Skullduggery in Rome

Returning to Rome, the companions started looking for more information. Lucius Cornelius amongst the noble women of his network by spreading rumours and keeping an ear to the ground, Caius Caecilius amongst the traders in Rome known to have business (via henchmen) in Germania, and Caius Cominius amongst the veterans and thugs of the Subura.

This yielded little enough in the rumour department, except that no one was surprised that Clodia Metelli had come to a sticky end with her lifestyle. Her most prominent enemy had been Marcus Tullius Cicero who had strongly and effectively defended her lover Marcus Caelius Rufus against her charges of Public Violence after their affair turned sour. Cicero's defence was so aggressive and skillful that it forever stained even her scandalous reputation and she withdrew from public life. Next you heard of her was when she died. Her scandalous life was surpassed only by that of her brother Publius Clodius Pulcher, for an account, look here.

Meanwhile Caius Cominius got drunk with some old friends from the Legions for a few days and failed to pick up traces of any others hiring veterans. On the other hand he got a discount for Lucius Cornelius and a Cretan Archer joined their drinking bilge and later Lucius' bodyguard. But Caius Caecilius's talks with merchant connections and low-level administrative staff of Marcus junius Brutus Albinius, the next Pro-praetor of Gaul, yielded a bit more information.

Others, in fact just one other, had asked the same questions, and had put the fear of knives in the dark into them. They described a typical Roman noble and gave the name Marcus Nepos, almost certainly an alias. The knifeman present did not mutch the desription of Bowlegs, on the contrary, he is a Numidian.

In the areas of Germania known to Rome trade is done as an exchange of gifts, not normal trade, you give the chief a gift and he reciprocates it. They are mostly interested in weapons/armour and drinking sets such as Roman patricians use. The friends also intend to bring textiles and spices.

Everyone wants the Amber Route reopened, but some of those that has gone to investigate has not returned.

The Oceanus Britannicus is teeming with pirates. Basically the Belgae tribes of the Menapii and Morinii are only nominally under Roman control while the Germanic Frisii and Chauci are ... well they are Germans and thus savage, wild and warlike in the extreme. These four tribes control the waters of Oceanus Britannicus and any traders not on friendly terms with them are unlikely to return. However the Batavii and Ubii tribes of Germania live in between these tribes and are allied with SPQR personified by Gaius Julius. The current plan is to travel overland to them, then have them provide a ship/boat to sail to Cimbri Chersonesos.

Gaius Popillius Laenas The Scholar provided information about Pytheas' journey, but not much of value has survived as most scholars at this time considers him a liar. Pytheas circumnavigated Britannia and Hibernia. Visited a northern land he called Thule so far north that the sun never sets and to the end of the world at pepēguia thalatta, "solidified sea".
Ptytheas also describes a journy into Mentonomon, an estuary 600 Stades long (Skagerak and the Baltic, aka Oceanum Scythia or Mare Suebium). Pytheas says "that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbours, the Teutones". He also mentions three specific holy sites. One by the Rugii, one by an unnamed tribe on an isle the size of Rhodes (according to Pytheas) and another on Cimbri Chersonesos. Both the latter called Thiewozsjoen, though it was hard to understand through Gaius Popillius Laenas' stuttering.

A trip to Capua for drinking sets and horses revealed that someone else had the same plan. Leaving the city by the south road a mere hour before. Lucius Cornelius with his friends and Veterans set off after them at a steep pace, determined on some mayhem. However, the prey slipped away by side roads towards Samnium, a place the party was somewhat reluctant to go as old hatreds die slowly and the Samnite snake worshippers had ever been the most aggresive enemies of Rome on the Italian peninsula.
Lucius Cornelius returned to Rome, still not entirely satisfied with the amount of information they had acquired, while Caius Caecilius stayed behind to purchase drinking sets.
Upon his return Lucius was contacted by a young urchin with a message from his master. The master asked Lucius to come to the crossroads of Subura Maior and Vicus Patricii. Lucius wished the master to come instead to the Forum, but the boy stated that he did not dare to for fear of ambush. Nor did Lucius wish to go to Subura, the poor quarter of Rome, for the exact same reason. Instead he had the brat tortured (a criminal act as the brat is free-born) to reveal the identity of his master. However, the fear of the Master is greater in the child than what even the ruthless Lucius can do to him and he reveals nothing.

Instead Lucius Cornelius went to see his old superior Marcus Antonius who rules Rome in Gaius Julius' name as his Magister Equitum (the Dictator's main lieutenant). Marcus Antonius recieves Lucius Cornelius as an old friend and comrade-in-arms rather then a Client and Lucius relates how Clodia metelli's villa was burned, presumably with her in it, and how he now fears that assassins are after him. Marcus Antonius takes all this in stride and seems rather more interested in wine and women. But Lucius' relating that he intends to go to Germania to look for Unicorns, which he is convinced must come from there, not as the Greeks state, from India, in confidence telling Marcus Antonius that he is really going for amber. This piques the Magister Equitum's interest and he offers his best wishes as well as offers what assistance he may give against thugs and for the journey. Germania and its savage peoples fascinates Antonius and even his drink-addled brain can see the sense of reopening the Amber Route. In fact you will go with his blessing, which means that Caesar will not look on you as having deserted his cause. Talking to Mark Anthony was a shrewd move indeed.