The Darkside of Rome
It
wasn’t far from Largo di Torre Argentina, today a city block-size depression
protected by a fence, where a group of us came together one evening on the
streets of Rome. We found “Argentina”, as they call it, populated
with homeless cats, the remains of ancient buildings like Pompey’s Theater, along
with excavated temples to goddesses and nymphs. It was a fitting setting there along normally busy
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. Traffic had
dropped off considerably along the avenue by that late hour. In the still night
air, circles of
illumination cast by occasional streetlamps quickly faded to darkness around us,
while fleeting cats added a mood of mystery.
Death was no stranger to this place. While modern times have likely seen tragic
accidents all along this street-level thoroughfare, the past has seen far more bloodshed
in the depths of Argentina ranging from the sacrifice of animals on its temple
altars to the demise of far more significant luminaries. 15 March 44 BC,
best known as the notorious “Ides of March”, saw Emperor Julius Caesar viciously
assassinated when he received 23 stab wounds right there at our feet in the
meeting hall of Pompey’s Theater. It was
an event that would spark a civil war and yet more bloodshed.
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| Rome's Largo di Torre Argentina |
We were gathered there in the night to hopefully begin an
intriguing dive into the Eternal City’s long and twisted history of murder salted
with facts and legends with a few ghost stories intertwined for added
supernatural spice. Our ninety-minute
walking tour through places like Campo de Fiori, nearby Piazza Farnese, and
Castle Sant'Angelo on the Tiber, to name a few, were designed to give us a
glimpse at a different side of Rome, its hidden darkside in fact, that goes
back to well before 44 BC
with the murder of Caesar, on to more recent times. It was best that night veil these horrific
deeds. Murder and death under suspect
circumstances were no strangers to Rome.
Political gangs were common and there was no standing police force. Their very first police force, the cohortes
urbanae, was not created until Augustus was in power (27 BC-14 AD). The mission of these “proto-policemen’ was to
maintain public order and prevent civil disturbances. Unsophisticated as it was, it lacked any investigative
ability. This and the very limited
medical know-how of the time, let alone the means to determine the clinical cause
of a death, allowed murderous mayhem to run rampant, especially through the
widespread use of poisons.
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| The Death of Caesar by Jean-Leon Gereme |
Sophisticated as we imagine ourselves, poisonings still garner
worldwide attention. In 2017 for instance, Kim Jong-Nam, the half-brother of North
Korea's leader Kim Jong Un was fatally poisoned at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The cause of his death was an aerosol nerve
agent believed to have been administered on orders of his brother,
the leader of North Korea. Then, in 2018, headlines
proclaimed that according to official UK sources, Russian
President Vladimir Putin personally ordered a nerve agent attack against former
Russian military
intelligence officer and spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury,
England. While nerve gas seems to be the
murderous agent of choice today, of all the interesting stories presented that
night to our traveling troop of fifteen or so, those related to good
old-fashioned poisonings were the most amazing.
We began with the revelation that the very beginning
of Rome’s story was based on a murder, although the nature of the murder was
not related to poison. The brothers,
Romulus and Remus apparently quarreled over where to site their
new city. Romulus wanted it rooted on the Palatine Hill
while Remus wished to see it grow from atop the Aventine Hill. The fact that the city is named “Roma”, after
Romulus, settles the question of who won the disagreement which saw Romulus
kill his twin brother Remus in 753 BC. It
also accounts for the popularity of the Palatine today, which finds tourists
roaming the ruins of palaces along this stretch of historic real estate.
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| Romulus & Remus Argue Over Which Hill to Site Rome |
While I have to say this was not a propitious beginning,
it was miniscule in comparison to what lay ahead. A person who murders three or more people is
typically referred to as a serial killer.
In the annals of serial killers, a Roman woman by the name Locusta,
originally thought to be from Gaul (primarily modern-day France), appears to
hold the distinction for being the first serial killer in human history. Her specialty, a more subtle method to provoke
death, utilized poison. The fact that
she basically worked for Rome’s elite and had wealthy patrons might imply that she
wasn’t a deranged killer spurned on by some sort of deep psychological failing. She wasn’t mentally ill at all. In reality, she was more a gun for hire assassin than a deranged
killer. She was simply expert
at what she did, motivated by money and all the trappings it afforded. She became a much sought-after silent killer,
a toxic assassin par excellence, who could get rid of
enemies quietly, quickly, and with little mess.
Word
of her unique talent spread far and wide. Eventually, she was called up from the bush leagues of the
provinces to the premier league in ancient Rome. Soon after her arrival, her murderous capabilities,
deeply rooted in her knowledge of herbs, plants, and chemicals and too good to
pass up, were put to work fulfilling their murderous designs.
History relates that her first Roman patron was none other than Empress Agrippina, the wife of Emperor
Claudius. Described as ruthless,
ambitious, violent, domineering and beautiful, she was
categorically not the
motherly type. It seems her
marriage of convenience to Claudius had turned inconvenient. With Locusta’s technical assistance, she had Claudius poisoned
on 13 October 54 A.D. A plate of deadly
mushrooms was placed before Claudius by his food-taster Halotus, likely
in on the plot since he was not affected - doubtfully he’d sampled the
fare. If it
wasn’t a naturally deadly variety of mushrooms that got him, it was likely a
dose of belladonna poison, commonly used at the time, infused into the
mushrooms that did the deed. The goal of
this conspiracy was to enable her son from a previous marriage, Nero, to
quickly assume the throne as emperor. Nevertheless,
another victim had succumbed to Locusta’s death spree. However, Agrippina gave her up as they say and
Locusta was imprisoned. Better that than
let tongues wag and soon see fingers pointed at Agrippina.
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| Locusta and Nero |
Thanks to Nero, who could use her services to achieve his ambitions, Locusta
wasn’t out of business yet. Nero, who
had his own “wetwork” plans to take out his rivals, wasn’t about to pass up
such a talented murder weapon and had her released. She was soon back in business with the head
of an empire as her patron. They got
along
well, plotting and planning. Business
boomed. With Locusta’s help, Nero got rid of many of his subjects,
including his teenage half-brother, Britannicus.
As Claudius' natural son, he represented a threat to Nero’s claim to the
throne. With Nero’s help, Locusta
reached the epitome of her profession. She
would go so far as to test the effects of her concoctions on animals, slaves or
convicts. She’d have been interested in
how it presented itself, how long it took, necessary potency levels, and the ability
to induce death quickly as opposed to seeing a victim linger for days. At one point she even instructed students in
her craft at her estate. She had
essentially been elevated to the level of a state-funded contract killer, the
likes of which we get to glimpse only in movies like “The Bourne Identity” or a
James Bond thriller.
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| "Show and Tell" Locusta Demonstrates a Poison to Nero |
The
frequent diseases and plagues that afflicted Rome could be conveniently used as
covers to eliminate rivals, a troublesome politician for instance, negating the
need for any explanation as to why such a distinguished man had suddenly fallen
ill and died. In the end, Nero’s
misdeeds
ultimately went too far, and their reign of terror ended after
approximately 14 years. It had been a long
run. By then, he’d murdered his entire
family, including his mother whom he’d ordered executed, his young stepbrother Britannicus, and both of his
wives. This record, in addition to countless
others, was too far over the top even by Roman standards. The Senate, the Army, even his Praetorian Guard
turned on him. His days were numbered
when he learned that he’d been tried in absentia and condemned to death as a public
enemy. The death knell had rung, and he
found himself demoted from king to pawn, a pawn on the run. He understood that henchmen were on the way and
rather than be taken, he attempted suicide. Courtesy of Locusta, who’d supplied
him with a poisoned dagger, he tried to kill himself.
In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to take his life. Only with a Kevorkian style assisted suicide
did he manage to kill himself when he forced his freedman and private secretary to
strike the blow.
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| Locusta at Work |
As the curtain went down on Nero,
it was also the last act for Locusta. Without
Nero’s protection, Locusta was sentenced to death for her part in Nero’s reign
of terror. It had seen the deaths of
Rome’s elite who happened to fall afoul of Nero one way or another. What is clear is that after a notorious career
as one of, if not the most, prolific serial killer in history, “Locusta the
Sorceress” was herself executed. Exactly
how she met her end is not clear. While
a dose of her drugs might have been fitting, had she been thrown from the
Tarpeian Rock, an 80-foot cliff on the side of the Capitoline Hill overlooking
the Forum? Possibly. Or was ritualistic
strangulation employed, as this was a popular form of execution? Maybe. By Roman standards, it wouldn’t have
been pretty. While crass and bizarre
legends as to the exact nature of her death trickle through the pages of
history, she was most likely led through the city in chains and summarily
executed. All
told, she went way, way beyond the minimalist tally of three victims in order
to qualify as a serial killer and amassed a murder résumé numbering in the hundreds.
It
was much later in 331 A.D. that a group of
aristocratic women engineered a poisoning vendetta seemingly designed to dismantle
the male-controlled structure of Roman society.
Here again, important officials were dying without explanation. It was only due to what we’d call a whistleblower
that the nature and depth of their plot were revealed. In exchange for a novel concept, which we call
immunity, a servant slave came forward to say she knew what was behind the
deaths. Her claim was that the scourge
of recent deaths was not natural, but the result of poison administered by
aristocratic women and she named names.
The ringleaders, who were patrician matrons, along with their
subordinates, numbered about twenty. They
were arrested, and a cash of what seemed to be poisons was uncovered. A trial ensued with what we’d call “the
defendants” claiming that the concoctions were for medicinal purposes and if
truth be told, were actually healthy. The
informant countered that this was preposterous and challenged them to prove
their claim by drinking the supposed medicines to demonstrate their benign
nature. Whether there were health
benefits could wait until later.
Following some private discussion among themselves, the accused all
drank the concoction. Not surprisingly,
they all died in a scene reminiscent of the modern-day Jonestown massacre
in Guyana, South America. Further
investigation uncovered approximately 170 women, maybe more, all aristocratic
women of rank and authority were involved in what seemed to be an attempt to dismantle
the male-dominated structure of Rome.
The men in power, as was their perfunctory nature, wrote it off as
temporary female insanity. It was
impossible for them to have thought otherwise.
They were unable to imagine that underlying societal forces may have
been at play in the utopia they’d created.
What are we, so long removed from the incident, to make of it? Do we look at it as a surge toward Roman
feminist empowerment or had they merely put down their sewing and goblets of diluted
wine and done their civic duty by trying to brew a remedy to some unknown virus
ravaging the city? But then, could these
women possibly have grown tired of how they were being treated and taken
matters into their own hands? Take
divorce for example. It was totally
“no-fault” without any need for civil authority involvement. One-sided, it was all to the man’s
advantage. Though it was deemed
advisable to notify the other party, but not legally required that one did so, a
husband simply saying, “I divorce you”, was all it took. For the Roman powers that be to have believed
otherwise would have undercut their belief that women, by their nature, did not
have the mental capacity to plan such a scheme.
In their minds, they’d rather believe that the deaths were due to some
mysterious epidemic rather than conclude that their wives were rebelling. Was it hysteria or did they have a grander societal
changing revolution in mind, one death at a time? We’ll never know for sure. We’ll also never know if rather than a lone
serial killer like Locusta, this event just may have represented the debut of
the first team of organized serial killers, all of them female. Just possibly, as we learned on our night-time
adventure into stories dark and sinister, at least where these women
were concerned, the poison couldn’t have been strong or fast enough.
Reports
of poisonings like those of Locusta and the
kitchen club matrons continued throughout the reign of subsequent
emperors. One way or another their use
enabled personal gain. Poisons became
known as “inheritance powders” when administered by a wife to her husband, a daughter
to her father, etc., for it allowed them their freedom and facilitated coming
into their fortunes on their timetables.
For power brokers, the use of poison efficiently cleared the field of
opposition when ambition necessitated, and political intrigue demanded. It was definitely a self-serving way to level
the playing field.
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| Supposed Home of Guilia Tofana by Day |
Our guide next hesitated where Vicolo del
Malposso and Vicolo della Moretta meet just long enough to jump ahead quite a
few centuries to the 1650s. There huddled
among a reliquary of buildings silhouetted in contrast to the rising moon, she
pointed out a building and directed our attention to a lighted window. You could sense the age of this
building. It lacked both color and
ornament. Instead, its bland grey cement walls
rose in stark contrast to the more decorative buildings nearby. Its roof and paperclip-shaped arching window
frames spoke to the past, to a time when its occupants would have gazed out on
the square below teeming with people, not cars.
We learned that this had once been home to Giulia Tofana, an Italian
professional poisoner from Palermo. Though
without official credentials like we might see today in a doctor’s office, word
of mouth of her professional prowess traveled far vouching for her abilities. She had a cosmetic shop in this area. There, in addition to fragrant perfumes, a
client could obtain “Aqua Tofana”. This
was Giulia’s special brand of poison, special enough to earn her name as an
early form of a copywrite. Though the
exact recipe for this lethal concoction hasn’t survived, it was believed to
have been mostly arsenic, lead, and possibly a dash of belladonna. The final potion was a colorless, tasteless
liquid and so easily mixed with water or wine that it could be served at
meals. It was reportedly so potent that
just a few drops were sufficient to down dispatch a man.
Like many of these accounts,
if details exist, they also vary. Giulia
was sympathetic to troubled women and often sold her poison to women trapped in
doomed marriages, who it seems would rather have been widows. Little had changed. This was a time when men ruled as petty tyrants over their families. For this, she gradually became a cause celebre as a purveyor of poisons to women who wanted to eliminate
their husbands. Word spread. I’ve no idea how “a buy” might have been
conducted or whether she would sell to a total stranger. Eventually, however, a fly appeared in the [aqua]
ointment. The authorities finally became
aware of Tofana's business through a customer who, although she’d purchased the
deadly stuff, couldn’t go through with the deed. Forewarned, Tofana escaped to a convent,
where she was granted sanctuary.
From there what happened is unclear. One has her living in the convent for many
years, continuing to ply her trade.
Another features a rumor claiming that she had poisoned the city’s water
supply. News of this went viral and saw her
sanctuary abruptly end when police forced their way into the convent and
dragged Tofana in for what we today call questioning. It was more than that. Under torture, she reportedly confessed to
disposing of at least 600 victims with her elixir over a career spanning more
than 30 years. For this, she was
condemned to death by strangulation in Rome’s Campo de Fiori, today an open-air marketplace, together
with her daughter and three helpers in July of 1659. After her death, her body was thrown over the
wall into the convent that had given her sanctuary. We would soon arrive in Campo de Fiori for
another tale of death, this one of Friar Giordano Bruno, just one of 1600
executions that would take place there.
Bruno had nothing to do with administering death by poison. He was simply a purveyor of the death of
ideas. For his heretical beliefs this
16th-century friar and philosopher was burned at the stake for his broad-minded forward-thinking.
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| Campo de Fiori with Statue of Friar Giordano Bruno |
Maria
Elena loves to dream of how wonderful it would have been to have lived in posh pre-revolutionary
France or Victorian England - she
just loves the clothes. On the other hand, my wonderment sometimes
involves the fantasy that it would have been fantastic to have lived in ancient
Rome. Admittedly, I may have
occasionally enjoyed some good times during this cautionary daydream, even been
witness to history unfolding, but as I think about it, whether wealthy or poor,
life there would have been lived in continual fear from one sort of deathly
peril or another, poison being just one of them. Before I’d ever consent to venture off on my
mythical adventure into a world punctuated by death, I think trip insurance
would be in order, a lot of it. Oh, not your
run of the mill kind in case you miss your cruise ship, lose your luggage, or your
flight vanishes off the board. I’d
insist on a type that would ensure something didn’t happen if such a product
even exists short of a bodyguard. That’s
it, before I’d venture off, I’d most definitely need a preventive, call it
pre-emptive insurance package, not some after the fact compensation. And on top of that, I think that after a night
full of poison laden stories, I’d be wise to seek the services of a drink
and food taster too. If not, the trip is
off.
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| The Darkside of Rome |
From That Rogue Tourist
Paolo
