A murder on the Appian way rsr-5

by Steven Saylor

Marcellus ignored them. He was a seasoned orator, used to the give and take of debates in the Senate and catcalls from the rabble at trials. "So, Schola," he began, "you claim that the incident on the Appian Way occurred at the tenth hour of the day. And yet — "

  There was an eruption of jeering from the crowd, drowning him out. Marcellus scowled and waited for the noise to subside, but as soon as he' opened his mouth again, the jeering recommenced, even louder. He opened his arms in an appeal to Domitius on the tribunal, then gave a start as a stone the size of a child's fist came hurtling through the air and struck him in the back. He whirled about and stared at the crowd with a look of utter shock on his face.

  The mob, still screaming and jeering, began to rush towards the tribunal, pouring in along the sides of the seated crowd, knocking down bystanders and stampeding over broken folding chairs. Eco and I seemed to be safe enough, since we were seated near the centre of the seated spectators with plenty of occupied chairs all around us. Then a group of men came scrambling right through the midst of the seated crowd, stepping on people's laps and shoulders.

  Domitius rose to his feet and shouted furiously at the prosecutors. They shrugged helplessly, making an elaborate mime of being unable to hear him and equally unable to do anything about the unruly crowd. The panel of potential jurors, men of substance who were not easily intimidated, shook their heads and looked thoroughly disgusted. Milo, Cicero and Marcellus, together with their secretaries, gathered up armfuls of scrolls and wax tablets and rushed to join Domitius on the tribunal. As the mob drew closer and showed no sign of stopping, Milo and his party retreated into the Temple of Liberty, leaving Domitius to stand with his hands on his hips, defying the mob to violate a sacred temple. But the mob seemed satisfied to have silenced Marcellus and driven Milo to flight. They occupied the tribunal and in a jubilant mood began to stamp their feet and recite lewd chants about Milo's wife Fausta. "When it became evident that order was not going to be restored, jurors and peaceful spectators who had not already fled began to disperse. Eventually there was a rumour that Pompey was coming with a troop of armed soldiers. This caused the mob to abandon the tribunal and scatter in all directions.

  Thus ended the first day of Milo's trial.

  The next day began much as the first, except that the room for spectators was more constricted, thanks to the soldiers who now flanked the courtyard on either side. At Domitius's insistence, Pompey had assigned troops to keep order during the trial. Roman justice would be carried out with the assistance of Roman steel

  The hearing of witnesses resumed with the testimony of various persons from the vicinity of Bovillae, beginning with Felicia. Like an actor finally allowed to have a major role, she seemed determined to make the most of her time as a witness. She flashed her incongruous smile and projected her sultry demeanour while the advocates examined and cross-examined her; many of the spectators, meanwhile, seemed to be examining her in another way. The day was off to an appropriately bizarre beginning.

  Her brother Felix testified next, about the comings and goings of the victims and their pursuers, including the bound prisoners, who were now known to be Philemon and his companions. Philemon himself testified, reiterating the story he had told at the contio. The wife of the slain innkeeper at Bovillae did not appear; she was still in seclusion down in Rhegium, I assumed. Her sister and brother-in-law, the current keepers of the inn, gave secondhand testimony about what the widow had told them and described the gory aftermath.

  The Virgo Maxima told of the visit by an unknown woman offering thanks to the goddess for the death of Publius Clodius. This account so inflamed the Clodians that for a while it seemed there might be another disturbance. Pompey's soldiers eventually moved to drive off some of the more vocal agitators. Order was restored, but by this point Domitius was ready to adjourn the court for the day.

  The third day of testimony began with the last of the witnesses from the vicinity of Bovillae. Senator Sextus Tedius was called. He rose from the front row of spectators and hobbled before the court, using a cane and dragging his lame left leg. I was in the second row of spectators that day and was close enough to see his daughter Tedia sitting next to the chair he had vacated, looking after him with a worried expression. Normally she would have assisted him, I thought Probably he did not care to be seen accepting a woman's help in front of the court.

  Senator Tedius repeated the story he had told me: that he had left for Rome in his litter accompanied by his daughter and some slaves, that he had encountered Milo, who warned him of fictitious bandits, but had pressed on to Bovillae, where he found Clodius's abandoned body in the road, apparently dragged there by his killers, and had sent it on to Rome in his litter. It was now evident that Tedius must have arrived while Eudamus and Birria and their men were off in the woods hunting for Philemon and his companions. After dispatching Clodius to Rome, Tedius returned by foot towards Aricia, and told of seeing the prisoners being marched up the road while he rested at a spot close to the new House of the Vestals.

  A man named Quintus Arrius, a colleague of Clodius, testified that he had helped to interrogate Clodius's slaves after the incident. One of them, a personal secretary, had confessed under torture that for months he had provided information on Clodius's movements to an agent of Milo's. Therefore, Arrius suggested, Milo was regularly kept apprised of Clodius's comings and goings, and could have premeditated the apparently chance encounter on the Appian Way. Cicero, during cross-examination, scoffed at this idea, pointing out that Schola had testified on the first day that Clodius left his villa suddenly, upon hearing the news of the death of Cyrus the architect; therefore, how could Milo, even with an inside source, have predicted their encounter?

  Then Cicero called a witness himself: Marcus Cato, who descended from the raised benches where the potential jurors sat. Cato, perhaps the only person in the court even more staid and conservative than Domitius the judge, gave secondhand testimony to the effect that a certain Marcus Favonius had passed along a remark to him which Clodius had made exactly three days before the fatal incident.

  "And what was this remark, this jewel, this bit of wisdom from the lips of Publius Clodius?" said Cicero.

  Cato looked at Domitius and the panel of jurors. "Clodius told Favonius that Titus Annius Milo would be dead within three days."

  There was a stir of excitement in the court. "Cato's a liar and a drunk!" someone yelled. "What's he doing sitting with the jury if he's a witness?"

  Cicero spun about. "Who impugns the judgment of Pompey? It was the Great One himself who personally selected Marcus Cato to sit among the jurors, and why? Because Cato's integrity and honesty are absolutely beyond doubt. Any man who says otherwise only shows himself to be a fool."

  This was true enough. Whatever one thought of his politics, Cato was not a man to lie. But the story he told was only secondhand; Clodius supposedly said something to Favonius, who said something to Cato. And Cicero, I noticed, made no refutation of the accusation that Cato was a drunkard. A lifetime of hard drinking showed in the statesman's rheumy eyes.

  Whatever effect Cicero had hoped to achieve by Cato's testimony was entirely negated by what followed.

  The last witnesses to be heard were Sempronia and Fulvia. Each told how Clodius's body had arrived at his house on the Palatine borne in a stranger's litter, unaccompanied by friends or any sort of explanation. They described the shocking condition of his corpse. They explained how the surviving friends and slaves who had been with him made their way back to Rome one by one, each adding another horrifying detail to the catastrophe that had occurred on the Appian Way. They spoke of Clodius's young son, Publius, who was missing and unaccounted for all that night, and of their grief and worry when they learned of the slaughter at Clodius's Alban villa. Sempronia — dour, smug Sempronia — broke down and wept, and seemed to become the image of every man's anxious, fretful grandmother. Fulvia, who began with a stiff emotionless recitation of the facts, ended with a shrieking lament that eclipsed e
ven her agony on the night of her husband's death. She wept, pulled at her hair and tore her stola.

  I heard more weeping nearby, and saw that the daughter of Sextus Tedius had covered her face with her hands. Her father stared straight ahead, apparently embarrassed by such a display.

  But Tedia was not the only one who shed tears. I thought it could only be a miracle that kept the Clodians from erupting into another riot, until I looked around and saw that many of them were weeping uncontrollably.

  Cicero did not dare to cross-examine the women. The court adjourned at the tenth hour.

  Thus ended the third day of Milo's trial, and the last day of testimony. One hundred days had passed since the death of Publius Clodius. One more day, and the fate of Titus Annius Milo would be decided.

  Late that afternoon, the tribune Plancus held a final contio on the subject of Clodius's death. He urged Clodius's followers to come out in force the next morning to hear the actual pleading of the case. The speeches for the prosecution and defence would be delivered in the open Forum, which would accommodate a great many more spectators than the courtyard of the Temple of Liberty. Those who had loved Clodius must make themselves seen and heard, said Plancus, so that the jurors could know the will of the people, and they must encircle the court completely, so that once the outcome of the trial became evident, the treacherous coward Milo would have no opportunity to slip away before the verdict was announced.

  That night, over dinner, Eco and I gave Bethesda a full account of the day's events. She seemed to approve of Fulvia's performance. "A woman's grief is sometimes the only weapon she has. Think of Hecuba and the Trojan women. Fulvia has used her grief where it will have the most effect."

  "I wonder why they didn't call Clodia to testify," said Diana, who had been so listless throughout the meal that I thought she wasn't listening.

  "That would only have detracted from Fulvia's grief," said Eco. "And it would have distracted the jurors, reminding them of certain rumours of what went on between Clodia and her brother."

  "And after what Cicero did to her the last time she appeared at a trial, I should be surprised if she ever appeared at one again," said Bethesda. "Has she attended this trial?"

  "I haven't seen her," I said, and changed the subject.

  Like many people in Rome that night, I imagine, I had a hard time sleeping. I tossed and turned and finally got out of bed. I went to my study and looked for something to read. I scanned the little title tags that hung from the scrolls in their pigeonholes, muttering to myself

  "Now what is the play that has that famous quote, about the gods bringing about an unexpected end? Euripides, isn't it? And why is it on my mind tonight? Oh, yes, I know. Because it always reminds me of the trial of Sextus Roscius, when I first worked for Cicero; his first great triumph in the courts. And when it was all over — almost over — I remember quoting that bit of Euripides to Tiro. Tiro was so young then, only a boy! I was so young then, too…

  "But what is the play? Not The Trojan Women or Hecuba — that was Bethesda, who mentioned Hecuba at dinner tonight. No, it's from… The Bacchae!"

  And there it was at my fingertips. I pulled it from the hole, found some weights and unrolled it on a table.

  It was one of the oldest books I owned, but was still in good condition. The passage I was thinking of was at the very end, delivered by the chorus of frenzied Dionysian revellers:

  The gods have many guises. The gods bring crises to climax while man surmises. The end anticipated has not been consummated. But god has found a way for what no man expected. So ends the play.

  What no man expected…

  Could Cicero pull it off? Could he deliver a speech — one of those famous, logic-twisting, doubt-defying, hilarious, wrenching speeches of his — that would actually convince the jurors to declare Milo not guilty? It seemed impossible. But so had many another case where Cicero had snatched triumph from despair. If anyone could do it…

  As I was rolling up the scroll, I ripped a bit of parchment at the top. I cursed. It was such an old scroll. When and where had I got it? Ah, yes: Cicero himself had given it to me, as he had given me many books since. This had been the first. He had even inscribed it, as I recalled.

  I unrolled it enough to read the message he had written across the top, in his own hand:

  To Gordianus, fondly, with bright hopes for the future.

  My blood froze. I had known all along, of course. Still, to see the proof before me…

  I found the message that had been left for Bethesda and put it side by side with the scroll.

  Do not fear for Gordianus and his son. They have not been harmed. They will be returned to you in time.

  There could be no doubt. The proof was there in the peculiar shape of the letter G — indeed, in the way my name was written in each case.

  I had looked at other messages from Cicero in my possession, but not one of them had been in his own hand. They had all been written by Tiro or some other secretary. But the dedication on The Bacchae was assuredly in his hand, for I had been there when he inscribed it.

  Davus mumbled in his sleep when I shook him. The other bodyguards stirred in their beds. "Davus, wake up."

  "What?" He blinked, then gave a start and jerked away from me as if I were a monster. "Master, please!" His voice cracked like a boy's. What in Hades was wrong with him?

  "Davus, it's only me. Wake up. I need you. I'm going out."

  The walk to Cicero's house had never seemed so long. My blood pounded in my ears. I didn't wake Eco to come with me, though he had as great a grievance against Cicero as I did. What I had to say to Cicero I would say by myself

  XXXI

  Cicero's doorkeeper perused me through the peephole. A little later he opened the door for me, allowing Davus to enter and wait in the foyer. The interior of the house was ablaze with lights. No one would be abed early in Cicero's house on this night.

  As I was led to the study, I heard Cicero's voice echoing down the hallway, and then Tiro, laughing out loud.

  I was shown into the room. Cicero and Tiro both greeted me with a smile.

  "Gordianus!" Cicero stepped forward and embraced me before I could stop him. It was a politician's embrace; he seemed to encircle me completely and yet hardly touched me anywhere. He stepped back and looked at me like a shepherd at a lost lamb. "So, at the very last moment, you've come to me. Can I dare to hope, Gordianus, that this means you've come to your senses at last?"

  "Oh, yes, Cicero. I have definitely come to my senses." My mouth was suddenly so dry that I could hardly speak.

  "You sound like you need something to drink." Cicero nodded to the doorkeeper, who disappeared. "I should tell you, the speech is already pretty much done. But it's not set in stone. Better late than never."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Well, with the way you've been running back and forth to Fulvia's house, and all that time you spent with Marc Antony on the road, you must be well up on what the prosecution has in mind for tomorrow. I can use that sort of information to make sure that all

  my rebuttals are on target. The fewer surprises they're able to spring on me, the better. Oh, Gordianus, you gave me a scare this time. I thought we had lost you for good. But here you are, back where you belong!"

  I looked around the room. Tiro sat amid masses of rolled and rumpled parchment. "Is Caelius here? Where's Milo?" Merely saying his name made me clench my fists. I took a deep breath.

  "Caelius is home, at his father's house, probably sleeping like a baby."

  "Shouldn't he be here with you, working on his speech?"

  "Actually… ah, here's something to wet your throat! Tiro, would you like a cup as well?"

  I thought of refusing, but I needed the drink. I raised an eyebrow as it passed my lips. It must have been the best vintage in the house. "Isn't it a bit premature to be celebrating, Cicero?"

  "Ah, you appreciate the Falernian. Good. Your appearance in my house is adequate cause for celebration,
Gordianus." "Where's Milo?" I said.

  "Not here, as you can see. He's at home with Fausta, I imagine, dreaming sweet dreams of the consulship that will be his next year. Did you especially want to see him?"

  That was a difficult question to answer. "No," I said. I wanted to keep my head, and that might not be possible in Milo's presence. I finished my cup of wine.

  "Gordianus, you look a fright! We must finish our business as quickly as we can, so that you can go home and get some sleep. Now, you asked about Caelius giving a speech. Actually, only one advocate will speak for Milo tomorrow: myself"

  "The rest have all run scared, then? Even Caelius?"

  I had finally managed to dampen his ebullience. "That's not the case at all. This idea that his friends have all deserted Milo is a vicious rumour put about by the Clodians, the same people who keep claiming that Milo wants to assassinate Pompey and bring down the state. They hope to make me look like a fool and to intimidate everyone else into abandoning Milo. But I'll tell you, the best men in Rome are still solidly behind Milo and would gladly have appeared as character witnesses on his behalf. But Pompey's reforms eliminated character witnesses! I could have had former magistrates and consuls lined up the whole length of the Forum, reciting Milo's virtues for hours. But Pompey wants only material witnesses to speak — people like that parade of disreputable characters we've had to put up with for the last three days."

  "If Milo's friends are still behind him, why are you the only one giving a speech for him?"

  "Again, Pompey's reforms! The defence is allowed only three hours — three hours! — to make a case. You know how it was before; a man usually had two or three advocates all speaking for as long as they wished. I hardly need to tell you that I'm usually just beginning to warm up after three hours. The simple truth is, I didn't want to share the time with anyone else. It's even worse for the prosecution; they have only two hours. Well, let their three advocates go tripping over one another, rushing through their notes. They'll make hasty, confused speeches, and then I shall use my time to draw the jurors slowly, steadily, irresistibly into our camp."