“You fool!” roared Hortensius. “Don’t you understand? I was tricked, bamboozled, hoodwinked, gulled—any word you like to describe the fact that Cicero has ruined any chance I ever had to win this wretched case! A year could go by between actio prima and actio secunda, Gaius Verres, I and my assistants could deliver the world’s best oratory for a month, Gaius Verres—and still the jury would not have forgotten that utter landslide of evidence! I tell you straight, Gaius Verres, that if I had known a tithe of your crimes before I started, I would never have agreed to defend you! You make Mummius or Paullus look like a tyro! And what have you done with so much money? Where is it, for Juno’s sake? How could any man have spent it when that man pays a pittance for a Praxiteles Cupid and mostly doesn’t pay at all? I’ve defended a lot of unmitigated villains in my time, but you win all the prizes! Go into voluntary exile, Gaius Verres!”
Verres and the Metelli Little Goats had listened to this tirade with jaws dropped.
Hortensius rose to his feet. “Take what you can with you into exile, but if you want my advice, leave the art works you looted from Sicily behind. You’ll never be able to carry more than you stole from Hera of Samos anyway. Concentrate on paintings and small stuff. And ship your money out of Rome at dawn tomorrow—don’t leave it a moment longer.” He walked to the door, threading his way through the precious artifacts. “I will take my ivory sphinx by Phidias, however. Where is it?”
“Your what?” gasped Verres. “I don’t owe you anything—you didn’t get me off!”
“You owe me one ivory sphinx by Phidias,” said Hortensius, “and you ought to be thanking your good luck I didn’t make it more. If nothing else is worth it to you, the advice I’ve just given you most definitely is. My ivory sphinx, Verres. Now!’’
It was small enough for Hortensius to tuck under his left arm, hidden by folds of toga; an exquisite piece of work that was perfect down to the last detail in a feathered wing and the minute tufts of fur protruding between the clawed toes.
“He’s cool,” said Marcus Little Goat after Hortensius went.
“Ingrate!” snarled Verres.
But the consul—elect Metellus Little Goat frowned. “He’s right, Gaius. You’ll have to leave Rome by tomorrow night at the latest. Cicero will have the court seal this place as soon as he hears you’re moving things out—why on earth did you have to keep it all here?”
“It isn’t all here, Quintus. These are just the pieces I can’t bear not to see every day. The bulk of it is stored on my place at Cortona.”
“Do you mean there’s more! Ye gods, Gaius, I’ve known you for years, but you never cease to surprise me! No wonder our poor sister complains you ignore her! So this is only the stuff you can’t bear not to see every day? And I’ve always thought you kept this place looking like a curio shop in the Porticus Margaritaria because you didn’t even trust your slaves!’’
Verres sneered. “Your sister complains, does she? And what right does she have to complain, when Caesar’s been keeping her cunnus well lubricated for months? Does she think I’m a fool? Or so blind I can’t see beyond a Myron bronze?” He got up. “I ought to have told Hortensius where most of my money went—your face would have been mighty red, wouldn’t it? The three Little Goats are expensive in—laws, but you most of all, Quintus! The art I’ve managed to hang on to, but who gobbled up the proceeds from sales of grain, eh? Well, now’s the end of it! I’ll take my sphinx—stealing advocate’s advice and go into voluntary exile, where with any luck what I manage to take with me will stay mine! No more money for the Little Goats, including Metella Capraria! Let Caesar keep her in the style to which she’s accustomed—and I wish you luck prising money out of that man! Don’t expect to see your sister’s dowry returned. I’m divorcing her today on grounds of her adultery with Caesar.”
The result of this speech was the outraged exit of both his brothers-in-law; for a moment after they had gone Verres stood behind his desk, one finger absently caressing the smooth painted planes of a marble cheek belonging to a Polyclitus Hera. Then, shrugging, he shouted for his slaves. Oh, how could he bear to part with one single item contained in this house? Only the salvation of his skin and the knowledge that keeping some was better than losing all enabled him to walk with his steward from one precious object to the next. Go, stay, go, go, stay …
“When you’ve hired the wagons—and if you blab about it to anyone, I’ll crucify you!—have them brought round to the back lane at midnight tomorrow. And everything had better be properly crated, hear me?”
*
As Hortensius had predicted, Cicero had Glabrio seal the abandoned house of Gaius Verres on the morning after his secret departure, and sent to his bank to stop the transfer of funds. Too late, of course; money was the most portable of all treasures, requiring nothing more than a piece of paper to be presented at the other end of a man’s journey.
“Glabrio is empaneling a committee to fix damages, but I’m afraid they won’t be huge,” said Cicero to Hiero of Lilybaeum. “He’s cleaned his money out of Rome. However, it looks as if most of what he stole from Sicily’s temples has been left behind—not so with all the jewels and plate he stole from individual owners, alas, though even that he couldn’t entirely spirit away, there was so much of it. The slaves he left behind—a poor lot, but their hatred of him has proven useful—say that what is in his house here in Rome is minute compared to what he has hidden away on his estate near Cortona. I imagine that’s where the brothers Metelli have gone, but I borrowed a tactic from my friend Caesar, who travels faster than anyone else I know. The court’s expedition will reach Cortona first, I predict. So we may find more belonging to Sicily there.”
“Where has Gaius Verres gone?” asked Hiero, curious.
“It seems he’s heading for Massilia. A popular place for the art lovers among our exiles,” said Cicero.
“Well, we are delighted to have our national heritage back,” said Hiero, beaming. “Thank you, Marcus Tullius, thank you!”
“I believe it will be I who ends in thanking you—that is,” said Cicero delicately, “if you are pleased enough with my conduct of the case to honor our agreement about the grain next year? The Plebeian Games will not be held until November, so your price need not come from this year’s harvest.”
“We are happy to pay you, Marcus Tullius, and I promise you that your distribution of grain to the people of Rome will be magnificent.”
“And so,” said Cicero later to his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, “this rare venture into the realm of prosecution has turned out to be a bonus I badly needed. I’ll buy my grain at two sesterces the modius, and sell it for three sesterces. The extra sestertius will more than pay for transportation.”
“Sell it for four sesterces the modius,” said Atticus, “and pop a bit of money into your own purse. It needs fattening.”
But Cicero was shocked. “I couldn’t do that, Atticus! The censors could say I had enriched myself by illegally taking fees for my services as an advocate.”
Atticus sighed. “Cicero, Cicero! You will never be rich, and it will be entirely your own fault. Though I suppose it’s true that you can take the man out of Arpinum, but you can never take Arpinum out of the man. You think like a country squire!”
“I think like an honest man,” said Cicero, “and I’m very proud of that fact.”
“Thereby implying that I am not an honest man?”
“No, no!” cried Cicero irritably. “You’re a businessman of exalted rank and Roman station—what rules apply to you are not the rules apply to me. I’m not a Caecilius, but you are!”
Atticus changed the subject. “Are you going to write the case against Verres up for publication?” he asked.
“I had thought of doing so, yes.”
“Including the great speeches of an actio secunda that never happened? Did you compose anything ahead of time?”
“Oh yes, I always have rough notes of my speeches months before their delivery dates. Though I
shall modify the actio secunda speeches to incorporate a lot of the things I discussed during the actio prima. Titivated up, naturally.”
“Naturally,” said Atticus gravely.—
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m thinking of establishing a hobby for myself, Cicero. Business is boring, and the men I deal with even more boring than the business I do. So I’m opening a little shop with a big workshop out back—on the Argiletum. Sosius will have some competition, because I intend to become a publisher. And if you don’t object, I would like the exclusive right to publish all your future work. In return to you of a payment of one tenth of what I make on every copy of your works I sell.”
Cicero giggled. “How delicious! Done, Atticus, done!”
4
It was in April, shortly after the newly elected censors had confirmed Mamercus as Princeps Senatus, that Pompey announced he would celebrate votive victory games commencing in Sextilis and ending just before the ludi Romani were due to begin on the fourth day of September. His satisfaction in making this announcement was apparent to all, though not every scrap of it was due to the victory games themselves; Pompey had brought off a marital coup of enormous significance to a man from Picenum. His widowed sister, Pompeia, was to wed none other than the dead Dictator’s nephew, Publius Sulla sive Sextus Perquitienus. Yes, the Pompeii of northern Picenum were rising up in the Roman world! His grandfather and father had had to make do with the Lucilii, whereas he had allied himself with the Mucii, the Licinii, and the Cornelii! Tremendously satisfying!
But Crassus didn’t care a scrap whom Pompey’s sister chose as her second husband; what upset him was the victory games.
“I tell you,” Crassus said to Caesar, “he intends to keep the countryfolk spending up big in Rome for over two months, and right through the worst of summer! The shopkeepers are going to put up statues to him all over the city—not to mention old grannies and daddies who love to take in lodgers during summer and earn a few extra sesterces!”
“It’s good for Rome. And good for money.”
“Yes, but where am I in all this?” asked Crassus, squeaking.
“You’ll just have to create a place for yourself.”
“Tell me how—and when? Apollo’s games last until the Ides of Quinctilis, then there are three sets of elections five days apart—curule, People, Plebs. On the Ides of Quinctilis he intends to hold his wretched parade of the Public Horse. And after the plebeian elections there’s an ocean of time for shopping—but not enough time to go home to the country and come back again!—until his victory games begin in the middle of Sextilis. They last for fifteen days! What conceit! And after they end it’s straight into the Roman games! Ye gods, Caesar, his public entertainments are going to keep the bumpkins in town for closer to three months than two! And has my name been mentioned? No! I don’t exist!”
Caesar looked tranquil. “I have an idea,” he said.
“What?’’ demanded Crassus. “Dress me up as Pollux?’’
“And Pompeius as Castor? I like it! But let’s be serious. Anything you do, my dear Marcus, is going to have to cost more than Pompeius is outlaying for his entertainments. Otherwise whatever you do won’t eclipse him. Are you willing to spend a huge fortune?”
“I’d be willing to pay almost anything to go out of office looking better than Pompeius!” Crassus snorted. “After all, I am the richest man in Rome—have been for two years now.”
“Don’t delude yourself,” said Caesar. “You just talk about your wealth, and no one has come up with a bigger figure. But our Pompeius is a typical landed rural nobleman—very closemouthed about what he’s worth. And he’s worth a lot more than you are, Marcus, so much I guarantee. When the Ager Gallicus was officially brought within the boundary of Italy, the price of it soared. He owns—owns, not leases or rents!—several million iugera of the best land in Italy, and not only in Umbria and Picenum. He inherited all that magnificent property the Lucilii used to own on the Gulf of Tarentum, and he came back from Africa in time to pick up some very nice river frontage on the Tiber, the Volturnus, the Liris and the Aternus. You are not the richest man in Rome, Crassus. I assure you that Pompeius is.”
Crassus was staring. “That’s not possible!”
“It is, you know. Just because a man doesn’t shout to the world how much he’s worth doesn’t mean he’s poor. You shout about your money to everyone because you started out poor. Pompeius has never been poor in his life—and never will be poor. When he gives his land to his veterans he looks glamorous, but I’d be willing to bet that all he really gives them is tenure of it, not title to it. And that everyone pays him a tithe of what their land produces. Pompeius is a kind of king, Crassus! He didn’t choose to call himself Magnus for no reason. His people regard him as their king. Now that he’s senior consul, he just believes his kingdom has grown.”
“I’m worth ten thousand talents,” said Crassus gruffly.
“Two hundred and fifty million sesterces to an accountant,” said Caesar, smiling and shaking his head. “Would you draw ten percent of that in annual profits?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then would you be willing to forgo this year’s profits?”
“You mean spend a thousand talents?”
“I mean exactly that.”
The idea hurt; Crassus registered his pain visibly. “Yes—if in so doing I can eclipse Pompeius. Not otherwise.”
“The day before the Ides of Sextilis—which is four days before Pompeius’s victory games begin—is the feast of Hercules Invictus. As you remember, Sulla dedicated a tenth of his fortune to the god by giving a public feast on five thousand tables.”
“Who could forget that day? The black dog drank the first victim’s blood. I’d never seen Sulla terrified before. Nor after, for that matter. His Grass Crown fell in the defiled blood.”
“Forget the horrors, Marcus, for I promise you there will be no black dogs anywhere near when you dedicate a tenth of your fortune to Hercules Invictus! You’ll give a public banquet on ten thousand tables!” said Caesar. “Those who might otherwise have preferred the comfort of a seaside holiday to watching one spectacle after another will all stay in Rome—a free feast is top of everyone’s priorities.”
“Ten thousand tables? If I heaped every last one of them feet high in licker—fish, oysters, freshwater eels and dug—mullets by the cartload, it would still not cost me more than two hundred talents,” said Crassus, who knew the price of everything. “And besides, a full belly today might make a man think he’ll never be hungry again, but on the morrow that same man will be hungry. Feasts vanish in a day, Caesar. So does the memory of them.”
“Quite right. However,” Caesar went on dreamily, “those two hundred talents leave eight hundred still to be spent. Let us presume that in Rome between Sextilis and November there will be about three hundred thousand Roman citizens. The normal grain dole provides each citizen with five modii—that is, one medimnus—of wheat per month, at a price of fifty sesterces. A cheap rate, but not as cheap as the actual price of the grain, of course. The Treasury makes at least a little profit, even in the lean years. This year, they tell me, will not be lean. Nor—such is your luck!—was last year a lean one. Because it is out of last year’s crop you will have to buy.”
“Buy?” asked Crassus, looking lost.
“Let me finish. Five modii of wheat for three months … Times three hundred thousand people … Is four and a half million modii. If you buy now instead of during summer, I imagine you could pick up four and a half million modii of wheat for five sesterces the modius. That is twenty-two and a half million sesterces—approximately eight hundred talents. And that, my dear Marcus,” Caesar ended triumphantly, “is where the other eight hundred talents will go! Because, Marcus Crassus, you are going to distribute five modii of wheat per month for three months to every Roman citizen free of charge. Not at a reduced price, my dear Marcus. Free!”
“Spectacular largesse,” said Crassus, face expre
ssionless.
“I agree, it is. And it has one great advantage over every ploy Pompeius has devised. His entertainments will have finished over two months before your final issue of free grain. If memories are short, then you have to be the last man left on the field. Most of Rome will eat free bread thanks to Marcus Licinius Crassus between the month when the prices soar and the time when the new harvest brings them down again. You’ll be a hero! And they’ll love you forever!”
“They might stop calling me an arsonist,” grinned Crassus.
“And there you have the difference between your wealth and Pompeius’s,” said Caesar, grinning too. “Pompeius’s money doesn’t float as cinders on Rome’s air. It really is high time that you smartened up your public image!”
*
As Crassus chose to go about purchasing his vast quantity of wheat with stealth and personal anonymity and said not a word about intending to dedicate a tenth of his wealth to Hercules Invictus on the day before the Ides of Sextilis, Pompey proceeded with his own plans in sublime ignorance of the danger that he would find himself eclipsed.
His intention was to make all of Rome—and Italy—aware that the bad times were over; and what better way to do that than to give the whole country over to feasting and holidaymaking? The consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus would live in the memory of the people as a time of prosperity and freedom from anxiety—no more wars, no more famines, no more internal strife. And though the element of self spoiled his intentions, they were genuine enough. The ordinary people, who were not important and therefore did not suffer during the proscriptions, spoke these days with wistful longing for the time when Sulla had been the Dictator; but after the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was over, Sulla’s reign would not loom so large in memory.
At the beginning of Quinctilis Rome began to fill up with country people, most of whom were looking for lodgings until after the middle of September. Nor did as many as usual leave for the seashore, even among the upper classes. Aware that crime and disease would both be on the increase, Pompey devoted some of his splendid organizational talents to diminishing crime and disease by hiring ex-gladiators to police the alleys and byways of the city, by making the College of Lictors keep an eye on the shysters and tricksters who frequented the Forum Romanum and other major marketplaces, by enlarging the swimming holes of the Trigarium, and plastering vacant walls with warning notices about good drinking water, urinating and defaecating anywhere but in the public latrines, clean hands and bad food.
Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar Page 347
