“I don’t understand,” Callista said. “I thought a dictator was a usurper, like a Greek tyrant. And what is this—cavalry commander?”
“Among us,” Julia explained, “dictator is a constitutional office. In time of deadly national danger, such as a foreign invasion, when our division of powers is too slow and clumsy to meet the emergency, the Senate can direct the consuls to name a dictator.
The dictator in turn names another man to be his Master of Horse. This is an ancient title for his second in command, who will carry out his orders.”
“The dictator,” I went on, “has full imperium. He does not share it with a colleague, and his acts are not subject to tribunal veto. He is attended by twenty-four lictors, the number of both consuls combined. The dictatorship is what we call an ‘unaccountable’ office. Alone of all Roman magistrates, when he leaves office he cannot be called to account for his acts. He can order anything, including the execution without trial of citizens. He can declare war on his own initiative. There is no limit to his power save one.”
“What is that?” Callista asked.
“Time. A dictatorship is held for six months, and then the dictator must step down. Sulla’s dictatorship was unconstitutional. It was a military coup. There weren’t enough senators in Rome to pass a resolution of dictatorship. Once in power he doubled the size of the Senate to pack it with his flunkies, and then had them keep voting him back in as dictator. He held the office for three years and didn’t step down until he was too sick to go on. This sort of thing is why we so seldom appoint a dictator.”
“It would take great fear to make the Senate do it now,” Julia said.
“People are ripe for it,” I pointed out. “You’ve heard all the scare talk, seen all the line drawing that’s been going on. Agitation to cancel debts and perhaps massacre the bankers and money lenders would add fuel to the fire nicely.”
“But something happened,” Julia said.
“Yes, something caused Fulvius to swerve from the path that had been laid out for him and instead attack the Metelli through me.”
“Look at this one,” Callista said, handing me a translated page. “It is one of the last.”
You are to stop this foolishness. Your support is withdrawn. We have called back our men, and they will no longer aid you. Render an accounting for your actions at once or face the consequences.
“This does sound impatient,” I said.
“And this is the last one.” Callista handed me the page.
I am sending you more slaves for your household and more men for your protection and support. They are rough, but trustworthy. As long as you remember the terms of our bargain and adhere strictly to them, you will achieve your ambitions and will have nothing to fear from me. Do not try to contact me. I will send someone for you should we need to meet.
“This last message differed from the others,” Callista said. “It is written in a woman’s hand.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. The differences are quite distinct.”
“Fulvia?” Julia said.
“Not Fulvia, though she is probably involved. This was written by Octavia.”
“Octavia?” Julia said.
I told them about the heavy hints Sallustius had dropped concerning the wife of Caius Claudius Marcellus and her little brother.
“When I met with her yesterday,” I paused. Could it have been just yesterday? “When I talked with her yesterday, she was a little too emphatic in proclaiming that she had cut her ties with the Julian family, that she thought Julius Caesar was a potential tyrant, that she had nothing to do with the Fulvians, that she had no knowledge of her husband’s affairs, that she hadn’t even seen her brother since he was an infant, and she didn’t follow City gossip. Is such a thing believable?”
“Not in our family,” Julia said. “I think Sallustius is right. He’s a weasel, but he knows his subject. Caius Marcellus does nothing without her knowledge. She knew all about this plot, and she even learned their code. She knows what futile bunglers her husband and his kinsmen are. She knows that Julius Caesar is destined to be the greatest man in Rome, and she wants to make her brother his heir.”
She said this with a bitterness that surprised me. Then I understood that she had hoped that a son of ours would be Caesar’s heir. It seemed that the gods had other plans.
“So Octavia subverted the plot?” Callista asked. “How could she do this? What lever did she apply to move Fulvius more to her liking?” Even in asking this she used an analogy from Archimedean mechanics.
“It’s unlikely that she was able to promise him greater rewards than he already expected,” I said. “So it must have been blackmail.”
“She couldn’t have accused him of political scheming,” Julia said. “Everybody does that anyway.”
“No, Octavia threatened to expose him for the murder of Aristobulus. The Marcelli wanted the Greek out of their way, and they wanted to bind Fulvius more tightly to themselves, so they sent him to do their dirty work.”
“What proof?” Julia asked.
“It must have been the ring. The Marcelli wanted the ring back. It was the only thing that connected them to Aristobulus. Fulvius killed Aristobulus and delivered the ring. Octavia got hold of it and showed it to Fulvius. She’ll have had some sort of written evidence connecting him to the crime, but she concealed the ring in the desk her husband lent to Fulvius. Anytime she wanted, Octavia could have some ambitious friend, Curio, for instance, accuse him and demand an investigation. The iudex appointed to investigate would get an opportune tip as to where to find the ring. Those men who caught Hermes and me going through Fulvius’s belongings, it was the ring they’d come for. The Marcelli weren’t concerned about the papers because they were in cipher. But Octavia wanted that ring back.”
“And where did Octavia get those men?” Julia asked. “She cultivates her reputation for virtue the way Hortalus cultivates his fish ponds.”
“She got them from Fulvia. One way or another, those two women have been plotting together. Clodius’s widow has retained some control over his supporters, who are Caesarians to a man. It may have irritated Fulvia that her brother was working with the other side. Octavia presented her with a way to control him.”
“How could she have exposed him without incriminating her husband?” Julia asked.
“Either the Marcelli have very carefully kept their own hands clean,” I said, “or else she just didn’t care. Remember our conversation here yesterday when I mentioned that Caesar wanted Octavia to divorce Caius Claudius Marcellus and marry Pompey? I had assumed that she was mortally offended and detested Caesar for demanding that she leave her husband. It was probably Caius who refused.”
“Why did she set Fulvius to attack you?” Callista wanted to know.
“I’d like to believe I’m important enough to be at the center of all this,” I said, “but the sad truth is, I’m nothing. But my family is still extremely influential in the Senate and the assemblies, and they’re turning more and more against Caesar. She had a tool in Marcus Fulvius, and she set him to undermining the Metelli. I was standing for curule office and was a convenient target. I was just back from a foreign command, and nothing is more common than to accuse such a man of corruption overseas. Remember, he had that fine pedigree to flaunt before the public just prior to election time. We speculated that he might have been fishing for a tribuneship by acclimation. If Fulvia had all the old Clodians primed to agitate for him in the consilium plebis, they might have carried it off. Then he’d be untouchable for a year.”
“But how would he have produced his witnesses?” Julia asked.
“Oh, he might have had some people lined up to commit perjury, and it may have been enough just to throw the election into disorder. He might have accused me of bribing away his witnesses or murdering them or something. Enough to get me barred from the election anyway. That would mean one less Metellus holding an important office next year. But something wen
t wrong. The Marcelli, never quick-thinking men, realized what he was up to. Octavia got her slaves out of the house, maybe even warned Fulvius. He put on a dingy, old freedman’s toga and tried to get away, but they caught him and killed him. Then they dumped him on the steps of the basilica.”
“Do you think the various Marcelli, Marcus, Caius, and Marcus, actually killed him with their own hands?” Julia wanted to know. I explained to them Asklepiodes’s analysis of the wounds, and the conclusions I had drawn from them.
“Decius Caecilius,” Callista said, with what seemed to be unfeigned admiration, “I believe you have invented a whole, unique subset of philosophy! Have you ever considered writing a book about this? I am sure that you would be much in demand for lectures at the Museum in Alexandria.”
For a moment I wasn’t certain that I had heard her correctly. “Are you serious?”
“I am always serious about philosophical matters,” she assured me.
I glanced toward Julia. She was looking away, intently studying the fretwork that tastefully graced one of the walls.
“I shall have to give that some thought,” I said. “After all, I’ll have to have something to do during the occasional exile from Rome.” Another thought occurred to me. “Speaking of philosophical things, Callista, I’ve always wondered why the ocean doesn’t run off the edge of the world, taking Our Sea with it, out through the Gates of Hercules.”
“The world is a sphere,” she asserted, “floating in space, so there is no place for the ocean to run off to. This was proven by Eratosthenes almost two hundred years ago.”
“I see. Well, that answers that.” It made at least as much sense as a symbol for nothing.
“Getting back to our problem,” Julia said. “Do you think the Marcelli killed Fulvius with their own hands, and more to the point, can you prove it?” My Julia was always the practical one.
“I simply cannot believe,” Callista said, “that your political intrigues can get this complicated! It makes the struggles of the old Greek city-states seem laughably simpleminded.”
“It wasn’t intended to be this way,” I told her. “This was to be a rather ordinary power play, but it got out of hand. These are not very acute people. As Sallustius characterized them: a crew of second raters. They tried something too difficult for them to control; one of them didn’t even know that his own wife was in the other camp and spying on all their doings. They chose a badly flawed tool in Fulvius, and everybody lied to everyone else and to me. What should have been a clean, discreet operation turned into a tangled mess that called for murder and then a cover-up, which, in turn, called for a false accusation against me. And all this was begun by men of consular standing. It’s really very depressing.”
“However this turns out,” Julia said, “I am going to write to Caesar this evening. He has to know what is going on behind his back here in Rome.”
“Probably a good idea,” I agreed. “But I have a feeling that very little goes on in Rome that Caesar doesn’t know about. I assisted him with his correspondence back at the beginning of the war, remember? He has more friends sending him news and gossip than Cicero. But do go ahead. It will at least set his mind at ease about us. I’ll send him a full report after I’ve wrapped up this business.”
“Why, Decius!” Julia said happily. “I believe this is the first time you’ve acknowledged that Caesar is the real authority in Rome.”
“It seems inevitable now,” I admitted. “I’ve seen too much of the quality of the men ranged against him. Don’t celebrate prematurely though. By the time I write that report, I’ll be praetor, or I’ll be in exile. The first prospect is the ideal one; the second is better than the third.”
“What is the third?” Callista asked.
“Third, I’ll be dead and won’t get a chance to write the report.”
For a while we discussed my best course of action. I was to go on trial in the morning and we went over my defense, the most likely attacks I would face, and my best counterattacks. Julia’s mind for this sort of political-judicial warfare was as fine as that of any professional lawyer in Rome. She lacked only the rhetorical training to be a first-rate advocate. That, and the fact that women couldn’t argue in court.
It was well past dusk when Hermes arrived.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Finding people. We’ve come to escort you home.” He was quite unabashed, and I didn’t feel like berating him as he deserved. Besides, he usually knew what he was doing.
“Who is we?” I asked.
“Some friends.”
Julia and I rose. “Callista,” I said to the Alexandrian, “I cannot thank you enough. I sought an advisor and found a friend. If all goes well tomorrow and the next day, I shall be one of next year’s praetors. It may be that I will be praetor peregrinus, in charge of cases involving resident aliens. If in that office or in any other way I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to call upon me.”
Julia gave her a parting embrace. “My husband is not always perfectly rational, but he means that. And please don’t wait to have some sort of problem to call on us.”
“Just knowing that I have the friendship of the two of you is more than adequate recompense for this small service, which truly was not a service but a pleasure. The thrill of intellectual accomplishment is its own recompense.”
We stepped outside into the dimness. “What a gracious lady,” Julia said. “For once I can only commend your judgment in seeking out a foreign woman.”
“That’s good of you, my sweet. Hermes, who are all these men?” I could just make out the forms of some twenty or thirty men crowding the street. One held a small torch that did not yield enough light to reveal more than that. The others brought out torches and ignited them from that one. Soon I could see an abundance of military belts and high-strapped, hobnailed military boots, and men with hard limbs and harder faces, all deeply tanned.
“Evening, Senator, my lady,” said young Burrus, decurio of the Tenth Legion.
“Hermes, I can’t have this!” I protested. “These are all Caesar’s men! I won’t have people thinking I’m taking Caesar’s side against the others, that I’m—” I mumbled the last few words because Julia placed her fingers across my lips.
“Decius,” she said, “be quiet.”
“You put him up to this!” I said, astonished.
“I didn’t have to. We discussed how to keep you from getting yourself killed with this absurd neutrality, and Hermes suggested this. I concurred.”
“The time is past for neutrality,” Hermes told me, this boy who used to carry my bath implements and run my errands. “Let people say what they will. These men are here by their own choice whether you want them or not, and they will keep you safe in spite of yourself until this business is over. Remember, in the City they aren’t Caesar’s soldiers, they are citizens and voters and they can do as they like.”
I sighed, knowing defeat when it was staring me in the face. I was as much in Caesar’s camp now as if I had been in his army in Gaul.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
13
WE LEFT MY HOUSE IN THE PEARLY light of earliest dawn. When I stepped from my gate onto the street, it was already packed with my supporters. The occasion was too serious and solemn for a cheer, but I heard a collective murmur of approbation from them.
As soon as I was in the street, I was surrounded by soldiers. This we had discussed the night before, and as much as I hated to look like I went in fear of my fellow citizens, I could not reasonably object to this precaution. There was a very real possibility that the Marcelli, or Octavia, might decide to spare themselves embarrassment by hiring someone to slip a dagger between my ribs before I could reach the trial site.
Hermes accompanied me, positioned to my left rear, the most likely approach for a right-handed assailant. Before me stretched a wedge of soldiers. At the tip of the wedge were young Lucius Burrus and his father. Old Burrus had chosen to wear his m
ilitary decorations, of which he had earned a cartload: silver bracelets, torques, phalerae, even a civic crown. Armed soldiers could not enter the City, but I had the toughest-looking pack of unarmed soldiers south of the Padus. Stretching far behind was a great mob of my clients, my neighbors, and other supporters.
“Well,” I said, “barring rooftop archers, I should make it to the Forum alive.”
“Archers,” muttered a nearby soldier. “I knew we should’ve brought shields.”
“Let’s be off,” I said.
The mass of humanity began its stately pace down the narrow street, toward the Clivus Suburanus, which would take us to the Forum. Julia and the household staff would follow as soon as the street was halfway cleared.
I wore my best toga, not my Candida. It might look presumptuous, to show up at a trial wearing a chalked-up toga. Besides, proper rhetorical form called for a lot of broad gesticulation, and that could raise great clouds of chalk dust, an undignified sight. I was impeccably barbered and had spent the previous hour in breathing exercises, practicing my gestures, and gargling hot, vinegared water, things I hadn’t done in years. For once I wasn’t carrying weapons. It might be awkward if my dagger or caestus should clatter to the podium at the peak of a dramatic gesture. Instead, Hermes carried them for me.
When we reached the Forum, the crowd was already gathering. The trial was to be held in the old Forum’s largest open space, at the western end between the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Sempronia. There the magistrate’s platform, recently restored and adorned by Caesar, stood ready for a trial before the comitia tributa. This meant that, instead of the center of the platform being dominated by a praetor in his curule chair, we would be facing the Tribunes of the People, who by custom would be seated on a single bench. Since none of the presiding officials held imperium, there were no lictors on the podium. Behind the platform, on the Basilica Aemilia side, towered the wooden bleachers erected for the three hundred equites who would be my jury.
SPQR X: A Point of Law Page 22