The Tribune's curse

1

I was happier than any mere mortal has a right to be, and I should have known better. The entire body of received mythology and every last Greek tragedy ever written have made one inescapable truth utterly clear: If you are supremely happy, the gods have it in for you. They don’t like mortals to be happy, and they will make you pay.

The reason for my happiness was that I wasn’t in Gaul. Nor was I in Parthia, Greece, Iberia, Africa, or Egypt. Instead, I was at the center of the world. I was in Rome, and for a Roman there can be no greater joy than to be at home, where all roads famously lead. Well, if you can’t be in Rome, Alexandria isn’t a bad second choice, but it just isn’t Rome.

Not only was I in Rome, but I was in the Forum, where all those roads converge near the Golden Milestone. It really isn’t golden, just touched up with a bit of gilding, but I’ll take it over any gaudy barbarian monument any day. And it was a beautiful day, which always helps. And I was standing for office, which I was going to win. I knew I was going to win because, when we men of the gens Caecilia Metella demanded high office, we got it.

There was one tiny, minute flaw in my perfect happiness. The office I was standing for was aedile. Now, constitutionally, the aedileship was not strictly on the cursus honorum, that ladder of public office one had to ascend one rung at a time to reach the highest offices of praetor and consul, where the greatest honor was, and their subsequent propraetorial and proconsular commands, where all the loot was to be had.

The aediles were loaded with responsibilities concerning the conduct and welfare of the City. They had charge of the markets, of upkeep of the streets and public buildings, enforcement of the building codes, the supervision of public morals (that was always good for a laugh), and all the other duties nobody else could be persuaded to perform.

The aediles were also in charge of the public Games, and the state provided only a ridiculously small allotment for those necessary but horrendously expensive spectacles. Which meant, if you wanted to put on really spectacular Games, you had to pay for them out of your own purse. That meant, if you weren’t tremendously rich, you borrowed and ended up in debt for years.

So why, you might ask, would anybody want this onerous office if it wasn’t constitutionally required? For the simple reason that the electorate had become accustomed to receiving fine spectacles from their aediles, and if your Games weren’t suitably splendid, they would not elect you to the praetorship.

This unpleasant necessity of public life had been turned to unexpected advantage by Caesar, who, as aedile, incurred such tremendous debts that everyone assumed he had foolishly ruined himself in order to win favor with the mob. Then, much to their astonishment, some of the most important men in Rome woke up to discover that, if they were to have any hope of recovering their loans, they had to push Caesar into higher office so he could get rich. It worked neatly for Caesar, but it meant that the voters were now accustomed to an even more lavish standard in Games: more days of races, more comedies and dramas, more public feasts, and, most important, more and better gladiators. Where once a showing of twenty pairs from the local schools had been considered a good show, people now expected four or five hundred pairs of the best Campanian swordsmen tricked out in plumes and gilded armor. None of this was cheap.

But all such dismal prospects were far from my mind as I stood in the Forum on a perfect day in early fall when Rome and all of Italy are at their most lovely. The sky was cloudless; the smoke from the altars ascended straight toward the heavens; there were flowers blooming everywhere. The oppressive heat of summer was past, and the rains, clouds, and chill of winter were still far away. With the other office seekers I wore a specially whitened toga, the candidus, so everyone would know who we were, just standing there like fools and saying nothing.

By ancient law, a candidate was forbidden to canvass for votes. He had to stand in one spot and wait for someone to come up and speak to him, at which time he could wheedle for all he was worth. Of course, each candidate was accompanied by his clients, who acted as a sort of cheering section, always gazing admiringly at him, accosting passersby, and telling them all about what a fine fellow their patron was.

I suppose it all looked rather ludicrous to foreigners, but it was an agreeable way to spend your time when the weather was good, especially if you had just escaped Gaul and Caesar’s huge and bloody war there. Caesar had granted me leave of absence so that I could come home to stand for office, with the agreement that I would return as soon as I had served my year. Well, we would see about that. Caesar could be dead before then, the war a disaster. This was the result for which his enemies prayed and sacrificed daily to Jupiter Best and Greatest.

But the war was far away, the weather was fine, I was fulfilling my Caecilian heritage by standing for office, it would be months before I had to present my feasts, my ludi and my munera, and all was right with the world. I was relatively safe from the mobs of my old enemy, Clodius, because he was Caesar’s flunky and I was newly married to Caesar’s niece, Julia. I should have seen the trouble coming-not that it would have made much difference if I had. And the day started out rather well, too.

The first man to approach me was my distinguished but tediously named kinsman, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. With that much name you would have expected a bigger man, but he was rather slight, and a Caecilian by adoption, not that this meant much. All our great families were so intermarried that we all bore much the same degree of consanguinity, whatever name we happened to bear.

“Good morning, Scipio,” I said as he walked up to me. “Are you on support duty today?” It was understood that, since I was standing for office, the most distinguished men of the family would show themselves in my company from time to time. Scipio was one of that year’s praetors, but he was not accompanied by his lictors. He was also a pontifex, and that morning he wore his pontifical insignia, so I knew he was on his way to a formal religious event.

“A meeting of the Pontifical College has been called,” he said. “I thought I would stop by and lend you an aura of much-needed respectability.” My reputation in the family did not stand high.

“Will a ruling by the Pontifex Maximus be required? He’s out of town, you know.” The holder of that ancient office was, of course, Caesar himself, and he was off on his extraordinary five-year command in Gaul.

“I certainly hope not. It’s a difficult question under discussion. We may have to call a conclave of all the priestly colleges in Rome.” He didn’t look as if he were looking forward to it.

“The flamines, the Arval Brotherhood, the quinquidecemviri, and the Vestals and all the rest? But that’s only been done in times of grave emergency. Has something happened the rest of us haven’t heard about yet? Have Caesar and his legions been annihilated, and are the Gauls marching on Rome?”

“Keep your voice down, or you’ll start rumors,” he cautioned. “No, it’s nothing like that. A matter of religious practice, and I’m not permitted to talk about it.”

Throughout this we grinned at one another like apes, so that anyone watching would see in what high esteem the distinguished pontifex held the lowly but dutiful and conscientious candidate who, in the best tradition of the Republic, sought to assume the heavy burdens of office. This was being repeated, with variations, all over the end of the Forum where the office seekers congregated.

“Well, I must be going, Decius. Good luck.” He clapped me on the shoulder, raising a cloud of the fine chalk with which my toga had been whitened. It settled all over him, making him sneeze.

“Careful, there, Scipio,” I said. “People might think you’re standing for office, too.” He went off to his meeting, snorting and brushing at his clothes. This put me in an even more cheerful mood. Then I caught sight of a man I was far happier to see.

“Greetings, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger!” he shouted, striding toward me with a great mob of hard-looking clients behind him. His voice carried clear across the Forum, and people parted before him like water before the ram of a warship. Unlike Scipio he was accompanied by his lictors. By custom they were supposed to precede him and clear his way with their fasces, but it took a fleet-footed man to stay ahead of this particular magistrate.

“Greetings, Praetor Urbanus! ” I hailed. Titus Annius Milo and I were old friends, but here in public only his formal title would do. Starting as a street thug newly arrived from Ostia, he had somehow leapt ahead of me on the cursus honorum, and I never understood exactly how he did it. Whatever the means, nobody ever deserved the honor more. He was living proof that all you needed was citizenship to make something of yourself in Rome. It helped that he had energy to match his ambition, was awesomely capable, inhumanly strong, handsome as a god, and utterly ruthless.

He embraced me expertly, never actually touching me and thus saving himself from a chalking. His crowd of toughs made a ludicrous attempt at looking dignified and respectable. At least he kept them reined in out of respect for his office. He was the deadly enemy of Clodius, and everyone knew that in the next year, when neither of them held office, it would be open warfare in the streets of Rome.

“On your way to court?” I asked him.

“A full day’s schedule, I’m afraid,” he said ruefully. If there was one thing Milo hated, it was sitting still, even when he was doing something important. On the other hand, he had a trick of making everybody involved in a suit extremely uneasy with the way that, at intervals, he rose from his curule chair and paced back and forth across the width of the praetor’s platform, glaring at them all the while. It was just his way of working off his abundance of nervous energy, but he looked exactly like a Hyrcanian tiger pacing up and down in its cage before being turned loose on some poor wretch who got on the wrong side of the law.

“How are the renovations coming along?” I asked him.

“Almost finished,” he said, looking pained. He was married to Fausta, the daughter of Sulla’s old age and possibly the most willful, extravagant woman of her generation. For years Milo had lived in a minor fortress in the middle of his territory, and Fausta had made it her first order of marital business to transform it into a setting worthy of a lordly Cornelian and daughter of a Dictator.

“If you’d like to admire them,” he said, brightening, “we want you and Julia to come to dinner this evening.”

“I’d be delighted!” Not only did I enjoy his company, but Julia and Fausta were good friends as well. Plus, I was in no position to turn down a free meal. My share of the loot from Caesar’s early conquests in Gaul had made me comfortably well-off for the first time in my adult life, but that wealth would vanish without a trace in the next year, inevitably.

“Good, good. Caius Cassius will be there, and young Antonius, if he bothers to show up. He’s been with Gabinius in Syria, but there’s been a lull in the fighting, and he got bored and came home. He never stays still for long.”

He was referring, of course, to Marcus Antonius, one day to be notorious but back then known mainly as a leading light of Rome’s gilded youth, an uproarious, intemperate young man who was nonetheless intensely likable.

“It’s always fun when Antonius is there,” I said. “Who else?”

He waved a hand airily. “Whoever strikes my fancy today, and Fausta never consults me, so it could be anybody.” Milo never kept to the stuffy formality of exactly nine persons at dinner. Often as not, there were twenty or more around his table. He politicked tirelessly and was liable to invite anybody who might be of use to him. At least his was one house where I knew I would never run into Clodius.

“As long as it’s not Cato or anyone boring like that.”

Milo went off to his court, and I went back to my meeting-and-greeting routine. About noon things livened up when two Tribunes of the People ascended the rostra and began haranguing the crowd. Strictly speaking they were not supposed to do this except at a lawfully convened meeting of the Plebeian Assembly, but feelings were running high just then, and at such times the tribunes ignored proper form. Since they were sacrosanct, there was nothing anyone could do except yell back at them.

I was too far away to make out what they were saying, but I already knew the gist of it. Marcus Licinius Crassus, triumvir and by reputation the richest man in the world, was preparing to go to war against Parthia, and a number of the tribunes were very put out about the whole project. One reason was that the Parthians had done nothing to provoke such a war-not that being inoffensive had ever kept anyone safe from us before. Another was that Crassus was unthinkably rich, and a victorious war would make him even richer, and therefore more dangerous. But a lot of people just hated Crassus, and that was the best reason of all. The tribunes Gallus and Ateius were especially vehement in their denunciations of Crassus, and it was these two who bawled at the crowd in the Forum that day.

All their yowling was to no avail, naturally, because Crassus intended to pay for hiring, arming, and equipping his legions out of his own purse. He would make no demands on the Treasury, and there was nothing in Roman law to prevent a man from doing that, if he had the money, which Crassus did. So Crassus was going to get his war.

That was all right with me, as long as I didn’t have to go with him. Nobody objected, because they actually thought he might be defeated. In those days we thought little of the Parthians as fighting men. To us they were just more effete Orientals. Their ambassadors wore their hair long and scented; their faces were heavily rouged and their eyebrows painted on. As if that weren’t enough, they wore long sleeves. What more evidence did we need that they were a pack of effeminate degenerates?

The proposed war was so unpopular that recruiters were sometimes mobbed. Not that there was great recruiting activity in Rome. The citizenry by that time had grown woefully unwilling to serve in the legions. The smaller towns of Italy supplied more and more of our soldiers.

Caesar’s war in Gaul made no more sense, but it was immensely popular. His dispatches, which I had helped him write, were widely published and added luster to his name, and the plebs took his victories as their own. People liked Caesar, and they didn’t like Crassus. It was that simple.

The City was full of Crassi that year. Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives was, for the second time, holding the consulship with Pompey. His elder son, the younger Marcus, was standing for the quaestorship. So it was a great year for Crassus, despite the unpopularity of his proposed war. He and Pompey were being amazingly amicable for two men who hated each other so much. Crassus was insanely envious of Pompey’s military glory, and Pompey was similarly envious of Crassus’s legendary wealth.

Friction had been mounting between the members of the Big Three, but, the year before, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus had met at Luca to iron out their differences, and all had been cooperation since. Crassus and Pompey agreed to extend Caesar’s command in Gaul beyond the already extraordinary five years, were raising more legions for him, and had given him permission to appoint ten legates of his own choosing. In return, Caesar’s people in the Senate and, more important, the Popular Assemblies would give Crassus his war and Pompey the proconsulship of Spain when he left office. Spain had become a rich money cow, peaceful enough in those years that Pompey wouldn’t actually have to go there but could let his legates handle the place and send him the money.

Roman political life had grown uncommonly complicated of late. The reason Pompey was getting the virtual sinecure of Spain was that, besides being a sitting consul, he also held an extraordinary proconsular oversight of the grain supply for the whole Empire, and this was his third year in that office. Inefficiency, corruption, and rapacious speculators had made a catastrophic mess of grain distribution in Roman territory. There was famine in some places even when grain was abundant. When people are hungry, they get rebellious and don’t pay their taxes. We Romans regard the supervision of the grain supply to be fully as important as the command of armies, and Spain was Pompey’s reward for straightening the situation out, which he did with his usual remorseless efficiency. He was given the power to appoint fifteen legates to assist him, and he chose incorruptible, efficient, ruthless men.

Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus was probably the most overrated general Rome ever had, but even his enemies, among whom I numbered myself, never doubted his administrative genius. If he had not allowed himself to be seduced by the dream of becoming the new Alexander, his reputation would shine today like those of Cincinnatus, Fabius, and the Scipios. Instead, he chased military glory and perished miserably at the hands of an Oriental tyrant, as did Crassus, who deserved that fate much more.

But these gloomy prospects, too, were far in the future on that day. My appetite told me that it was nearly noon, and I strolled over to the great sundial to check the time. This was the old one, brought as loot from Sicily two hundred years before. Since it was calibrated for Catania, it wasn’t very accurate, but it was the first municipal sundial ever installed in Rome, and we were still proud of it. It revealed that it was around noon, give or take an hour. So much for politics. It was time for lunch, then a leisurely afternoon at the baths, where I would of course talk more politics with my peers, then dinner at Milo’s. What a perfect day.

“Master!” It was my slave boy, Hermes. He was running toward me across the Forum, disrespectful as always of rank, age, and dignity. He jostled all with fine impartiality. Actually, he was about twenty-four years of age that year, but it was difficult for me to think of him as anything but a boy. Of course, I, too, was legally a boy, since my father was still alive. A man of my lineage and habits had to be grateful to reach his thirties alive and had no cause to quibble about being a legal minor.

“What is it?”

“Julia wants to know if you will be coming home for lunch.” In the subtle code of married couples, this meant she didn’t care greatly whether I did or not. Had she really wanted me home, the question would have been worded differently: when might she expect me to appear for lunch? or something like that. Hermes was sensitive to these nuances.

“Closeted with her cronies, is she?” I asked him.

“Aurelia has come to visit.”

I winced. “I shall sacrifice a cock to Jupiter in gratitude for this forewarning.” Julia’s grandmother was a gorgon no man dared look upon save with trembling. On three separate occasions she had demanded that her son, Caius Julius Caesar, have me executed. Usually indulgent of her whims, he had fortunately demurred.

“I’d recommend lunch elsewhere,” Hermes concurred. He had grown into a handsome young man, fit and strong as any legionary. He had spent almost three years with me in Caesar’s Gallic camps being trained by army instructors, and on our return I had enrolled him in the gladiatorial school of Statilius Taurus for further sword training. Of course, I had no intention of making him fight professionally, but any man who was going to stay at my back in those unsettled days had to be able to take care of himself. He was forbidden to bear arms anywhere in Italy, and elsewhere in Roman territory only if he accompanied me, but by that time he was expert with all weapons and could do more damage with a wooden stick than most men could with a sword.

“I’ll find something at the booths here. Tell Julia that we are dining this evening at the home of the praetor urbanus and the lady Fausta. That’ll put her in a good mood.”

Hermes grinned. “Milo’s place?”

“I knew you’d like that, you young criminal. When you’ve delivered your message, bring my bath things to the new Aemilian Baths. Off with you, now.” He ran homeward as if he’d borrowed the winged boots of his namesake. Hermes was a criminal by inclination, and he loved to hobnob with Milo’s thugs whenever we dined there, which was often.

I sought out a stall owned by a peasant woman named Nonnia, whose specialty was a pale bread baked with olives, hardboiled eggs, and chopped pork sausage. Sprinkled with fennel and laced with garum, a small loaf of it would keep you marching all day in full legionary gear. With just such a loaf and a beaker of coarse Campanian wine, I went to sit on the steps of the rostra and refresh myself after the strenuous morning. One of my clients, an old farmer named Memmius, took charge of my candidus lest I get grease or wine on the hideously expensive garment.

“Here comes trouble,” said another client, an even older soldier named Burrus. I had saved his son from a murder charge in Gaul, and the bloodthirsty old veteran was eager to slaughter all my enemies for me. I glanced up to see my least favorite Roman coming toward me.

“It’s just Clodius,” I said. “We’re observing a truce these days. If you’re carrying weapons, keep them out of sight.”

“Truce or no truce,” Burrus said grimly, “don’t turn your back on him.”

“I never have, and I never will,” I assured him. I was not as certain of our safety as I pretended. Clodius was subject to the odd bout of homicidal insanity. Surreptitiously, I checked to make sure that my dagger and my caestus were tucked away beneath my tunic where I could reach them handily, just in case.

“Good day, Decius Caecilius!” Clodius called, all smiles and joviality. As usual when not in office, he wore crude sandals and a workingman’s tunic, the sort that leaves one arm and shoulder bare. He was accompanied by a rabble of thugs as disreputable as those in Milo’s train, but those closest to Clodius tended to be better-born. The noble youth of Rome in those days were much addicted to thuggery. After all, we couldn’t all get involved in politics. His gang looked like the younger brothers of the lot that had followed Catilina in his foolish coup attempt eight years before. Most of those had died in that ugly affair, but a new crop of young fools comes along every few years to fill the depleted ranks.

“Join me, Publius,” I said, wiping my hands on my tunic. It is unwise to have greasy fingers if you have to go for your dagger. “There’s more here than I can eat.”

“Gladly.” He sat by me and took a handful of the fragrant bread and bit into it. “Ah, Nonnia’s. I was just by her booth, but she was sold out. Your cup looks dry.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his lackeys hustled forward with a skin to fill my beaker.

I took a gulp and winced. It was crude Vatican from the third-rate vineyards right across the river.

“Publius, you can afford to bathe in Caecuban. Why do you drink this foul stuff? My slaves complain when I bring it home.”

He sneered. “Frivolous trappings of nobilitas. I have no use for such things, Decius. It’s all outdated, anyway. This whole nonsense of patrician and plebeian would have been swept away long ago if it hadn’t been for Sulla. We’re embarking on a new age, my friend.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with drinking decent wine,” I protested, drinking the foul stuff anyway. “Besides, when you took up the cause of the common man, you didn’t renounce your wealth, I notice.”

He smiled conspiratorially. “What could be more common and vulgar than wealth?”

“I wouldn’t know. Such vulgarity as I’ve achieved has been in spite of my poverty.”

He laughed heartily, a real feat for a man with no sense of humor. “But money is very necessary. We must have money if the Republic is to live. We need money to buy votes in the Assemblies and to bribe the juries in our lawsuits. You’re embarked upon a tenure of the most costly of offices. And you have a new, patrician wife. You’ll find that they have expensive tastes.”

I took another swallow of his wine, which was tasting better as I drank. Everything he’d said was damnably true. “I get the impression that you’re leading up to something, Publius.”

“Just that there is no need for you to suffer unduly for your service to the State. I think it’s disgraceful that citizens should be enslaved to moneylenders.”

“You’ll never lose votes by flogging the moneylenders,” I said. “But I don’t see how that affects my case.”

“Don’t be dense, Decius. Wouldn’t you rather owe one man who will never come dunning you for payment than be beholden to fifty little bankers? I know some of the men in your family are willing to ease the burden, but relatives are worse than usurers when it comes to lending money.”

“I know you aren’t speaking on your own behalf, Publius. You aren’t that rich. In fact, there is only one man in Rome who has both the money and the interest to assume my debts so casually.”

“I knew you were only pretending to be dense.”

I sighed. “You weren’t always a friend to Crassus.”

“Nor am I now. But Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus have an agreement. Caesar, your new uncle by marriage, wants me to give Crassus every assistance in getting his Parthian war under way. That means smoothing his relations with the Senate, the tribunes, and the Assemblies.”

It was beginning to make sense. “And a large bloc of the Senate and the Assemblies would cease to give him trouble if the Caecilian clan were to drop their opposition.”

He beamed. “There you are!”

“Does Crassus fully understand in what minuscule esteem my family holds me? Does he really believe that I can sway them?”

“The prospect of not having to help pay for your Games could improve their disposition immensely.” He refilled my cup. “I hear that you will be celebrating the munera for Metellus Celer. He was a great man. People must expect a celebration commensurate with his prominence.”

The very thought could still make me gasp. “Publius, you are ruining what began as an extraordinarily splendid day.”

“It could be the most important day of your life, Decius. Just come over to Crassus’s side and clear all your debts. He’ll give you liberal terms.”

“He’ll want far more than you are saying for that much aid I’ll be his lackey for life.”

“And what of that? He’s old, Decius; he can’t live much longer. Even if his war is successful, he’ll probably keel over and croak during his triumph from the sheer excitement.”

“But,” I said, growing more and more exasperated because the prospect was so tempting, “I abhor the whole idea of this war, as does my family!”

“Be realistic, Decius! There is nothing you can do about it. Crassus has his war. The Senate has given him permission to make war on Parthia, he already has his own army, and the Assemblies aren’t stopping him. Only some die-hard tribunes and recalcitrant senators are making a fuss. He would much rather not be embarrassed by this opposition, and he doesn’t want people here working against him while he is out of the City. Give him your support. You lose nothing by it, and you gain everything.”

“I must consider it,” I said, stalling. “I will confer with my family.” I had no intention of supporting Crassus, but I had enough political experience to know that a flat no would be unwise. A conditional no was always better.

He nodded. “Do that. And avoid those fools, Gallus and Ateius. They are beginning to stir up serious trouble. They should be arrested as a menace to public order.” Hearing Clodius say something like that was worth putting up with his company. With a hearty, hypocritical clap on my shoulder, Clodius took his leave and went off to find someone he could bully and intimidate.

I refused to let him cast a shadow over my excellent day. With the wine buzzing pleasantly in my head, I repaired to the Aemilian Baths. This was a very imposing establishment, built upon a block of ground near the Forum that had been conveniently cleared by a catastrophic fire two years previously. It was completed and dedicated the year before by the praetor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus to the glory of his ancestors. It was the first of the really huge baths to be built in Rome, and included exercise yards, lecture halls, a small library, and a gallery for paintings and sculpture, all of it surrounding a main hot pool big enough for a battle between triremes. I pitied Sardinia, which Scaurus had been sent to govern, if he was using the opportunity to recoup his expenses on the place.

I was just dozing off on the massage table when a vaguely familiar man flopped onto the one next to mine. The Nubian assigned to that table commenced his ministrations, but the familiar slap of cupped palms was in this case somewhat muffled because the man was as furry as a bear. He had a wide, coarse-featured face that was just then smiling at me, showing big, yellow teeth through broad lips.

“Good day, Senator,” he said. “I don’t believe we have met. I am Caius Sallustius Crispus.”

“Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger,” I said, extending a hand. “I’ve seen your name on the roll of the magistrates. One of the year’s quaestors, aren’t you?”

“That is correct. I’m assigned to the Grain Office.” I saw now that he was perhaps in his late twenties. His crude visage and hirsuteness had given the impression of an older man.

“I’ve missed the last few elections,” I admitted. “I’ve been with Caesar in Gaul.”

“I know. I’ve been following your career.”

“Oh? Why is that? It hasn’t been very distinguished so far.” In fact, I wasn’t much interested. I didn’t like the look of the man. I’ve always found ugliness to be an excellent reason for disliking someone.

“I am of a literary turn of mind,” he explained. “I intend to write a comprehensive history of our times.”

“My part in the affairs of Rome has been modest beyond words,” I assured him. “I can’t imagine what you’d find to write about me.”

“But you were involved in Catilina’s failed coup,” he said, still smiling. “On both sides, I’m given to understand. That calls for a rare political dexterity.”

I didn’t like the insinuating tone that he disguised with disingenuous friendliness. And I disliked discussing that ugly incident that had killed so many, ruined careers, and destroyed reputations and that still caused hard feelings after eight years.

“I was, as always, on the side of the Senate and People,” I told him. “And too much is made of the disgraceful business as it is.”

“But I hear Cicero is writing his own history of the rebellion.”

“As is his right. He was the central figure, and his actions preserved the Republic at the cost of his reputation and his career.” Cicero had been exiled for the execution without trial of the chief conspirators. Even at that time he was not truly safe in Rome despite the protection of Milo’s thugs. Much as it pains me to say anything good about Cato, his exertions on Cicero’s behalf had been heroic and made him even more unpopular than he had been, which is saying something.

“But he will naturally slant the facts in his own favor,” Sallustius said. “A more balanced account will be needed.”

“You are welcome to try your hand at it,” I said, sure that, like the scribblings of most amateur historians, his would not outlast his own lifetime.

“These are such lively times,” he mused, apparently determined to cheat me of my nap. “Caesar’s war in Gaul, Gabinius campaigning in Syria and Egypt, Crassus’s upcoming war against the Parthians-it seems almost a shame to stay here in Rome with all that going on.”

“You can have it all,” I told him. “Barbarians and Eastern despots hold no interest for me. If it were up to me, I would stay right here for the rest of my days and putter around in the government offices and doze off during Senate debates.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Metellus to me,” he said. “Your family is famed for its devotion to high office, not to mention the high-handed wielding of power.” His tone was chaffing, but I detected a griping undertone of envy. It was not the first time I’d heard it. This was another nobody from an undistinguished family who begrudged my family connections and the all-but-unquestioned access they gave me to the pursuit of higher office.

“I don’t claim to be a typical member of the gens. I have no desire to conquer foreigners or give Rome more desert and forest to garrison.”

“I can understand that it’s a daunting tradition to live up to. Why, within the memory of living Romans the gens Caecilia has added Numidia and Crete to the Empire.”

“Wonderful. The Numidians are rebellious savages, and the Cretans are the most notoriously shiftless pack of lying, conniving pseudo-Greeks the world has to offer.” I wasn’t truly so contemptuous of my family’s accomplishments, but something in me wanted to contradict everything the man said.

“Do you think we shouldn’t add Parthia to the lot?”

Everybody wants to talk about Crassus today, I thought. Well, nobody was talking about much else that year.

“Everybody has had a try at taking that part of the world,” I said. “Nobody’s had much satisfaction out of it. It’s mostly plains and grassland, a natural land for horsemen, not foot-slogging legionaries. You know as well as I that we Romans are wretched cavalry.”

“I hear that Caesar is giving Crassus several wings of Gallic cavalry he does not need at the moment.”

I groaned. This was the first I’d heard of it. I thought of the splendid young Gallic horsemen I’d commanded in the Northern war, their lives to be expended foolishly in some unspeakable Asiatic desert so that Marcus Licinius Crassus could have glory to match Pompey’s.

“Is something wrong?” Sallustius asked.

“Nothing,” I said, sitting up. “They’re just more barbarians.” I walked toward the frigidarium, feeling the need of cold water to wake me up and clear my head. Then I turned back. “But no army ever knew anything but disaster when a foolish old man was in charge. Good day to you.”

I left him there and plunged into the cold pool, a jolting torment that I usually dread but that came as a relief after talking with Sallustius Crispus. When I climbed out, Hermes helped me dry off and dress. The cold water had cleared the wine fumes and sleepiness from my head. Thinking clearly, I wondered whether I might not have made a serious mistake in calling Crassus a foolish old man in front of that hairy little weasel.