Steven Saylor
A murder on the Appian way
Men were eager to win office and even employed bribery and assassination to do so, but such was the state of affairs in the city that elections could not be held. With no one in charge, murders occurred practically every day.
The Appian Way, which was made by Appius Claudius Caecus and honours his name, extends from Rome to Capua, a journey of five days. Its breadth is such that two wagons going in opposite directions can easily pass one another. This road is one of the noteworthy sights of the world, for the stones are so finely cut, levelled and fitted together, without mortar of any sort, that the unbroken surface appears to be not a work of man, but a wondrous phenomenon of nature.
"Stop quoting laws to us. We carry swords."
2
CONTENTS
A Note on Names and the Hours of the Roman Day Map
Part One RIOT
Part Two ROAD
Part Three REX?
Part Four RING
Author's Note
A Note on Names
and the Hours of the Roman Day
For the names of certain historical figures in these pages, I have used familiar literary forms rather than the more authentic Latin. While their contemporaries never referred to Marcus Antonius as "Marc Antony," or to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus as "Pompey the Great," these traditional versions carry such a magic that it seemed pedantic to resist them.
The ancient Romans did not number their hours as we do, in twelve-hour segments before and after midday, but rather beginning at daybreak, so that when a Roman spoke of the first hour of the day, he meant, quite literally, the first hour of daylight; and the first hour of the night was the first hour of darkness. The following table roughly approximates the equivalent hours of the day, as drawn from the historical sources and used in Murder on the Appian Way: