Marcus Aurelius Betrayed (23 page)

“I do,” said Myron, with a smile.

Artemisia, knowing that Aurora was in Rome waiting to be a witness at a trial before the Emperor, saw her opening. As they left the jeweler’s, Artemisia with her daughter’s pendant and Aurora with a small amethyst charm, they headed for lunch at the “Ostrich and Mullet” nearby. When they sat down at a table, Artemisia asked Aurora directly, though seeming to say
it half-facetiously, “are you going to be a suppliant before a king?”

Aurora looked distraught. Then she lapsed into silent thought and then seemed to reach a decision. “Elektra, I haven’t told you why I’m in Rome, but I will now. I’m here because I’m the concubine of the Prefect of Egypt and his son is going to have a trial before the Emperor. I am to be a witness.”

“A witness? But a suppliant is supposed to ask some favor or indulgence from the ruler.”

“I may have to be a suppliant and throw myself on the mercy of the Emperor. You see, I’m supposed to testify to what the Prefect and his son want me to say. That I saw something I didn’t really see. And I have no choice. I’m a nobody, just an Alexandrian
hetaira
, and they are rich and powerful and Romans. What can I do?”

“The Prefect of Egypt?” said Artemisia slyly. “Do you mean Titus Tatianus?”

“Who is he? I mean Marcus Annius Calvus, the Prefect of Egypt.”

“Calvus? But he’s no longer Prefect of Egypt. It’s all over the City. He’s been replaced by Tatianus. Come winter, Calvus is going to be sent to the north of Britannia, almost like being in exile.”

Aurora was stunned. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. It’s all over the City. Everyone is talking about it. I’m sorry Aurora. But your Calvus is in disfavor.”

Aurora looked distraught. “What a mess,” she said. “What am I supposed to do now? I don’t want to testify for Secundus. I certainly don’t want to go with Calvus to Britannia. I don’t even want to be with him in Rome. I don’t even like him. But I’m afraid of him.”

“Maybe I can help you,” said Artemisia tentatively.

“Thank you, Elektra, but there’s nothing you can do. I’m Calvus’s concubine, and though I’m not a slave, he has control over me. He has power and influence and I don’t know anyone. I’m alone in a strange city.”

She held her head in her hands and then looked up. “But on second thought, Elektra, maybe there is something you can do. There just might be someone who can help me. But I don’t know where to find him or even if he would help. But he’s the only person I know, or at least have met, who is a Roman and is powerful. If only I could find him and throw myself on his mercy.”

“Who is this Roman?”

“He won’t listen to me, I know. But now I’m desperate. You see, Elektra, when I was in Alexandria there was this Roman judge who came to the House of Selene to question all the
hetairai
who were at a certain party with the Prefect and his son. I thought this person seemed honest and interested in the truth. He found evidence that exonerated a slave who had been falsely accused of a murder and executed.”

Artemisia stared almost in disbelief at Aurora, knowing what she was going to say, and who the Roman judge was.

“What’s the name of this Roman judge?” asked Artemisia, almost whispering.

“I believe it is Marcus Flavius Severus. And I know he has left Alexandria and possibly he’s in Rome. Do you think you can help me find him?”

“I think I can,” said Artemisia with a huge smile. “In fact, I know I can.”

XXXVI

THE TRIAL BEFORE THE EMPEROR: DAY 1

T
he trial commenced at the 3
^rd
hour of the morning. It was another beautiful sunny, warm Italian morning. Birds were chirping and flitting from tree to tree, branch to branch.

A substantial crowd occupied the seats and benches set up in the center of a colonnaded three sided stoa within a garden on the Palatine. There was standing room in the rear and in the stoa itself.

Severus was dressed in his judicial toga, sparkling white with the magistrate’s reddish-purple borders, and his law assessor Flaccus and court clerk Proculus were seated next to him at counsel table. The table itself held scrolls and documents neatly arranged for ready reference.

At another table, Secundus was dressed in the black toga of a defendant. Next to him was Calvus, the former Prefect of Egypt, his father by adoption. He was dressed in a bright white toga, the reddish-purple narrow stripe of his Equestrian status on his tunic showing through.
Secundus’ lawyer, the same Eggius who had represented him in Alexandria before Severus’ court, was with him now at the defendant’s table, ready to present the defense case. The table in front of them was also arranged with scrolls and documents. A number of family members and friends, all of the Senatorial and Equestrian Orders as shown by their broad or narrow tunic stripes, sat just behind in a show of support. Some of them, including Calvus, would probably be slated to testify as witnesses to Secundus’ wonderful character.

Not to be outdone, Severus also had a number friends and family members of his own seated behind his counsel table. They were there not only to show support but because arguing a case before the Emperor was a special occasion for anyone and family and friends wanted to be there.

Artemisia and the two older children, Aulus and Flavia, were there as was Severus’ older brother, the one who had told him as a child that the gods didn’t exist. His two children, Severus’ nephew and niece, were there too. The nephew was himself a powerful government official in charge of a department in the Bureau of the Treasury. He had been appointed personally by Marcus Aurelius and was a friend of the Emperor’s. His wife, also present, was one of the few female reporters for the Daily Acts. Severus’ niece was producing her own work of family history and intended to include this trial in it. Also a cousin, who was a highly respected judge in his own right, sat behind Severus, ready to offer him cogent comments and useful advice during the trial.

Water clocks for timing the advocates were set up at the side of the Tribunal. Each advocate, Severus for the prosecution and Eggius for the defense, would be
given 6 water clocks -- 2 hours -- to make their opening statements. Also at the side were lictors with bundles of rods, a necessary accompaniment of any magistrate. A statue of Jupiter Fidius, the god of good faith, was set up because its presence was necessary to make an official courtroom.

At the 3
^rd
hour, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius entered the court and took his place on the curule chair set on the 4-foot high Tribunal. He was accompanied by three assessors. They were all members of his
consilium
– the Urban Prefect Rusticus, the Praetorian Prefect Repentinus and the legal scholar and former Prefect of Egypt Volusius Maecianus. They would hear the evidence and arguments of the lawyers along with the Emperor and advise him during deliberations, but the verdict was the Emperor’s alone. Marcus Aurelius nodded to a court officer to start the water clock and asked Judge Severus to begin.

Severus stood and addressed the Emperor.

“
Domine
, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address you and your most illustrious and most eminent assessors and to present the evidence in what to my mind, as a judge with many years experience in the courts of Rome, is one of the most egregious cases of judicial negligence, incompetence and malicious brutality that I have ever encountered. The actions of the defendant are a disgrace to the name of Roman law and Roman justice and a clear violation of the
Lex Cornelia
against judicial murder.

“Let me tell you how this crime was discovered.”

Severus then began to review the case. He could see he had the attention of the Emperor and his assessors
riveted on him. He then recounted how he had been selected by the Emperor to be his emissary and special judge. He was to go to Alexandria to investigate an attempt to assassinate the Prefect of Egypt by poisoning his wine cup at an orgy. The wine cup had dolphins on it and was the personal cup of the Prefect.

Upon arrival, Severus was told that the culprit had already been arrested, tried and executed. It was the Prefect’s slave Ganymede, it was alleged, who had committed the crime because he believed that his wife, a former concubine of the Prefect, was still having relations with him.

“Secundus, the defendant here, and at the time the Prefect’s stepson, now his adopted son, had been the investigator and judge of the case. He showed me Ganymede’s confession and told me it had been obtained under torture.”

Severus went to counsel table, picked up a scroll, unrolled it and read it to the court.

“As you hear, the confession alleges that Ganymede obtained the poison from a sorceress named Phna. I asked Secundus whether this Phna had corroborated the confession. I was told, however, that she denied it.
Domine
, as you and your assessors well know, confessions obtained under torture are insufficient by themselves to prove a crime. Roman law requires that they must be corroborated because people being tortured will often say anything to stop the torture. So I inquired further. What corroboration was there? Was there any other evidence against Ganymede? No, I was told. Others had been questioned, but there were no affidavits of anyone to support the confession.

“Why, then, I asked Secundus, had Ganymede been singled out for torture in the first place? Roman law, as we know, requires a specific suspicion of guilt before a lover class
humilior
or even a slave can be tortured. But I was told there was none. Secundus blithely told me he had randomly tortured every slave at the party until someone confessed.”

Severus observed the grim looks on the faces of the Emperor and his assessors. He knew he had made his point and went on.

“Obviously then, I had to make my own investigation and so I began to question everyone who was at the orgy. I questioned all the
hetairai
-- and their affidavits and testimony in court in Alexandria are part of the record here -- as well as the guests who were available. I found out that not only had no one seen Ganymede poison the Prefect’s cup, but that Ganymede had never left his position behind one of the dining couches which was nowhere near the Prefect’s table. This is also confirmed by other slaves who served at the party and who testified in Alexandria. It became clear, indeed certain, that Ganymede could not have physically put poison in the Prefect’s cup. Therefore, he must be innocent.

“But why then had Ganymede confessed?” Severus paused to take a drink of water from his table and allow the question to sink in. “I questioned the
quaestionarius
. As his affidavit and testimony in court in Alexandria detail, the defendant Secundus ordered the torture to be increased until it was so unbearable that Ganymede confessed in order to stop it. The torturer himself said that afterwards he had nightmares about what he was ordered to do.

“The slave Ganymede was then tried by Secundus as judge, found guilty by Secundus and sentenced to death by Secundus. Secundus even told me with perverted pride that he allowed Ganymede to be beheaded, the death penalty for an upper class
honestior
, rather than be crucified or thrown to the wild beasts as a lower class
humilior
or slave.”

Severus then went on to recount the unavailability of witnesses he wanted to talk to; Ganymede’s wife; people at the party like Isarion; Philogenes and Serpentinus. And then Pudens’ assistant Celer. “Were these roadblocks to investigation deliberate attempts to curtail a full inquiry?” he asked rhetorically.

And then Severus told about the finding of the phony and incomplete affidavit being worked on in Secundus’ apartment, supposedly from the missing Philogenes. And of Secundus’ foisting of the phony document in court in Alexandria.

“This deceit demonstrates a guilty mind.”

Then Severus concluded.

“Normally a prosecutor at this point will face a defendant, point a finger directly at him and accuse him of being guilty. But in this case, I cannot even bear to look at the defendant’s face. As a Roman judge myself, I find few crimes more disgusting than judicial murder.”

With that Severus sat down.

The Emperor looked to the defendant’s table and nodded toward Eggius, the defendant’s counsel. He took up his position before the Tribunal and began.

“
Domine
, the eminent prosecutor has made a case which sounds compelling but is in fact woefully incomplete. He questioned whom he could, it is true, but he
did not question all the possible witnesses. He did not question people at the party who were not available to him at the time. Specifically, the antique dealer Isarion, the Prefect’s aide Serpentinus and most importantly the great Homeric scholar from the Library of Alexandria, Philogenes. In addition, the questioning of those he did talk to, like the Isis priest Petamon and the
hetaira
Aurora, was intimidating, suggestive and overbearing. The prosecutor alleges that Secundus manipulated the investigation to produce a conviction of the person he thought had done it. But the prosecutor himself has manipulated the questioning of the witnesses to produce the result he wanted. Namely the conviction of Secundus. I don’t know the reason for the prosecutor’s animus; I don’t know why he got it into his head that Secundus committed judicial murder. But he himself has committed a judicial crime. Not murder perhaps. But a skewing of the facts to try to exonerate a person who was guilty, namely the slave Ganymede, and skewering of a fellow Roman judge, namely Secundus.”

Eggius then went on in this vein for another hour, using up his time in a personal attack on Severus and a whitewashing of Secundus.

When his sixth water clock ran out, the Emperor called a recess for the day.

“I trust, Eggius,” said the Emperor doubtfully, “that you can supply us with witnesses who will back up your claims tomorrow.”

Marcus Aurelius and his assessors then left the Tribunal and court was adjourned for the day.

XXXVII

THE TRIAL BEFORE THE EMPEROR: DAY 2

I
nstead of his usual breakfast of white bread soaked in milk and honey, for the second day in a row Severus had a bowl of ground wheat cereal with honey, the breakfast of the Roman legions. It was fortifying for the court battle ahead.