Albert A. Bell Jr. > Quotes

“Tacitus took a sip of his broth. “Whoever killed him must have stolen it when they sewed his lips together. Having a man’s signet would allow someone to falsify documents. You use your uncle’s ring. If you weren’t the upstanding person that you are, you could put that seal on letters that purport to come from him. Petronius went so far as to break his signet ring before he committed suicide to keep Nero from using it to incriminate people. We all worry about that.” I chuckled. “Leave it to you to bring in a historical example.” “You mentioned Cornelia and her children.” “Well, yes, I guess I did.” “That’s what history is for, isn’t it—to teach us what to do and what not to do?” “I thought it was to help us get to sleep at night by providing such boring reading.” Tacitus sat back, obviously offended by my jab at his favorite type of book. “Perhaps I should write some history, just to show you how interesting it can be.” “You’re an orator, not a historian, and a fine one.” He seemed mollified.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., The Gods Help Those

“And, as Herodotus said about the Persian king’s messengers, ‘Neither heat nor snow nor gloom of night’ could stop them.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., All Roads Lead to Murder: A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger

“A couple of miles down the road from Catulus’ villa we passed another large house that appeared to be abandoned. It looked as though someone had set fire to it and left the ruins. Most of the roof had fallen in. “What happened to that place?” Aurora asked, turning to one of Catulus’ men, a tall, gloomy fellow named Syrus. “Ghouls,” he said. “Did you say ghouls?” “Yes. Creatures that would eat humans or animals and take on the shape of whoever or whatever they ate.” He sounded utterly serious. Some people are able to make their jokes more believable that way. From the other side of Aurora I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s preposterous.” “All I know is what I’m told, my lord. It happened some time ago, when I was a boy.” “What happened?” “The couple that lived there—Leander and Chloe was their names—they had no children. When they got old they hired some people to help them run the place. Turns out, though, the people they hired was a pack of these flesh-eating ghouls.” I shook my head in disbelief. “People around here actually believe this nonsense?” Syrus looked a bit offended. “Call it that if you will, my lord. When animals began disappearing and, finally, a couple of villagers disappeared, folks started suspecting something. They traced it all to that house.” “Traced what?” I asked. “Strange noises, glimpses of beasts, occasional bones. They attacked the place and set fire to it. We don’t know if they killed the ghouls. They could have changed their shapes and got away.” “What happened to Leander and Chloe?” Aurora asked. “Never seen again. Some around here think they was ghouls themselves. Or maybe eaten by the ghouls.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., Hiding From the Past

“It's not that I don't appreciate the sight of women's bodies. My problem is that I appreciate the sight too much and can't always control the manifestation of my enjoyment. Strutting around in that state in the baths-raising a tent under one's towel, as they say-makes a man the object of Priapus jokes and other low forms of humor.”
― Albert A. Bell, Jr.

“They still are snoops,” Tacitus put in. “The worst sort. They’ve even infected me, I’m afraid.” “Maybe you should try writing history,” Torquatus said. “Lots of unsolved mysteries in the past. For instance, did Claudius really just get some bad mushrooms by accident? Did Nero poison Britannicus or kill his mother?” He lowered his voice. “Did Domitian kill Titus?” “And there are lots of people who don’t want those mysteries solved.” Tacitus raised his wine cup. I was relieved that he changed the subject. “I’ll stick to writing speeches, thank you. They’re much safer.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., Hiding From the Past

“Did you ever see one of these ghouls?” I asked Syrus. “No, my lord, but I know lots of folks who did.” There was no conversation during the rest of that leg of the trip. My rational mind simply refuses to acknowledge the existence—even the possibility of the existence—of creatures such as Syrus described. My uncle, in his Natural History, gave accounts of fantastic creatures such as the Dog-headed people, the Cynocephali, who supposedly live in the mountains of India, but he had never seen them. He simply reported what he had found in his reading. I doubt that he had ever seen the Umbrella-foot tribe either. They supposedly lie on their backs in hot weather and shade themselves with their huge feet. He describes the Choromandae, a forest tribe with hairy bodies, gray eyes, and teeth like a dog’s. They don’t speak but give off a horrible scream. But, even amidst those monstrosities and others, he never mentions creatures that could change their form. Earlier writers pass on all sorts of improbable things. It’s a rule, I think, that the farther away—in distance or time—the writer is from what he’s describing, the more fantastic his descriptions become. Plato’s accounts of Atlantis come to mind. Stories get garbled as they are passed from place to place, or from one generation to the next, and translated. Herodotus claims there are ants as big as dogs in India. Like my uncle, he had never been that far east and likely had no idea what he was talking about. But, like Syrus, they “know lots of folks.” But “lots of folks” can be completely wrong.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., Hiding From the Past

“Chryseis was in another wing in the back of the house and would not be aware of our presence. I hadn’t taken much notice of the house on my previous visit, but I now realized it was quite large, and built on the Roman model.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., All Roads Lead to Murder

“Phineas took notes for us, using a portable scribe’s box that he has designed to hold papyrus, pens, ink, and a stone to smooth the papyrus. The top provides him with a firm writing surface and a strap around his neck holds it in place.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., The Gods Help Those

“What’s the matter?” I asked, grabbing his arm. “He’s dead!” the innkeeper gasped and pointed to the open door of Cornutus’ room, directly across from mine. “Lucius Cornutus is dead!” “Dead? By the gods! What are you saying?” “His heart!” He clutched his hands to his own heart. I couldn’t believe this fellow had the medical knowledge to recognize that Cornutus had some problem with his heart. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “What about his heart?” After several false starts, he managed to sputter out, “He doesn’t… have one anymore.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., All Roads Lead to Murder: A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger

“If the man’s claim was true, we owed him a degree of civility. Alexandrians guard their citizenship jealously. It’s difficult to obtain except by birth. We Romans, on the other hand, like whores, give ours to any man who will meet our price.”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., The Corpus Conundrum: A Third Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked when he had recovered himself. “Incidentally, do you know yet how long you’re going to be staying?” “We pray to the gods each day,” Carolus said, “that it will be our last here.” “Are we hurting your business?” I asked. “Oh, no! Quite the opposite. The excitement surrounding your stay has drawn good crowds to my dining room.” “Are you suggesting,” Tacitus said, “that if you had realized how well it paid, you might have murdered one of your guests long before now?” “What? I…? Whatever makes you think…?”
― Albert A. Bell Jr., All Roads Lead to Murder: A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger