SPQR III: The Sacrilege

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Hermes, master.”

  I do not know why we name our slaves for the gods, kings and heroes. It must be odd to achieve true greatness and know that someday your name will be borne by thousands of slaves.

  “Well, Hermes, I am your new owner, and you’ll find that I am a good one, within reason. I never use the whip without reason. On the other hand, when there is reason I wield it very well indeed. Does that sound reasonable?”

  “Very reasonable, sir,” he assured me with utmost sincerity.

  “Good. As your first duty in my service, you may attend me at the baths. Fetch my bath articles, a pair of sandals and one of my better togas. I call on a very distinguished man this afternoon.” The boy was about to rush off, but I stopped him. “Stay. Better let me pick out my toga.”

  With my clucking slaves dogging my steps, I went to my bedchamber to scan my wardrobe. Cassandra had aired the room and placed fresh flowers in the vases. I was touched by this. At this time of year, to get fresh flowers on such short notice they must have bribed the slaves of my next-door neighbor, who had a greenhouse.

  I picked out my second-best toga and a pair of sandals. It was a mild winter, so I did not bother with foot wrappings. They always look undignified, and after the chilly climate of Gaul, I felt no need of them.

  “I may return late,” I told my slaves. “If anyone calls, I shall be at the baths, the Forum and then the house of Metellus Celer. But nobody knows I am in town yet, so there should be no visitors.” I walked as I spoke, and as I walked my aged slaves patted me, dusted me off and all but swept the ground before my feet.

  “All will be ready for your return, master,” Cato assured me.

  “I’ll have dinner ready, should none of your friends invite you home,” Cassandra said. I knew this would not last. After a few days they would revert to their usual scolding, complaining selves.

  I went out into the street with Hermes behind me, carrying the toga, towels, vials of oil and a strigil of fine Campanian bronze work, the gift of a friend in younger, more carefree days. Its handle was decorated with lewd images which the imp admired as we walked.

  “Are you familiar with the city?” I asked him.

  “I’ve never lived anywhere else,” Hermes said.

  “Good. I shall probably have more use for you as a messenger than as a body servant.” Rome is a chaotic city, and it is difficult to find anything except the Capitol, the Forums and the major temples and Circuses unless you have had long experience of the city.

  “Did my uncle Lucius employ you this?” I asked.

  “No, but I ran away a lot and I learned all about the city that way.”

  I stopped and looked at his forehead. It was free even of pimples, no F branded there.

  “Why were you not marked as fugitivus?” I demanded.

  He had the hypocritical grace to look abashed. “Well, I was very young, and I always came back on my own.”

  “Turn around,” I ordered him. I tugged the neck opening of his tunic wider and looked down his back. Not a mark. I released him and continued walking. “Uncle Lucius is a lenient man. Run away from me once, and your back will have more stripes than an augur’s robe. Twice, and I’ll collar you. Three times, and you’ll have a great big F burned right between your squinty little eyes. Is that understood?”

  “Oh, yes, master. But from what I hear, you are a gentleman who likes to get out a lot. If I attend you, I’ll be all over town and there’ll be no need to run away, will there?”

  “I never thought of that,” I admitted.

  We went to the old bathhouse near the Temple of Saturn, just off the Forum. At a stall on the street I had myself barbered and tonsored, then went inside. The baths of those days were far more modest than those you see now, but this was one of the largest such establishments in Rome, and its interior was cavernous.

  I stripped and left Hermes to guard my clothes in the anteroom while I went within. I braced myself, gritted my teeth and plunged into the cold pool. There are many theories about the health-giving properties of cold water, and many Stoic types use only the cold pool, but these theories are nonsense. The reason that we always start with the cold plunge is that Romans distrust anything that affords pleasure, which we think is decadent and weakening. So we suffer first in the cold bath so we can feel all right about luxuriating in hot water afterward.

  After my brief gesture to virtue, I hastened, shivering, to the caldarium and wallowed in the warmth. I saw a good many old acquaintances and had to make up many lies about my dangerous, savage adventures in Gaul. After I had bored them sufficiently, I summoned Hermes and he rubbed me with scented oil; then I went to the exercise yard, where I rolled around in the wrestlers’ pit until I was coated with sand. Then Hermes wielded the strigil to scrape off sand, oil and a good deal of skin. This tedious but necessary step is another of the sufferings that make us feel better about bathing.

  That done, I went down to the steam rooms. I saw a pack of bearded Stoics in the cold pool trying to converse normally as if their teeth weren’t chattering. They weren’t the worst, though. Marcus Procius Cato, in his unending quest to become the most virtuous man in Rome, bathed all year round in the Tiber, because that is what he fancied our ancestors did. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that the river didn’t carry nearly as much sewage in the days of the founding fathers.

  When I walked from the bath, I felt quite literally a new man. For the tunic of a soldier I had exchanged the toga of the citizen and the tunic of the Senator. After the heavy caligae, wearing street sandals felt like being barefoot. I sent Hermes home with my military tunic and boots and made my way into the Forum. Rome has many Forums, but this was the Forum, the Forum Romanum, which always had been, was then, is now and forever shall be the center of Roman life. So much a part of our existence is it that we never bother with the Romanum part of the title unless it becomes necessary to distinguish it from the Forum Boarium or one of the others. It is just the Forum, which is to say, it is the center of the world.

  So true is this that, to prove it, we have the Golden Milestone smack in the center (all right, a little off-center, but not by much), from which all distances in the world are measured. You won’t find anything like that in some barbarian potentate’s main civic center, where they dispense justice, execute felons and sell slaves right alongside the vegetables. It felt good to be at the center of the world again.

  I strode across the uneven pavement into the marvelous jumble of monuments, many of them erected to men and events long forgotten. Among the stalls around the periphery I noted with distaste many fortune-tellers. These witches were periodically expelled from the city by aediles and Censors, but they always trickled back. It was bad enough that they influenced political matters with their predictions, but they also ran profitable sidelines in poisons and abortions. Doubtless my father was too busy purging the Senate of his favorite enemies, but he would get to these soon.

  The Forum was thronged with citizens, and foreigners gaped at the splendid temples and public buildings to be seen in every direction. The weather was fine, so courts were being held outdoors. Trials are a favorite spectator sport for Romans, and every last street-sweeper fancies himself a connoisseur of the finer points of law. They cheer a clever defense and hurl decaying vegetables at a clumsy one.

  As at the bath, I saw many people I knew and smugly accepted their congratulations on my new, exalted status. I received numerous dinner invitations, some of which I accepted, consoled a young kinsman who had been elected quaestor only to be assigned to the treasury, and generally comported myself as if I had achieved some importance. My only sorrow was that no meeting of the Senate had been called for that day, so I could not attend my first session as a full member and strut among my new peers.

  When even this new amusement palled, I betook myself to the house of Metellus Celer. He was one of the most distinguished men of the day, and I was unsure what duties he could require of me in his pursuit of the Consuls
hip, which the senior members of my family regarded as all but their birthright. The province he had just governed was one ordinarily assigned to ex-Consuls, but so prestigious was Metellus Celer that it had been assigned to him upon his leaving the office of praetor, at which time he had taken me along to get out of Rome, where I was, as usual, in trouble.

  I presented myself at the gate of his town house and was shown to the atrium, where a good many callers idled about, some of them Senators of great seniority. Among them was the last man I expected to see: Caius Julius Caesar. He had held a praetorship the previous year and had been assigned the province of Further Spain to govern. So why was he still in Rome? The extravagance of Caesar’s debts was the wonder of the Roman world, and the only hope he had of extricating himself from them was to get to Spain and start looting. He caught my eye and came toward me with hand outstretched, just as if he were standing for office.

  “Decius Caecilius, how good to see you back in Rome! And please accept my congratulations for your enrollment among the Senators.” He was followed by a band of his toadies, who smiled at me as if my elevation were their own.

  “I thank you, Caius Julius,” I said. “But I am surprised to see you here. I thought surely you would be in Spain by now.”

  He waved a hand as if it were a trifling matter. “Oh, certain duties detain me here, most of them of a religious nature.” By the most astonishing acts of bribery and corruption, Caesar had got himself elected Pontifex Maximus a few years previously and was in charge of all aspects of state religious practice. That reminded me of a question that had bothered me for some time.

  “There may be fighting in Spain, may there not?” I asked.

  “There is always a chance of that,” Caesar said. “I’ve had disgracefully little experience in military command, but I think I’ll be equal to the task.”

  “I’ve no doubt at all,” I assured him. “But tell me, how will the realities of battle square with the strictures of your pontificate?” The Pontifex Maximus may not look upon human blood.

  Caesar spoke gravely. “I have consulted the holy books deeply, and I have found that the various strictures of my religious office are binding only within Rome itself, and need not hinder my actions once I am outside the walls.”

  How convenient for you, I thought. Our religious books were written in such archaic language that they were mostly gibberish anyway.

  “Well,” I said, “if the supreme pontiff doesn’t know about these things, who does? I am sure you will come home from Spain covered with glory.” Covered with gold at any rate, I thought.

  “I thank you for your good wishes,” he said. He might have meant this sincerely. With Caius Julius you could never tell. At that moment Celer appeared in the atrium and began greeting his callers. He started with the most distinguished but quickly came over to me.

  “Good to see you back, Decius. Was it an easy voyage?”

  “Safe, but not easy,” I told him. “I sacrificed to Neptune many times each day.” This was the landlubber’s wry expression for seasickness.

  “The sea is for Greeks,” he said. Celer was a squat man with a froglike face, but there was nothing buffoonish about him. He had vast experience in every aspect of public life and was one of the richest men in Rome, although he had acquired it all decently, through inheritance or loot. “Your new tunic suits you well. Wait here while I attend to my guests. I need to speak with you privately.”

  I waited, trading gossip with the others, until the atrium was empty of visitors. Then I followed Celer into the garden. It was rather bare for that time of year, but beautifully laid out and maintained.

  “Have you sacrificed to Jupiter for your safe return?” Celer asked as we walked.

  “No, but I did make a real sacrifice to Neptune at the temple in Ostia,” I told him.

  “Sacrifice to Jupiter,” he advised. “You are coming up in the state service, and you should be seen to be pious. Romans like to know that their statesmen are punctilious in religious matters.”

  “Consider it done. My father tells me you wish me to serve you in your campaign for the Consulship. You know I will be happy to be of any help I may.”

  “Excellent. I expect to win, but I don’t want any nasty surprises. You know that winning the office is only half of it. It’s no good if you have a colleague you can’t work with.”

  “I see. Who is your choice for colleague?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. There’s a great field of them this year, all busy canvassing the Centuriate Assembly, some of them trying to bribe me. It’s generally agreed that I’ll be one of next year’s Consuls, and most think that the man I choose to support will be my colleague. I am not so sure of that. When I pick my man, I want you to work on his behalf.”

  “Done,” I said. “Have you decided how to divide the office?” In our ancient, unwieldy consular system there were a number of ways the authority of the Consulship could be divided, as agreed before the Consuls took office. Pompey and Crassus, who detested each other and neither of whom would yield an inch, had chosen the most archaic and awkward way: by presiding on alternate days. Others might give the elder colleague senior authority, or one might handle affairs within Rome and the other external matters.

  “I’ll decide that when I know who my colleague is to be. Honestly, I can’t see that it makes much difference. The Consulship no longer has the power it used to have.”

  This was true. Over the centuries, the praetors had usurped all the judicial powers of the Consuls. As for the military commands, our empire had grown too large for that, and the great generalships went to the men who had already held the highest offices. More and more, the armies were led by men who, like Pompey, had made a virtual lifetime career of soldiering. The last time serving Consuls had led an army had been against Spartacus, and that had ended in disaster.

  “Has your father spoken to you of your duties in the Senate?” Celer asked.

  “He put me firmly in my place on that score,” I assured him.

  “You work for years to get into the Senate, and once you’re in, you start at the bottom all over again. That’s how it always is. Power comes with seniority.”

  “What business occupies the Senate these days?” I asked.

  “First and foremost, Pompey. The aristocratic party hates and fears him, and it has blocked permission for his triumph. Worse yet, it continues to fight the land grants for his legions.”

  “If you will forgive me,” I said, “I thought we were part of the aristocratic party.”

  “You know that our family has always eschewed the extremes. The aristocratic faction has been in power since Sulla, and it grows increasingly divorced from political reality.” I listened attentively. This was inside power politics from a man who knew the subject intimately. “Whatever you think of Pompey, he has earned that triumph. It is foolish and ungrateful of the state to withhold it. And if we deny those legions the land they have been promised and fought hard for, then Italy will be full of thousands of professional killers organized, armed and hating us. I don’t want to see a repeat of the last civil war, when contending armies fought within the very streets of Rome.”

  “Sir, do I detect the slightest of tilts toward the pro-Pompeian faction?”

  “We will support him on these two points only. None can deny the justice of giving Roman soldiers the rewards they have justly earned. The family has patched up relations with Crassus, and we don’t want Pompey for an enemy because of it. Caesar champions Pompey in the Senate, and he is the coming man in Roman power.”

  “Caesar?” I said. “He’s never even commanded an army.”

  “Neither did Cicero, and look how far he’s come,” Celer pointed out.

  “As you will,” I said. “But I’ve fallen afoul of Pompey before.”

  “You were never important enough to bother him much.” How true that was. “Besides, to men like Pompey and Crassus, all is forgiven as soon as it is politically expedient. That’s how all sensible
men should behave.”

  “Are there any other important matters before the Senate?” I asked.

  “One that is not so important, but that concerns us. My brother-in-law is still trying to get himself made a plebeian, and we are still trying to prevent him.”

  “Ah, Publius Clodius,” I said. “Now there is someone who will never forgive and forget, no matter how politically expedient it may become.” Clodius was one of the patrician Claudians, and he wanted to be a Tribune of the People, an office open only to plebeians. It could be done if he were adopted into a plebeian family, but this was not easy if the Senate were opposed.

  “Last year, when Cato was tribune, he put a stop to it by simply interposing his veto. This year, Cicero has been fighting the adoption tooth and nail. Dangerous as he is, Clodius will be ten times as destructive if he is a tribune.” In many ways, the tribuneship was the most powerful office in Rome in those days. The tribunes had regained most of the powers taken from them by Sulla. They could introduce bills and veto any action of the Senate. I shuddered at the thought of Clodius having that power.

  “Working to frustrate Clodius is something I never need encouragement to do,” I told Celer.

  “Stay out of his way for now,” he cautioned. “I don’t know why he’s hanging around Rome when his duties lie in Sicily, but I’ve no doubt he’s up to some devilment.”

  “Always a safe bet, with Clodius.”

  “Very true. Now, since we are on that subject. We senior members of the family have been discussing what we may have to do when Clodius makes his run for the tribuneship, as surely he will if he lives long enough.”

  “And what was the decision?” I asked.

  “We will want you to stand for a tribuneship the same year.”

  I felt like a sacrificial ox when he’s knocked on the head by the flamen’s assistant. “Me? But the family is full of men better qualified.”

  “Nonsense, you’re a perfect choice. Your lineage is impeccable. You’ll have a recent Censor for a father, and you have the qualifications for any office. Not that that matters, because any citizen can be elected tribune, so long as he’s not a patrician. You’re an aristocrat, but you’re something of a favorite with the commons because of your feat with the October Horse.” He grinned at that memory. I winced.