Oracle of the Dead

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I first heard of the Oracle of the Dead during the year of my praetorship. I was praetor peregrinus, traveling all over Italy and hearing cases that involved foreigners. It was an extremely agreeable way to spend a year in office and it kept me out of Rome, where things were getting very ugly that year. I spent much of the year in and around Baiae, partly because I had the use of a villa near there and partly because it was a very pleasant place and I could do pretty much as I liked.

“It’s not far from here,” Sextus Plotius told me. He was a director of the bronze founder’s syndicate, a very prominent local eques and, most importantly, he served the best Chian vintage I ever tasted. “Been here forever, maybe from the time of the Aborigines. It’s said that Odysseus and Aeneas both consulted the Oracle there.”

Baiae is, of course, named for its founder Baios, the steersman of Odysseus. Half the towns I have been in, including Rome, claim to have been founded by a Trojan War veteran or a near descendant of one. This is odd since, if you credit Homer, so many people were killed there that it’s hard to believe so many town founders could have survived.

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