A Point of Law (31 page)

“What wounds, what hardships has this man endured in your service? I’ve heard that he served, briefly, with my friend Gen. Aulus Gabinius in Syria. That excellent general saw immediately what sort of man had been fobbed off on him and never saw fit to give to him any position of distinction. You can bet that Gabinius watched him closely, too! Sent him back home with no commendations, much less decorations for valor, just another time server, putting in enough months with the eagles to qualify him for office!”

I was swinging wild, putting together what little I knew of the man, but I was connecting solidly. His face went scarlet. So this was his weakness, eh?

“The honors fall upon you and your kind,” he shouted, “because the great generals are all your
relatives
! So you served in Spain against
Sertorius? How did you come by your command of native troops, young as you were? I’ll tell you. It was because your great-uncle was Metellus Pius, who had the command before Pompey took over! Have you served all over Gaul and Britain? It is only because you are married to Caesar’s niece!”

“And now would you defame
Julia
?” I bellowed. The growl from the crowd wasn’t pleasant to hear, but at least it wasn’t directed at me. Sallustius had been right. The people
adored
the Julian women.

“I do no such thing!” He was losing track of his thoughts now. “You are trying to confuse the people with this absurd display and with your wild accusations. You think you can escape your guilt with this spectacle of breeding and glory.”

I held up a hand for silence, and gradually the crowd quieted. It was time for a change of pace.

“Very well. Let’s forget about families and scars, about services to the state and public spectacles, magnificent though they might be. Let us consider”—I paused dramatically—“evidence.”

“Evidence?” he said, as if he had never heard the word. Maybe he hadn’t.

“Yes, evidence. It refers to the tangible and perceptible signs that something has or has not taken place. All those things that do not in themselves constitute proof, but that, taken collectively, point to the truth.”

“The concept is not unknown to me,” he said, gathering up his dignity. But he was playing my game now. “Of what does this evidence of yours consist?”

I cast my gaze around. The crowd was respectfully silent now, intrigued by this unexpected turn. My family looked distressed, afraid that I would now trot out all the business of codes and conspiracies and make myself look like an idiot. I saw familiar faces watching me with varying degrees of anticipation. Pompey looked disgusted. Curio showed a cool amusement, but beneath that was something else: apprehension? A small crowd of high-born women watched from the
steps of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, surrounded by their slaves to keep the rabble away. Among them I saw Octavia, watching with a fatalistic resignation. Fulvia was there, looking like she was enjoying herself. Julia smiled at me with sublime confidence. I smiled back, briefly.

“Evidence,” I said, “can take the form of words spoken without thought, words that betray a man’s hidden guilt. But in order for these words to constitute evidence, they must be heard by more than a single witness. Best of all is if they should be spoken in public.”

“Very well,” Manilius said, “what words were spoken and who heard them? Bring forth your witnesses, always taking into account, of course”—here he gestured broadly to the people—“that the rich and powerful can always bribe and suborn all the witnesses they need. Such evidence should be given no more credence than it deserves.”

“Why,” I said, “my witnesses are these citizens assembled in the Forum.” Now it was my turn for the broad, sweeping gesture, taking them all in. “I think that all of these good citizens will agree that just a few moments ago, they heard you say that Marcus Fulvius was held from behind and foully butchered.”

“Yes, so?”

“That he was slashed many times none can doubt. But how did you come to know that he was held from behind?”

“Why—it was obvious.” Now he was badly rattled, unprepared for this.

“Not to me, it wasn’t. Many distinguished men were on the steps of the basilica that day, not only members of my own family but the praetor Juventius, the consular Appius Claudius Pulcher, as well as many honest citizens of all classes. The terrible wounds on the body of Fulvius were apparent to all, but not such subtle details as the fact that he was restrained.”

“It just makes sense!” he cried.

“Not without a certain amount of examination, an impossible task on those steps, in the dim light of early morning. In fact, I had the
body taken to the Temple of Venus Libitina and there examined by the famous Asklepiodes. That learned man pointed out to me that Fulvius’s wounds were all on the front of his torso, that he had been unable to turn or to bring his arms into play. Hence, he must have been restrained.

“When I speculated that he might have been bound, Asklepiodes informed me that, in that case, the marks of cords or shackles would have been plainly visible. They were not, hence Fulvius was
held
, from behind, by at least two powerful men while his assailants plunged their blades into his body. You are no Greek physician, Manilius. How did you know?”

There was dead silence throughout the Forum, and this was more ominous than the growling and shouting had been.

“But I had no cause to wish the death of Fulvius! Citizens, don’t listen to this fool!”

“Oh, you barely knew the man. But then, you don’t act for yourself, do you? Who told you to get rid of him? Might it have been the same person or persons who gave you that fine, rich villa in
Baiae?
One that is almost as fine as Cicero’s or Pompey’s?” A bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. I pointed up at the great building cloaking the hillside to the west. “The evidence is right there, Citizens! In the
Tabularium!
Last year, when he declared himself a candidate, he listed among his assets a splendid villa in Baiae that he did not own on the last census!”

The low rumble came again from the crowd. Even when I was inciting it, I was dismayed and frightened by how easily they could be swayed. One minute they thirsted for my blood, the next for his.

“He was bought! Tell us, Manilius! Who owns you? Who were your accomplices in the murder of Marcus Fulvius? Were they one and the same?” Now I looked around again. The Marcelli were nowhere to be seen, but they could be lurking in the shade of porticoes or hiding in covered litters. Curio had gone pale. Curio, who had told me that he and Manilius had worked closely together the previous year. Curio,
who had somehow known that Fulvius had been murdered elsewhere and carried to the basilica steps.

“You barely knew the man. But there are men in the Senate, and prominent members of the Equestrian Order, who know otherwise. In the last year, Fulvius gave a number of dinners where radical politics were discussed. You were at
every one
of those gatherings, weren’t you, Publius Manilius? Remember, this crowd is full of witnesses who know the truth, though they may be hesitant to speak up now. They also know that the policies you now espouse are at variance with those discussed in those meetings. You and Fulvius had a falling-out, didn’t you? A deadly one.”

Manilius drew himself up. “You may not accuse, nor lay violent hands upon, the person of a Tribune of the People!”

“Until sundown, Manilius,” Cato shouted, pointing at the angle of the sun. “At sundown you and all the other tribunes lay down your powers and become ordinary citizens. How far can you get by sundown, Manilius?”

“I declare this procedure at an end!” Manilius cried. “All citizens are to disperse!” With the shreds remaining of his dignity, he descended the steps and began his long walk across the Forum. People drew back from him as if he carried some deadly contagion. It gave new meaning to the word “untouchable.”

Cato strode to the edge of the podium and spoke to the soldiers. “A tribune loses his powers and his sacrosanctity if he passes the first milestone. Post men on all the roads out of the city and arrest him as soon as he passes the milestone.”

“Bring him back here alive,” I told them. “I want the names of his accomplices.”

“What are the chances,” Father asked, “that he’ll even reach one of the gates?”

“Slim,” I acknowledged. “Too many people need to clean up after themselves.”

“Unfortunate,” said Metellus Creticus. “It would be nice to get the Marcelli barred from the consulship.”

“Yes,”
I
said, “and now we’ll have to keep an eye on Curio.”

“Curio is Caesar’s man,” Scipio said. “Why would he be involved in this?”

Cato shook his head in disgust. “It’s like casting your net for a whole school of fish and drawing back only one, and that one not the biggest of them.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “you just have to catch them one at a time.”

A
LL THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO. OF
course, the Marcelli held onto the consulship and, as everyone knows, Caesar became dictator and Octavia’s brother, Octavius, became his heir; he is now our First Citizen. Ironically, Marcellus, the son of Caius Marcellus and Octavia, turned out to be the First Citizen’s favorite nephew and would have been
his
heir had he not died tragically young. Fulvia eventually married Antonius, but then, so did Octavia, although she lost him to Cleopatra. When you consider how it all turned out, it’s a little hard to understand what they were all fighting and clawing at one another for during those dying days of the Republic. But it all somehow seemed terribly important at the time.

T
HESE WERE THE EVENTS OF FIVE
days in the year 703 of the City of Rome, the consulship of Servius Sulpicius Rufus and Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

(Definitions apply to the year 703 of the Republic.)

Arms
Like everything else in Roman society, weapons were strictly regulated by class. The straight, double-edged sword and dagger of the legions were classed as “honorable.”

The
gladius
was a short, broad, double-edged sword borne by Roman soldiers. It was designed primarily for stabbing. The
pugio
was also a dagger used by soldiers.

The
caestus
was a boxing glove, made of leather straps and reinforced by bands, plates, or spikes of bronze. The curved, single-edged sword or knife called a
sica
was “infamous.”
Sicas
were used in the arena by Thracian gladiators and were carried by street thugs. One ancient writer says that its curved shape made it convenient to carry sheathed beneath the armpit, showing that gangsters and shoulder holsters go back a long way.

Carrying of arms within the
pomerium
(the ancient city boundary marked out by Romulus) was forbidden, but the law was ignored in troubled times. Slaves were forbidden to carry weapons within the City, but those used as bodyguards could carry staves or clubs. When street fighting or assassinations were common, even senators went heavily armed, and even Cicero wore armor beneath his toga from time to time.

Shields were not common except as gladiatorial equipment. The large shield
(scutum)
of the legions was unwieldy in narrow streets, but bodyguards might carry the small shield
(parma)
of the light-armed auxiliary troops. These came in handy when the opposition took to throwing rocks and roof tiles.

Balnea
Roman bathhouses were public and were favored meeting places for all classes. Customs differed with time and locale. In some places there were separate bathhouses for men and women. Pompeii had a bathhouse with a dividing wall between men’s and women’s sides. At some times women used the baths in the mornings, men in the afternoon. At others, mixed bathing was permitted. The
balnea
of the republican era were far more modest than the tremendous structures of the later Empire, but some imposing facilities were built during the last years of the Republic.

Basilica
A meeting place of merchants and for the administration of justice. Among them were the Basilica Aemilia (aka Basilica Fulvia and Basilica Julia), the Basilica Opimia, the Basilica Portia, and the Basilica Sempronia (the latter devoted solely for business purposes).

Campus Martius
A field outside the old city wall, formerly the assembly area and drill field for the legions of old, named after its altar to Mars, now a prosperous suburb growing full of expensive businesses and fine houses.

Centuriate Assembly
The Centuriate Assembly
(comitia centuriata)
was a voting unit made up of all male citizens in military service. It seemingly dealt with major policy decisions, but by the Roman historical period the votes were largely symbolic and almost always positive, usually taken when decisions had, not already only been made, but
sometimes even acted upon. The body was divided into five different parts based on wealth; the result was that the highest level or two always won, and the lowest classes were not even called upon to vote.

Centuries
Literally, “one hundred men.” From greatest antiquity, Rome’s citizens had been organized into centuries for military purposes. They assembled by their centuries for the yearly muster to be assigned to their legions. Since this was a convenient time to hold elections and vote upon important issues, they voted by centuries as well. Each man could cast a vote, but the century voted as a whole. By the late Republic, it was strictly a voting distinction. The legions had centuries as well, though they usually numbered sixty to eighty men.

Cerialia
The annual festival in honor of the goddess Ceres, the Greek Demeter, who was imported to Rome in accordance with an interpretation of the Sybilline Books.

College of Augurs
Augurs had the task of interpreting omens sent by the gods, usually thunder and lightening and the flights of birds. An augurate was for life, and new augurs were co-opted by the serving priests. The augurate was largely a political appointment and was a mark of great prestige. Augurs could call an end to official business by interpreting unfavorable omens, and this became a potent political tool. The
lituus
, a crook-topped staff, was a symbol of this sacred office.