Caesar's Women (60 page)

By the time Cicero's entourage streamed hastily across the space between Castor's temple and the urban praetor's tribunal, a small crowd had gathered about the tribunal to listen avidly. Not that anything important was being discussed as Cicero arrived; Labienus and Metellus Celer were speaking of some woman or other.

“What is it? What's going on?” demanded Cicero breathlessly.

Celer raised his brows in surprise. “The normal business of this tribunal, senior consul.”

“Which is?”

“To adjudicate in civil disputes and decide whether criminal charges merit trial,” said Celer, emphasizing the word “trial.”

Cicero flushed. “Don't play games with me!” he said nastily. “I want to know what's going on!”

“My dear Cicero,” drawled Celer, “I can assure you that you are the last person in the world I'd choose to play games with.”

“WHAT IS GOING ON?”

“The good tribune of the plebs Titus Labienus here has brought a charge of perduellio against Gaius Rabirius for the murders of his uncle Quintus Labienus and Lucius Appuleius Saturninus thirty-seven years ago. He wishes to prosecute under the procedure in force during the reign of King Tullus Hostilius, and after perusing the relevant documents, I have decided according to my own edicts published at the beginning of my term as urban praetor that Gaius Rabirius may be so tried,” said Celer without drawing a breath. “At the moment we are waiting for Gaius Rabirius to appear before me. As soon as he comes I will charge him and appoint the judges for his trial, which I will set in motion immediately.”

“This is ridiculous! You can't!”

“Nothing in the relevant documents or my own edicts says I can't, Marcus Cicero.”

“This is aimed at me!”

Celer's face registered stagy astonishment. “What, Cicero, were you on the Curia Hostilia roof pelting tiles thirty-seven years ago?”

“Will you stop being deliberately obtuse, Celer? You're acting as Caesar's puppet, and I had thought better of you than that you could be bought by the likes of Caesar!”

“Senior consul, if we had a law on our tablets which forbade baseless allegations under pain of a large fine, you'd be paying up right now!” said Celer fiercely. “I am urban praetor of the Senate and People of Rome, and I will do my job! Which is exactly what I was trying to do until you barged in telling me how to do my job!” He turned to one of his four remaining lictors, listening to this exchange with grins on their faces because they esteemed Celer and enjoyed working for him.

“Lictor, pray summon Lucius Julius Caesar and Gaius Julius Caesar to this tribunal.”

At which moment his two missing lictors appeared from the direction of the Cannae. Between them shuffled a little man who looked ten years older than the seventy he acknowledged, wizened and unappealing of mien, scrawny of body. Ordinarily he wore an expression of sour and furtive satisfaction, but as he approached Celer's tribunal under official escort his face betrayed nothing beyond fuddled bewilderment. Not a nice man, Gaius Rabirius, but something of a Roman institution even so.

Shortly afterward the two Caesars appeared with suspicious promptness, looking so magnificent together that the growing crowd oohed its admiration. Both were tall, fair and handsome; both were dressed in the purple-and-scarlet-striped toga of the major religious Colleges; but whereas Gaius wore the purple-and-scarlet-striped tunic of the Pontifex Maximus, Lucius carried the lituus of an augur—a curved staff crowned by a curlicue. They looked sumptuous. And while Metellus Celer formally charged the stupefied Gaius Rabirius with the murders of Quintus Labienus and Saturninus under the perduellio of King Tullus Hostilius, the two Caesars stood to one side watching impassively.

“There are only four men who may act as judges in this trial,” cried Celer in a ringing voice, “and I will summon them in turn! Lucius Sergius Catilina, step forward!”

“Lucius Sergius Catilina is under interdiction,” answered the urban praetor's chief lictor.

“Quintus Fabius Maximus Sanga, step forward!”

“Quintus Fabius Maximus Sanga is out of the country.”

“Lucius Julius Caesar, step forward!”

Lucius Caesar stepped forward.

“Gaius Julius Caesar, step forward!”

Caesar stepped forward.

“Fathers,” said Celer solemnly, “you are hereby directed to try Gaius Rabirius for the murders of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Quintus Labienus according to the lex regia de perduellionis of King Tullus Hostilius. I further direct that the trial take place two hours from now on the Campus Martius in the grounds adjacent to the saepta.

“Lictor, I hereby direct that you summon from your College three of your colleagues to act as the representatives of the three original tribes of Roman men, one for Tities, one for Ramnes, and one for Luceres. I further direct that they shall attend the court as its servants.”

Cicero tried again more sweetly. “Quintus Caecilius,” he said very formally to Celer, “you cannot do this! A trial perduellionis this actual day? In two hours? The accused must have time to assemble his defense! He must choose his advocates and find the witnesses who will testify for him.”

“Under the lex regia de perduellionis of King Tullus Hostilius there are no such provisions,” said Celer. “I am merely the instrument of the law, Marcus Tullius, not its originator. All I am allowed to do is to follow procedure, and procedure in this case is clearly defined in the documents of the period.”

Without a word Cicero turned on his heel and quit the vicinity of the urban praetor's tribunal, though whereabouts he was going from there he had absolutely no idea. They were serious! They intended to try that pathetic old man under an archaic law Rome typically had never expunged from the tablets! Oh, why was it that in Rome everything archaic was reverenced, nothing archaic tampered with? From rude thatched huts to laws dating back to the earliest kings to obstructing columns within the Basilica Porcia, it was ever the same: what had always been there must always be there.

Caesar was at back of it, of course. It had been he who had discovered the missing pieces which made sense not only of the trial of Horatius—the oldest known trial in Rome's history—but also of his appeal. And cited both in the House the day before yesterday. But what exactly did he hope to accomplish? And why was a man of the boni like Celer aiding and abetting him? Titus Labienus was understandable, so too Lucius Caesar. Metellus Celer was inexplicable.

His footsteps had taken him in the direction of Castor's, so he decided to go home, shut himself up and think, think, think. Normally the organ which produced Cicero's thought had no difficulty with the process, but now Cicero wished he knew exactly where that organ was—head, chest, belly? If he knew, he might be able to shock it into functioning by beating it, or fomenting it, or purging it.…

At which precise moment he almost collided with Catulus, Bibulus, Gaius Piso and Metellus Scipio, hastening down from the Palatine. He hadn't even noticed their approach! What was the matter with him?

While they climbed the endless steps to Catulus's house, the closest, Cicero told the other four his story, and when at last they were settled in Catulus's spacious study he did something he rarely did, drank off a whole beaker of unwatered wine. Eyes starting to focus then, he realized one person was missing.

“Where's Cato?”

The other four looked rather uncomfortable, then exchanged resigned glances which indicated to Cicero that he was about to be informed of something the rest would much rather have kept to themselves.

“I suppose you'd have to classify him as walking wounded,” said Bibulus. “Someone scratched his face to ribbons.”

“Cato?”

“It's not what you're thinking, Cicero.”

“What is it, then?”

“He had an altercation with Servilia over Caesar, and she went for him like a lioness.”

“Ye gods!”

“Don't gossip about it, Cicero,” said Bibulus sternly. “It will be hard enough for the poor fellow when he does appear in public without all of Rome knowing who and why.”

“It's that bad?”

“It's worse.”

Catulus smacked his hand down on the desk so loudly everyone jumped. “We are not here to exchange news about Cato!” he snapped. “What we're here for is to stop Caesar.”

“That,” said Metellus Scipio, “is becoming a refrain. Stop Caesar this, stop Caesar that—but we never do stop him.”

“What's he after?” asked Gaius Piso. “I mean, why try an old fellow under some antique law on a trumped-up charge he won't have any trouble refuting?”

“It's Caesar's way of getting Rabirius before the Centuries,” said Cicero. “Caesar and his cousin will damn Rabirius, and he'll appeal to the Centuries.”

“I don't see the point of any of it,” said Metellus Scipio.

“They're charging Rabirius with high treason because he was one of the men who killed Saturninus and his confederates and was indemnified from the consequences under the Senatus Consultum Ultimum of that time,” said Cicero patiently. “In other words, Caesar is attempting to show the People that a man isn't safe from any action he took under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum, even after thirty-seven years. It's his way to tell me that one day he'll prosecute me for the murder of Lentulus Sura and the others.”

That produced a silence which hung so heavily Catulus broke it by getting up from his chair and beginning to pace.

“He'll never succeed.”

“In the Centuries, I agree. But it will produce a lot of interest, Rabirius's appeal will be crowded,” said Cicero, looking miserable. “Oh, I wish Hortensius was in Rome!”

“He's on his way back, as a matter of fact,” said Catulus. “Someone in Misenum started a rumor that there was going to be a slave uprising in Campania, so he packed up two days ago. I'll send a messenger to find him on the road and tell him to hurry.”

“Then he'll be with me to defend Rabirius when he appeals.”

“We'll just have to stall the appeal,” said Piso.

Cicero's superior knowledge of the ancient documents provoked him into throwing Piso a contemptuous glare. “We can't postpone anything!” he growled. “It has to be held immediately after the trial before the two Caesars is finished.”

“Well, it all sounds like a tempest in a bottle to me,” said Metellus Scipio, whose ancestry was far greater than his intellect.

“It's far from that,” said Bibulus soberly. “I know you generally don't see anything even when it's rammed under your snooty nose, Scipio, but surely you've noticed the mood of the People since we executed the conspirators? They don't like it! We're senators, we're on the inside, we understand all the nuances of situations like Catilina. But even a lot of the knights of the Eighteen are grumbling that the Senate has usurped powers that the courts and the Assemblies no longer have. This trumped-up trial of Caesar's gives the People the opportunity to congregate in a public place and voice their displeasure very loudly.”

“By damning Rabirius at appeal?” asked Lutatius Catulus, a little blankly. “Bibulus, they'd never do that! The two Caesars can—and no doubt will—pronounce a death sentence on Rabirius, but the Centuries absolutely refuse to damn, always have. Yes, they'll grumble, perhaps, but the thing will die a natural death. Caesar won't succeed in the Centuries.”

“I agree he shouldn't,” said Cicero unhappily, “yet why am I haunted by a feeling that he will? He's got another trick in the sinus of his toga, and I can't work out what it is.”

“Die a natural death or not, Quintus Catulus, are you inferring that we just have to sit tamely on the side of the battlefield and watch Caesar stir up trouble?” asked Metellus Scipio.

Cicero answered. “Of course not!” he said testily; Metellus Scipio really was thick! “I agree with Bibulus that the People aren't happy at the moment. Therefore we can't allow Rabirius's appeal to proceed immediately. The only way to prevent that is to nullify the lex regia de perduellionis of King Tullus Hostilius. So this morning I'll call the Senate together and ask for a decree directing the Popular Assembly to nullify. It won't take long to procure the decree, I'll make sure of that. Then I'll convoke the Popular Assembly at once.” He closed his eyes, shivered. “I am afraid, however, that I'll have to use the Senatus Consultum Ultimum in order to bypass the Didian Law. We just can't wait seventeen days for ratification. Nor can we allow contiones.”

Bibulus frowned. “I don't pretend to have your knowledge of the law, Cicero, but surely the Senatus Consultum Ultimum doesn't extend to the Popular Assembly unless the Popular Assembly is meeting to do something about Catilina. I mean, we know the trial of Rabirius is all to do with Catilina, but the only Popular Assembly voters who share our knowledge are senators, and there won't be enough of them in the Comitia to carry the vote.”

“The Senatus Consultum Ultimum functions in the same way as a dictator,” said Cicero firmly. “It replaces all normal comitial and public activities.”

“The tribunes of the plebs will veto you,” said Bibulus.

Cicero looked smug. “Under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum, they can't veto.”

“What do you mean, Marcus Tullius, I can't veto?” asked Publius Servilius Rullus three hours later in the Popular Assembly.

“My dear Publius Servilius, Rome lies under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum, which means the tribunician veto is suspended,” said Cicero.

Attendance was mediocre, as many of the Forum frequenters had preferred to rush out to the Campus Martius to see what the Caesars were doing to Gaius Rabirius. But those who had remained within the pomerium to see how Cicero was going to handle the Caesar attack were not limited to senators and the clients of Catulus's faction. Perhaps more than half of the gathering, seven hundred strong, belonged to the opposing side. And among them, Cicero noted, were the likes of Mark Antony and his hulking brothers, young Poplicola, Decimus Brutus, and none other than Publius Clodius. Very busy talking to anyone prepared to listen. Restlessness followed in their wake, and darkling looks, and audible growls.

“Now just a moment, Cicero,” said Rullus, dropping formality, “what's all this about a Senatus Consultum Ultimum? There is one, yes, but it is purely concerned with revolt in Etruria and the activities of Catilina. It is not meant to obstruct the normal functioning of the Popular Assembly! We are here to consider the passing of a law to nullify the lex regia de perduellionis of King Tullus Hostilius—a matter having nothing to do with revolt in Etruria or with Catilina! First you inform us that you intend to invoke your Senatus Consultum Ultimum to overturn normal comitial procedure! You want to waive contiones, you want to bypass the Didian Law. And now you inform us that legally elected tribunes of the plebs cannot exercise their power of veto!”