The Salted Spring
In 1997 a dig at a Roman spa town in southern Gaul uncovered a sealed bath house, a wealthy patron dead at the basin, and a drinking cup tipped into the water. The record of the day wrote fever. The bones say otherwise. This board reopens the case and lays the evidence out for you to connect.
Clue one. The cup beside the body is lead, and the residue inside it tested positive for sapa, the sweet grape syrup Romans boiled down in lead pots. A delicacy, and a slow poison.
Clue two. The patron's bones carry lead at ten times the level of the labourers buried nearby. Whatever killed him, he had been taking it in for years, not hours.
"He gave the town its waters and the waters took him. Let no one drink alone.
"inscription on the patron's tomb · translated
The anomaly. If the lead pipe and the sweet syrup were killing him slowly, why was the bath house sealed in a single week, and why was a rival put on trial at all? Someone wanted a culprit faster than a slow poison allows.
3of 4 suspects ruled out by the bones
Who or what killed the patron of the salted spring?
Lay out the clue that convinces you, lead poisoning or a hand that hurried it along, and read where others landed.