SPQR X: A Point of Law

by John Maddox Roberts

  “We have wine from every district of Italy,” he assured me. “From Verona, Ravenna, from Luca and Pisae—”

  I could see he was starting with the north, so I stopped him again. “Something more southerly, I think.”

  “Good choice. We bought almost the entire production of Sicily, we have Tarentine and some interesting new products of Venusia—”

  “I prefer vineyards north of that area.”

  He beamed. “Of course, you desire Campanian. The very heart of Italian wine country. Naturally, we have wine from Mount Massicus, especially the always-reliable Falernian, grown on its southern slope. We have wine from Terracina and Formiae, and some rather good Capuan, although its yield has been rather inferior these last years due to excessive rainfall.”

  Hermes had finally caught on. “The senator has a weakness for the vineyards around the Bay of Neapolis.”

  The fat man clapped his hands in approval. “Ah, the incomparable slopes of Vesuvius! There is nothing to compare with volcanic soil, a steep slope, and perfect sunshine. Vesuvius is even better than Aetna. We have Stabian, Pompeiian—”

  “I think,” Hermes said, “if you have some really good product from near, say, Baiae, that you’ll make a sale.”

  “I see that the senator is a real connoisseur. Not many people understand the qualities of Baiaean. Small vineyards, very low yield, so little is exported. Only wealthy vacationers ever try them, and they keep the news to themselves because they don’t want a rush to start, driving the price up, as happened with Caecuban a few years ago. It just so happens that we have a few amphorae from a select group of the very best vineyards.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “Lead on, Manius Maelius!”

  We took a long walk down the rows of jugs, the skylights admitting the afternoon sun in bars of light divided into small lozenges, the result of the bronze fretwork that protected the warehouse from intruding pigeons.

  We ended up in a shed built onto the southern end of the warehouse. It contained no more than a few hundred amphorae, all of them with the characteristic color of Campanian pottery. The racks were labeled by town, the amphorae by vineyard. A single rack bore the name of Baiae.

  “We cannot, of course, unseal these amphorae for tasting,” Maelius said. “But, since the finest vintages are bought only by persons of quality, we have an arrangement with each vineyard to supply a small quantity of each vintage for tasting purposes.” He gestured to a table along one wall. It resembled the serving counter in a wineshop, with jugs resting in holes cut in the table, a dipper and a stack of tiny cups beside each jug.

  The steward began at one end of the table. “Now this is from a vineyard owned by ex-consul Cicero himself.” He dipped out a cupful and handed it to me ceremoniously.

  I sipped. Immediately I knew I was right. It was very similar to the wine Octavia had served. Soil and sunlight will always tell. I reflected that Cicero had never served this vintage when I’d visited him. Keeping it to himself, was he? This confirmation alone would have made the trip a success, but I decided to press my advantage. When the gods have shown you exceptional favor, it makes sense to determine just how much they love you.

  “Excellent,” I told him, “but not quite what I’m looking for.”

  I tried one from the Puteoli district, then several others, each time closing in on the bay itself.

  “This is an especially fine one, Senator.”

  He handed me the cup and I tasted. Perfect. It was the very vintage I had tasted earlier that day. My palate is infallible in these matters.

  He caught my smile but misinterpreted it. “Ah, I see that this is exactly what you are searching for. Excellent choice, Senator. This wine is from the Baiaean vineyards owned by the great family of Claudius Marcellus.”

  “The consul?”

  He squinted at the label on the jug. “No, this estate is owned by his cousin, Caius Claudius. He is the one standing for next year’s consulship.” He looked at the rack that held the big amphorae. “You are just in time, Senator.”

  “How is that?”

  “In previous years we’ve usually managed to get six or seven amphorae from that small estate. This year we got only three and there is one left. Shall I have it set aside for you?”

  “Please do so. I’ll send my steward to pick it up tomorrow or the next day.” We left him beaming.

  “Do you really intend to buy it?” Hermes said, as we left. “Julia will have your hide off for buying such expensive wine.”

  “That’s why you are going to pick it up and take it to the country house. It really is excellent wine. Do you know why they only got three amphorae this year?” As we passed Bacchus I kissed my fingertips and touched them to his toes. He must have been the god who sent my inspiration.

  Hermes thought a moment. “Because, last year, a part of the estate went to Manilius.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But was Manilius being bribed for a specific favor or was it just for his cooperation during his year as tribune?”

  “An excellent question. You really are learning how to do this, Hermes. Next year, when I’m praetor, you’ll make me a first-class investigator.”

  “If you’re praetor next year. If you’re alive next year, for that matter.”

  “Such are the vagaries of politics. But the gods are on my side, and maybe they’ll continue to favor me.” By this time we were past the Porticus Aemilia and turned rightward along the old Servian Wall toward the Ostian Gate.

  “What do we know about the Claudia Marcella?” I asked as we passed beneath the portal.

  “Not much,” Hermes answered. “I’ve got a feeling we’d have heard a lot about them if we’d spent more time in Rome these last few years.”

  “That is what I think. We need someone who specializes in gossip, the more scurillous the better. Not a respectable type, mind you. We can’t use anyone whose party affiliation compels him to exalt his own side while defaming the others. We need someone who is shameless about vilifying anyone at all. We need—”

  “We need Sallustius.”

  “Exactly. I loathe the man, but I loathe him for precisely the same qualities I am in need of now. Run on ahead to the Forum, look into the baths. He’ll be wherever the news is to be had, maybe out on the Campus Martius where the legionaries are pitching their tents.”

  “That’s a lot of territory to cover,” he complained.

  “Sallustius won’t be hard to spot. When you’ve located him, come back and find me and lead me to him. I’ll be making a more dignified progress toward the Forum. I’ll wait for you at the Rostra.”

  He dashed off and I ambled my way up the old street past the Temple of Flora and around the northern end of the Circus, stopping to chat with citizens as I went. It was still election time after all. Nobody seemed to be disturbed by my suspect status. So far, so good.

  The day was getting on, but there was still plenty of daylight left. My head buzzed pleasantly from the recent wine tasting. I always take satisfaction in mixing business with pleasure.

  By the time I reached the Rostra, Hermes was standing there, and Sallustius was with him. I put on my biggest, most sincere false smile and took his oily hand and clapped his hairy shoulder.

  “Caius Sallustius,” I shouted, “you are just the man I wanted to see!”

  “So I presumed, since you sent your man to fetch me.” He tried for a sardonic smile, but on his face it was merely ugly. “I take it that this has something to do with your current difficulty?”

  I gave him a surprised look. “You mean that silly business with the late Fulvius? Not at all! I simply wished to call upon your matchless—ah, scholarship concerning the political personages of our Republic.”

  “I see,” he said, not buying a bit of it. “And just what would you know?”

  “Well, since I’m to be one of next year’s praetors—”

  “Assuming you aren’t in exile,” he interrupted.

  “I wish people would st
op saying that. This murder charge is false. Less than nothing.”

  “Indeed.” He put a wealth of disbelief into the word.

  “Anyway, it is almost certain that one of next year’s consuls will be Caius Claudius Marcellus. It occurs to me that I know very little about the man whom I shall have to work with for the next year. I don’t know much about the family, for that matter. They’ve always been around, but they’ve become uncommonly prominent of late.”

  “That,” he said, “is because they’ve made themselves spokesmen for the anti-Caesarian bloc in the Senate.”

  “I’ve deduced that much. How did this come about?”

  “For one thing, you Metelli abandoned leadership of the anti-tyrannical party.”

  I winced. That arrow had been straight at the mark. My family’s hedging and trimming, once the sign of statesmanlike willingness to compromise, was beginning to look like timidity and weakness.

  “So the Claudii have thrust their family forward as champions of good old Republican liberty, eh? They seem to have a lot of people convinced.”

  “And they’re willing to go to extremes to prove it.”

  We had begun strolling toward the Basilica Aemilia, where the work of restoration went noisily on despite the general holiday atmosphere. Soldiers swarmed everywhere, strutting about to great admiration.

  “What sort of extremes?” I asked him.

  “Did you hear about the man from Novum Comum?”

  The name sounded familiar. “Isn’t that one of the colonies Caesar founded in Gaul?”

  “It is. Anyway, a few months ago Marcellus—our current consul Marcellus, that is—tried to bring up the prospect of a successor to Caesar in Gaul. This, of course, was opposed, not only by Caesar’s faction in the Senate, but by the other consul and by Pompey. One senator who spoke up was from Novum Comum. Marcellus went into an immoderate fury, had his lictors drag the man from the chamber, strip him of his insignia, and scourge him publicly with the rods of their fasces.”

  I had thought myself numb to enormities, but this left me aghast. “He had a citizen publicly flogged?” Heads swiveled to see who was shouting. I went on in a lower voice. “Surely he’ll be exiled for this!” That the man had been a senator was a minor matter. By ancient law Roman citizens were not to be publicly flogged or crucified. These punishments were restricted to foreigners and rebellious slaves.

  “That is just it. Marcellus proclaimed that Caesar had no right to confer citizenship, and he would recognize no such citizenships, nor would he tolerate any senators sent from any such colonies.”

  At that time it was customary, when a new colony was enfranchised, to allow a very prominent man of that place to take a seat in the Senate without having first served a quaestorship in Rome.

  “And what about Balbus?” I asked. I referred to Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a very prominent senator who, along with two or three others, got his senator’s stripe in the same fashion, because he was a friend of Pompey’s from Spain. He was no relation to the Atius Balbus who was Caesar’s brother-in-law and grandfather of the First Citizen.

  “Marcellus isn’t picking a fight with Pompey.”

  I ran a palm over my by now stubbly face. My bright mood of an hour before was gone. “It is worse than I thought,” I admitted. “If this keeps up, it will be open war between Caesar and the Senate.”

  “It’s been war for some time.”

  “I don’t mean political dispute, no matter how rambunctious it gets. I mean real war. Next year we could see these soldiers all around us back again, with their shields facing the gates and Caesar behind them on his command platform.” Caesar had invented a collapsible platform that could be erected in minutes, so that he could get close to the fighting and still see over the heads of his soldiers.

  “Then now is a good time to choose sides, isn’t it?” Sallustius said, insinuatingly. I wondered what to read into this. He said almost everything insinuatingly.

  “Are you offering me a side to choose?”

  “Why,” his look was all innocence, “I assumed, because of your family connection and the obvious esteem Caesar holds for you, that you would be firmly in his camp.”

  This angered me and I was about to snap out something ill-considered when Hermes rapped me sharply over the kidney. Sallustius couldn’t see the jab, but I could certainly feel it.

  “Isn’t that our friend the tribune over there?” Hermes said, nodding toward a little group of men who seemed to be looking over the restoration work. One of them was, indeed, young Tribune Manilius. The other four men were vaguely familiar to me. I knew I had seen their faces in the Senate. Three of them resembled one another strongly, with bushy, brown hair and thick, red noses. They stood just within the portico of the basilica. They all seemed to be arguing about something.

  “This is why I led you here,” Sallustius said. “I saw them cross the Forum and climb the steps here a bit earlier. You see, of course, the three who look like they hatched from the same egg?”

  “Naturally. Is one of them Marcellus?”

  “They all are. The one on the left, with the old sword scar on his cheek, is this year’s consul, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. The one poking his finger in the tribune’s face is his cousin Caius, who is most likely to be next year’s consul. The third, who looks like he needs an enema, is Caius’s brother, another Marcus Claudius Marcellus. He plans to stand for the consulship the following year.”

  “And the fifth man?” I asked.

  “That is Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus, also standing for next year’s consulship, and the man having this basilica restored to the glory of his ancestors.”

  “With Caesar’s money, I hear.”

  “Caesar is generous to his friends,” Sallustius affirmed.

  The evidence was apparent everywhere. The walls of the portico were being covered with exquisite mosaics depicting the history of the Aemilian gens back to the days of Romulus, the whole interior was faced with brilliantly colored marble, the old roof tiles had been stripped away and replaced by plates of gleaming bronze. The restored basilica would be the most magnificent public building in Rome, at least until some other politician decided to bankrupt himself for the sake of public adulation.

  “This seems like an odd group to see in one place,” I observed.

  “Odd groupings have become the rule in Rome,” Sallustius said. “Men who were at each other’s throats just a few months ago are now comrades-in-arms.”

  Just then one of the Marcelli noticed us and nudged the others. The consul looked at us and frowned.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought I’d just pop over and see how the restorations are coming along,” I told him. “It looks wonderful, Lucius Aemilius.”

  He grinned. “I thank you.” Then he looked at the consul and glared. “And why are you questioning the right of Decius Caecilius to be here? This is my basilica, Consul!”

  “He ought to be in prison awaiting trial,” the consul Marcellus growled. “The man’s a murderer and a disgrace!”

  “Not yet proven,” Manilius said.

  “Who needs proof?” said Caius. “He’s the logical choice.”

  I longed to toss out some remark about that estate in Baiae, just to watch their faces change color. But some things are best kept in reserve.

  “The wretch was no loss anyway,” Aemilius Paullus put in. “Did you know that he was trying to usurp my basilica?” He waved a beringed hand, taking in all the lavish adornments. Workmen swarmed everywhere, applying the finishing touches to it: bits of gilding here and there, final polishing of the multicolored marble, buffing the thin mica plates set into the clerestory windows. “He waited until all the major work was nearly finished, then he tried to bring up that old claim that it was a Fulvius, not an Aemilius, who built it!”

  “It’s a valid claim,” said the consul Marcellus. “When I was young, I heard it called the Fulvia as often as the Aemilia.”

  “Nonsense!” Aem
ilius Paullus cried, going red in the face. “Base calumny! The Fulvians are a family of nobodies who want to steal the glory of a nobler gens! This building is the pride of my family, and it has always been maintained by us!”

  This was excellent entertainment, and I believe I was enjoying it as much as Sallustius was.

  Hermes whispered in my ear: “Another suspect.”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  “Maintained by you!” Caius Marcellus shouted. “Everyone knows that your great restoration project is the result of the biggest bribe in the history of the Republic! Even now, all over Rome, people are beginning to call this place the Basilica Julia!”

  Aemilius Paullus went dead white. “And just what, I pray, am I being bribed to do?”

  “It is common knowledge,” Caius Marcellus sneered, “that you and I will be next year’s consuls.”

  “The two of you have outspent everyone else,” Tribune Manilius commented.

  “And I,” Caius went on, “have pledged to devote myself to recalling Caesar from Gaul and giving his command to a trustworthy man who will draw this endless war to an honorable close. You have been paid handsomely to agitate for an extension of Caesar’s command. Dare to deny it!”

  “Deny that I support Caesar? Never!” said Aemilius Paullus “He has brought Rome more glory and riches than all the Claudians back to the days of Aeneas! He deserves all the honors the Senate can bestow upon him! As for his gifts to me, such tokens exchanged between men of rank are an ancient custom, one you have practiced assiduously!” He appealed to me. “Decius Caecilius, did Caesar not help cover the debts you assumed as aedile?”

  “Actually,” I told them, “he offered to cover them all. But I accepted no more of his generosity than my family deemed proper.” It seemed that everyone was trying to push me into Caesar’s camp.

  “You see?” Aemilius Paullus cried. “A man as upright as our next year’s praetor, Decius Caecilius, is not ashamed to partake of Caesar’s largesse.”

  “With more moderation than you,” said the consul, his exaggerated gaze taking in the lavish restorations. “Don’t try to make us out as enemies of the Metelli, Aemilius. We’ve no argument with them.”