SPQR VII: The Tribune's Curse: A Mystery: 7 (The SPQR Roman Mysteries 7)

In his extensive series featuring the detecting feats of Decius Caecilius Metellus the younger set in the ancient Roman Empire Roberts achieves a very believable modern feeling with his well-researched description of the stories background. This seventh episode however combines a familiar view of the demands office-seeking makes on a candidate with a situation that is impossibly bizarre to us today. An entire city versed in literature music and the other arts ruled democratically for its time is thrown into panic by an enraged mans curse.... Decius Caecilius Metellus is happy. The weather is beautiful and he is standing for office (literally; standing in the Roman Forum soliciting votes) with a sure chance of winning. And Caesars ongoing dreary war is far off in Gaul. Decius is confident that another war looming over Rome instigated by one Crassus against the Parthians (for no reason but possible worldly gain) will be voted down in the Senate. But the vote does not stop Crassus.. On the day he and his troops set out from Rome the Tribune Ateius Capitus leader of the opposition shrieks an ancient and terrible curse over the huge crowd assembled -- a curse that frightens not only the man in the street but the highest Romans. When Ateius is murdered soon after Decius solver of past mysteries has the ugly task of finding the killer. . Fascinating details of Romes mixed attitudes about the power of magic and the practice of rational politics illuminate this latest of Robertss strong historical mysteries.