullius?”

“Are you certain it was his?”

“It came from his coin purse.”

“Let me have a closer look.” Antipater examined the figure under a patch of sunlight. “This is Corinthian. The city’s bronze workers were famous for making miniatures like this. Do you see the mottled surface, dark red and green? That’s a special patina they developed, which is seen in no other bronze sculpture. And here, this stamp on the bottom—that’s the sign of one of the most famous Corinthian workshops.”

“Tullius was such a show-off, you’d think he would have shown his Corinthian good luck charm to everyone.”

Antipater frowned. “Do you know what I think? Tullius didn’t bring this with him from Rome. I think he found it amid the ruins the other day, and filched it.”

“I’m not sure ‘filch’ would be the proper word. After all, if he found it, fair and square—”

“He had no right to take it. By decree of the Roman Senate, nothing can be built within a certain radius of the ruins of Corinth. Nor can anything be taken out. Nothing in, nothing out. There is to be no commerce of any sort, and that includes treasure hunting. Of course, one presumes there’s no treasure left, that everything of value was long ago looted or destroyed. But perhaps under all the dirt and rubble, a few precious items might yet remain—like this figurine. That would make this object quite rare—probably worth a legionnaire’s salary for a year.”

“This little thing? You’re joking!”

Antipater looked up and down the street. “Perhaps I exaggerate. Nonetheless, I’d tuck that away, if I were you. And I’d keep my eyes peeled for Marcus. I wouldn’t put it past that fellow to knock you over the head and take it back from you.”

The day grew warmer still. Antipater fell fast asleep. I found myself looking at the craggy face of Acrocorinth in the distance, and felt a sudden impulse to return there. We had lost the wagon driver, but without Antipater to slow me down, I decided I was perfectly capable of walking there and back. I rose to my feet and headed out, shooing the dogs to keep them from following.

The sunlight was blinding. Waves of heat rose from hillsides covered with dry, brittle grass. I quickly grew thirsty, and realized I should have brought some water with me.

I reached the line of the ruined city walls, and pressed on. I found the spot where we had run into Tullius and his party, and from there, I tried to determine where I had last seen them when I gazed down from the summit of Acrocorinth. Heat and thirst made me light-headed. The piles of rubble all looked alike. I became disoriented and confused. I began to see phantom movements from the corners of my eyes, and the least sound—the scrambling of a lizard or the call of a bird—startled me. I thought of the mother who had killed her daughter and then herself, and all the countless others who had suffered and died. I felt the ghosts of Corinth watching me, and whispered words to placate the dead, asking forgiveness for my trespass.