3. Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  Pompey went home to his house on the Carinae exultant, but the mood didn't last. On the following morning Crassus's heralds began proclaiming the news that on the feast of Hercules Invictus, Marcus Licinius Crassus the consul would dedicate a tenth of everything he owned to the god, that there would be a public feast laid out on ten thousand tables, and that the bulk of the donation would be used up in giving every Roman citizen in Rome five free modii of wheat during September, October and November. "How dared he!" gasped Pompey to Philippus, who had come to compliment him upon his performance at the transvectio and to see how the Great Man would swallow Crassus's ploy. "It's very clever," said Philippus in an apologetic voice, especially because Romans are so quick at reckoning up how much anything costs. Games are too abstruse, but food is common knowledge. They know the price of everything from a licker fish to a salt sprat. Even when they can't afford the salt sprat, they'll ask its cost in the market. Human curiosity. They'll all know how much Crassus paid for his wheat too, not to mention how many modii he's had to buy. We'll be deafened by clicking abacuses." "What you're trying to say without actually saying it is that they'll conclude Crassus has spent more on them than I have!" said Pompey, a red glint in his blue eyes. "I am afraid so." "Then I'll have to set my agents to gossiping about how much games cost." Pompey glanced at Philippus from under his lids. "How much will Crassus lay out? Any idea?" "A thousand talents or thereabouts." "Crassus? A thousand talents?" "Easily." "He's too much the miser!" "Not this year, Magnus. Your generosity and showmanship have evidently stung our big ox into goring with both his horns." "What can I do?" "Very little except turn on absolutely wondrous games." "You're holding something back, Philippus." The fat jowls wobbled, the dark eyes flickered. Then he sighed, shrugged. "Oh well, better it comes from me than from one of your enemies. It's the free grain will win for Crassus." "What do you mean? Because he's filling empty bellies? There are no empty bellies in Rome this year!" "He'll distribute five modii of free grain to every Roman citizen in Rome during September, October and November. Count up! That's two one pound loaves a day for ninety days. And the vast majority of those ninety days will occur long after your entire gamut of entertainment is over. Everyone will have forgotten you and what you did. Whereas until the end of November, every Roman mouth taking a bite out of a loaf of bread will make an invocation of thanks to Marcus Licinius Crassus. He can't lose, Magnus!" said Philippus. It had been a long time since Pompey had last thrown a tantrum, but the one he threw for the sole edification of Lucius Marcius Philippus was one of his best. The hair came out in hanks, the cheeks and neck were raw with scratches, the body covered in bruises where he had dashed various parts of his anatomy against the floor or the walls. Tears ran like rain, he broke furniture and art into small pieces, his howls threatened to lift the roof. Mucia Tertia, hurrying to see what had happened, took one look and fled again. So did the servants. But Philippus sat in a fascinated appreciation until Varro arrived. "Oh, Jupiter!" whispered Varro. "Amazing, isn't it?" asked Philippus. "He's a lot quieter now. You ought to have seen him a few moments ago. Awesome!" "I've seen him before," said Varro, edging around the prone figure on the black and white marble tiles to join Philippus on his couch. "It's the news about Crassus, of course." "It is. When have you seen him like this?" "When he couldn't fit his elephants through the triumphal gate," said Varro, voice too low for the supine Pompey to hear; he was never sure how much of a Pompey tantrum was contrived, how much an actual travail which really did blot out conversation and action around him. Also when Carrinas slipped through his siege at Spoletium. He can't bear to be thwarted." "The ox gored with both horns," said Philippus pensively. "The ox," said Varro tartly, "has three horns these days, and the third is so feminine rumor has it! far the biggest." "Ah! It has a name, then." "Gaius Julius Caesar." Pompey sat up immediately, clothing shredded, scalp and face bleeding. "I heard that!" he said, answering Varro's unspoken debate about his tantrums. "What about Caesar?" "Only that he masterminded Crassus's campaign to win huge popularity," said Varro. Who told you?'' Pompey climbed lithely to his feet and accepted Philippus's handkerchief. "Palicanus." "He'd know, he was one of Caesar's tame tribunes," said Philippus, wincing as Pompey blew his nose productively. "Caesar's thick with Crassus, I know," said Pompey, tones muffled; he emerged from the handkerchief and tossed it to a revolted Philippus. "It was he did all the negotiating last year. And suggested that we restore the tribunate of the plebs." This was said with an ugly look at Philippus, who had not suggested it. "I have enormous respect for Caesar's ability," said Varro. "So does Crassus and so do I." Pompey still looked ugly. "Well, at least I know where Caesar's loyalties lie!" "Caesar's loyalties lie with Caesar," said Philippus, "and you should never forget that. But if you're wise, Magnus, you'll keep Caesar on a string despite his ties to Crassus. You'll never not need a Caesar, especially after I'm dead and that can't be far off. I'm too fat to see seventy. Lucullus fears Caesar, you know! Now that takes some doing. I can think of only one other man whom Lucullus feared. Sulla. You look at Caesar closely. Sulla!" "If you say I ought to keep him on a string, Philippus, then I will," said Pompey magnanimously. "But it will be a long time before I forget that he spoiled my year as consul!"

  Between the end of Pompey's victory games (which were a great success, chiefly because Pompey's tastes in theater and circus were those of a common man) and the beginning of the ludi Romani, the Kalends of September intervened, and on the Kalends of September the Senate always held a meeting. It was always a significant session, and this year's session followed that tradition; Lucius Aurelius Cotta revealed his findings at it. "I have acquitted myself of the commission which you laid upon me early in the year, Conscript Fathers," Lucius Cotta said from the curule dais, I hope in a manner you will approve. Before I go into details, I will briefly outline what I intend to ask you to recommend into law." No scrolls or papers resided in his hands, nor did his urban praetor's clerk seem to have documents. As the day was exceedingly hot (it still being midsummer by the seasons), the House breathed a faint sigh of relief; he was not going to make it a long drawn meeting. But then, he was not a long drawn person; of the three Cottae, Lucius was the youngest and the brightest. "Candidly, my fellow members of this House," Lucius Cotta said in his clear, carrying voice, "I was not impressed by the record of either senators or knights in the matter of jury duty. When a jury is composed entirely of senators, it favors those of the senatorial order. And when a jury is composed of knights who own the Public Horse, it favors the equestrian order. Both kinds of jurors are susceptible to bribes, chiefly because, I believe, all a man's fellow jurors are of his own kind either senatorial or equestrian. "What I propose to do," he said, "is to divide jury duty up more equitably than ever before. Gaius Gracchus took juries off the Senate and gave them to the eighteen Centuries of the First Class who own a Public Horse and a census of at least four hundred thousand sesterces per annum in income. Now it is incontrovertible that with few exceptions every senator comes from a family within the ranks of the eighteen Centuries at the top end of the First Class. What I am saying is that Gaius Gracchus did not go far enough. Therefore I propose to make every jury a three way forum by having each jury composed of one third senators, one third knights of the Public Horse, and one third tribuni aerarii the knights who comprise the bulk of the First Class, and have a census of at least three hundred thousand sesterces per annum in income." A hum began, but not of outrage; the faces turned like flowers toward the sun of Lucius Cotta were astonished, but in a thoughtful way. Lucius Cotta grew persuasive. "It seems to me," he said, that we of the Senate grew sentimental over the years which elapsed between Gaius Gracchus and the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. We remembered with longing the privilege of jury duty without remembering the reality of jury duty. Three hundred of us to staff every jury, against fifteen hundred knights of the Public Horse. Then Sulla gave us back our beloved jury duty, and even though he enlarged the Senate to cope with this, we soon learned that each and
every one of us resident in Rome was perpetually chained to some jury or other. Because, of course, the standing courts have greatly added to jury duty. Trial processes were far less numerous when most trial processes had to be individually enacted by an Assembly. I think Sulla had reasoned out that the smaller size of each jury and the greater size of the Senate itself would overcome the vexations of perpetual jury duty, but he underestimated the problem. "I entered upon my enquiry convinced of that one fact only that the Senate, even in its enlarged condition, is not a body numerous enough to provide juries for every trial. And yet, Conscript Fathers, I was loath to hand the courts back to the knights of the eighteen Public Horse Centuries. To do that, I felt, would have been a betrayal of two things my own senatorial order, and the truly excellent system of justice which Sulla gave us in his permanent standing courts." Everyone was leaning forward now, rapt: Lucius Cotta was speaking absolute sense! "At first, then, I thought of dividing jury duty equally between the Senate and the eighteen senior Centuries, with each jury composed of fifty percent senators and fifty percent knights. However, a few calculations showed me that the onus of duty for senators was still too heavy." Face very serious, eyes shining, both hands out, Lucius Cotta changed his thrust slightly. "If a man is to come to sit in judgement on his fellow man," he said quietly, "no matter what his rank or status might be, then he should come fresh, eager, interested. That is not possible when a man has to serve on too many juries. He grows jaded, skeptical, disinterested and more prone to accept bribes. For what other compensation, he might ask himself, can he obtain except a bribe? The State does not pay its jurors. Therefore the State ought not to have the right to suck up huge quantities of any man's time." There were nods and murmurs of approval; the House liked where Lucius Cotta was going very much. "I am aware that many of you were thinking along these lines, that jury duty ought to be given to a larger body of men than the Senate. I am aware, naturally, that for a short time once before the juries were divided between the two orders. But, as I have said already, none of the solutions which had occurred to us until now went far enough. If there are eighteen hundred minus the membership of the Senate in the eighteen senior Centuries, then the knight pool is reasonably wide, and one knight might perhaps sit on one jury in any year." Lucius Cotta paused, well satisfied with what his eyes saw. He went on more briskly. A man of the First Class, my fellow senators, is just that. A man of the First Class. A prominent citizen of means, with an income of no less than three hundred thousand sesterces per annum. Yet because Rome is now ancient, some things have not changed, or else have continued in the old way but with extra people or functions tacked on. Like the First Class. At the very beginning we had only the eighteen senior Centuries, but because we doggedly kept those eighteen Centuries to only one hundred men in each, we had to expand the First Class by tacking on more Centuries. When we got to seventy three extra Centuries tacked on, we decided to expand the First Class in a different way not by keeping on adding more Centuries, but by increasing the number of men in each Century beyond the old one hundred. So we ended up with what I might call a top light First Class! Just one thousand eight hundred men in the senior eighteen Centuries, and many thousands of men in the seventy three other Centuries. "So why not, I asked myself, offer public duty to these many, many thousands of men of the First Class who are not senior enough in family or name to belong to the eighteen Centuries of the Public Horse? If these more junior men were to form one third of each and every jury empaneled, the burden of duty for one man would be extremely light, yet a great incentive for the vast body of more junior knights we call the tribuni aerarii. Imagine if you will a jury of, say, fifty one men: seventeen senators, seventeen knights of the Public Horse, and seventeen tribuni aerarii. The seventeen senators have the clout of experience, legal knowledge and long association with jury duty. The seventeen knights of the Public Horse have the clout of distinguished family and great wealth. And the seventeen tribuni aerarii have the clout of freshness, a new and different experience, membership in the First Class of Roman citizens, and at least considerable wealth." Both the hands went out again; Lucius Cotta dropped the right one and extended the left toward the massive bronze doors of the Curia Hostilia. "That is my solution, Conscript Fathers! A tripartite jury of equal numbers of men from all three orders within the First Class. If you award me a senatus consultum, I will draft my measure in properly legal fashion and present it to the Assembly of the People." Pompey held the fasces for the month of September, and sat upon his curule chair at the front of the dais. Beside him was an empty chair that of Crassus. How says the senior consul elect?'' Pompey asked correctly of Quintus Hortensius. The senior consul elect commends Lucius Cotta for this splendid piece of work," said Hortensius. "Speaking as a curule magistrate elect and as an advocate in the courts, I applaud this eminently sensible solution to a vexed problem." "The junior consul elect?" asked Pompey. "I concur with my senior colleague," said Metellus Little Goat, who had no reason to oppose the measure now that the case of Gaius Verres was in the past and Verres himself vanished. And so it went through the ranks of those asked to speak; no one could find fault. There were some who were tempted to find fault, of course, but every time they thought of how much jury duty finding fault was likely to let them in for, they shuddered and ended in saying nothing.

  "It really is splendid," said Cicero to Caesar as the exodus from the House drew them together. "We're both men who like to work with honest juries. How cunning Lucius Cotta was! Two segments of the jury would have to be bribed to secure the right verdict which is more expensive by far than half! and what one segment accepted, the other two would be inclined to deny. I predict, my dear Caesar, that while jury bribery may not entirely disappear, there will be considerably less of it. The tribuni aerarii will regard it as a matter of honor to behave decently and justify their incorporation. Yes indeed, Lucius Cotta has been very clever!" Caesar took great pleasure in reporting this to his uncle over dinner in his own triclinium. Neither Aurelia nor Cinnilla was present; Cinnilla was into her fourth month of pregnancy and suffering an almost constant sickness of the stomach, and Aurelia was caring for little Julia, who was also ailing in a minor way. So the two men were alone, and not ungrateful for it. "I admit that the bribery aspect did occur to me," said Lucius Cotta, smiling, "but I couldn't very well be blunt in the House when I wanted the measure approved." True. Nonetheless it has occurred to most, and as far as Cicero and I are concerned, it's a terrific bonus. On the other hand, Hortensius may well privately deplore it. Bribery aside, the best part about your solution is that it will preserve Sulla's standing courts, which I believe are the greatest advance in Roman justice since the establishment of trial and jury." "Oh, very nice praise, Caesar!" Lucius Cotta glowed for a moment, then put his wine cup on the table and frowned. "You're in Marcus Crassus's confidence, Caesar, so perhaps you can allay my fears. In many ways this has been a halcyon year no wars on the horizon we're not winning comfortably, the Treasury under less stress than it has been in a very long time, a proper census being taken of all the Roman citizens in Italy, a good harvest in Italy and the provinces, and something like a nice balance struck between old and new in government. If one leaves aside the unconstitutionality of Magnus's consulship, truly this year has been a good one. As I walked here through the Subura, I got a feeling that the ordinary Roman people the sort who rarely get to exercise a vote and find Crassus's free grain a genuine help in stretching their income are happier than they have been in at least a generation. I agree that they're not the ones who suffer when heads roll and the gutters of the Forum run with blood, but the mood that kind of thing engenders infects them too, even though their own heads are not in jeopardy." Pausing for breath, Lucius Cotta took a mouthful of wine. "I think I know what you're going to say, Uncle, but say it anyway," said Caesar. "It's been a wonderful summer, especially for the lowly. A host of entertainments, food enough to eat to bursting point and take home sackloads to feed every member of the family to burs
ting point, lion hunts and performing elephants, chariot races galore, every farce and mime known to the Roman stage and free wheat! Public Horses on parade. Peaceful elections held on time for once. Even a sensational trial wherein the villain got his just deserts and Hortensius a smack in the eye. Cleaned up swimming holes in the Trigarium. Not nearly as much disease as everyone expected, and no outbreak of the summer paralysis. Crimes and confidence tricks quite depressed!" Lucius Cotta smiled. "Whether they deserve it or not, Caesar, most of the credit and the praise! is going to the consuls. People's feelings about them are as romantic as they are fanciful. You and I, of course, know better. Though one cannot deny that they've been excellent consuls legislated only to save their necks, and for the rest, left well enough alone. And yet and yet there are rumors growing, Caesar. Rumors that all is not amicable between Pompeius and Crassus. That they're not speaking to each other. That when one is obliged to be present somewhere, the other will be absent. And I'm concerned, because I believe that the rumors are true and because I believe that we of the upper class owe the ordinary people one short little perfect year." "Yes, the rumors are true," said Caesar soberly. "Why?" "Chiefly because Marcus Crassus stole Pompeius's thunder and Pompeius cannot bear to be eclipsed. He thought that between the Public Horse farce and his votive games, he'd be everyone's hero. Then Crassus provided three months of free grain. And demonstrated to Pompeius that he's not the only man in Rome with an absolutely vast fortune. So Pompeius has retaliated by cutting Crassus out of his life, consular and private. He should, for instance, have notified Crassus that there was a meeting of the Senate today oh, everyone knows there's always a meeting on the Kalends of September, but the senior consul calls it, and must notify his juniors." "He notified me," said Lucius Cotta. "He notified everyone except Crassus. And Crassus interpreted that as a direct insult. So he wouldn't go. I tried to reason with him, but he refused to budge." "Oh, cacat!" cried Lucius Cotta, and flopped back on his couch in disgust. "Between the pair of them, they'll ruin what would otherwise be a year in a thousand!" "No," said Caesar, "they won't. I won't let them. But if I do manage to patch up a peace between them, it won't last long. So I'll wait until the end of the year, Uncle, and bring some Cottae into my schemes. At the end of the year we'll force them to stage some sort of public reconciliation that will bring tears to every eye. That way, it's exeunt omnes on the last day of the year with everybody singing their lungs out Plautus would be proud of the production." "You know," said Lucius Cotta thoughtfully, straightening up, "when you were a boy, Caesar, I had you in my catalogue of men as what Archimedes might have called a prime mover you know, 'Give me a place to stand, and I will shift the whole globe!' That was genuinely how I saw you, and one of the chief reasons why I mourned when you were made flamen Dialis. So when you managed to wriggle out of it, I put you back where I used to have you in my catalogue of men. But it hasn't turned out the way I thought it would. You move through the most complicated system of gears and cogs! For such a young man, you're very well known at many levels from the Senate to the Subura. But not as a prime mover. More in the fashion of a lord high chamberlain in an oriental court content to be the mind behind events, but allowing other men to enjoy the glory." He shook his head. "I find that so odd in you!" Caesar had listened to this with tight mouth and two spots of color burning in his normally ivory cheeks. "You didn't have me wrongly catalogued, Uncle," he said. "But I think perhaps my flaminate was the best thing could have happened to me, given that I did manage to wriggle out of it. It taught me to be subtle as well as powerful, it taught me to hide my light when showing it might have snuffed it out, it taught me that time is a more valuable ally than money or mentors, it taught me the patience my mother used to think I would never own and it taught me that nothing is wasted! I am still learning, Uncle. I hope I never stop! And Lucullus taught me that I could continue to learn by developing ideas and launching them through the agency of other men. I stand back and see what happens. Be at peace, Lucius Cotta. My time to stand forth as the greatest prime mover of them all will come. I will be consul in my year, even. But that will only be my beginning."