The Tribune's curse

3

By the next morning I was a bit fuzzy headed from the wine but otherwise ready to face another agreeable day of campaigning. Any day that began without the trumpets blowing to signal a dawn attack by the Gauls was a good day, as far as I was concerned. I left Julia snoring delicately and aristocratically behind me, splashed some water on my face, and went in search of breakfast. In my bachelor days I breakfasted in bed, but that luxury had gone the way of most of my bachelor habits.

Eating breakfast was one of those degenerate foreign practices to which I subscribed enthusiastically. Cassandra had laid a small table in the courtyard with melon slices, cold chicken, and warm, heavily watered wine. Nearby, Hermes, stripped to a loincloth, ran in place, warming up for a morning at the ludus. I noticed a slight hitch in his steps and looked for the cause.

“Come here, boy,” I said. Apprehensively, he came to my table, and I saw that he had a fresh, two-inch cut high on his left thigh, neatly stitched.

“That’s Asklepiodes’ needlework, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. He said it’s nothing, just a skin cut. Didn’t even nick the muscle. In fact-”

I brought my palm crashing down on the table, nearly upsetting my wine, which Hermes rescued. “I have ordered you never to train with sharp weapons! I’ll not have my property risked needlessly!”

“But all of the top men of the school-”

“You are none such! Practice with sharp weapons is strictly for veterans, the victors of many combats. They are men who earn fortunes by their skill and have no prospect of a future. As long as you belong to me, you are to stick to wooden swords. Sharp swords are for when we’re in a war zone.”

“It won’t happen again, I promise,” he said contritely. The evil little wretch was planning to disobey me at the first opportunity. He always did.

“It was Leonidas, wasn’t it?”

He looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“That backhand slice with the tip of the sica is his trademark. You were leading with your left leg and holding your shield too high. He always watches for that. If it had been a serious fight, he could have taken your leg off. The man’s won thirty-two fights that I know of. You have no business sparring with him. Stick to the regular trainers and students of your own level. Do you understand me?”

He hung his head with total insincerity. “Yes, sir.”

“Then be off with you, and thank all the gods that you don’t have to attend my morning calls.” He was out the front door without bothering to put on his tunic. I returned to my breakfast, not totally displeased. If a champion like Leonidas thought Hermes was worth sparring with, he must be coming along nicely. Leonidas could behead flies buzzing around his helmet. The nick on the thigh had been a well-meant warning.

My clients met me in my atrium, and we went off to my father’s house. As always it was mobbed with his clients. Since I was standing for office, I usually just paid my respects at the door, but this time his steward said that the old man wanted to speak with me. Knowing that this boded ill, I went in.

My father, the elder Decius, was one of the head men of gens Caecilia. He had held every public office including the Censorship and had commanded armies in the field, and his voice was one of the most respected in the curia. It was his continued longevity that kept me a legal minor. He could have manumitted me with a simple ceremony, but the old villain wasn’t about to relinquish his hold. I found him alone in his study.

“Good morning, Father! How-”

He whirled around, his face red except for the great, horizontal scar that almost bisected his face and gave him his nickname: Cut-Nose.

“Did you really refuse Crassus’s offer to cover your debts yesterday?”

“Well, yes.”

“Twice, I understand?”

“How word does get around! Yes, I did. The second time to his face. You can’t count the first time. That was to Clodius, and I’d never give him a positive answer.”

“Idiot! You know how hard your family has worked to smooth relations with him, and with Caesar and Pompey!” These took the form of marriage ties: a son of Crassus married a Caecilia, I married Caesar’s niece, and so forth. The fact that Julia and I actually wanted to marry had no bearing on the political matchmaking.

“I know you and the others have alienated Pompey.”

He waved his big-knuckled hand. “No matter. He can manage the grain supply as long as he likes. He’s done a wonderful job. We just have to keep him from command of the legions. Caesar has turned into a wild man, and he must be dealt with eventually, if he lives. But Crassus is vastly wealthy, and he could come back from Parthia a triumphator! ”

“Everyone seems to think that he’ll die before he gets home.”

“How did I ever beget such a moron! No wonder you lose so much money at the races if that’s how you place your bets!”

“Lose money? Me?” I cried, stung. “Just last month in Mu-tina I won-”

“Silence!” He leaned across his desk, supporting his weight on his knuckles, thrusting his head forward as he glared at me. “I know your memory is short, but I remember when Caius Marius returned from his last war. He was even older than Crassus and madder than Ajax! He seized power in the City and proceeded to kill more Romans than Hannibal! If Crassus comes back with a triumph and the wealth of King Orodes added to what he already has and a heart full of bile toward everyone he even imagines has offended him, a lot of us are going to die!”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted, chastened.

“And do you imagine the expenses of your office will be so slight that your family can afford to turn down a loan from Crassus? A loan that will be almost free from interest, I might add?” This was more like it: away from world events and back to the subject that touched us most intimately-the family purse.

“I’d rather go to the usurers than be owned by a monster like Crassus!”

“Nonsense! Crassus can’t own you because I do! You will do as I say, vote as I say, and deal with Crassus as I say!”

At one time I would have erupted like a volcano at this, but the years had thickened my skin and leveled my temper. Besides, after you’ve been terrified by the likes of King Ariovistus the German, a father isn’t all that frightening.

“I’ll take your advice to heart, Father. But the damage is already done. Maybe I can patch things up. The old fool may have forgotten the whole matter by now. But listen, Milo has made an excellent deal for me-” Father nodded, his color returning as I described the situation.

“Twenty of them? And some are Campanians, I believe. Yes, this will bring down the price of the funeral munera significantly. If we bring two or three pairs of the old champions on at the end of each day’s fighting, that is what people will remember, not that you didn’t have a hundred pairs earlier in the day. I’ve always held that it’s the quality of fighting that counts, not how many half-trained amateurs and wretched prisoners you can crowd into the field. Why, in my younger days-” and so on and on.

Thus I left him in a somewhat better mood than I found him. This did little to improve my mood. He had upbraided me just as, earlier that morning, I had upbraided Hermes, and for the same reason. I was still his property. Sometimes, I thought,the world is just not fair.

Midday brought an unexpected invitation. A well-dressed man came up to me, and I greeted him as genially as I would have any other potential vote.

“Senator,” he said, “I am Sextus Silvius, an equestrian. I come on behalf of the tribune Ateius Capito, who would greatly esteem your company at his house this afternoon. If you have no other plans, he customarily lays on an excellent midday meal. It will have to be quite informal. You know what a tribune’s house is like.”

I glanced at the rostra. “Your friend isn’t in his usual place this morning.”

“He knows that there is nothing more to be gained by talk. May I tell him that you will be coming? Or, better yet, will you come with me?”

I looked around the Forum, saw nobody I really wanted to associate with, heard my stomach growl, and decided. “It will be a pleasure.” I took off my candidus, handed it to a client with instructions to take it home and inform Julia where I was going, and dismissed the rest.

“Why does this year’s tribune want to cultivate next year’s aedile?” I asked bluntly as we ambled toward the Via Nova, thence eastward into the warren of streets northeast of the Via Sacra.

“Both you and he are headed for higher office. The men who are to direct the great affairs of Rome in the future had better get to know each other if you are to work well together.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed, musing. “Silvius. Is that a Marsian name?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. My family are Marsi from near the Fucine Lake. Roman citizens for generations, of course.”

“Naturally.” The Marsi were noted as splendid farmers and, less favorably, as practitioners of all sorts of magic. “Are you a relative of the tribune?”

“No, a friend. Along with others, I’ve been his assistant during his year in office. I will be more than relieved when that year is up.”

“The tribuneship is a busy office,” I said, putting it mildly.

The house of Ateius Capito took up the ground floor of a tenement block that faced an identical tenement block across a narrow street. The street itself was thronged with citizens: idlers, hangers-on, petitioners with rolled papyri to give to the tribune, and the generally disgruntled-looking, all come to press their suits upon the representative of the people. They made a path for me when they saw the senatorial stripe on my tunic. Some of the scroll holders tried to give their petitions to me in hope that I would bring them to the tribune’s attention, but I begged off. The last thing I wanted to do was take on another politician’s job.

The door was open, naturally. By ancient law the door of a tribune’s house, even the door of his own bedroom, had to remain open during his year in office. He had to be accessible to the plebs every hour, day and night. Supposedly he incurred no danger through this practice because the sacrosanctity of his office rendered him immune from violence. Tribunes had been killed in past years of civil unrest, but that was considered very incorrect behavior.

It was just as crowded in the atrium, but there the great man’s servants regulated the flow of callers so that they entered by ones and twos and small groups to present their petitions and questions and complaints. These servants stood aside as I passed through with Silvius.

“Tribune Ateius Capito,” Silvius announced grandly, “I present the senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger!”

“Welcome to my house, Senator,” Ateius said, rising with hand extended. I took it and got my first close look at the man. He was lean as a dagger, with a dark, small-featured face dominated by unusually large, intense eyes. As a matter of fact, the whole man was intense. Even standing still, he seemed to vibrate like a plucked lyre string. “You do me great honor.”

“The honor is mine. I can see how busy you must be.”

“I am at the disposal of the citizens at all times,” he said. “However, I think they will grant us a few minutes’ leave.” He went to the doorway and held up his hands. “My friends, fellow citizens, I must confer with the distinguished senator Metellus for a brief time. I promise that I will hear all your petitions.” With sounds of disappointment, people backed away from the door, leaving us alone beside the pool of the compluvium.

Not that we were precisely alone. There remained behind a dozen or so friends of Ateius, most of them, like himself, of the equestrian order. They were all prosperous-looking men, as indeed was to be expected, a sizable fortune being the only real qualification for enrollment in that order. Ateius provided introductions.

“Private and formal meals are all but out of the question for a tribune,” Ateius said, “but if you aren’t finicky, I keep a simple buffet here.” He led me to a long table heaped with food.

“This is more than adequate,” I assured him, generously. Indeed, it was food of the plainest sort: bread and cheeses and fresh fruit, but that was to be expected. He couldn’t rightly refuse food to his callers, and that mob would bankrupt him quickly if he laid on the delicacies. And for a man who had been living for months at a time on army rations when he could get them, there was nothing wrong with plain food. I heaped a plate and set it on a small table, and Ateius took a chair opposite me. The other men stood around attentively, far enough away to give us a sort of privacy, near enough so that Ateius could summon them without raising his voice. There is an art to this sort of attendance, although Romans have never mastered it the way they have in Eastern courts.

While we ate, we spoke of this and that, nothing serious. He bemoaned the travails of the tribuneship; I bewailed the forthcoming burdens of the aedileship; we both savored our own importance. Then, when we were finished eating, he got down to it.

“It’s good to have you among us, Senator Metellus. The rest of your family have been maddeningly noncommittal.”

It occurred to me that I had missed something important. “I beg your pardon? Whom have I joined?”

He smiled. “No need to be coy. By now everybody knows that you’ve turned down Crassus’s offer to assume your debts, and did it at some personal danger, too. We admire that.”

“ ‘We’?”

He waved a hand at the men around him. “The anti-Crassus faction. The men who know that the man is about to bring disaster upon us.”

This was tricky. In the politics of the Republic, one never admitted to belonging to a factio. You, public-spirited statesman that you were, thought of nothing but the good of the State. On the contrary, it was your opponents, your enemies, whom you accused of belonging to factiones. Unlike you, they were self-seeking curs without honor or dignity.

It was all claptrap, of course. Everyone belonged to one factio, and many belonged to several. It was never formal or codified, like being a supporter of one of the racing companies in the Circus, where we Metelli had been Reds for centuries. In fact, it was from the Circus that we got the word factio.

At this time there were two major parties to which everyone subscribed to one extent or other. There were the Optimates: the “Good Men”, i.e., the wellborn, and the Populares: the “Men of the People”, i.e., all the rest. We Metelli were Optimates. So was Cicero. Clodius and Caesar were leaders of the Populares despite the fact that they were born patricians. Clodius was a Claudius and had changed his name when, with Caesar’s collusion and over the objections of Cato and Cicero, he had been transferred to the plebs. He had taken this drastic step so that he could stand for the tribuneship, an office from which patricians were barred. Stripped of their powers by Sulla, the tribunes had gradually been regaining them in the twenty-four years since the Dictator’s death, and now the tribuneship was in many ways the most powerful office in Rome.

Within these two major groupings were many smaller factiones representing more limited interests. I had the feeling that I was in the midst of one of these.

“Perhaps you had better elucidate, Tribune,” I said. “It is true that I declined a loan from Crassus because I have no wish to become his lackey. I had no motive other than retaining my own political, not to mention economic, independence.” This was not precisely true, but I did not feel that I owed this odd tribune any more.

“Oh, I quite understand that,” he said. His tone said, on the contrary, that he knew a pack of lies when he heard one. “But you know that his proposed war is a disgrace.”

“And yet,” Silvius said in a well-rehearsed interruption, “the senator voted in favor of Crassus’s command.”

“As you all know perfectly well,” I said, “the Senate voted no war. Crassus is to take over the Syrian promagistracy from Aulus Gabinius. What he does with his soldiers once he’s there is up to him. It’s a disgrace that the government has so little control over how our generals employ their troops, but that is the constitution as we have received it. As usual, I voted with my family on this. The Senate only ratified the law passed by your fellow tribune, Caius Trebonius. Blame him.”

“Oh, I do, Senator, I do!” Ateius all but hissed, his fingers working reflexively as if on a dagger grip. Obviously, Ateius and Trebonius shared one of those Milo-Clodius relationships: each would happily drink the other’s blood.

“Senator,” Silvius said, “we must stop Crassus before he wrecks the Republic. Many, many Romans of all classes and all factiones agree with us in this. We have made it our business to appeal to all men of influence whom we know oppose Crassus to join us in this. We hope to number you as one among us.”

“Gentlemen,” I said, spreading my palms in an appeal to reason, “it is too late. There is nothing to be done. Whatever underhanded means were employed to secure him this command, the Senate and People have spoken. He has the backing of Caesar and Pompey. The Plebeian and Centuriate Assemblies have voted to pass the Trebonian Law, and the Senate has ratified it. The damage is done. There is no constitutional means to stop him.”

“Then,” Ateius said, his eyes glowing in a fashion not quite sane, “we may have to appeal to powers beyond the constitutional.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said. “Admittedly, I am just back from Gaul after a long absence, but surely I would have been informed if our government had been set aside by, say, a Dictatorship or invading Libyans.”

“I do not joke, Senator!” Ateius snapped. Clearly, here was a man of limited jocularity.

“Then what do you mean?”

“The Republic,” he began, “has for many centuries rested upon a tripartite foundation. First,” here he held up a knobby-knuckled finger, “there is the body politic-the Senate and People. Second,” he raised a finger no comelier beside the first, “there is the constitution-our body of laws and practices, rigid in place but always changeable after due deliberation. Third,” finger number three, somewhat shorter than the other two, and decorated by a ring in the form of a snake swallowing its tail, a tiny emerald for an eye, “the will of the gods.”

I tried to think of other factors, but came up with none. “I suppose that about sums it up.”

“As you just said, the possibilities of the first two have been exhausted short of violence. That leaves the third.” He seemed quite pleased with himself for a man who was making no sense.

“The gods? I am sure that in this matter, as in all others, they were consulted, the proper sacrifices were made, prayers were offered, the auguries were taken, and so forth. But we all know that it is quite rare for the Olympians to take a direct hand in the affairs of Rome. At most they send us signs that we ignore at our peril.”

“There are others,” he said, portentously. “There are gods less remote than the official gods of the State-gods willing to aid those who know how to call upon them.”

I felt a sudden chill. I had just come from a place where savage gods were called upon all the time and seemed more than eager to take part in the affairs of men-the bloodier the better.

“And you are one who knows how to bend these deities to your will?” I asked.

“I am,” he said, smugly.

I stood. “Tribune, you tread close to the edge of sorcery. There are laws against such practices-laws that carry with them terrible punishments. It is my firm belief that religion and trafficking with the supernatural should have no part in the conduct of State business, except for the sacrifices, festivals, and omen-taking sanctioned by the constitution, all of which are more than adequately defined by ancient law.”

“Don’t be a fool, Metellus!” he cried, dropping his geniality. “We are prepared to take the strongest measures to stop Crassus, and if you are not with us, we must regard you as an enemy.”

The rest looked a little shamefaced, as if they were embarrassed by their colleague’s excessive reaction. “There is no need for a breach between ourselves and the house of Metellus,” Silvius said, trying to smooth things over. “The senator is clearly an anti-Crassan-”

“Join us, Metellus,” Ateius said, “or suffer the consequences with the rest.”

“Am I to regard this as a threat?” I said coldly.

“It is a warning I offer in good faith as tribune and priest,” he said with the same lunatic certainty that characterized the rest of his drivel. Tribune and priest? The tribuneship carried no sacerdotal duties to my knowledge. Obviously, the man was mad. Of course, being crazy was no impediment to a successful political career. Look at Clodius.

“Then good day to you. I have kept you from the citizens too long.” I swept out with what I hoped was imposing dignity. Behind me I heard an agitated muttering, as of an overturned beehive.

It had been one of the oddest interviews I had experienced in a career full of oddities. That night I described the bizarre business to Julia.

“Don’t let it upset you,” she said, sleepily. “The man is insane, and he’ll be out of office in less than three months.”

“Still, I dislike having a tribune announce himself to be my enemy, and lunatic enemies can be the worst kind. They are unpredictable.”

“Out of office he’ll be harmless,” she insisted. “After that, your sane enemies will give you all the worries you need.”

She made sense, but I had a definite feeling that sense would play little part in this matter, and I was right. I did not sleep soundly that night.