The Sacrilege

Chapter I

I wonder sometimes if we can ever know what truly happened. Dead men do not write, so histories perforce are written by those who survived. Of those who survived, some experienced the events firsthand, while others only heard about them. Each who speaks or writes relates events not necessarily as they occurred, but rather as they should have occurred in order to make the teller, or his ancestors, or his political faction, look good.

Once, during one of my numerous periods of exile, I was confined to the beautiful but boring island of Rhodes. There is nothing to do on Rhodes except attend lectures at its many institutes of learning. I chose to attend a course of lectures on history because there was nothing else available that season save philosophy, which I avoided like any sensible man.

The history lectures were delivered by a scholar named Antigonus, who enjoyed a great reputation in those days, although he is all but forgotten now. He devoted the whole of one lecture to this seeming mutability of historical fact. He gave, as example the case of the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who lived in Athens five hundred years ago. At that time, Athens was ruled by Hippias and Hipparchus, the sons of the tyrant, Pisistratus. Now, it seems that Harmodius and Aristogiton raised a rebellion against the Pisistratids, but they only contrived to kill one of them, I forget which. The surviving and aggrieved brother had both put to death, with embellishments. The anti-Pisistratid party, with the two slain tyrannicides as its martyrs, then raised a successful rebellion and imposed its own enlightened ruler, either Cleisthenes or somebody else. Before you knew it, there were statues of the tyrannicides all over Greece and its colonies. My father had a splendid group, sculpted by Axias, in the garden of his country villa, brought back by an ancestor after we looted Corinth.

But the facts, Antigonus explained, were quite different. Harmodius and Aristogiton were not idealistic young democrats with a hatred of tyrants. They were lovers. The Pisistradid who was killed had conceived a lust for the prettier of the two, who was not about to leave his boyfriend for some ugly old pederast, and so the assassination plot was hatched. It was only after the two were dead that the legend of the tyrannicides was created by the anti-Pisistratid party.

The amazing thing was, everybody knew the true story at the time! They all just consented to believe the legend for propaganda purposes. Thus the legend became, in a term created by Antigonus, "political truth." It was a very Greek story, and only a Greek could have come up with such a term.

Antigonus went on to say that only those who directly experienced historical events knew what truly happened, and the rest of us could only perceive them as if through a dense fog, or as blind men tracing the lineaments of a statue with their fingertips. He said that there are sorcerers who, like Proteus in the tale of Ulysses, can summon the shades of the dead and cause them to speak to us, and that it may be only thus that we can ever arrive at a true knowledge of past events.

I thought that made excellent sense at the time, but I have since come to doubt it. About the time I arrived at my present profound knowledge of human nature, the question occurred to me: Would men stop lying just because they are dead? I do not think so. Men of ambition are always concerned about how they shall be remembered after they are dead, and that very end would be defeated were they to start speaking the truth about themselves the moment they found themselves idling by the shores of the Styx, waiting for the ferryboat to come for its latest load of passengers.

One need not go back to a pack of ancient Athenian boy-fanciers to find a warped tale of tyrannicide. Take the assassination of Julius Caesar. There is an official story, sanctioned by our First Citizen, which constitutes Antigonus's "political truth." I know quite another story, and I was there at the time, which our First Citizen was not. Doubtless there are many other versions, though, each shedding the finest light on the teller or his ancestors. If we had one of those necromantic sorcerers, and were he to raise before us the shade of the Divine Julius, and those of Cassius, Brutus, Casca and, say, five of the others (nine is a number very dear to the gods), then I think we should hear nine very different accounts of the events of that fateful ides of March. The fog of men's self-love is as dense as any thrown up by time or distance.

Enough. I shall write of the death of Caesar another time, if age, health and the First Citizen spare me. I write instead of an earlier time, seventeen years earlier, in fact, and of events not quite so celebrated, although they are remembered and certainly seemed momentous at the time.

And you can put your trust in my words, because I was there and saw it all, and I have lived too long and seen too much to care what the living think of me. Much less do I worry about the opinion held of me after I am dead.

I was looking forward to a good year. I always surveyed each new year with optimism, and events almost always proved my outlook mistaken. This year was to be no exception. I was young, not yet quite twenty-nine, and it takes much to overcome the natural high spirits of the young. The wherewithal to crush my optimism was waiting, in great supply.

Everything looked fair as I rode toward the city, though. One reason for my cheerfulness lay outside the walls: a huge encampment of soldiers, prisoners and loot. The loot alone covered acres of land, protected by sheds and awnings. Pompey was back from Asia, and these were the preparations for his triumph. Until the day of his triumph, Pompey could not enter the city, and that was the way I liked it. The anti-Pompeian faction in the Senate had blocked permission for the triumph so far. As far as I was concerned, he could wait out there until the gods called him unto themselves, an unlikely occurrence, whatever he might think.

I knew I would have an active year. My father had been elected Censor, and that is an office with many duties. I expected him to assign me to the census of citizens, since that is tedious and demanding work, leaving him free to concentrate on purging the Senate of unworthy members, which was satisfying, and letting the public contracts, which was profitable.

I did not care. I would be in Rome! I had spent the past year in Gaul, where the climate is disagreeable and people do not bathe. They do not eat well, and a thousand years of Roman civilization will never teach the Gauls to make decent wine. The gladiators were second-rate, and the only saving grace of the place was its wonderful charioteers and racing horses. The Circuses were mean and shabby by Roman standards, but the races were breathtaking. Also, my duties had lain principally with the army. I always had a most un-Roman dislike of military life. There had been no fighting, which was boring and unprofitable, and my duties had been principally as paymaster, which was humiliating. Soldiers always smirk when they see an officer tricked out in parade armor counting out their wages one coin at a time and making them sign the ledger.

All that was over, and my heart sang as I drew nearer the Ostian Gate. I could have taken a barge upriver from the port, but I felt like making an entrance, so I had borrowed a horse from the quaestor at Ostia, had my parade armor polished and bought new plumes for my helmet. It was a fine day, and I made a splendid sight as I rode in, acknowledging the gate guard's salute.

The city walls now stood well beyond the pomerium, and I could ride through this part of the town in full military splendor, accepting the admiring hails of my fellow citizens. The popularity of the military stood very high at that moment, as Roman arms had turned in a string of victories with rich loot. I halted and dismounted at the line of the old city wall, established by Romulus. To cross the pomerium in arms meant death.

Ostentatiously, I removed and folded my red military cloak and tied it to my saddle. Careful of my new plumes, I removed my helmet and hung it from my saddle by the chin straps. Bystanders helped me out of my cuirass, embossed with muscles that Hercules would envy and much unlike those that adorned my body. I tucked my sword and its belt into a saddlebag and stood dressed in my gold-fringed military tunic and red leather caligae. These were permitted within the city proper. Taking my reins in hand, I stepped across the pomerium.

The moment I crossed, I felt as if a weight far heavier than my armor had been lifted from me. I was a civilian again! I would have burst into song, had that not been too undignified. My step was so light that the hobnails on the soles of my caligae made little sound.

I longed to go to my house and change clothes and go prowl the Forum and catch up on the latest city gossip. My spirit longed for it as a starving man longs for food. But duty demanded that I call upon my father first. I drank in all the sights and sounds and, yes, even smells as I made my way to his house. I find the stenches of Rome preferable to the perfumes of lesser cities.

I rapped at the gate and the janitor called Narcissus, Father's majordomo. The fat old man beamed and patted my shoulder.

"Welcome home, Master Decius. It is good to see you back." He snapped his fingers, a sound like the breaking of a great limb. A young slave came running. "Take Master Decius's horse and belongings to his house. It is in the Subura." He pronounced this last word with some disdain.

The slave went pale. "But they'll kill and eat me in the Subura!"

"Just announce that these are the belongings of Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger," I told him, "and no one will molest you." The dwellers of the Subura couldn't do enough for me since I had brought home the head of the October Horse. Looking doubtful, the boy took the animal's reins and led him off.

"Come," said Narcissus, "the Censor is in his garden. I know how glad he will be to see you."

I sighed. "So do I."

We found the old man seated at a table heaped with scrolls, the winter sun gleaming from his bald head and casting into relief the great, horizontal scar that nearly halved his face. He was Decius Caecilius Metellus the Elder, but everyone called him Cut-Nose. He glanced up as I entered.

"Back, eh?" he said as if I had just stepped out for a morning stroll.

"As events would have it," I said. "I rejoice to find you well."

He scowled. "How do you know I'm well? Just because I'm not dripping blood on the pavement? There are plenty of ways to die without showing it."

This alarmed me. "Are you ill? I-"

"I'm healthy as a Thracian. Sit down." He pointed a knobby finger at a bench opposite him. I sat.

"Let's see," he said. "We have to find work for you. Keep you out of trouble for a change."

"As Censor, you have plenty of work for me, I'm sure," I said.

"No, I've enough assistants. Most of my colleagues have sons who need experience in public work. Even the scut work of the Censorship exceeds the competence of most of them."

"I rejoice to know you think I am worthy of better things," I said.

"As it happens, your services have already been requested. Celer is standing for next year's Consulship, and he wants your aid in canvassing. I could hardly refuse him."

My heart leapt. This would be far more exciting than the Censor's office. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer was a kinsman, and he had been my commander in Gaul. He had returned early to campaign for the Consulship, leaving his peaceful province to be governed by his legate.

"I shall be most happy to serve him," I said. "And as for staying out of trouble, that should be no great problem with Clodius out of Rome."

"Publius Clodius is still in Rome," Father said.

"What?" I said, aghast. "Months ago, I had word that he'd won his quaestorship and had been assigned to Sicily! Why is he still here?" The mutual detestation of Pompey and Crassus was as the love of brothers compared to what lay between Clodius and me.

"He has delayed his departure and I don't know why," Father said, still scowling. Scowling was something he did well, and often. "Whatever his reason, you are to keep out of his way. He has amassed a real power base here in Rome. That is how decadent the times have become." He was always going on about the disgraceful condition of the times. I personally do not think the times have ever been anything but decadent. It didn't look as if he was going to offer me dinner, so I rose.

"I'll go home and change, and then I'll call on Celer. With your permission, I shall take my leave."

"Just a minute," Father said. "There was something I was going to give you. What was it? Oh, yes." He signaled and a slave presented himself. "In the cabinet in the atrium," Father said, "in the drawer below the death masks, you will find a package. Fetch it." The slave ran off and was back within seconds. "Take it," Father told me.

Mystified, I took the parcel, wrapped in the finest paper. I stripped off the wrapping and found a rolled-up garment. I shook it out and found that it was a white tunic, severely plain except for the broad purple stripe running from neck to hem. The tunic was the sort worn by every Roman male, but the purple stripe could be worn only by a Senator.

"I gave you your first sword, so I thought I might as well give you this," Father said. "Hortalus and I could think of no pressing reason to keep you out, so we enrolled you among the Senators last month."

To my mortification, my eyes began to film with tears. Father rescued me from disgrace in his usual fashion.

"Don't let it go to your head. Any fool can be a Senator. You'll find that most of your fellow Senators are fools or villains, or both. Now attend me well." He held up an admonitory finger. "You are to sit well to the back of the Senate chamber. You are not to make speeches until you have achieved some distinction. You are always to vote with the family, and you are to raise your voice only to cheer for a point made by our family or one of our adherents. Above all, you are to stay out of trouble, Clodius or no Clodius. Now, you have my leave to go." He returned his attention to his scrolls.

I left. Father could steal the sunlight from a summer day, but that was just his manner. I was happy with my new tunic. I had already ordered several made in anticipation of admission to the Senate, but it meant something to receive this one from my father. His stern instructions were no more that I had expected. Barbarians think that every Roman Senator is a veritable god, but we know better. With or without a purple stripe, I was still a mere son. I made my way through the noontime bustle of the city and soon stood before the familiar street door of my house. Before I could even rap on its surface, the door flew open and there stood my elderly manservant, Cato, and his equally aged wife, Cassandra.

"Welcome home, Senator!" he cried, causing every head in the street to rotate. Cassandra blubbered as if she'd just received news of my death. Nobody can beat a house slave for sentimentality. It struck me that this was the first time I had been addressed with my new title, and I decided that I liked the sound of it.

I embraced Cassandra and she wept with redoubled fury. "I am so ashamed, master! That boy came by with your horse and belongings less than an hour ago, and I haven't had time to set the house to rights. It's disgraceful."

"I'm sure it is immaculate," I said, knowing they always kept my house so. They were too old to do anything else. "The horse isn't mine. Where is it?"

"I told the boy to leave it at the freedman's stable down the street."

"Good," I said. The stable hired out litters and slaves to carry them, but there were stalls for a few horses and mules. I would go there later and arrange for a rider to take the beast back to Ostia. "The rest of my belongings should arrive sometime soon. I left them with a freighter." I caught sight of someone hanging back in the shadows to the rear of the atrium, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. "Who is this?" I asked.

"Your father sent him a few days ago," Cato answered. "He thought you'd be needing a body servant to dog your heels, now you're a Senator. He's from the house of your uncle Lucius."

I sighed. In my family, we did not just go out and buy slaves in the market. That would have been unthinkably vulgar. We only employed slaves born within the family. This sounds terribly well-bred, but it meant severe disadvantages. Instead of going out and choosing a slave who had just the combination of skills and qualities you wanted, you got whatever some relative wanted to fob off on you. I knew that before long I would discover why Uncle Lucius wanted to be rid of this one.

"Come here, boy, let's have a look at you." The lad complied. He appeared to be about sixteen, of moderate growth and wiry. His face was narrow and foxy, with a long, thin nose that provided far too little distance between his eyes, which were an alarming shade of green. His dense, curly hair grew to a sharp peak over his brow. His whole look was shifty and villainous, with a touch of surly arrogance. I liked him instantly. "Name?"

"Hermes, master."

I do not know why we name our slaves for the gods, kings and heroes. It must be odd to achieve true greatness and know that someday your name will be borne by thousands of slaves.

"Well, Hermes, I am your new owner, and you'll find that I am a good one, within reason. I never use the whip without reason. On the other hand, when there is reason I wield it very well indeed. Does that sound reasonable?"

"Very reasonable, sir," he assured me with utmost sincerity.

"Good. As your first duty in my service, you may attend me at the baths. Fetch my bath articles, a pair of sandals and one of my better togas. I call on a very distinguished man this afternoon." The boy was about to rush off, but I stopped him. "Stay. Better let me pick out my toga."

With my clucking slaves dogging my steps, I went to my bedchamber to scan my wardrobe. Cassandra had aired the room and placed fresh flowers in the vases. I was touched by this. At this time of year, to get fresh flowers on such short notice they must have bribed the slaves of my next-door neighbor, who had a greenhouse.

I picked out my second-best toga and a pair of sandals. It was a mild winter, so I did not bother with foot wrappings. They always look undignified, and after the chilly climate of Gaul, I felt no need of them.

"I may return late," I told my slaves. "If anyone calls, I shall be at the baths, the Forum, and then the house of Metellus Celer. But nobody knows I am in town yet, so there should be no visitors." I walked as I spoke, and as I walked my aged slaves patted me, dusted me off and all but swept the ground before my feet.

"All will be ready for your return, master," Cato assured me.

"I'll have dinner ready, should none of your friends invite you home," Cassandra said. I knew this would not last. After a few days they would revert to their usual scolding, complaining selves.

I went out into the street with Hermes behind me, carrying the toga, towels, vials of oil and a strigil of fine Campanian bronze work, the gift of a friend in younger, more carefree days. Its handle was decorated with lewd images which the imp admired as we walked.

"Are you familiar with the city?" I asked him.

"I've never lived anywhere else," Hermes said.

"Good. I shall probably have more use for you as a messenger than as a body servant." Rome is a chaotic city, and it is difficult to find anything except the Capitol, the Forums and the major temples and Circuses unless you have had long experience of the city.

"Did my uncle Lucius employ you thus?" I asked.

"No, but I ran away a lot and I learned all about the city that way."

I stopped and looked at his forehead. It was free even of pimples, no F branded there.

"Why were you not marked as fugitivus?" I demanded.

He had the hypocritical grace to look abashed. "Well, I was very young, and I always came back on my own."

"Turn around," I ordered him. I tugged the neck opening of his tunic wider and looked down his back. Not a mark. I released him and continued walking. "Uncle Lucius is a lenient man. Run away from me once, and your back will have more stripes than an augur's robe. Twice, and I'll collar you. Three times, and you'll have a great big F burned right between your squinty little eyes. Is that understood?"

"Oh, yes, master. But from what I hear, you are a gentleman who likes to get out a lot. If I attend you, I'll be all over town and there'll be no need to run away, will there?"

"I never thought of that," I admitted.

We went to the old bathhouse near the Temple of Saturn, just off the Forum. At a stall on the street I had myself barbered and tonsored, then went inside. The baths of those days were far more modest than those you see now, but this was one of the largest such establishments in Rome, and its interior was cavernous.

I stripped and left Hermes to guard my clothes in the anteroom while I went within. I braced myself, gritted my teeth and plunged into the cold pool. There are many theories about the health-giving properties of cold water, and many Stoic types use only the cold pool, but these theories are nonsense. The reason that we always start with the cold plunge is that Romans distrust anything that affords pleasure, which we think is decadent and weakening. So we suffer first in the cold bath so we can feel all right about luxuriating in hot water afterward.

After my brief gesture to virtue, I hastened, shivering, to the caldarium and wallowed in the warmth. I saw a good many old acquaintances and had to make up many lies about my dangerous, savage adventures in Gaul. After I had bored them sufficiently, I summoned Hermes and he rubbed me with scented oil; then I went to the exercise yard, where I rolled around in the wrestlers' pit until I was coated with sand. Then Hermes wielded the strigil to scrape off sand, oil and a good deal of skin. This tedious but necessary step is another of the sufferings that make us feel better about bathing.

That done, I went down to the steam rooms. I saw a pack of bearded Stoics in the cold pool trying to converse normally as if their teeth weren't chattering. They weren't the worst, though. Marcus Procius Cato, in his unending quest to become the most virtuous man in Rome, bathed all year round in the Tiber, because that is what he fancied our ancestors did. I don't think it ever occurred to him that the river didn't carry nearly as much sewage in the days of the founding fathers.

When I walked from the bath, I felt quite literally a new man. For the tunic of a soldier I had exchanged the toga of the citizen and the tunic of the Senator. After the heavy caligae, wearing street sandals felt like being barefoot. I sent Hermes home with my military tunic and boots and made my way into the Forum. Rome has many Forums, but this was the Forum, the Forum Romanum, which always had been, was then, is now and forever shall be the center of Roman life. So much a part of our existence is it that we never bother with the Romanum part of the title unless it becomes necessary to distinguish it from the Forum Boarium or one of the others. It is just the Forum, which is to say, it is the center of the world.

So true is this that, to prove it, we have the Golden Milestone smack in the center (all right, a little off-center, but not by much), from which all distances in the world are measured. You won't find anything like that in some barbarian potentate's main civic center, where they dispense justice, execute felons and sell slaves right alongside the vegetables. It felt good to be at the center of the world again.

I strode across the uneven pavement into the marvelous jumble of monuments, many of them erected to men and events long forgotten. Among the stalls around the periphery I noted with distaste many fortune-tellers. These witches were periodically expelled from the city by aediles and Censors, but they always trickled back. It was bad enough that they influenced political matters with their predictions, but they also ran profitable sidelines in poisons and abortions. Doubtless my father was too busy purging the Senate of his favorite enemies, but he would get to these soon.

The Forum was thronged with citizens, and foreigners gaped at the splendid temples and public buildings to be seen in every direction. The weather was fine, so courts were being held outdoors. Trials are a favorite spectator sport for Romans, and every last street-sweeper fancies himself a connoisseur of the finer points of law. They cheer a clever defense and hurl decaying vegetables at a clumsy one.

As at the bath, I saw many people I knew and smugly accepted their congratulations on my new, exalted status. I received numerous dinner invitations, some of which I accepted, consoled a young kinsman who had been elected quaestor only to be assigned to the treasury, and generally comported myself as if I had achieved some importance. My only sorrow was that no meeting of the Senate had been called for that day, so I could not attend my first session as a full member and strut among my new peers.

When even this new amusement palled, I betook myself to the house of Metellus Celer. He was one of the most distinguished men of the day, and I was unsure what duties he could require of me in his pursuit of the Consulship, which the senior members of my family regarded as all but their birthright. The province he had just governed was one ordinarily assigned to ex-Consuls, but so prestigious was Metellus Celer that it had been assigned to him upon his leaving the office of praetor, at which time he had taken me along to get out of Rome, where I was, as usual, in trouble.

I presented myself at the gate of his town house and was shown to the atrium, where a good many callers idled about, some of them Senators of great seniority. Among them was the last man I expected to see: Caius Julius Caesar. He had held a praetorship the previous year and had been assigned the province of Further Spain to govern. So why was he still in Rome? The extravagance of Caesar's debts was the wonder of the Roman world, and the only hope he had of extricating himself from them was to get to Spain and start looting. He caught my eye and came toward me with hand outstretched, just as if he were standing for office.

"Decius Caecilius, how good to see you back in Rome! And please accept my congratulations for your enrollment among the Senators." He was followed by a band of his toadies, who smiled at me as if my elevation were their own.

"I thank you, Caius Julius," I said. "But I am surprised to see you here. I thought surely you would be in Spain by now."

He waved a hand as if it were a trifling matter. "Oh, certain duties detain me here, most of them of a religious nature." By the most astonishing acts of bribery and corruption, Caesar had got himself elected Pontifex Maximus a few years previously and was in charge of all aspects of state religious practice. That reminded me of a question that had bothered me for some time.

"There may be fighting in Spain, may there not?" I asked.

"There is always a chance of that," Caesar said. "I've had disgracefully little experience in military command, but I think I'll be equal to the task."

"I've no doubt at all," I assured him. "But tell me, how will the realities of battle square with the strictures of your pontificate?" The Pontifix Maximus may not look upon human blood.

Caesar spoke gravely. "I have consulted the holy books deeply, and I have found that the various strictures of my religious office are binding only within Rome itself, and need not hinder my actions once I am outside the walls."

How convenient for you, I thought. Our religious books were written in such archaic language that they were mostly gibberish anyway.

"Well," I said, "if the supreme pontiff doesn't know about these things, who does? I am sure you will come home from Spain covered with glory." Covered with gold at any rate, I thought.

"I thank you for your good wishes," he said. He might have meant this sincerely. With Caius Julius you could never tell. At that moment Celer appeared in the atrium and began greeting his callers. He started with the most distinguished but quickly came over to me.

"Good to see you back, Decius. Was it an easy voyage?"

"Safe, but not easy," I told him. "I sacrificed to Neptune many times each day." This was the landlubber's wry expression for seasickness.

"The sea is for Greeks," he said. Celer was a squat man with a froglike face, but there was nothing buffoonish about him. He had vast experience in every aspect of public life and was one of the richest men in Rome, although he had acquired it all decently, through inheritance or loot. "Your new tunic suits you well. Wait here while I attend to my guests. I need to speak with you privately."

I waited, trading gossip with the others, until the atrium was empty of visitors. Then I followed Celer into the garden. It was rather bare for that time of year, but beautifully laid out and maintained.

"Have you sacrificed to Jupiter for your safe return?" Celer asked as we walked.

"No, but I did make a real sacrifice to Neptune at the temple in Ostia," I told him.

"Sacrifice to Jupiter," he advised. "You are coming up in the state service, and you should be seen to be pious. Romans like to know that their statesmen are punctilious in religious matters."

"Consider it done. My father tells me you wish me to serve you in your campaign for the Consulship. You know I will be happy to be of any help I may."

"Excellent. I expect to win, but I don't want any nasty surprises. You know that winning the office is only half of it. It's no good if you have a colleague you can't work with."

"I see. Who is your choice for colleague?"

"I haven't decided yet. There's a great field of them this year, all busy canvassing the Centuriate Assembly, some of them trying to bribe me. It's generally agreed that I'll be one of next year's Consuls, and most think that the man I choose to support will be my colleague. I am not so sure of that. When I pick my man, I want you to work on his behalf."

"Done," I said. "Have you decided how to divide the office?" In our ancient, unwieldy consular system there were a number of ways the authority of the Consulship could be divided, as agreed before the Consuls took office. Pompey and Crassus, who detested each other and neither of whom would yield an inch, had chosen the most archaic and awkward way: by presiding on alternate days. Others might give the elder colleague senior authority, or one might handle affairs within Rome and the other external matters.

"I'll decide that when I know who my colleague is to be. Honestly, I can't see that it makes much difference. The Consulship no longer has the power it used to have."

This was true. Over the centuries, the praetors had usurped all the judicial powers of the Consuls. As for the military commands, our empire had grown too large for that, and the great generalships went to the men who had already held the highest offices. More and more, the armies were led by men who, like Pompey, had made a virtual lifetime career of soldiering. The last time serving Consuls had led an army had been against Spartacus, and that had ended in disaster.

"Has your father spoken to you of your duties in the Senate?" Celer asked.

"He put me firmly in my place on that score," I assured him.

"You work for years to get into the Senate, and once you're in, you start at the bottom all over again. That's how it always is. Power comes with seniority."

"What business occupies the Senate these days?" asked.

"First and foremost, Pompey. The aristocratic party hates and fears him, and it has blocked permission for his triumph. Worse yet, it continues to fight the land grants for his legions."

"If you will forgive me," I said, "I thought we were part of the aristocratic party."

"You know that our family has always eschewed the extremes. The aristocratic faction has been in power since Sulla, and it grows increasingly divorced from political reality." I listened attentively. This was inside power politics from a man who knew the subject intimately. "Whatever you think of Pompey, he has earned that triumph. It is foolish and ungrateful of the state to withhold it. And if we deny those legions the land they have been promised and fought hard for, then Italy will be full of thousands of professional killers organized, armed and hating us. I don't want to see a repeat of the last civil war, when contending armies fought within the very streets of Rome."

"Sir, do I detect the slightest of tilts toward the pro-Pompeian faction?"

"We will support him on these two points only. None can deny the justice of giving Roman soldiers the rewards they have justly earned. The family has patched up relations with Crassus, and we don't want Pompey for an enemy because of it. Caesar champions Pompey in the Senate, and he is the coming man in Roman power."

"Caesar?" I said. "He's never even commanded an army."

"Neither did Cicero, and look how far he's come," Celer pointed out.

"As you will," I said. "But I've fallen afoul of Pompey before."

"You were never important enough to bother him much." How true that was. "Besides, to men like Pompey and Crassus, all is forgiven as soon as it is politically expedient. That's how all sensible men should behave."

"Are there any other important matters before the Senate?" I asked.

"One that is not so important, but that concerns us. My brother-in-law is still trying to get himself made a plebeian, and we are still trying to prevent him."

"Ah, Publius Clodius," I said. "Now there is someone who will never forgive and forget, no matter how politically expedient it may become." Clodius was one of the partician Claudians, and he wanted to be a Tribune of the People, an office open only to plebeians. It could be done if he were adopted into a plebeian family, but this was not easy if the Senate were opposed.

"Last year, when Cato was tribune, he put a stop to it by simply interposing his veto. This year, Cicero has been fighting the adoption tooth and nail. Dangerous as he is, Clodius will be ten times as destructive if he is a tribune." In many ways, the tribuneship was the most powerful office in Rome in those days. The tribunes had regained most of the powers taken from them by Sulla. They could introduce bills and veto any action of the Senate. I shuddered at the thought of Clodius having that power.

"Working to frustrate Clodius is something I never need encouragement to do," I told Celer.

"Stay out of his way for now," he cautioned. "I don't know why he's hanging around Rome when his duties lie in Sicily, but I've no doubt he's up to some devilment."

"Always a safe bet, with Clodius."

"Very true. Now, since we are on that subject. We senior members of the family have been discussing what we may have to do when Clodius makes his run for the tribuneship, as surely he will if he lives long enough."

"And what was the decision?" I asked.

"We will want you to stand for a tribuneship the same year."

I felt like a sacrificial ox when he's knocked on the head by the flamen's assistant. "Me? But the family is full of men better qualified."

"Nonsense, you're a perfect choice. Your lineage is impeccable. You'll have a recent Censor for a father, and you have the qualifications for any office. Not that that matters, because any citizen can be elected tribune, so long as he's not a partician. You're an aristocrat, but you're something of a favorite with the commons because of your feat with the October Horse." He grinned at that memory. I winced.

"Now," Celer went on, "I think that Cicero is grooming your friend Titus Milo for the same role. I hate to think of a criminal gang leader like Milo as tribune, but I admit he's a better man than Clodius."

"Milo is an excellent choice," I said, "but I've never even considered the tribuneship. I am flattered that you think me worthy, of course."

"Don't be too flattered," he said. "The main reason we want you is because Clodius hates you so much. He'll be so distracted by your rivalry that he may not do too much mischief."

"I see." My mind was working like a fermenting wine vat. "If both Milo and I are tribunes the same year, we could combine forces to keep Clodius in line."

"You catch on quickly," Celer said. "You may have a future in Roman politics. Well, all this may be years away, but I want you to think about it."

"Rest assured, I shall think of little else," I said. Somehow, I had to get out of this. Clodius hated me enough as a mere enemy. If I were a political rival, his malignancy would know no bounds. In theory, the lives of tribunes were sacrosanct, and to murder one was an impious act. The trouble was, Clodius was a man who specialized in acts of impiety.

"What are you two plotting?" The voice came from the colonnade and we turned to face its source. I knew it instantly, of course.

Clodia was still one of Rome's great beauties, and at this time one of the most notorious. She was also famed for her charm and wit, for her learning and patronage of artists and poets. Most of all, she was feared. She was suspected of complicity in a number of murders, and I happened to know that she was guilty of some of them. However, she was Celer's wife, and certain basic courtesies were demanded.

"You are more beautiful than ever, Clodia," I told her, "and you know that your husband and I haven't an ounce of conspiratorial talent between us."

"How disappointing," she said, extending her hand. I took it and bowed over the cool, tapering fingers, artfully kissing my thumb instead of her hand. The caution might have been unwarranted, but she was rumored to keep poison under her gilded nails.

"How long has it been, Decius? Not since dear Quintus took the field against Catilina? You left Rome then, did you not?" Needless to say, she had not accompanied her husband to Gaul, to my relief and no doubt to his as well. They were not a good match, but then, the great families always arranged marriages for reasons of policy. They had been betrothed when she was a mere girl and her brother, Clodius, no more that an obnoxious brat. "I've been away from Rome and you far too long, Clodia." Well, the part about Rome was true. Clodia and I had a tangled and, for me, embarrassing past. Nothing embarrassed her.

"Things have been terribly dull of late," she said. "Now that you are back, perhaps matters will liven up." That sounded ominous.

"Young Decius will be working with me in my upcoming campaign for the Consulship, my dear," Celer said, with the pained look shared by all men afflicted with such wives.

"Oh, what a waste of talent. You couldn't lose the Consulship if the other factions put up gods and heroes as competitors! Still, that means we'll be seeing a lot of dear Decius, so it's all for the good." At that moment a slave came and announced a visitor, so Clodia took her leave and rushed off.

"Well," Celer grumbled, "it's good you and Clodia get along, even if her brother wants to cut your throat."

"I have the highest esteem for Clodia," I assured him. "Starting tomorrow, I want you to pay your morning call here instead of at your father's house." We began to walk toward the door.

"Shall I bring my clients?" I asked. "Only if I'm to make an important speech. Otherwise, dismiss them when you leave your house."

"I shall be most happy to comply." I never liked the custom of being followed around by a gang of clients. Even loyalty and devotion become annoying after a while.

In the atrium we found Clodia and the new arrival, a kinswoman of mine, nicknamed Felicia. She was Caecilia Metella, wife of the younger Marcus Crassus, who was the son of the great Crassus. She made the usual cousinly sounds of greeting.

"What are you and Clodia up to?" I said. I should have known better than to ask.

"We're going to do something scandalous and embarrass our husbands," Felicia said.

"Aren't you a respectable matron now?" I asked. "Surely you're raising a pack of little Crassi."

"Don't be boring," Felicia scolded. "Breeding is for slaves and livestock. Besides, you've reached an advanced age without marrying."

"No woman can pin Decius down that long," said Clodia with a deft twirl of the thumb-screw. "He always makes trouble for someone powerful and has to leave Rome to save his skin."

"Ladies, if you will excuse us, I must see Decius out. He has pressing duties." Celer guided me out the door. "No man should be called upon to deal with both of them," he muttered.

To my surprise I found Hermes waiting for me outside the gate, but in well-bred fashion I ignored his presence while I made my farewells to my eminent relative, promising to arrive early the next day.

Hermes fell in behind me as I walked toward the Forum. "So that's the great Metellus?" he said. "Doesn't look like much."

"He is one of the greatest," I told him. "I, on the other hand, am only a little Metellus. I am, however, far greater than you, which means that you are to curb your insolence."

"As you say, master."

It had been an eventful day, this homecoming of mine. It was to be among the more tranquil.