When the water clocks ran a little past sexta, we slipped out of the house. Aelia seemed surprised to see Sotas with us, but said nothing. She, Helene, and Passia all wore dark cloaks of the type that a slave would wear.
Even during the blackness of night the city seemed loud, with small groups of people walking through the streets, prostitutes offering their services, and city workers hauling vats of urine to the toga cleaners to be used for bleach. Despite all the activity, and the occasional breaks of light through open windows, the darkness was unnerving. I hoped that Sotas’s huge size would make a thief think twice before sneaking up on us to try to score a purse. Aelia had to have been scared, but when I could catch glimpses of her face under the heavy cloak, she appeared stoic.
It was a long walk to the Appian Way leading out of Rome, where the Aelii family tombs were located. In general, slaves could not leave Rome without a note with the seal of their master, but the guards at the city gates gave us little issue once a few denarii and a basket of pastries were placed in their hands. An orgy in the fields beyond Rome never hurt anyone, we told them, and the guards, happy for the treats, ushered us through the gate.
The Appian Way is a strange and sinister road at night. The cobbles are lined for miles with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gravestones and elaborate multilevel mausoleums rising at varying heights. That night the moon was only a slim crescent, giving us just enough light to discern our surroundings and to enable the stones and buildings to cast their shadows on the ground, creating a supernatural atmosphere down the length of the street.
The tombs of the gens Aelia were grouped in a cluster about a quarter of a mile outside town. A large rock wall marked the group of carefully constructed and artfully carved mausoleums. We slipped through the wooden gate. Aelia led the way once we reached the tombs. She stopped in front of the elaborate mausoleum where her family rested. It was decorated with colorful tiles and symbols of the dead. She pulled a key out of her pocket and opened the lock, letting us into the tomb. The first floor housed dozens of urns of the Aelia family, tucked into niches chest high along the tiled walls. We climbed the short flight of stairs to the second floor and lit the oil lamps. We sat in a circle around the ornate feasting table where, once a year, in the spring, the ancestors of the Aelii would throw a big party to commemorate the dead.
I pulled several objects out of my bag for the ritual, the most important of them being a poppet half the size of my hand and made of clay. I’d spent the evening before forming it into the shape of a human body. It was still semisoft and ready for the spell that we were about to invoke.
“What is that?” Aelia whispered.
“Yes, why do we need a doll?” Sotas asked.
“When I lived with Maximus, there was an old woman who took care of the chickens. She was from Greece and she taught me many things about my country. One of the things she taught me was the ancient practice of using magic with poppets. That’s what this is.” I held up the clay doll.
“How does it work?” Sotas’s features seemed unusually dark and menacing in the lamplight.
“I’ll show you.”
I placed the poppet on a small cloth on the table in front of me. It was shaped like a man, with a featureless face, but included carved locks of hair, nipples, genitalia, and even a navel. The hands were bent behind the figure’s back, as were his legs. The feet touched the hands at the small of the back and its head was twisted sharply to one side. Goose bumps rose along my arms as I studied it.
“Ready?”
My companions grunted their assent. Their faces gleamed in the weak light, full of both hope and fear. In that moment, the weight of what I was about to do hit me and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.
When I held up the poppet its smooth body shone. “This is the body of Lucius Aelius Sejanus. We now prepare to bind him to our will and to the will of the gods.” I picked up the nail and, with the tip, inscribed Sejanus’s full name sideways across the belly of the doll. The clay gave way easily and I flicked away the specks displaced from the grooves made by the nail.
I picked up my knife and pricked my finger. I let a drop of blood fall onto the poppet’s head. I took Aelia’s finger first, then did the same to Helene, Passia, and Sotas.
There was a noise above us then, a racing sound across the top of the tomb. We held our breaths.
“Just squirrels,” Helene said, and we all relaxed, recognizing that sound to be true.
I smeared the blood across the poppet, covering as much of the clay as I could with the shimmery fluid.
“Aelia, would you read this?” I handed her a piece of parchment.
She took it with one hand and with the other she wiped her eyes of tears. Her voice shook as she read the Latin.
“With my blood and the blood of my slaves, I call down the powers of the gods against the man Lucius Aelius Sejanus. I call forth the di Manes of the Aelii who will revenge the shame of a family member brought by another family member. I call forth Hecate, who will power this spell with the magic of ancestral ghosts. I call forth Nemesis, who will seek revenge for wrongdoing brought by Sejanus. I call forth Averna, goddess of the Underworld, who will beckon to Sejanus every day of his life with her siren song. Finally, I call forth Mercury, who will bear the soul of Sejanus to the depths of the Underworld, bringing him to the feet of Pluto himself.”
I felt Passia shiver beside me. It was as though the spirits were pressing against us, hovering around the lanterns, ready to whisper in our ears.
I took up the nails. “With this nail I bind and curse Sejanus. May any harm he seeks to bring down upon the Gavia or the Aelia family harm him back tenfold.” I plunged the nail into the top of the clay figure’s head. I repeated the curse with each nail I placed, in both eyes, in the mouth, ears, chest, belly, genitals, hands, feet, and anus. I bound the poppet carefully with the bronze wire before setting it aside and picking up the blank sheet of lead.
“Now for the most important part.” With another nail I inscribed a curse deep into the lead tablet, backward, starting at the bottom of the tablet and working carefully up the page.
The lanterns flickered. I told myself it was just a draft of wind through the cracks of the tomb but a part of me could feel the spirits swirling around us. The hairs on the back of my neck raised and my skin grew cold.
I passed out more pieces of parchment, each inscribed with the curse. Together we read it aloud, our voices rising with each word.
“Oh gods, curse Lucius Aelius Sejanus! Hear our plea!
Together we commit Sejanus to the gods, to the di Manes of the Aelii,
to Nemesis, Averna, Mercury, and Hecate.
As this clay is cold and powerless,
also cold and powerless is Sejanus,
cold in knowledge, thinking, and memory!
“As the dead are powerless and still,
just so powerless and still will Sejanus be,
his feet, hands, and body!
“Just as this image will break and decay,