The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

Beyond the crowded wharves rose the famous five-mile walls of Ephesus. Where the mole met the shore these walls were pierced by an ornamental gate flanked by towers. The tall doors of the gate stood wide open, welcoming all the world into the city of Artemis — for a price, Antipater explained, for he anticipated that we would have to pay a special fee to enter the city during the festival. Beyond the walls I saw the rooftops of temples and tall apartment buildings. Further away, clustered on the slope of Mount Pion, were a great many houses. Some were like palaces, with ornate terraces and hillside gardens.

The most prominent building to be seen was the enormous theatre built into the hillside. The semicircular tiers of seats that faced the harbour were filled with tens of thousands of spectators; apparently they were watching a comedy, for every now and then I heard a burst of distant laughter. Scores of towering, brightly painted statues lined the uppermost rim of the theatre; these images of gods and heroes appeared to be gazing not at the stage below them but across the rooftops of the city, straight at me.

“I see the famous theatre,” I said, shading my eyes against the late-morning sun above Mount Pion, “but where is the great Temple of Artemis?”

Antipater snorted. “Gordianus! Have you forgotten the geography I taught you? Your head is like a sieve, boy.”

I bridled at being called a boy — I was eighteen, after all — then smiled as the lesson came back to me. “I remember now. The Temple of Artemis was built outside the city, about a mile inland, on low, marshy ground. It must be … somewhere over there.” I pointed to a spot beyond the steep northern slope of Mount Pion.

Antipater raised a bushy eyebrow. “Very good. And why did the builders chose that site for the temple?”

“Because they decided that building on marshy soil would soften the effect of earthquakes on such a massive structure.”

“Correct. To further stabilize the ground, before the cornerstone was laid, they spread a deep layer of crushed charcoal. And then what?”

“Atop the charcoal they put down many layers of fleece, taken from sheep sacrificed in honour of the goddess.”

“You are an apt pupil after all, my boy,” said Antipater, gratifying and irritating me in the same breath.

The sun was directly above our heads by the time a ferryboat arrived. Antipater again elbowed his way to the front, with me following, so that we were among the first to be ferried ashore. As soon as we alighted on the mole, a group of boys swarmed around us. Antipater chose the two who looked most honest to him and tossed them each a coin. They gathered our travelling bags and followed after us.

We strolled up the mole, which seemed like a small city itself; the crowded ships were like dwellings along a broad thoroughfare. I saw people everywhere, heard babies crying, and noticed that many of the masts were strung with laundry. A great many of the visitors to Ephesus, unable to find accommodations in the city, were apparently residing aboard ship.

“Where will we stay in Ephesus?” I asked.

“Years ago, when I lived here for a while, I had a pupil named Eutropius,” said Antipater. “I haven’t seen him since, but we’ve corresponded over the years. Eutropius is grown now, a widower with a child of his own. He inherited his father’s house, about halfway up the hill, not far from the theatre. Eutropius has done rather well for himself, so I’m sure our accommodations will be quite comfortable.”

We reached the end of the mole and arrived at the open gate, where people stood in long queues to be admitted to the city. I was unsure which queue we should get into, until one of the gatekeepers shouted, in Latin, “Roman citizens and their parties in this line! Roman citizens, queue here!”

As we stepped into the line, I noticed that some in the crowd gave us dirty looks. The line was shorter than the others, and moved more quickly. Soon we stood before a man in a ridiculously tall hat a bit like a quail’s plume — only a bureaucrat would wear such a thing — who glanced at my iron citizen’s ring as I handed him the travelling papers my father had secured for me before I left Rome.

Speaking Latin, the official read aloud: “‘Gordianus, citizen of Rome, born in the consulship of Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus’ — that makes you what, eighteen years old? — ‘of average height with dark hair and regular features, no distinguishing marks, speaks Latin and some Greek’ — and with an atrocious accent, I’ll wager.” The man eyed me with barely concealed contempt.

“His Greek accent is actually rather good,” said Antipater. “Certainly better than your Latin accent.”

“And who are you?”