Falco: The Official Companion (A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery)

by Lindsey Davis

The cursus honorum

  Critically, most people were trying to improve their social standing. For a senator the traditional career, or course of honours, involved varied posts, with a deliberate mix of both civil and military service. If only this applied to politicians today!

  At twenty-five came entry to the Senate. A man who was elected immediately he became eligible was said to be suo anno, ‘in his year’.

  Tribune of a legion

  This and/or lawcourt experience was the starting point for politicals. For instance, we see Camillus Justinus growing in confidence during his tribunate in Germany, then returning with hopes of advancement in Rome.

  ‘the collecting, disbursing, safeguarding, managing and controlling of public funds’

  [DLC]

  Quaestor

  Responsibilities were mainly financial: at the Treasury in Rome, as a paymaster to a general, or as financial secretary to an overseas governor. A quaestorship was called a magistracy and when properly carried out involved serious responsibilities.

  I equate these ‘high-flyers’ to admin trainees or yuppies with business management degrees. That is why so many in the Falco series are described cruelly: Bound to know nothing. Bound to have messed up. Bound to get uppity if I ever told him so. [SDD] Of course there are exceptions, such as Cornelius in A Dying Light in Corduba. Mostly they are a menace. Quinctius Quadratus in the same book is so amoral and dangerous even the governor sends him on ‘hunting leave’. But we warm to Aquillius in See Delphi and Die.

  Aedile

  Not obligatory, but this post could showcase an ambitious man. The functions, all in Rome, involved responsibility for roads, public buildings such as temples and aqueducts, supervising markets, the corn dole and festivals.

  Legate of a legion

  Commanding a legion involved both military and diplomatic skills, not to mention man-management.

  Praetor

  By imperial times this was a legal position, at minimum age thirty-nine. There were eight; their responsibilities included an annual round-up of legal statutes and ceremonial duties organising the Games (which was personally expensive). The VIP magistrate in Time to Depart is presumably one of the praetors, though on legal advice he is never identified.

  Consul

  The minimum age was forty-two. There were two a year, which was then named after them. In imperial times they frequently stood down to give others a chance.

  Governor of a province

  Ex-praetors, and especially ex-consuls, would ‘draw’ a foreign province to govern, Africa and Asia being the best. It was possible to acquire great wealth through a governorship; famous legal complaints were brought by provinces that had been badly treated. The men Vespasian chose to establish order in the Empire were of a dry, down-to-earth type. They got on with the job, fairly and quickly … [TFL]

  There were other senior positions, often to do with administration in Rome. For instance, Falco mentions the three senators of consular rank who form the Board of Commission for the aqueducts: These worthy old codgers clearly held seniority over the Curator. Luring just one of them into taking an interest in our story could have acted as a fulcrum under the Curator’s arse. Unfortunately for us, the three consular commissioners simultaneously held other interesting public posts, such as governorships of foreign provinces. The practice was feasible because the Commission only met formally to inspect the aqueducts for three months of the year. [THF]

  Influence

  There were other kinds of influence. The complex and ancient institutions of Rome, many based on myth and superstition, arouse Falco’s wrath. When the Arval Brethren are covering up a murder he gives it full rein: All the colleges of priests are élite cliques, where power is traditionally wielded by non-elected, jobs-for-life patricians, all dressing up in silly clothes for reasons no better than witchcraft and carrying out dubious, secretive manipulation of the state. [OVTM] He has already lambasted augurs: One reason I despised the College of Augurs was that they could manipulate state business by choosing when the auspices should turn out favourable. Lofty personages who held opinions that I hated could affect or delay important issues. I don’t suggest bribery took place. Just everyday perversions of democracy. [OVTM]

  He is equally scathing about the Vestals’ ‘lottery’ and, in other books, oracles.

  Patronage

  For non-senators there was no formal route to advancement. Those without paying trades (which I’m afraid tended to mean writers) had to rely on the goodwill of wealthy men.

  Maecenas came to regard me as one of his friends

  Or at least he was willing to go so far as to take me with him

  When making a journey in his carriage and to risk casual remarks

  Like ‘What time do you make it?’ ‘Is the Thracian Chick a match for the Arab?’

  ‘These frosty mornings are quite nippy; you’ve got to be careful.’

  HORACE

  This great ‘friendship’ produces – food. Each meal,

  However infrequent, your patron reckons against you

  To square his accounts.

  JUVENAL

  What use are our poor efforts, where does it all get us,

  Dressing up while it’s dark still, hurrying along

  To pay our morning respects to a couple of wealthy

  Maiden aunts?

  JUVENAL

  This cringing life is not for Falco. However, he butts up against people who do have that kind of dependence, particularly the downtrodden authors in Ode to a Banker.

  Political association

  For the working classes, anything like a trade union had to be organised with caution. People gathering in groups could be plotting. So, in A Dying Light in Corduba, the credentials of the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica, a dining club with trade connections, are carefully massaged. The only permitted reason to associate is to further a funeral club for members: to form any wider kind of power base is suspicious. The Ostia builders were definitely dodgy. Pliny, in Bithynia, even feared a town establishing its own fire brigade, because it would be like a private army.

  When life is tough, people with similar backgrounds or interests do tend to bond together. However, an informer, working alone and without an association, must be a social outsider.

  The Family

  The family was the official social unit. The Emperor Augustus had encouraged marriage and procreation by legislation. Bachelors were penalised; widows must remarry within six months; people should have three children to be patriotic … Incitements were cunning: the right to benefit from wills, for instance. Many of my plots, like much of civic Roman Law, derive from family issues. Many of the families I write about go wrong – which, ironically, mirrors the gruesome family of Augustus. You can see his crew in a self-aggrandising procession on the Ara Pacis in Rome; a gathering when the wise probably sent a sick-note.

  The paterfamilias

  Falco knows Rome is inescapably paternalist. A man’s duty is to honour the gods for his own household. [TTD] (You’re scared of the job, accuses Lenia, as she tries to woo him into acting as priest at her wedding.) Geminus has abandoned the Didii, thus upsetting the social order. Although Falco fulfils his duties, his family fight him off at will. He treats the position drily.

  Once, the paterfamilias had the power of life and death; even adult sons had to be given formal ‘emancipation’ before they could make wills, own property, enter into contracts. The tradition has waned and Falco comments, Acquiring emancipation from the power of his father is something that only troubles a son who feels bound by his father’s power in the first place. In the Didius family this had never applied. Any pleb on the Aventine would probably say the same … [PG]

  In a divorce, the paterfamilias had legal custody of children he had acknowledged; in practice it looks as if young children were brought up by their mothers.

  Marriage

  Far too much attention is paid to how aristocratic women were treated as political and fina
ncial pawns; this is history as told by men writing for the élite. It affected a very small part of society. Falco knows the system: Plenty of Roman women of ‘good’ family are bedded by men they hardly know. Most bear them children, since that is the point. Some are then left to their own devices. Many welcome the freedom. They need not feign deep affection for their husbands; they can avoid the men almost totally. They acquire status without emotional responsibility. So long as acceptable financial arrangements are made, all that is demanded of them is that they refrain from taking lovers. Any rate, they should not flaunt their lovers openly. [OVTM] What happened in high Roman circles probably had no more contemporary relevance than the cynical hitching of Lady Diana Spencer to the Prince of Wales (complete with an uncle swearing to her virginity – remember that obscenity?). The good part for me is that when a woman’s value resides in her dowry, it suggests plots.

  Falco and Helena prefer the more idealistic version, as do the equestrians Flavius Hilaris and Aelia Camilla: The procurator and his lady shared their thoughts as we did. He and I were parties to true Roman marriage: confiding to our serious, sensitive womenfolk things we never even told our masculine friends. [JM] Even the senator Camillus and Julia Justa have, it emerges, a marriage that is more equable, tolerant and affectionate than Falco first believes; it is, after all, the partnership that produced their three very independent children.

  Whatever the jokes about keeping wives in ignorance, a Roman expected his domestic partner to bear his children, keep the store-cupboard keys, quarrel with his mother and, if required, to share his confidence. The fact that Brutus failed to share with Porcia what he was planning on the Ides of March, just shows you why Brutus ended up dead mutton at Philippi … [TTD]

  A contract was good practice when the parties brought money to the marriage; this was to say how, and by whom, the money would/could be used during the marriage and what would happen on death or divorce.

  Once I discovered it (admittedly, it took a few books), I stuck by the view that marriage was defined as two people volunteering to live together.

  Divorce

  According to that definition, divorce inescapably occurred when one partner chose to terminate the partnership. For those with contracts and dowries, the party leaving would issue a formal notification, as Helena does to Pertinax.

  A special consideration was adultery (with complete horror reserved for adultery by women). If a man discovers that his wife has committed adultery, he is legally bound to divorce her. Otherwise the husband can be taken to court on a charge of acting as a pimp. Allowing a Roman matron to be dishonoured is something we don’t tolerate – if your husband actually catches you in bed with another man, he is entitled to draw a sword and kill you both. [THF]

  Gallitta was the wife of a military tribune … and had brought disgrace on her own and her husband’s position by an affair with a centurion. The Emperor cashiered the centurion and banished him. The husband held back out of affection for his wife and was censured for condoning her conduct. It was essential that the woman should be convicted, however unwilling her accuser. She was duly found guilty and sentenced … [loss of half her dowry and banished to an island] PLINY THE YOUNGER

  Adoption

  Adoption for financial and social reasons was commonplace. A famous adoptee was the Emperor Augustus, by birth a great-nephew of Julius Caesar, then adopted so that he inherited not only Caesar’s money and special status but even a share in his awarded divinity.

  Falco explains: He adopted an heir. Common enough. A presentable young man with no hopes of his own, who was pleased to be welcomed by Marcellus into his noble house, honour his resplendent ancestors, promise to bury him with devoted respect – and in return supervise the substantial Marcellus estates. [SP]

  Falco and Helena will foster and formally adopt Flavia Albia – then eventually another child who is foisted on them in Nemesis.

  The Concept of Empire

  There is a celebrated passage in Virgil’s Aeneid: You, Roman, must remember that you have to guide the nations by your authority, for this is to be your skill, to graft tradition onto peace, to show mercy to the conquered, and to wage war until the haughty are brought low. Idealistic and slightly patronising to other nations, this shows us what the Romans thought – or claimed – they were about.

  Beyond prestige and power, there were practical reasons to expand: to stop other people attacking Italy; to control trade where others held Rome to ransom (the Arabian incense trade; the North African corn supplies; olive oil); to facilitate two-way trade generally; to acquire precious metal mines.The latter was a big reason for invading Britain, though we think the Romans had been misled about what was really available.

  Britain yields gold, silver, and other metals, to make it worth conquering.

  TACITUS

  Falco knows Virgil: I was a Roman. As the poet said, my mission was bringing civilised pursuits to the known world. In the face of tenacious opposition, I believed you whacked them, taxed them, absorbed them, patronised them, then proscribed human sacrifice, dressed them in togas and discouraged them from openly insulting Rome. That done, you put in a strong government and left them to get on with it. [TFL] He also cynically says: The dear tribes can decide for themselves whether they choose a javelin in the ribs and having their women raped, or cartloads of wine, some nice second-hand diadems, and a delegation of elderly prostitutes from Artemisia setting up shop in the tribal capital. [BBH] This echoes a famous passage in Tacitus about civilising the British. Agricola had to deal with people living in isolation and ignorance, and therefore prone to fight; his object was to accustom them to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities … The result was that instead of loathing the Latin language, they became eager to speak it effectively. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the population was gradually led into the demoralising temptations of arcades, baths, and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as ‘civilisation’, when in fact they were only a feature of their enslavement.

  Tacitus is unexpectedly derogatory; his information must have come direct from his father-in-law, Agricola, who had governed Britain. With such dangerously liberal opinions, Tacitus notoriously put into the mouth of a defeated British tribal leader that scathing indictment of Roman imperialists: Pillagers of the world, they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder … They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. To robbery, butchery, and rapine they give the lying name of ‘government’; they create a desolation and call it peace.

  Falco and Helena are satirical, if not so disparaging: Helena smiled. ‘Here we are – all smart clothes, loud Latin and showing off our love of culture. Perhaps our shy British hosts are smitten with a fear that ghastly politeness will force them to mingle with a bunch of brash Romans …’ We were silent. She was right of course. Snobbery can work two ways. [BBH] They review their ideas again in See Delphi and Die and Alexandria.

  Nowhere in the Empire did Romans feel so out of place as in Greece. Imposing democracy on a country that in fact already possessed it raised a few questions. Bludgeoning the originators of the world’s great ideas (and blatantly stealing the ideas) did not make us proud. [SDD]

  The Roman Empire endured for half a millennium before the barbarians crashed in. Although the army was the means of seizing and securing a province, the Romans were clearly more practical and, I’m afraid, more idealistic than us. Despite Tacitus, they created societies where people wanted to live: with democracy, education and law, with safety from other incursions, with a common currency and language, good transport links for trade, the habit of cleanliness and, in Britain, the blessing of glass windows and central heating. Even if few took the opportunity up, the ambitious could go to Rome and advance socially there.

  Triumphs

  The ultimate status symbol. A Triumph was a glorious procession to h
onour a victorious emperor after a major military campaign against enemies of Rome. There were floats, plunder, prisoners and soldiers. As the victor drove in his chariot, dressed as the god, Jupiter, he famously needed a slave to whisper ‘Remember, you are mortal.’

  In The Course of Honour there is a fulsome description of Claudius’ British Triumph; Falco was there, a little tot being sick … He sees much of Vespasian’s Triumph for Judaea – even stumbles through the procession. Gallicus’ hoped-for Ovation (a minor version for generals) drives the plot of Saturnalia. These are grand set-piece occasions – a wondrous gift to a novelist. If one occurred, I eagerly bung it in.

  Law and Order

  If you’re willing to read your way through the records of world history

  You will have to admit that justice arose from the fear of injustice.

  HORACE

  Roman Law is still studied (I work from a friend’s old Roman Law textbook), though what survives is more civil than criminal: wills, heirs and legacies; debt; contract; property and rents; ‘agricultural’ law – damage by animals; rivers; ownership of fruit. I treat of these with caution because they can be complex and a wrong interpretation could invalidate my plot.

  Worrying about crime was a curse of Roman society if you read the poets:

  the usual quota

  Of theft, embezzlement, fraud, all those criminal get-rich-quick schemes,

  Glittering fortunes won by dagger or drug box?

  JUVENAL

  So the authorities tackled it:

  Praetorians, Urbans and Vigiles

  Rome had a typically stratified response. Let’s allow Petronius Longus to spell it out, giving Claudius Laeta a wry, terse lecture:

  ‘Top of the heap you have the Praetorian Guard; Cohorts One to Nine, commanded by the Praetorian Prefect, barracked at the Praetorian Camp. Duties: one, guarding the Emperor; two, ceremonial swank. They are a hand-picked élite and full of themselves. Next in line and tacked on to them are Cohorts Ten to Twelve, known as the Urbans. Commanded by the Urban Prefect – a senator – who is basically the city manager. Routinely armed with sword and knife. Their unofficial job is to repress the mob. Duties officially: to keep the peace, keep their ears open, and keep the Urban Prefect informed of absolutely everything. And at the bottom, doing all the real work, you have the vigiles, commanded by the Prefect of the Vigiles. Seven cohorts, each led by a tribune who is an ex-chief centurion; each with seven centuries who do the foot patrols. Duties: everything those flash bastards at the Praetorian Camp won’t lower themselves to touch …’ [TTD]