Roman Blood (47 page)

Erucius paused to mop his brow. Everyone in the square was watching him with an almost dreamlike concentration. Cicero and his fellow advocates were no longer rolling their eyes and mocking Erucius behind their sleeves; they looked rather worried. Sextus Roscius had turned to stone.

Erucius resumed. "I have spoken of the insult rendered to divine Jupiter by
that man
and his unspeakably vile crime. It is an insult as well, if I might digress only a little, to the Father of our restored Republic!"

Here Erucius made quite a show of spreading his arms wide as if in supplication to the equestrian statue of Sulla, which seemed, from the angle at which I sat, to be granting him a condescending smile. "I need not even speak his name, for his eye is on us all at this very moment. Yes, his watchful eye is on everything we do in this place, in our dutiful roles as citizens, judges, advocates, and accusers. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Ever Fortunate, restored the courts. Sulla reignited the fire of justice in Rome after so many years of darkness; it is up to us to see that villains such as
that man
are withered to ashes by its flame. Or else I promise you, esteemed judges, that retribution will fall on
all
our heads from above, like hail descending from an angry black sky."

Erucius struck a pose and held it for a long moment. His finger pointed to heaven. His brows were drawn together, and he glowered like a bull at the gathered judges. He had spoken of Jupiter's retribution, but what 307

we all had heard was that Sulla himself would be angered at a verdict of not guilty. The threat could not have been more explicit.

Erucius gathered the folds of his toga, threw back his chin, and turned his back. As he descended the Rostra, there were no cheers or applause from the crowd, only a chilling silence.

He had proved nothing. In place of evidence he had offered innuendo.

He had appealed not to justice, but to fear. His speech was a dreadful patchwork of outright lies and self-righteous bullying. And yet, what man who heard him from the Rostra that morning could doubt that Gaius Erucius had won his case?

308

THIRTY-ONE

C I C E R O rose and walked resolutely to the Rostra, his toga billowing about his knees. I glanced at Tiro, who was gnawing on one of his thumbnails, and at Rufus, who sat with his hands folded in his lap and a barely suppressed smile of adoration on his face.

Cicero stepped forward to the podium, cleared his throat and coughed.

A wave of skepticism ran through the crowd. No one had heard him orate before; a botched opening was a bad sign. At the accuser's bench Gaius Erucius made a great show of smacking his lips and staring up at the sky.

Cicero cleared his throat and began again. His voice was unsteady and slightly hoarse. "Judges of the court: You must be wondering why, of all the distinguished citizens and eminent orators seated about you, it is I who have risen to address you. . . ."

"Indeed," Erucius muttered under his breath. There was scattered laughter from the crowd.

Cicero pressed on. "Certainly I cannot be compared to them in age or ability or authority. Certainly they believe, no less than I, that an unjust charge concocted by utmost villainy has been leveled at an innocent man and must be repelled. Thus they show themselves here in visible fulfillment of their duty to the truth, but they remain silent—due to the inclement conditions of the day." Here he raised his hand as if to catch a raindrop from the clear blue sky—and at the same time seemed to be 309

gesturing toward the equestrian statue of Sulla. Among the judges there was an uneasy shuffling of chairs. Erucius, who was inspecting his fingernails, did not see.

Cicero cleared his throat again. His voice returned, stronger and louder than before. The quavering vanished. " A m I so much bolder than these silent men? Or more devoted to justice? I think not. Or so very eager to hear my own voice in the Forum, and to be praised for speaking out? N o , not if a better orator could earn that praise by speaking better words. What, then, has impelled me, rather than a more important man, to undertake the defense of Sextus Roscius of Ameria?

" T h e reason is this: If any one of these fine orators had risen to speak in this court, and uttered words of a political nature—inevitable in a case such as this—then he would undoubtedly find people reading much more into his words than was actually there. Rumors would begin. Suspicions would be aroused. Such is the stature of these established men that nothing they say goes unremarked, and no implication in their speeches goes undebated. I, on the other hand, can say everything that demands to be said in this case, without fear of adverse attention or untoward controversy. That is because I have not yet begun a public career; no one knows me. If I should speak out of turn, if I should let slip some embarrassing indiscretion, no one will even notice, or if they do, they will pardon the lapse on the grounds of my youth and inexperience—though I use the word
pardon
rather loosely, since actual pardons and the free judicial inquiry they require have of late been abolished by the state."

There was more rustling of chairs. Erucius looked up from his nails, wrinkled his nose, and gazed into the middle distance, as if he had just discerned an alarming plume of smoke on the air.

" S o you see, I was not singled out and chosen because I was the most gifted orator." Cicero smiled to ask the crowd's indulgence. " N o , I was simply the person left over when all others had stepped aside. I was the man who could plead with the least danger. No one can say that I was chosen so that Sextus Roscius would have the best possible defense. I was chosen simply so that he would have any defense at all.

" Y o u may ask: What is this fear and terror that drives away the best of the advocates and leaves Sextus Roscius with only a rank beginner to defend his very life? To hear Erucius speak, you would never guess there was any peril at all, since he has deliberately avoided naming his true employer or mentioning that secret person's vicious motives for bringing my client to trial.

310

"What person? What motives? Let me explain.

" T h e estate of the late, murdered Sextus Roscius—which by any ordinary course of events should now be the property of his son and heir—embraces farms and properties exceeding six million sesterces in value. Six million sesterces! That is a considerable fortune, amassed over a long and productive lifetime. Yet this entire estate was purchased by a certain young man, presumably at public auction, for the astonishing sum of
two thousand
sesterces. Quite a bargain! The thrifty young buyer was Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus—I see the very mention of his name causes a stir in this place, and why not? He is an exceptionally powerful man. The alleged seller of this property, representing the interests of the state, was the valiant and illustrious Lucius Sulla, whose name I mention with all due respect."

At this point a soft hissing filled the square like a rain of mist on hot stones, as men turned to one another and whispered behind their hands.

Capito clutched at Glaucia's shoulder and croaked into his ear. All about me nobles in the gallery crossed their arms and exchanged grim glances.

Two elderly Metelli on my right nodded knowingly to each other. Gaius Erucius, whose plump jowls had abruptly turned scarlet at the mention of Chrysogonus, gripped a young slave by the neck, spat an order at him, and sent him fleeing from the square.

"Let me be frank. It is Chrysogonus who has engineered these charges against my client. With no legal justification whatsoever, Chrysogonus has seized the property of an innocent man. Unable to enjoy his stolen goods to the fullest, since their rightful owner still lives and breathes, he asks you, the judges of this court, to alleviate his anxiety by doing away with my client. Only then can he squander the fortunes of the late Sextus Roscius with all the carefree dissipation he aspires to.

" D o e s this seem right to you, judges? Is it decent? Is it just? In opposition let me put forward my own demands, which I think you will find more modest and more reasonable.

"First: Let this villain Chrysogonus be satisfied with seizing our wealth and property. Let him refrain from demanding our lifeblood as well!"

Cicero had begun pacing back and forth across the podium, following his habit of pacing in his study. All uncertainty had left his voice, which had emerged more vibrant and stirring than I had ever heard it before.

"Second, good judges, I beg this of you: Turn your back on the wicked schemes of wicked men. Open your eyes and your hearts to the plea of an innocent victim. Save us all from a terrible danger, because the peril 311

that hangs over Sextus Roscius in this trial hangs over every free citizen in Rome. If indeed, at the end of this inquiry, you feel convinced of Sextus Roscius's guilt—no, not even convinced, but merely suspicious; if one shred of evidence suggests that the horrendous accusations against him might possibly be justified; if you can honestly believe that his persecutors have brought him to trial for any other motive than to satisfy their own insatiable greed for loot—then find him guilty and I will not object. But if the only issue at hand is the rapacious avarice of his accusers and their lust to see their victim eliminated by a perversion of justice, then I ask you all to stand upon your integrity as senators and as judges, to refuse to allow your offices and your persons to become mere instruments in the hands of criminals.

"I urge you, Marcus Fannius, as chairman of this court, to look at the enormous crowd that has gathered for this trial. What has drawn them here? Ah, yes, the nature of the accusation is sensational in the extreme.

A Roman court has not heard a case of murder in a very long time—

though in the interim there have certainly been no lack of abominable murders! Those who have gathered here are sick of murder; they long for justice. They want to see criminals harshly punished. They want to see crime put down with frightful severity.

"That is what we ask for: harsh punishments and the full severity of the law. Usually it is the accusers who make such demands, but not today. Today it is we, the accused, who appeal to you, Fannius, and your fellow judges, to punish crime with all the vehemence you can muster.

For if you do not—if you fail to seize this opportunity to show us where the judges and the courts of Rome stand—then we have clearly reached that point where all limits to human greed and outrage have been swept aside. The alternative is anarchy, absolute and unbounded. Capitulate to the accusers, fail to do your duty, and from this day forward the slaughter of the innocent will no longer be done in the shadows and hidden by legal subterfuge. No, such murders will be committed here in the very Forum itself, Fannius, before the very platform where you sit. For what is the aim of this trial, except that theft and murder can be committed with impunity?

"I see two camps before the Rostra. The accusers: those who have laid claim to the property of my client, who directly profited from the murder of my client's father, who now seek to goad the state into killing an innocent man. And the accused: Sextus Roscius, to whom his accusers 312

have left nothing but ruin, to whom his father's death brought not only grief, but destitution, who now presents himself before this court with armed guards at his back—not for the protection of the court, as Erucius sneeringly implies, but for his own protection, for fear he may be murdered on the spot before your very eyes! Which of these parties is truly on trial here today? Which has invited the wrath of the law?

" N o mere description of these bandits will suffice to acquaint you with the blackness of their characters. No simple catalogue of their crimes will make manifest their degree of high-handedness in daring to accuse Sextus Roscius of parricide. I must begin at the beginning and recount for you the whole course of events that have led to this moment. Then you will know the full degradation to which an innocent man has been subjected.

Then you will understand completely the audacity of his accusers and the unspeakable horror of their crimes. And you will see as well, not fully but with frightening clarity, the calamitous state into which this republic has fallen."

Cicero was like a man transformed. His gestures were strong and un-equivocal. His voice was passionate and clear. Had I seen him from a distance I would not have recognized him. Had I heard him from another room I would not have known his voice.

I had witnessed such transformations before, but only in the theater or on certain religious occasions, when one expects to be startled by the elasticity of the human vessel. To see it occur before my eyes in a man I thought I knew was startling. Had Cicero known all along that such a change would come upon him in his moment of need? Had Rufus and Tiro? Surely they must have known, for there was no other way to account for the serene confidence that had never left them. What had they all been able to see in Cicero that I could not?

Erucius had entertained the crowd with melodrama and bombast, and the mob had been well satisfied. He had threatened the judges to their faces, and they had suffered his abuse in silence. Cicero seemed determined to stir true passion in his listeners, and his hunger for justice was infectious. His decision to indict Chrysogonus from the beginning had been a bold gamble. At the very mention of the name, Erucius and Magnus were thrown into a visible panic. Clearly they had expected a meek opposition that would offer as rambling and circumstantial an 313

oration as their own. Instead Cicero plunged into the tale up to his neck, omitting nothing.

He described the circumstances of the elder Sextus Roscius, his connections in Rome and his long-standing feud with the cousins Magnus and Capito. He described their notorious characters. (Capito he compared to a scarred and hoary gladiator, and Magnus to an old fighter's protege who had already surpassed his master in wreaking havoc.) He specified the time and place of Sextus Roscius's murder, and noted the odd fact that Mallius Glaucia had ridden all night to take a bloody dagger and report the death to Capito in Ameria. He detailed the connection between the cousins and Chrysogonus; the illegal proscription of Sextus Roscius after his death and after all such proscriptions had ceased by law; the useless protestations of the town council of Ameria; the acquisition of the Roscius estate by Chrysogonus, Magnus, and Capito; their attempts to eliminate Sextus Roscius the younger and his flight to Caecilia Metella in Rome. He reminded the judges of the query applied to every crime by the great Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla:
Who prof-