A Point of Law s-10

by John Maddox Roberts

  “It needn’t come to that,” I said. “I know Caesar well. He is arrogant and ambitious, but he is not reckless. He has little personal respect for the Senate, but he is respectful of its institutions. He did not initiate this series of extraordinary commands. Marius began that more than half a century ago. Sulla, Pompey, and others have taken full advantage of them; Caesar has just been better at it. In following precedent, he’s adhered strictly to the Constitution. I don’t believe that he will take up arms against the Senate. He is no Sulla.” Even as I said it, I had doubts. What did I really know of Caesar? What did anybody know? “I don’t feel like arguing about this. I seem to have this same argument with my wife every day lately.”

  “You should listen to her,” Sallustius said. “She’s a Caesar.”

  “So she may be descended from a goddess, but she isn’t one herself, anymore than her Uncle Caius Julius is a-Did you say you’ve been everyplace these months I’ve been away?”

  “I was wondering how long it would take to work its way into your brain. I was going to let you have one more good rant before repeating it. I knew you would take more satisfaction in working it out for yourself.”

  “And did your researches among Rome’s political plotters take you to the house of Marcus Fulvius?”

  “Oh, yes. And it was a very inspiring setting for mapping out the glorious future of Rome, with its patriotic wall decorations and, well, you’ve been there I understand.”

  “I have. Were you invited or did you just barge in after your inimitable fashion?”

  “I was invited to dinner, along with several other senators and equites prominent in the assemblies. Curio was there, by the way. He was still with the optimates at the time, but was perceived to be wavering.”

  “I take it that this assemblage was not random.”

  “By no means. I noted at once that all the guests formed, you might say, a community of predicament.”

  I mulled over what I knew of Marcus Fulvius and Curio so unalike in most ways. “Would indebtedness be the common denominator?”

  “Very good! Yes, our host was most commiserative. He lamented that this was how a few wealthy men and bankers had gained such undue influence in Roman political life. Office is so ruinously expensive these days, and the only way a man of modest means can hope to be of service to the Senate and People is to go into debt.”

  “Might I hazard the speculation that he had an answer to this vexing problem?”

  “But of course. And there was none of that Catilinarian foolishness; no suggestion that you should go out and murder your father or set fire to the Circus. Marcus Fulvius and his patrons had a simple and somewhat drastic solution: cancellation of debts.”

  “Stop.” I put out a hand. “Just hold it there for a moment. We have been talking thus far about reactionary aristocrats. A blanket cancellation of debt is radical beyond the most outrageous of radical policies. Even the Gracchi couldn’t manage it when they were trying to save the ruined farmers. Lucullus signed his own political death warrant when he tried to alleviate the tax-debt burden of the Asian cities. How did this nobody from Baiae propose to do what nobody has yet managed?”

  “Oh, there would have to be proscriptions, of course. Unlike Sulla’s, though, these would fall most heavily upon the equites, particularly the bankers. The Senate and the bulk of the commons would hardly suffer at all. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds and not all that repugnant. After all, do you know anybody who really likes bankers?”

  “Only a dictator can proscribe.” I was beyond astonishment.

  “Proscription is nowhere in the Constitution, although it happens when a tyrant seizes power. So there is nothing that says it is a power reserved solely for a dictator. A really powerful cabal could carry it off.”

  “Sallustius, surely you could not have believed that this-”

  “Did I say I believed him?” He looked truly insulted. “Give me credit for some political good sense. I know a crackpot when I see one. When I hear one, at any rate.”

  “And yet he had backing.”

  “Certainly.”

  “I know already that the house he lived in belonged to Caius Claudius Marcellus.”

  “Really? I did not know that, although it’s not much of a surprise. I would have thought one of the other Claudii though. Caius is not the most ardent of them. His brother and cousin are far more forceful.”

  “They’re also the most dismal of conservatives. Where did all this radical claptrap come from?”

  “A good question. I pondered it at great length, as it occured.” He leaned back in his chair, and I prepared myself to sit through a lecture. Sallustius would have to show off his political acumen. I would just have to let him. His knowledge of Roman political life, both high and low, was comprehensive. And he was no fool.

  “First of all, any who took this scheme seriously had to suffer from a political blindness exceeding even that of your family. They think they are still fighting the social struggles of two hundred years ago, patrician against plebeian, nobiles against peasants. Back then the equites formed a tiny class of prosperous farmers who could afford to show up at the yearly muster with a horse.

  “But the equites have been quietly growing in wealth and power, and now they are, in fact, the real power brokers of the Republic. If you want to stand for high office, they are the people who can lend you the money to do it. Once you are in office, it is understood that you are in a position to do them favors. Who, for instance, will be collecting the revenues for all those new provinces Caesar has been adding to our Empire?”

  “Publicani, of course. The tax farmers.”

  “Exactly the people Lucullus alienated to his own political hurt. Caesar will not make that mistake. He knows where the power lies in Rome. He secured his own position through the assemblies not the Senate. The optimates think of themselves as Rome’s rightfully privileged class. They see ranged against them the populares, whom they perceive as a penniless rabble led by demagogues like Clodius and Caesar. They forget that the populares also include most of Rome’s millionaires. Their well-bred contempt for mere money precludes their giving this bloc serious consideration.”

  I thought this over. “So Pompey and his supporters are out. Pompey is far from politically astute, but he understands the power of the equites. He rose from that class himself.”

  “Oh, Pompey would never touch anything as foolish as this. And Caesar is not only friendly toward them, he is extraordinarily reluctant to see citizens executed. He’ll kill barbarians in droves, but he is reluctant to see even his mortal enemies killed.”

  “So who?”

  “Aren’t you interested in knowing what subject was not discussed?” asked Sallustius.

  My patience was thinning fast, but he had a point. I was being slow that day. “All right. Did he discuss an attack on the Metelli?”

  “Didn’t breathe a word of it. In fact, he hinted heavily that your family would be one of the many great ones who would be solidly behind him. After all, what he proposed was a return of the ever-popular Golden age, when Rome was ruled by the best men, when proper aristocrats drew their modest wealth from the good soil of Italy, when commoners knew their place, and base tradesmen did not flout their ill-grubbed money before their betters.”

  “Does anyone really believe there was ever such a time?” I asked. “Well, I suppose Cato does. You don’t suppose-No, even Cato isn’t that loony, and he all but slapped Fulvius in the face when the man confronted me. So what brought about this change?”

  “I am guessing that Fulvius changed patrons,” Sallustius said. “None of that crowd who have been howling for your blood were present when I visited his house. They seem to be mostly old Clodians, not at all the sort who would want a restoration of the old aristocracy, much as they might despise bankers and moneylenders.”

  “All right,” I said, throwing up my hands. “What are you telling me? I am thoroughly confused, and my time is running short. I go on trial t
omorrow, and I would really like to be able to demonstrate that I am not guilty of murder.”

  “It’s the boy, Decius.”

  “That child is all of twelve years old! Just being able to deliver a competent eulogy doesn’t qualify him for high-stakes political intrigue!”

  “So who is behind him?” Sallustius said, as insinuatingly as always. “You know Cicero’s dictum: A cui bono? To whom goes the benefit? Who is behind him? Who stands to gain if he becomes Caesar’s heir? Who would absolutely not want to see Fulvius’s silly plan come to anything? Assuming, as we both do, that the various Claudii Marcelli bankrolled him and put him up to it in the first place as a means to undermine Caesar, who would be in a position to know what was going on in that house?”

  A few things fell into place. “Octavia.”

  He nodded. “The boy’s sister and wife of Caius Claudius Marcellus. Who was their father?”

  “The elder Caius Octavius.”

  “And what do we know about him?”

  “He was praetor a few years back,” I said, searching my memory. “I believe he was the first of his family to reach the praetorship. He did a decent job of governing Macedonia as his propraetorian province. Nobody accused him of corruption.”

  “Yes, by all accounts a good and honorable man. Do you know who his forebears were?”

  “My wife keeps excellent track of these things,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “The family is from Velitrae, in the Volscian country. His father was a banker of that city. He married his son to Atia, the daughter of Caesar’s sister, who was the wife of Atius Balbus, another banker of Velitrae. Balbus was of great aid to Caesar in his penurious years. So Caesar’s probable heir and his sister’s are the grandchildren of bankers on both sides. Think of it: An attack on bankers, an attack on Caesar’s power base-these things would not be to the advantage of Octavia’s little brother.”

  “So you think she subverted Marcus Fulvius, drew him away from her husband and the other Marcelli? But how?”

  He slapped his hands against his knees and rose from his chair. “I didn’t say I knew everything. I’m just telling you where you should be looking. You are the one who is supposed to be good at this sort of thing.”

  I rose as well. “I thank you for this information, Sallustius.” I tried not to make it sound too grudging. “This has been most illuminating, and you shall have your interview.”

  “If you live,” he said cheerily.

  We went outside and stood for a moment in the shade of the great portico. Off to the east end of the portico we could see the whole length of the Forum. Out there, near the meeting place of the comitia, I saw a man with his head turbanned in bloodstained bandages, surrounded by a crowd of belligerent-faced men, some of them wielding staves and cudgels.

  “Curio has acquired protectors,” I noted.

  Sallustius smiled benignly. “Are you familiar with the story of Pisistratus?”

  “All I remember is that he was tyrant of Athens.” We walked down the steps and turned toward the Forum.

  “He was a politician and soldier of some account, but merely one among many such. One day he appeared in the agora heavily bandaged, and claimed that he had been set upon by ruffians in the hire of the aristocrats. He petitioned the assembly to be allowed a bodyguard of armed men, and this was granted in an access of antiaristocratic fervor. Somehow this bodyguard kept growing until Pisistratus completely overawed the citizenry and eventually made himself tyrant, which position he enjoyed for a good many years.”

  Sallustius turned to me and smiled again, less benignly this time. “It is the opinion of all rational historians that the wounds suffered by Pisistratus were self-inflicted.”

  “Our friend Curio would never do anything so underhanded,” I asserted. Then we both had a good laugh over that one.

  Sallustius wandered off and left me with some heavy thoughts to ponder. I shook hands and cadged votes bemusedly for a while, assessing the possibilities in the light of this new evidence, if evidence it was, and not just some fancy of Sallustius, who was never above playing his own political games.

  The sun was just touching the rooftops on the west side of the Forum when a Greek slave boy ran up to me.

  “You are the Senator Metellus?” he asked with a heavy Alexandrian accent.

  “I’m one of them. Decius the Younger by name.”

  “My mistress, Callista, sends you this.”

  He handed me a folded piece of papyrus. I opened it and saw a single, oversized Greek letter: Delta. Below that, in small, neat letters, was a single Latin word: Done.

  12

  I found the two of them, Julia and Callista, relaxing amid a great litter of papers and scrolls, looking absurdly happy and satisfied with themselves. They were celebrating with a bit of wine, which they were drinking from, of all things, Thracian rhytons; those strange drinking horns made of silver with the bases in the form of animal or human heads. Callista beamed at me and handed me one. Its horn part was delicately fluted, the base representing a ram, its curling horns and dense wool exquisitely molded.

  “Bit of a departure from philosophical simplicity,” I noted. I took a sip and tried not to wince. It was one of those Greek wines flavored with resin that I have always found disagreeable.

  “They were a gift from a Thracian nobleman who attended a course of my lectures at the Museum,” Callista said. “I only bring them out for special occasions.”

  “Well, if this isn’t a special occasion,” I said, “then I don’t know what constitutes one. Breaking a code is a unique sort of accomplishment.”

  “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything so much,” she said, with apparent sincerity.

  “What have you learned?” I asked.

  Julia took up a small sheaf of papers. “We could have hoped for more. No names of the conspirators were used, probably for security’s sake, but probably also because they were scarcely needed, since only a tiny circle of plotters were involved. Also they are not dated. Again because the participants would know when they were written and received. These were never intended for future reference.”

  “Marcus Fulvius intended to use them in the future,” I said.

  “How so?” Julia asked.

  “That he intended to use them at some future date I deduce from the fact that he didn’t destroy them after reading, which is what you usually do with incriminating documents. As to his motive, since he intended to be a great man, he may have wanted them for his memoirs, which he fancied would have an audience. Or, more likely, he may have intended to use them for blackmail purposes, or as insurance in case the others should someday turn against him, as I now believe they did.”

  “I never would have thought of those things,” Callista admitted, “yet I find your logic impeccable, and your grasp of the various possible alternatives comprehensive. Most people who have not been trained in philosophy and logic form a single opinion, usually based on prejudice or emotion, and adhere to it stubbornly.”

  “This is what makes my husband the-singular sort of person he is,” said my loving wife.

  “But he employs his gift in a unique way,” said Callista. “Give me a problem of mathematics, of the nature of the universe, of natural history, or the nature of beauty, and I will bring to bear upon it all the resources of five hundred years of philosophical thought, from Heraclitus to the present day. But, confronted with the problems of human passion, of ambition, greed, lust for power, jealousy, and simple stupidity, I am as helpless as a child. Such things do not yield to analysis and philosophical rigor.”

  “That,” Julia told her, “is because you have lived your life in an elevated world of the mind, where thought is the highest joy. Decius, to the contrary, is intimately familiar with all these things.”

  “Well, what do we have here?” I asked, a little put out at Julia’s fulsome praise of the philosophical world. I had spent some time at the Museum of Alexandria and so had she. Among the teachers there we had fou
nd no shortage of pettiness, jealousy, and ambition.

  “We’ve sorted these into what seem to be chronological order,” Callista said crisply. She took a sheet from Julia. “This one I’ve put first because the original showed signs of awkwardness in using the cipher. The ones I’ve assigned a later date show far greater assurance in the execution.”

  “That makes sense,” I allowed. I took the sheet and read. It began without the usual preamble: “From so-and-so to his esteemed friend so-and-so, greeting.” Instead, it got down to business in the first line.

  Our supporters are in place and have their orders. They will assist you in any way you wish, as in locating and inviting the subjects for each of your meetings, accompanying you to the Forum, etc. From receipt of this message you are not to approach us in public or in private. If you encounter one of us in a public place, there can be no more than an exchange of civilities. In public, for now, we are mere acquaintances whose families are vaguely connected. For your first gathering you will invite the following men whose sympathies we deem to be in accord with our program:

  There followed a list of seven names. Those I recognized were low-level senators, two of them relatively well-known malcontents who continualy courted attention by berating the greatest men. They were tolerated because of tradition and because we liked to let the public think that the Senate is an assembly of equals, as in the good old days. When the plebs saw nonentities like these haranguing Caesar or Pompey, Cato or Cicero, to his face, right up on the Rostra, it gave everyone a sense of participation and the comforting and very deceptive feeling that Rome was in no danger of succumbing to tyranny.