 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
The Antiquarium of Tarquinia was a squat building with square windows and white front, with peristyle inside and the impluvium was adorned on the sides with golden bronze statues of nymphs.
Lucius immediately noticed the sturdy figure of the minister who, sat on a travertine bench by the impluvium, was talking in a loud voice, while the Superintendent of the Antiquities of Etruria, Randolfo Fabiani, standing before him, nodded without answering.
Toady arse-licker Fabiani: weak with the strong and strong with the weak, Lucius lashed out as he went towards the two men.
Fabiani acted as if hadn’t seen him and continued to nod his head, without ever taking his eyes off the Minister, who, with feline instinct, immediately felt his presence behind his shoulders.
“Lucius. Thanks for coming.” He just turned his square and flat head towards him. “I think you know the Superintendent for Etruria, Professor Fabiani.”
“Of course, we’ve already met once.” He held his hand out to Fabiani.
The man cast him a questioning look: “When?”
“Five years ago, I sent a curriculum vitae for a three-month contract as leader of excavations. You called me, but only to inform me that your staff was complete…”
“Yes, perhaps, I don’t remember well… unfortunately, as you know, our budget doesn’t allow us to recruit.”
“I know, Professor, I was talking about it a few days ago with Belli, the nephew of the undersecretary to the Treasury.”
“You know Dr. Belli?” he asked with ill-concealed surprise.
“Certainly, he had his interview a week after me. And the following month he was employed…”
His words were interrupted by a cough by the Minister, who had realised where the conversation was going and didn’t want to give room to Lucius’ polemical streak: “Well then, introductions over, let’s come to the point.” He got up from the bench and went towards a door with slate posts engraved with heads of acanthus which led into a room in the Antiquarium kept at an even temperature and humidity.
Sat at the head of a long dark walnut table was Professor Lentini, Head of the Department of Native Archaeology of the Ministry. An attractive thirty-five year-old woman of lively intelligence who had shot up the ladder. For this reason it was whispered in several places that she was the Minister’s mistress.
The woman raised her head and placed her carbon fibre glasses on her thin regular nose.
“Hello, Letitia,” said the Minister “is everything ready?”
“Yes, the material is already here, Minister, if you want…”
“Certainly, we want to see it straightaway.”
The woman went up to an armoured cabinet. She put the key in the lock and opened a heavy door. Inside, a glass case containing a scroll.
“The text is almost illegible, but we managed to highlight it with ultraviolet rays.” She handed the three men as many colour enlargements and a typed sheet which contained the transcription.
The Minister sat down at the table and gave quick look: “I must start off by saying that the discovery was made two months ago by one of our special investigative units and it’s for this reason that you, Superintendent, weren’t informed in due time…”
Fabiani shook his head, as if to deny what did in fact appear to be obvious from that text, drawn up in characters used in the first century before Christ.
Lucius was immediately captured by the fluent and pressing rhythm of the prose, enough not to notice that he was reading aloud: “Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati...”*
“There’s no doubt,” Letitia interrupted him, almost disturbed by the silence that had grown around him, “it’s…”
“… the First Oration against Catiline!” the Minister concluded.
“Finally the mystery is solved!” cried Lucius.
Looking doubtful the Superintendent passed his hand over the narrow beard that framed his chin: “I have to admit that this hypothesis is likely, even if further examination and in-depth research will be necessary. It could be a fake.”
“No, I don’t believe it’s a fake, even if most would like it.” The minister looked allusively towards Fabiani. “It was in an Etruscan tomb, never violated by thieves and grave-robbers, sealed inside an amphora with three other scrolls which are now at Fiesole, at the Higher Institute for Restoration.”
Lucius didn’t let the opportunity slip to scourge that detestable man: “I think that you will have to go over some of your publications, Superintendent, especially the most famous one.”
Lucius was referring to a weighty study funded by the Ministry and entitled: The Orations against Catiline: a historical fake, which Fabiani had recently published, as a leading researcher of the large group of orthodox academics who denied the historical fact of the four Orations. In fact, there was no reliable news on the four speeches. The historian Sallust was the only one to have quoted several passages from them, though quite debatable, which consequently didn’t get much credit from his successors, especially Suetonius and Plutarch, who had accused Sallust of hating Catiline for family reasons. In his youth Catiline had in fact undergone a trial, from which he was acquitted, in which he had been accused of seducing the vestal Fabia, sister of Terentia, the wife of Cicero, who, following the death of her husband was married a third time to Sallust himself.
“Don’t worry,” Fabiani furiously directed his rattlesnake eyes on Lucius, who felt a shiver down his spine, “I’ve always been an honest researcher and, if I’ve made a mistake, I know how to admit it!”
“No one questions your honesty as a researcher, professor,” the Minister intervened, “in fact I take this opportunity to confirm the Federal Government’s appreciation for your meritorious academic work. In spite of this, what is contained in this scroll is of great importance, because it’s a fragment of our oldest history, and refers to political events that gave rise to the Federation itself. There isn’t in fact any historian in the world who doesn’t judge Catiline’s Revolution as an epoch-making event.”
“Certainly, certainly, I agree.” Fabiani frowned and for a moment looked towards the window, attracted by a ray of light, penetrating beyond the oppressive curtain of clouds. "We must all however pay attention to a detail: Cicero was Catiline’s bitter enemy. He tried by all means, right and wrong, to stop his reformatory policy. Therefore the publication of a document of this importance could reflect badly on the man whom, rightly, we consider to be the founder of the Republic. Catiline’s revenge against is opponents was harsh: Cicero himself was strangled in the Mamertine Prison. The fact of acknowledging the existence of the speeches could create some embarrassment for us, both towards the opposition parties and in the international field.”
“My dear professor, ours is an tested democracy because it’s the oldest in the world; so I don’t believe it has anything to fear from the truth. And secondly this is a problem of another nature. Of a political nature…” The Minister left the comment hanging and threw him a hinting look, as if to say: You mind your job and don’t interfere in things bigger than you.
He therefore started talking again calmly: “Beyond the historic importance of the discovery, which hasn’t yet been revealed to the public, it’s necessary to go into several important aspects. It’s the very investigation of these aspects that I would like to entrust to Dr. Licatani. First of all the tomb. It’s a hypogeum dating back to the first century before Christ, even if the style goes back to older models, inside which the amphora containing the scroll was found. It would be particularly interesting to determine who this tomb belonged to. For this reason I would like Dr. Licatani to examine it, with the help of Dr. Lentini. Of course, Superintendent, you would have to give the necessary technical support.”
“I am at complete disposal, Minister.”
“Well then, I think there’s nothing else to add. In a week I’ll be in touch to arrange another meeting and take stock of the situation.”
____________
* “When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the mighty guards placed on the Palatine Hill…”
Copyright © 2003 by Mario Farneti. All rights reserved