The First Man in Rome (87 page)

He had moved away from the doors, and now addressed his speech to the tribunes' bench, which was full. "Can anyone tell me why a member of this august House would deliberately set out to undermine it?
Can
anyone? Because it happens all the time! There they sit, calling themselves senators—members of this august House!—yet also calling themselves tribunes of the plebs! Serving two masters these days! I say, let them remember they are senators first, and tribunes of the plebs only after that. Their real duty toward the plebs is to educate the plebs in a subordinate role. But do they do that? No! Of course they don't! Some of these tribunes remain loyal to their rightful order, I acknowledge, and I commend them highly. Some, as is always the way in the annals of men, accomplish nothing for Senate or for People, too afraid that if they sit to either end of the tribunes' bench, the rest will get up, and they will be tipped on the ground and turn themselves into laughingstocks. But some, Conscript Fathers, deliberately set out to undermine this august body, the Senate of Rome. Why? What could possibly lead them to destroy their own order?"

The ten on the bench sat in various attitudes which clearly reflected their political attitudes: the loyal senatorial tribunes were glowing, upright, smug; the men on the middle of the bench wriggled a little, and kept their eyes on the floor; and the active tribunes sat with eyes and faces hard, defiant, impenitent.

"I can tell you why, fellow senators," said Scaurus, voice oozing contempt. "Some allow themselves to be bought like pinchbeck gewgaws on a cheap market stall—those men we all understand! But others have more subtle reasons, and of these men the first was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. I speak of the kind of tribune of the plebs who sees in the plebs a tool to further his own ambitions, the kind of man who craves the status of the First Man in Rome without earning it among his peers, as Scipio Aemilianus did, and Scipio Africanus, and Aemilius Paullus, and—if I may beg your collective pardon for my presumption—Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus! We have borrowed a word from the Greeks to describe the Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus style of tribune of the plebs: we call them demagogues. However, we do not use it in precisely the way that the Greeks do. Our demagogues don't bring the whole city into the Forum screaming for blood, and tear down senators bodily from the steps of the Curia, and work their will through mass violence. Our demagogues content themselves with inflaming the habitual frequenters of the Comitia, and work their will through legislation. Oh, there is violence from time to time, but more often than not, it is we of the Senate who have had to resort to violence to re-establish the status quo. For our demagogues are legislators and legal draftsmen, more subtle, more vindictive, more dangerous by far than simple inciters of riots! They corrupt the People to further their own ambitions. And that, Conscript Fathers, is beneath contempt. Yet every day it is done, and every day it grows more prevalent. The shortcut to power, the easy road to pre-eminence."

He broke off, took a turn about the floor, clutched the massive folds of his purple-bordered toga with his left hand as they fell forward over his left shoulder and cuddled into his neck, flexed his bare right arm so it could continue to emphasize his words by gestures.

"The shortcut to power, the easy road to pre-eminence," he repeated sonorously. "Well, we all know these men, don't we? first among them is Gaius Marius, our esteemed senior consul, who I hear is about to have himself elected consul yet again, and yet again
in absentia
!
By
our
wish? No! Through the medium of the People, of course! How else could Gaius Marius have got where he is today, except through the medium of the People? Some of us have fought him, and fought him tooth and nail, and fought him to exhaustion, and fought him with every legal weapon in our constitutional arsenal! To no avail. Gaius Marius has the support of the People, the ear of the People, and pours money into the purses of some of the tribunes of the plebs. In this day and age, those are enough. Rich as Croesus, he can buy what he cannot get any other way. Such is Gaius Marius. But it is not Gaius Marius I rose to discuss. You will forgive me, Conscript Fathers, for allowing my emotions to carry me too far from the main thrust of my oration.''

He walked back to his original position, and turned to face the dais whereon sat the curule magistrates, and addressed his remarks to Gaius Memmius.

"I rose to speak about another upstart, a less noticeable sort of upstart than Gaius Marius. The sort of upstart who claims ancestors in the Senate, and can speak good Greek, and has been educated, and lives in his home with a vastness of power ensuring that his eyes have never rested upon pig-shit—if, that is, his eyes could see anything at all!
Not
a Roman of the Romans, for all he claims otherwise. I speak of the quaestor Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, deputed by this august House to serve the governor of Sardinia, Titus Annius Albucius.

"Now who is this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo? A Pompey, who claims blood relationship to the Pompeys in this House for some generations, though it would be interesting to discover just how close the blood links are. Rich as Croesus, half of northern Italy in his clientship, a king inside the borders of his own lands. That's who is this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo."

Scaurus's voice rose to a roar. "Members of the Senate, what is this august body coming to, when a brand-new senator in the guise of a quaestor has the temerity and the—the—
crossness
to indict his superior? How short of young Roman men are we, that we cannot put Roman arses on a mere three hundred seats?
I
—
am
—
scandalized!
Does this Pompey Cross-eyes really possess so little education in the niceties of behavior expected from a member of the Senate that he could even
dream
of indicting his superior? What is the matter with us, that we are letting the likes of this Pompey Cross-eyes put his uncouth arse on a senatorial stool? And what is the matter with him, that he could do such a thing? Ignorance and lack of breeding, that's what's the matter with him! Some things, Conscript Fathers, are just—not—done! Things like indicting one's superior or one's close relatives, including relatives by marriage.
Not done!
Crass—bovine—ill-mannered—underbred—presumptuous—stupid—our Latin language does not possess sufficient scathing epithets whereby to catalogue the shortcomings of such a noxious mushroom as this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, this Pompey Cross-eyes!"

A voice came from the tribunes' bench. "Are you inferring, Marcus Aemilius, that Titus Annius Albucius is to be lauded for his behavior?" asked Lucius Cassius.

The Princeps Senatus drew himself up like a cobra, and just as venomously. "Oh, grow up, Lucius Cassius!" he said. "The issue here is not Titus Annius. Naturally he will be dealt with in the appropriate manner, which in his case is prosecution. If he is found guilty, he will incur the proper punishment the law prescribes. The issue here is protocol, politesse, etiquette—in plain words, Lucius Cassius,
manners.
Our noxious mushroom Pompey Cross-eyes is guilty of a flagrant breach of manners!''

He faced the House. "I move, Conscript Fathers, that Titus Annius Albucius answer charges of a treasonable nature—but that the
praetor urbanus
shall at the same time write a very stiff letter to the quaestor Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo informing him that, one, under no circumstances will he be permitted to prosecute his superior, and that, two, he has the manners of a boor."

The House voted with a flourishing flapping of hands, making a Division unnecessary.

"I think, Gaius Memmius," said Lucius Marcius Philippus in a nasal drawl of vastly aristocratic superiority (he was smarting at Scaurus's inference that Marius had bought his services), "that the House should at this time appoint a prosecutor to deal with the case of Titus Annius Albucius."

"Do I hear any objections?" asked Memmius, looking around.

No one objected.

"Very well, let it be tabled that the House will appoint a prosecutor in the case of the State versus Titus Annius Albucius. Do I hear any names?" asked Memmius.

"Oh, my dear
praetor urbanus,
there is only one possible name!" said Philippus, still drawling.

"Then speak it, Lucius Marcius."

"Why, our learned young man of the courts Caesar
Strabo,"
said Philippus. "I mean, let us not utterly deprive Titus Annius of the sensation that he is being hounded by a voice from his past! I do think his prosecutor
must
be cross-eyed!"

The House fell about laughing, Scaurus hardest of all; and when the hilarity died down, voted unanimously to appoint the cross-eyed young Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo— youngest brother of Catulus Caesar and Lucius Caesar—as Titus Annius Albucius's prosecutor. And in so doing, revenged itself tellingly upon Pompey Strabo. When Pompey Strabo received the Senate's stiff letter (plus a copy of Scaurus's speech, thrown in by Gaius Memmius to rub salt into the wound), he got the message. And vowed that one day he would have all those high-and-mighty aristocrats on the hop, needing him more than he needed them.

Fight strenuously though they did, neither Scaurus nor Metellus Numidicus could swing enough votes in the Plebeian Assembly to avert the nomination of Gaius Marius as a candidate for the consulship
in absentia.
Nor could they sway the Centuriate Assembly, for the Second Class of voters was still smarting at Scaurus's inference during his memorable speech that they were mere middlemen, and as reprehensible as the Third and Fourth Classes. The Centuriate Assembly gave Gaius Marius a continued mandate to stop the Germans, and would not hear of any other man's taking his place. Elected senior consul for the second time in a row, Gaius Marius was the man of the hour, and might without fear of contradiction claim to be the First Man in Rome.

"But not
primus inter pares
—first among equals," said Metellus Numidicus to young Marcus Livius Drusus, returned to the law courts after his short-lived military career of the year before. They had encountered each other in front of the urban praetor's tribunal, where Drusus was standing with his friend and brother-in-law, Caepio Junior.

"I am afraid, Quintus Caecilius," said Drusus without an ounce of apology in his tone, "that for once I did not subscribe to the thinking of my peers. I voted
for
Gaius Marius—yes, that stops you in your tracks, doesn't it? Not only did I vote for Gaius Marius, but I prevailed upon most of my friends and all my clients to vote for him as well."

"You're a traitor to your class!" snapped Numidicus.

"Not at all, Quintus Caecilius. You see, I was at Arausio," said Drusus quietly. "I saw at first hand what can happen when senatorial exclusivity overcomes the dictates of good sound Roman common sense. And I say to you flatly that if Gaius Marius was as cross-eyed as Caesar Strabo, as crass as Pompey Strabo, as lowborn as a laborer in the Port of Rome, as vulgar as the knight Sextus Perquitienus—
still
I would have voted for him! I do not believe we have another military man of his caliber, and I will not countenance placing a consul over him who would treat him as Quintus Servilius Caepio treated Gnaeus Mallius Maximus!"

And Drusus walked away with great dignity, leaving Metellus Numidicus staring after him openmouthed.

"He's changed," said Caepio Junior, who still followed Drusus about, but with less enthusiasm since their return from Gaul-across-the-Alps. "My father says that if Marcus Livius isn't careful, he'll turn into a demagogue of the worst kind."

"He
couldn't
!
"
cried Metellus Numidicus. "Why, his father the censor was Gaius Gracchus's most obdurate foe— young Marcus Livius has been brought up in the most conservative way!"

"Arausio changed him," maintained Caepio Junior. "Maybe it was the blow to his head—that's what my father thinks, anyway. Ever since he came back, he's stayed as thick as thieves with the Marsic fellow Silo he befriended after the battle." He snorted. "Silo comes down from Alba Fucentia and lords it around Marcus Livius's house as if he owns it, and they sit for hours and hours talking, and they never ask me to join in."

"A regrettable affair, Arausio," said Metellus Numidicus, laboring a little, since he was passing these remarks to the son of the man who had incurred most of the blame.

Caepio Junior escaped as soon as he could, and walked home conscious of a vague dissatisfaction which had wrapped him round from the time—oh, he didn't know really, but somewhere about the time he had married Drusus's sister, and Drusus had married his sister. There was no reason why he should feel this way; he just did. And things had changed so since Arausio! His father wasn't the same man either; one moment he would be chuckling gleefully at a joke Caepio Junior didn't understand, the next moment he would be down in the depths of despair at the swelling tide of public resentment for Arausio, and only moments later he would be shouting in rage at the injustice of it all—what he meant by "it all" Caepio Junior had not been able to work out.

Nor could Caepio Junior's feelings about Arausio ever be free from guilt; while Drusus and Sertorius and Sextus Caesar and even that Silo fellow lay on the field given up for dead, he had run away across the river like a kicked cur, no less anxious to survive than the least Head Count raw recruit in his legion. Naturally this had never been spoken to anyone, even his father; it was Caepio Junior's awful secret. Yet every day when he met Drusus, he wondered what Drusus suspected.

His wife, Livia Drusa, was in her sitting room, her infant daughter on her knee, for she had just finished breast-feeding the mite. As always, his advent produced a smile, and that should have warmed him. But it never did. Her eyes were at odds with the rest of her face, for no smile ever reached inside them, and no interest ever flared out of them. Whenever she spoke to him or listened to him speaking, Caepio Junior was aware that her eyes never looked into his, even for a moment. And yet, no man was ever blessed with a nicer, more accommodating wife. She was never too tired or unwell to receive his sexual advances, nor did she object to any sexual request he made of her. Of course at such times he couldn't see her eyes; how then could he know so positively they held not a scrap of pleasure?