Lindsey Davis
TIME TO DEPART
ROME: TWO WEEKS IN OCTOBER, AD 72
`It's the City that creates luxury. And out of luxury, inevitably, comes greed, out o f greed bursts forth violence, out o f violence proliferate all the various kinds o f crime and iniquity.'
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS High Society
Vespasian an Emperor (no one comes higher)
Titus Caesar next in line (top substitute)
Caenis the Emperor's mistress (discreetly important)
T. Claudius Laeta top clerk (even more discreet)
Anacrites chief spy (indiscreet even to list him)
A Very Important (unnamed on legal advice) Patrician
D. Camillus Verus a senator and friend of the Emperor
Julia Justa his noble and put-upon wife
Helena Justina
Camillus Aelianus their noble and dutiful children
Camillus Justinus
Some Honest Citizens
Balbinus Pius a big rissole leaving town
Flaccida his wife, a hard woman in difficult circumstances
Milvia their daughter, a soft-hearted girl leading the easy life
Florius her husband, a worm on the verge of turning
Nonnius Albius a poorly court witness
Alexander his pessimistic doctor (private sector)
The Miller amp; Little strong men, interested in education
Icarus
Lalage refined proprietress of the Bower of Venus
Macra a young lady at that elite finishing school
Gaius amp; Phlosis two extremely helpful boatmen
Low Society (Fountain Court)
Lenia a blushing bride
Smaractus her bashful groom
Cassius a baker whose oven may get too hot
Ennianus a basket-weaver who may be tangling with
trouble
Castus a newcomer, dealing in old junk An old bag woman
Nux a homeless dog looking for a soft touch
Falco her target (not as tough as he thinks)
A baby abandoned, also looking for a nice home
with kindly folk
Law and Order (all under suspicion)
Marcus Rubella tribune of the scrupulous Fourth Cohort of vigiles
L. Petronius enquiry chief in the XIII region
Longus
Arria Silvia his often furious wife
Their cat (a cohort joke)
Martinus A deputy (not for long, he hopes)
Fusculus an expert on rackets
Linus on detached duty on the
Rufina the reason Linus has detached himself
Sergius a happy punishment officer
Porcius a young recruit (unhappy)
Scythax an optimistic doctor (public sector)
Tibullinus a centurion of the dubious Sixth Cohort
Arica his sidekick (certainly needs kicking)
I
I STILL CAN'T believe I've put the bastard away for good!' Petronius muttered.
`He's not on the boat yet,' Fusculus corrected him. Clearly the Watch's optimist.
There were five us waiting on a quayside. Mid-October. An hour before dawn. A wakening breeze chilled our tense faces as we huddled in cloaks. The day was making itself ready for action somewhere on the other side- of Italy, but here in Portus, Rome's new harbour, it was still fully dark. We could see the huge beacon on the lighthouse flaunting itself, with glimpses of tiny figures tending the fire; pale sheets of flame sometimes lit the statue of Neptune presiding over the entrance. The sea god's illuminated torso stood out strangely in our surroundings. Only the scents of old, hardened rope and rotting fish scales told us we were standing on the grand harbour bowl.
We were five honest, respectable citizens who had been waiting all night for a sixth. He had never been honest, though like most criminals he had no difficulty passing himself off as respectable. Roman society had always been readily bamboozled by brazen acts. But now, thanks to Petronius Longus, the man and his crimes had been publicly exposed-.
We had been waiting too long. Although nobody said it, we were starting to dread that the big rissole would not show.
The lowlife was called Balbinus.
I had been hearing his name as long as I could remember. It had certainly been notorious when Petronius and I had come home from the army six years before. At that time my old tentmate Petro, being a dutiful type who fancied a good salary, had put himself forward as a public officer; I set up in business alone. He was chasing cabbage thieves through the markets while I was picking through clerks' divorces and tracing stolen art. On the face of it we lived in different worlds, yet we stumbled across the same tragedies and heard the same worrying stories on the streets.
Balbinus was renowned throughout our district as one of the dirtiest underworld organisers ever to gild imperial Rome. The area he terrorised included brothels, wharfside warehouses, the back-doubles on the Aventine slopes, the dark colonnades around the Circus Maximus. He ran jostlers and confidence tricksters; prostitutes and cutpurses; cat burglars and marauding gangs of street beggars with fake blind eyes who could soon spot trouble
