[the soothsayer] and the greed of the senators

A certain curmudgeonly soothsayer was known for his crazy predictions which caused all and sundry to label him as mad.

Day after day, he could be found on the steps of the Senate and as Senators climbed the steps to the forum, the soothsayer would predict some dire thing or other which was sure to pass.

“Oh, Cashius Minimus,” he would say, “do not leave the city tomorrow for your wife will entertain one of your colleagues of the populist persuasion.”

Now the tall, spare Cashius, afflicted with his dandruff trouble, knew better than to physically rough up an old man on the steps of the Senate so he just grunted and went up to the forum, making a mental note to have his luscious wife watched, in order to prove the soothsayer wrong, to publicly label him a charlatan, a humbug.

Needless to say, his two henchmen had occasion, the next afternoon, to put both Cashius’ s wife and her lover to the sword, on their master’s express orders. When one of them brought the gory news to the steps of the Senate, the soothsayer could be heard cackling: “I told you so, I told you so.”

Yon Cashius kept his peace.

On another occasion, the egregious Maximus Flatulus, who had just been appointed princeps senatus and was surrounded on the steps by sycophantic admirers, was advised by the soothsayer that a plague of locusts was coming to devour all the produce in his fields east of the city.

He laughed the soothsayer to scorn, as nothing so ridiculous had ever happened in those parts before. In Egypt, maybe but here in the Golden City? And why only the east of the city anyway?

Flatulus swept past the crumpled old figure on the steps, pausing only to live up to his name and immediately put the matter out of mind. Needless to say, in three days time, a plague such as had never been seen swarmed through the countryside, eating everything in its path and leaving Flatulus stony broke and without either property or senatorial appointment.

...........

Now, it would be wrong to suggest that the soothsayer never took a break – he did – and his favourite place to meditate was close to the Tarpeian Rock. Being a soothsayer, of course, he knew beforehand that a group of very disgruntled landed gentlemen were approaching him from the Capitoline Hill and he could also glean their intentions.

“Welcome, kind sirs,” he croaked, as they gathered behind him in malevolent silence.

Flatulus spoke for all. “I suppose you know, Painus Arsus, why we are here?”

“Of course, your honours. You wish me to desist from my irritating predictions of doom and gloom. Otherwise you will throw me from the Tarpeian Rock.”

A wicked gleam sparkled in all eyes but Arsus went on. “However, that would be to your disadvantage, gentlemen,” he fawned. “I can predict wondrous things as well as evil. It’s just not as much fun, that's all.”

“Well start predicting now,” growled Hypocrises, who shouldn’t be in this tale anyway but these things happen.

“Well, your lordships,” murmured the gnarled and balding Arsus, standing and facing them both bravely and obsequiously, from long practice, “if you were willing to lay down the most valuable things you possess, one item apiece and if you were to return to the Senate henceforth, riches beyond your wildest dreams await you there.”

The landed gentry looked from one to the other. They’d actually come to end the life of this pestilential creature before them but business is business and each, in turn, laid the most precious possession he happened to be carrying before the soothsayer – a few aureii here, a few sistertii there, a picture of Arnius Gropus’s concubine, a season ticket to the corporate box at the Colissei, until the social isolate with the protruding front teeth, Flagellus Logus, was the last.

“I … er .. came out without my wallet, I’m afraid,” he shuffled awkwardly in the dust.

“Never mind,” replied Arsus. “Each will be rewarded in kind.”

With that, he stood aside, as a herd of wilderbeast came charging at the cliff, taking the Senators with them over the edge in one fell swoop, arms flailing and togas failing to act sufficiently parachutie to prevent their untimely deaths on the jagged rocks below.

Arsus nodded, gathered the booty into one toga which had got caught on a sharp boulder, then made his long, painstaking way back to the Senate steps, stumbling here, dropping a note to Mondo Lecherus there, a note from a fellow Senator’s wife for an assignation that night but now he had no need for such youthful diversions; he was a rich man and within two weeks he was appointed princeps senatus, a title he graciously accepted, before trading it in for an Emperorship and the Divine right to rule.

But that’s another story.


This cautionary tale is dedicated to Jams O'Donnell [but does not refer to him]. :)