Lindsey Davis
Two for Lions
The tenth Falco novel is dedicated
with the author's affection and gratitude
to all the readers who have made this
continuing series possible
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
Friends
M. Didius Falco
Director of Falco & Partner, auditors to the Census
Anacrites
Temporary partner in Falco & Partner, a protégé
Ma
Permanent protector of Anacrites
Helena Justina
Permanent partner of Falco
Julia Junilla
Infant child of Falco and Helena
Pa (Geminus)
Ex-partner of, and in need of protection from, Ma
Maia
Falco's youngest sister, looking for her chance
Famia
Maia's husband, looking for a drink
D. Camillus Verus
A senator, father to Helena, looking for his son
Q. Camillus Justinus
An idealist, looking for a plant
Claudia Rufina
An heiress disappointed in love
A. Camillus Aelianus
A hopeful, disappointed in money
Lenia
Looking to let go of her husband
Smaractus
Looking to hang on to his wife's cash
Rodan & Asiacus
Deadbeats, regularly beaten and usually half-dead
Thalia
An exotic circus manager
Romans
Vespasian Augustus
Emperor and Censor, building the Flavian Amphitheater
Antonia Caenis
Mistress and long-term partner to the Emperor
Claudius Laeta
Senior administrator at the Palace, a loner
Rutilius Gallicus
Special Envoy to Tripolitania
Romanus
An unknown
Scilla
A wild girl looking for a legal device
Pomponius Urtica
A praetor who never did anything illegal
Rumex
A celebrity graffiti
Buxus
An animal keeper
An elderly gooseboy
Just looking at birds all day
Tripolitanians
Saturninus
A gladiators' trainer, from Lepcis Magna
Euphrasia His wife, who has promised to say nothing
Calliopus A venatio specialist, from Oea
Artemisia His wife, who can't say anything as she isn't there
Hanno A man who can afford to pay his taxes, from Sabratha
Myrrha Who may say something, but only in Punic
Iddibal A far from beastly bestiarius
Fidelis A faithful interpreter
Animals
Nux
A personable pup, commander of the Falco household
Leonidas
A friendly lion, who is due to make a killer dead meat
Draco
A very unfriendly lion
Anethum
A performer who brings lying doggo to perfection
Also featuring
Borago the bear,
Ruta the alleged aurochs,
Ostriches,
Pigeons,
Lions,
Stone lions,
a Leopardess
By Special Request
Jason the python
And Introducing
The Sacred Geese of Juno
Jurisdictions of the Vigiles Cohorts in Rome:
Coh I
Regions VII & VIII (Via Lata, Forum Romanum)
Coh II
Regions III & V (Isis and Serapis, Esquiline)
Coh III
Regions IV & VI (Temple of Peace, Alta Semita)
Coh IV
Regions XII & XIII (Piscina Publica, Aventine)
Coh V
Regions I & II (Porta Capena, Caelimontium)
Coh VI
Regions X & XI (Palatine, Circus Maximus)
Coh VII
Regions IX & XIV (Circus Flaminius, Transtiberina)
Tripolitania and Cyrenaïca
PART ONE
Rome : December A. D. 73-April A. D. 74
One
MY PARTNER AND I had been well set up to earn our fortunes until we were told about the corpse.
Death, it has to be said, was ever-present in those surroundings. Anacrites and I were working among the suppliers of wild beasts and gladiators for the arena Games in Rome; every time we took our auditing note tablets on a site visit, we spent the day surrounded by those who were destined to die in the near future and those who would only escape being killed if they killed someone else first. Life, the victors' main prize, would be in most cases temporary.
But there amongst the fighters' barracks and the big cats' cages, death was commonplace. Our own victims, the fat businessmen whose financial affairs we were so delicately probing as part of our new career, were themselves looking forwards to long, comfortable lives-yet the formal description of their business was Slaughter. Their stock-in-trade was measured as units of mass murder; their success would depend upon those units satisfying the crowd in straightforward volume terms, and upon their devising ever more sophisticated ways to deliver the blood.
We knew there must be big money in it. The suppliers and trainers were free men-a prerequisite of engaging in commerce, however sordid-and so they had presented themselves with the rest of Roman society in the Great Census. This had been decreed by the Emperor on his accession, and it was not simply intended to count heads. When Vespasian assumed power in a bankrupt Empire after the chaos of Nero's reign, he famously declared that he would need four hundred million sesterces to restore the Roman world. Lacking a personal fortune, he set out to find funding in the way that seemed most attractive to a man with middle-class origins. He named himself and his elder son, Titus, as Censors, then called up the rest of us to give an account of ourselves and of everything we owned. Then we were swingeingly taxed on the latter, which was the real point of the exercise.
The shrewd amongst you will deduce that some heads of household found themselves excited by the challenge; foolish fellows tried to minimize the figures when declaring the value of their property. Only those who can afford extremely cute financial advisers ever get away with this, and since the Great Census was intended to rake in four hundred million it was madness to attempt a bluff. The target was too high; evasion would be tackled head-on-by an Emperor who had tax farmers in his recent family pedigree.
The machinery for extortion already existed. The Census traditionally used the first principle of fiscal administration: the Censors had the right to say: we don't believe a word of what you're telling us. Then they made their own assessment, and the victim had to pay up accordingly. There was no appeal.
No; that's a lie. Free men always have the right to petition the Emperor. And it's a perk of being Emperor that he can twitch his purple robe and augustly tell them to get lost.