The Senate resumed its deliberations on the Ides, officially a day of rest, and therefore not a day upon which the Comitia could meet. Caepio would have no excuse to quit the session. Sextus Caesar was looking worn out, his breathing audible throughout the House, but he saw the initial ceremonies to their conclusion, then rose to speak. "I will tolerate no more of these disgraceful goings-on," he said, voice clear and carrying. "As for the fact that the chief source of the disruptions emanates from the curule podium I regard that as an additional humiliation. Lucius Marcius and Quintus Servilius Caepio, you will conduct yourselves as befits your office which, I take leave to inform you, neither of you adorns! You demean it, both of you! If your lawlessness and sacrilegious conduct continue, I will send the fasces to the temple of Venus Libitina, and refer matters to the electors in their Centuries." He nodded to Philippus. "You now have the floor, Lucius Marcius. But heed me well! I have had enough. So has the Leader of the House." "I do not thank you, Sextus Julius, any more than I thank the Leader of the House, and all the other members who are masquerading as patriots," said Philippus impudently. "How can a man claim to be a Roman patriot, and want to give our citizenship away? The answer is that he cannot be the one and do the other! The Roman citizenship is for Romans. It should not be given to anyone who is not by family, by ancestry, and by legal writ entitled to it. We are the children of Quirinus. The Italians are not. And that, senior consul, is all I have to say. There is no more to be said." "There is much more to be said!" Drusus countered. "That we are the children of Quirinus is inarguable. Yet Quirinus is not a Roman god! He is a god of the Sabines, which is why he lives on the Quirinal, where the city of the Sabines once stood. In other words, Lucius Marcius, Quirinus is an Italian god! Romulus took him into our fold, Romulus made him Roman. But Quirinus belongs equally to the people of Italy. How can we betray Rome by making her mightier? For that is what we will be doing when we give the citizenship to all of Italy. Rome will be Italy, and mighty. Italy will be Rome, and mighty. What as the descendants of Romulus we retain will be ours forever, exclusively. That can never belong to anyone else. But what Romulus gave us is not the citizenship! That, we have already given to many who cannot claim to be the children of Romulus, the natives of the city of Rome. If Romanness is at issue, why is Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis sitting in this august body? His is a name, Quintus Servilius Caepio, that I note you have refrained from mentioning whenever you and Lucius Marcius have sought to impugn the Romanness of certain members of this House! Yet Quintus Varius is truly not a Roman! He never laid eyes on this city nor spoke Latin in normal congress until he was in his twenties! Yet here he sits by the grace of Quirinus in the Senate of Rome a man less Roman by far in his thoughts, in his speech, in his way of looking at things, than any Italian! If we are to do as Lucius Marcius Philippus wants, and confine the citizenship of Rome to those among us who can claim family, ancestry, and legal writ, then the first man to have to leave both this House and the city of Rome would be Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis! He is the foreigner!" That of course brought Varius cursing to his feet, despite the fact that, as a pedarius, he was not allowed to speak. Sextus Caesar summoned all his paucity of breath, and roared for order so loudly that order was restored. "Marcus Aemilius, Leader of this House, I see you wish to speak. You have the floor." Scaurus was angry. "I will not see this House degenerate to the level of a cock-pit because we are disgraced by curule magistrates of a quality not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Nor will I make reference to the right of any man to sit in this august body! All I want to say is that if this House is to survive and if Rome is to survive we must be as liberal to the Italians in the matter of our citizenship as we have been to certain men sitting in this House today." But Philippus was on his feet. "Sextus Julius, when you gave the Leader of the House permission to speak, you did not acknowledge that I wished to speak. As consul, I am entitled to speak first." Sextus Caesar blinked. "I thought you had done, Lucius Marcius. Are you not done, then?" "No." "Then please, will you get whatever it is you have to say over with? Do you mind waiting until the junior consul has his say, Leader of the House?" "Of course not," said Scaurus affably, and sat down. "I propose," said Philippus weightily, "that this House strike each and every one of the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus off the tablets. None has been passed legally." "Arrant nonsense!" said Scaurus indignantly. "Never in the history of the Senate has any tribune of the plebs gone about his legislating with more scrupulous attention to the laws of procedure than Marcus Livius Drusus!" "Nonetheless, his laws are not valid," said Philippus, whose nose was apparently beginning to throb greatly, for he began to pant, fingers fluttering around the shapeless blob in the middle of his face. "The gods have indicated their displeasure." "My meetings met with the approval of the gods too," said Drusus flatly. "They are sacrilegious, as the events throughout Italy over the past ten months clearly demonstrate," said Philip-pus. "I say that the whole of Italy has been torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath!" "Oh, really, Lucius Marcius! Italy is always being torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath," said Scaurus wearily. "Not the way it has been this year!" Philippus drew a breath. “I move that this House recommend to the Assembly of the Whole People that the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus be annulled, on the grounds that the gods have demonstrated marked displeasure. And, Sextus Julius, I will see a division. Now." Scaurus and Marius were both frowning, sensing in this something as yet hidden, but unable to see what it was. That Philippus would be defeated was certain. So why, after such a brief and uninspiring address, was he insisting upon a division? The House divided. Philippus lost by a large majority. He then lost his temper, screaming and ranting until he spat; the urban praetor, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, near him on the dais, pulled his toga ostentatiously over his head to ward off the saliva rain. "Greedy ingrates! Monumental fools! Sheep! Insects! Offal! Butcher's scraps! Maggots! Pederasts! Fellators! Violators of little girls! Dead flesh! Whirlpools of avarice!" were but some of the names Philippus hurled at his fellow senators. Sextus Caesar allowed him sufficient time to run down, then had his chief lictor pound the bundle of rods on the floor until the rafters boomed. "Enough!" he shouted. "Sit down and be quiet, Lucius Marcius, or I will have you ejected from this meeting!" Philippus sat down, chest heaving, nose beginning to drip a straw-colored fluid. "Sacrilege!" he howled, drawing the word out eerily. After which he did sit quietly. "What is he up to?" whispered Scaurus to Marius. "I don't know. But I wish I did!" growled Marius. Crassus Orator rose. "May I speak, Sextus Julius?" "You may, Lucius Licinius." "I do not wish to talk about the Italians, or our cherished Roman citizenship, or the laws of Marcus Livius," Crassus Orator said in his beautiful, mellifluous voice. "I am going to talk about the office of consul, and I will preface my remarks with an observation that never in all my years in this House have I seen and heard the office of consul abused, abashed, abased as it has been in these last days by Lucius Marcius Philippus. No man who has treated his office the highest in the land! the way Lucius Marcius Philippus has, ought to be allowed to continue in it! However, when the electors put a man in office he is not bound by any code save those of his own intelligence and good manners, and the many examples offered him by the mos maiorum. "To be consul of Rome is to be elevated to a level just a little below our gods, and higher by far than any king. The office of consul is freely given and does not rest upon threats or the power of retribution. For the space of one year, the consul is supreme. His imperium outranks that of any governor. He is the commander-in-chief of the armies, he is the leader of the government, he is the head of the Treasury and he is the figurehead of every last thing the Republic of Rome has come to mean! Be he patrician or be he New Man, be he fabulously rich or relatively poor, he is the consul. Only one man is his equal, and that man is the other consul. Their names are inscribed upon the consular fasti, there to glitter for all time. "I have been consul. Perhaps thirty men sitting here today have been consuls, and some of them h
ave been censors as well. I shall ask them how they feel at this moment how do you feel at this moment, gentlemen consulars, after listening to Lucius Marcius Philippus since the beginning of this month? Do you feel as I feel? Unclean? Disgraced? Humiliated? Do you think it right that this third-time-lucky occupant of our office should go uncensured? You do not? Good! Nor, gentlemen consulars, do I!" Crassus Orator turned from the front rows to glare fiercely at Philippus on the curule dais. "Lucius Marcius Philippus, you are the worst consul I have ever seen! Were I sitting in Sextus Julius's chair, I would not be one tenth as patient as he! How dare you swish round the vici of our beloved city preceded by your twelve-lictor escort, calling yourself a consul? You are not a consul! You are not fit to lick a consul's boots! In fact, if I may borrow a phrase from our Leader, you are not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Instead of being a model of exemplary behavior to your juniors in this assemblage and to those outside in the Forum, you conduct yourself like the worst demagogue who ever prated from the rostra, like the most foul-mouthed heckler who ever stood at the back of any Forum crowd! How dare you take advantage of your office to hurl vituperations at the members of this House? How dare you imply that other men have acted illegally?" He pointed his finger at Philippus, drew a breath, and roared, "I have put up with you long enough, Lucius Marcius Philippus! Either conduct yourself like a consul, or stay at home!" When Crassus Orator resumed his place the House applauded strenuously; Philippus sat looking at the ground with head at an angle preventing anyone from seeing his face, while Caepio glared indignantly at Crassus Orator. Sextus Caesar cleared his throat. "Thank you, Lucius Licinius, for reminding me and all who hold this office who and what the consul is. I take as much heed of your words as I hope Lucius Marcius has. And, since it seems none of us can conduct ourselves decently in this present atmosphere, I am concluding this meeting. The House will sit again eight days from now. We are in the midst of the ludi Romani, and I for one think it behooves us to find a more fitting way to salute Rome and Romulus than acrimonious and ill-mannered meetings of the Senate. Have a good holiday, Conscript Fathers, and enjoy the games." Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Drusus, Crassus Orator, Scaevola, Antonius Orator and Quintus Pompeius Rufus repaired to the house of Gaius Marius, there to drink wine and talk over the day's events. "Oh, Lucius Licinius, you squashed Philippus beautifully!" said Scaurus happily, gulping at his wine thirstily. "Memorable," said Antonius Orator. "And I thank you too, Lucius Licinius," said Drusus, smiling. Crassus Orator accepted all this approval with becoming modesty, only saying, "Yes, well, he asked for it, the fool!" Since Rome was still very hot, everyone had doffed his toga on entering Marius's house and repaired to the cool fresh air of the garden, there to loll comfortably. "What I want to know," said Marius, seated on the coping of his peristyle pool, "is what Philippus is up to." "So do I," said Scaurus. "Why should he be up to anything?" asked Pompeius Rufus. "He's just a bad-mannered lout. He's never been any different." "No, there's something working in the back of his grubby mind," said Marius. "For a moment there today, I thought I'd grasped it. But then it went, and I can't seem to remember." Scaurus sighed. "Well, Gaius Marius, of one thing you can be sure we'll find out! Probably at the next meeting." "It should be an interesting one," said Crassus Orator, and winced, massaged his left shoulder. "Oh, why am I so tired and full of aches and pains these days? I didn't give a very long speech today. But I was angry, that's true."
The night was to prove that Crassus Orator paid a higher price for his speech than he would have cared to, had he been asked. His wife, the younger Mucia of Scaevola the Augur, woke up at dawn quite chilled; cuddling against her husband for warmth, she discovered him horribly cold. He had died some hours earlier, at the height of his career and the zenith of his fame. To Drusus, Marius, Scaurus, Scaevola, and those of similar ideas, his death was a catastrophe; to Philippus and Caepio, it was a judgment in their favor. With renewed enthusiasm Philippus and Caepio moved among the pedarii of the Senate, talking, persuading, coaxing. And felt themselves in excellent case when the Senate reconvened after the ludi Romani were over. "I intend to ask again for a division upon the question as to whether the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus should be kept on the tablets," said Philippus in a cooing voice, apparently determined to conduct himself like a model consul. "I do understand how tired of all this opposition to the laws of Marcus Livius many of you must be, and I am aware that most of you are convinced that the laws of Marcus Livius are absolutely valid. Now I am not arguing that the religious auspices were not observed, that the Comitial proceedings were not conducted legally, and that the consent of the Senate was not obtained before any move in the Comitia was made." He stepped to the very front of the dais, and spoke more loudly. "However, there is a religious impediment in existence! A religious impediment so large and so foreboding that we in all conscience cannot possibly ignore it. Why the gods should play such tricks is beyond me, I am no expert. But the fact remains that while the auguries and the omens were interpreted favorably before each and every meeting of the Plebeian Assembly held by Marcus Livius, up and down Italy were godly signs indicating a huge degree of divine wrath. I am an augur myself, Conscript Fathers. And it is very clear to me that sacrilege has been done." One hand went out; Philippus's clerk filled it with a scroll Philippus peeled apart. "On the fourteenth day before the Kalends of January the day Marcus Livius promulgated his law regulating the courts and his law enlarging the Senate in the Senate the public slaves went to the temple of Saturn to ready it for the next day's festivities the next day, if you remember, was the opening day of the Saturnalia. And they found the woolen bonds swaddling the wooden statue of Saturnus soaked with oil, a puddle of oil upon the floor, and the interior of the statue dry. The freshness of this leakage was not in doubt. Saturnus, everyone agreed at the time, was displeased about something! "On the day that Marcus Livius Drusus passed his laws on the courts and the size of the Senate in the Plebeian Assembly, the slave-priest of Nemi was murdered by another slave, who, according to the custom there, became the new slave-priest. But the level of the water in the sacred lake at Nemi suddenly fell by a whole hand, and the new slave-priest died without doing battle, a terrible omen. "On the day that Marcus Livius Drusus promulgated in the Senate his law disposing of the ager publicus, there was a bloody rain on the ager Campanus, and a huge plague of frogs on the ager publicus of Etruria. "On the day that the lex Livia agraria was passed in the Plebeian Assembly, the priests of Lanuvium discovered that the sacred shields had been gnawed by mice a most dreadful portent, and immediately lodged with our College of Pontifices in Rome. "On the day that the tribune of the plebs Saufeius's Board of Five was convened to commence parceling out the ager publicus of Italy and Sicily, the temple of Pietas on the Campus Martius near the Flaminian Circus was struck by lightning, and badly damaged. "On the day the grain law of Marcus Livius Drusus was passed in the Plebeian Assembly, the statue of Diva Angerona was discovered to have sweated profusely. The bandage sealing her mouth had slipped down around her neck, and there were those who swore that they had heard her whispering the secret name of Rome, delighted that she could speak at last. "On the Kalends of September, the day upon which Marcus Livius Drusus introduced in this House his proposed bill to give the Italians our precious citizenship, a frightful earthquake utterly destroyed the town of Mutina in Italian Gaul. This portent the seer Publius Cornelius Culleolus has interpreted as meaning that the whole of Italian Gaul is angry that it too is not to be rewarded with the citizenship. An indication, Conscript Fathers, that if we award the citizenship to peninsular Italy, all our other possessions will want it too. "On the day that he publicly chastised me in this House, the eminent consular Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator died mysteriously in his bed, and was ice-cold in the morning. "There are many more portents, Conscript Fathers," said Philippus, hardly needing to raise his voice, so hushed was the chamber. "I have cited only those which actually occurred on the selfsame day as one of Marcus Livius Drusus's laws was either promulga
ted or ratified, but I give you now a further list. "A bolt of lightning damaged the statue of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, a frightful omen. On the last day of the ludi Romani just concluded, a bloody rain fell on the temple of Quirinus, but nowhere else and how great a sign of godly wrath is that! The sacred spears of Mars moved. An earth tremor felled the temple of Mars in Capua. The sacred spring of Hercules in Ancona dried up for the first time on record, and there is no drought. A huge gulch of fire opened up in one of the streets of Puteoli. Every gate in the walls of the city of Pompeii suddenly and mysteriously swung shut. "And there are more, Conscript Fathers, many more! I will have the full list posted on the rostra, so that everyone in Rome can see for himself how adamantly the gods condemn these laws of Marcus Livius Drusus. For they do! Look at the gods chiefly concerned! Pietas, who rules our loyalty and our family duties. Quirinus, the god of the assembly of Roman men. Jupiter Latiaris, who is the Latin Jupiter. Hercules, the protector of Roman military might and the patron of the Roman general. Mars, who is the god of war. Vulcan, who controls the lakes of fire beneath all Italy. Diva Angerona, who knows the secret name of Rome which, if spoken, can ruin Rome. Saturnus, who keeps the wealth of Rome intact, and rules our stay in time.'' "On the other hand," said Scaurus Princeps Senatus slowly, "all these omens could well be indicating how terrible matters will be for Italy and Rome if the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus are not kept on the tablets." Philippus ignored him, handing the scroll back to his clerk. "Post it on the rostra at once," he said. He stepped down from the curule dais and stood in front of the tribunician bench. "I will see a division of this House. All those in favor of declaring the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus invalid will stand on my right. All those in favor of keeping the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus on the tablets will stand to my left. Now, if you please." “I will take the lead, Lucius Marcius,'' said Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, getting to his feet. "As Pontifex Maximus, you have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt.'' A silent House filed down from its tiers, many of the faces as white as the togas beneath; all but a handful of the senators stood on Philippus's right, their eyes fixed upon the flagging. "The division is conclusive," said Sextus Caesar. "This House has moved that the laws of the tribunate of Marcus Livius Drusus be removed from our archives and the tablets destroyed. I shall convoke the Assembly of the Whole People to that effect three days from now." Drusus was the last man to leave the floor. When he did walk the short distance from Philippus's left to his end of the tribunician bench, he kept his head up. "You are, of course, entitled to interpose your veto, Marcus Livius," said Philippus graciously as Drusus crossed in front of him; the senators all stopped in their tracks. Drusus, his face quite blank, looked at Philippus blindly. "Oh, no, Lucius Marcius, I couldn't do that," he said gently. "I am not a demagogue! My duties as a tribune of the plebs are always undertaken with the consent of this assemblage, and my peers in this assemblage have declared my laws null and void. As is my duty, I will abide by the decision of my peers." "Which rather left," said Scaurus proudly to Scaevola as the meeting broke up, "our dear Marcus Livius wearing the laurels!" "It did indeed," said Scaevola, and twitched his shoulders unhappily. "What do you really think about those omens?" "Two things. The first, that in no other year has anyone ever bothered to collect natural disasters so assiduously. The second, that to me, if the omens suggest anything, it is that war with Italy will ensue if Marcus Livius's laws are not upheld." Scaevola had of course voted with Scaurus and the other supporters of Drusus; he could not have done otherwise and continued to keep his friends. But he was clearly troubled, and said now, demurring, "Yes, but..." "Quintus Mucius, you believe! said Marius incredulously. "No, no, I'm not saying that!" said Scaevola crossly, his common sense warring with his Roman superstition. "Yet how does one account for Diva Angerona's sweating, and losing her gag?" His eyes filled with tears. "Or for the death of my first cousin Crassus, my dearest friend?'' "Quintus Mucius," said Drusus, who had caught up to the group, "I think Marcus Aemilius is right. All those omens are a sign of what will happen if my laws are invalidated." "Quintus Mucius, you are a member of the College of Pontifices," said Scaurus Princeps Senatus patiently. "It all began with the only believable phenomenon, the loss of the oil out of the wooden statue of Saturnus. But we have been expecting that to happen for years! That's why the statue is swaddled in the first place! As for Diva Angerona what easier than to sneak into her little shrine, yank down her bandage and give her a bath of some sticky substance guaranteed to leave drops behind? We are all aware that lightning tends to strike the highest point in an area, and you well know that the temple of Pietas was small in every way but one height! As for earthquakes and gulches of fire and bloody rains and plagues of frogs tchah! I refuse even to discuss them! Lucius Licinius died in his bed. We should all hope for such a pleasant end!" "Yes, but " Scaevola protested, still unconvinced. "Look at him!" Scaurus exclaimed to Marius and Drusus. "If he can be gulled, how can we possibly blame the rest of those superstition-riddled idiots?" "Do you not believe in the gods, Marcus Aemilius?" asked Scaevola, awestruck. "Yes, yes, yes, of course I do! What I do not believe in, Quintus Mucius, are the machinations and interpretations of men who claim to be acting in the name of the gods! I never met an omen or a prophecy that couldn't be interpreted in two diametrically opposite ways! And what makes Philippus such an expert? The fact that he's an augur? He wouldn't know a genuine omen if he tripped over it and it sat up and bit him on his pulverized nose! As for old Publius Cornelius Culleolus he's just what his name says he is, Walnut Balls! I would be prepared to take a very large bet with you, Quintus Mucius, that if some clever fellow had chased up the natural disasters and so-called unnatural events which occurred during the year of Saturninus's second tribunate, he could have produced a list equally imposing! Grow up! Bring some of that healthy courtroom skepticism of yours into this situation, I beg of you!" "I must say Philippus surprised me," said Marius gloomily. "I bought him once. But I never realized how crafty the cunnus was." "Oh, he's clever," said Scaevola eagerly, anxious to divert Scaurus from his shortcomings. "I imagine he thought of this some time ago." He laughed. "One thing we can be sure of this wasn't Caepio's brilliant idea!" "How do you feel, Marcus Livius?" asked Marius. "How do I feel?" Drusus looked pinched about the mouth, and very tired. "Oh, Gaius Marius, I don't honestly know anymore. It was a clever piece of work, that's all." "You should have interposed your veto," said Marius. "In my shoes, you would have and I wouldn't have blamed you," said Drusus. "But I cannot retract what I said at the beginning of my tribunate, please try to understand that. I promised then that I would heed the wishes of my peers in the Senate." "There won't be any enfranchisement now," said Scaurus. "Whyever not?" asked Drusus, genuinely astonished. "Marcus Livius, they've canceled all your laws! Or they will!" "What difference can that make? Enfranchisement hasn't gone to the Plebeian Assembly yet, I merely put it before the House. Which has voted not to recommend it to the Plebs. But I never promised the House that I wouldn't take a law to the Plebs if they didn't recommend it I said I would seek their mandate first. I have acquitted myself of that promise. But I cannot stop now, just because the Senate said no. The process is not complete. The Plebs must say no first. But I shall try to persuade the Plebs to say yes," said Drusus, smiling. "Ye gods, Marcus Livius, you deserve to win!" said Scaurus. "So I think too," Drusus said. "Would you excuse me? I have some letters to write to my Italian friends. I must persuade them not to go to war, that the battle isn't over yet." "Nonsense, it isn't possible!" exclaimed Scaevola. "If the Italians really do mean war should we refuse them the franchise and I believe you there, Marcus Livius, I really do, otherwise I would have put myself on Philippus's right it will take years for them to prepare for war!" "And there, Quintus Mucius, you're wrong. They are already on a war footing. Better prepared for war than Rome is."
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