For over two years the Senate had been deprived of its ancient meeting house, the Curia Hostilia, yet no one had volunteered to rebuild it. So ingrained was the Treasury's parsimoniousness that the State would not foot the bill; tradition held that some great man should undertake the task, and no great man had so far been willing. Including Pompey the Great, who seemed indifferent to the Senate's plight. "You can always use the Curia Pompeia," he said. "Typical of him!" snapped Gaius Marcellus Major, stumping out to the Campus Martius and Pompey's stone theater on the Kalends of March. "He wants to compel the Senate to hold all its heavily attended meetings in something he built in days when we didn't need it. Typical!" "Yet one more extraordinary command of a sort," said Cato, striding along at a pace Gaius Marcellus Major found difficult. "Why do we have to hurry, Cato? Paullus holds the fasces for March, and he'll take his time." "Which is why Paullus is a pudding," said Cato. The complex Pompey had built upon the green sward of the Campus Martius not far from the Circus Flaminius was most imposing; a vast stone theater which could accommodate five thousand people reared high above the sparse structures which had existed here for much longer than a mere five years. Very shrewdly Pompey had incorporated a temple to Venus Victrix at the top of the cavea, and thus turned what would otherwise have been an impious structure into something entirely in keeping with the mos maiorum. Rome's customs and traditions deplored theater as a malign moral influence on the people, so until Pompey's stone edifice had gone up five years ago, the theater which pervaded all games and public feasts had been conducted in temporary wooden premises. What made Pompey's theater permissible was the temple to Venus Victrix. Behind the auditorium Pompey had built a vast peristyle garden surrounded by a colonnade containing exactly one hundred pillars, each fluted and adorned with the fussy Corinthian capitals Sulla had brought back from Greece, each painted in shades of blue and lavishly gilded. The red walls along the back of the colonnade were rich with magnificently painted murals, unfortunately marred by the peculiarity of their blood-soaked subject matter. For Pompey owned a great deal more money than good taste, and nowhere did it show more than in his hundred-pillared colonnade and garden stuffed with fountains, fish, frills, frights. At the rear of the peristyle Pompey had erected a curia, a meeting house which he had ensured was religiously inaugurated in order to house meetings of the Senate. It was very adequate in size, and in layout resembled the ruined Curia Hostilia, being a rectangular chamber containing three tiers down either side of a space ending in the dais upon which the curule magistrates sat. Each shelflike tier was broad enough to accommodate a senator's stool; upon the highest tier sat the pedarii, the senators who were not senior enough to speak in debate because they had never held a magistracy or won a Grass Crown or a Civic Crown for valor. The two middle tiers held senators who had attained a minor magistracy tribune of the plebs, quaestor or plebeian aedile or were military heroes, and the two bottom tiers were reserved for those who had been curule aediles, praetors, consuls or censors. Which meant that those who sat on the bottom or middle tiers had more room to spread their feathers than the pedarii up at the top. The old Curia Hostilia had been uninspiring within: the tiers had been blocks of unrendered tufa, the walls drably painted with a few red curliques and lines on a beige background, the curule dais more tufa stone, and the central space between the two banks of tiers tessellated in black and white marble so old it had long lost polish or majesty. In glaring contrast to this antique simplicity, Pompey's Curia was entirely done in colored marbles. The walls were purple and rose tiles laid in complicated patterns between gilded pilasters; the back tier on either side was faced in brown marble, the middle tier in yellow marble, the bottom tier in cream marble, and the curule dais in a lustrous, shimmering blue-white marble brought all the way from Numidia. The space between the two banks of tiers had been paved in patterned wheels of purple and white. Light poured in through high clerestory windows well sheltered by a wide eave on the non-colonnade side, and each aperture was covered by a gilded grille. Though the interior of the Curia Pompeia provoked many a sniff because of its ostentation, the interior was not what really offended. That was the statue of himself which Pompey had erected at the back of the curule dais. Exactly his own height (therefore not an insult to the Gods), it limned him as he had been at the time of his first consulship twenty years ago: a graceful, well-knit man of thirty-six with a shock of bright gold hair, brilliantly blue eyes, and a demure, round, distinctly un-Roman face. The sculptor had been the best, so too the painter who had colored in the tones of Pompey's flesh, hair, eyes, maroon senatorial shoes fastened with the crescent buckles of the consul. Only the toga and what showed of the tunic had been done in the new way: not painted but made of highly polished marble, white for the fabric of toga and tunic, purple for the border of the toga and the latus clavus stripe on the tunic. As he had caused the statue to be placed on a plinth four feet tall, Pompey the Great towered over everyone and inarguably presided over any meeting of the Senate conducted there. The arrogance! The insufferable hubris! Almost all the four hundred senators present in Rome came to the Curia Pompeia and this long-awaited meeting on the Kalends of March. To some extent Gaius Marcellus Major had been right in thinking that Pompey wanted to force the Senate to meet in his curia because the Senate had ignored his curia's existence until its own beloved chamber burned down; but Marcellus Major had neglected to take .his reasoning one step further, to the fact that these days the Senate had no option other than to meet outside Rome's sacred boundary for any session likely to draw a full House. Which meant that Pompey could attend these meetings in person while comfortably retaining his imperium as governor of the Spains; as his army was in Spain and he was also curator of the grain supply, he enjoyed the luxury of living just outside Rome and traveling freely throughout Italia, two things normally forbidden to the governors of provinces. Dawn was just paling the sky above the Esquiline Mount when the senators began to straggle into the peristyle garden, where most of them chose to linger until the convening magistrate, Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus, chose to appear. They clustered in small groups of like political thinking, talking with more animation than they could usually summon up so early in the day; this promised to be a momentous meeting, and anticipation was high. Everyone likes to be present to see the idol topple, and today everyone was convinced that Caesar, idol of the People, would topple. The leaders of the boni stood on the rear colonnade itself outside the Curia Pompeia doors: Cato, Ahenobarbus, Metellus Scipio, Marcus Marcellus (the junior consul of last year), Appius Claudius, Lentulus Spinther, Gaius Marcellus Major (the junior consul this year), Gaius Marcellus Minor (predicted to be consul next year), Faustus Sulla, Brutus, and two tribunes of the plebs. "A great, great day!" barked Cato in his harsh voice. "The beginning of the end of Caesar," said Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, beaming. "He's not without support," Brutus ventured timidly. "I see Lucius Piso, Philippus, Lepidus, Vatia Isauricus, Messala Rufus and Rabirius Postumus huddled together. They look confident." "Rabble!" said Marcus Marcellus disdainfully. "But who knows how the backbenchers will feel when it comes to the vote?" asked Appius Claudius, under some strain thanks to the fact that his trial for extortion was still going on. "More of them will vote for us than for Caesar," said the haughty Metellus Scipio. At which moment the senior consul, Paullus, appeared behind his lictors and entered the Curia Pompeia. The senators streamed inside after him, each with his servant carrying his folded stool, some with scribes hovering in attendance to take private verbatim records of this historic meeting. The prayers were said, the sacrifice made, the omens deemed to be auspicious; the House settled down on its stools, the curule magistrates on their ivory chairs atop the blue-white marble dais dominated by the statue of Pompey the Great. Who sat on the bottom tier to the left of the dais in his purple-bordered toga and looked directly at the dais, eyes dwelling on the face of his effigy, lips faintly smiling at the delicious irony of it. What a wonderful day this one would be! The only man who seemed likely to e
clipse him was going to have the feet cut out from under him. And all without one word from him, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. No one would be able to point the finger at him and accuse him of conspiring to unseat Caesar; it was going to happen without his needing to do more than be here. Naturally he would vote to strip Caesar of his provinces, but so would most of the House. Speak on the subject he would not, were he to be asked. The boni were quite capable of doing all the oratory necessary. Paullus, holding the fasces during the month of March, sat with his curule chair slightly forward of Gaius Marcellus Major's, the eight praetors and two curule aediles ranked behind them. Just below the front of the curule dais stood a very long, stout, highly polished wooden bench. On this sat the ten tribunes of the plebs, the men elected by the Plebs to safeguard their interests and keep the patricians in their place. Or so it had been at the dawn of the Republic, a time when the patricians had controlled the Senate, the consulship, the courts, the Centuriate Assembly and all aspects of public life. But that state of affairs hadn't lasted long once the Kings of Rome were dispensed with. The Plebs had risen high, held more and more of the money, and wanted a much bigger say in government. For one hundred years the duel of wits and wills between the Patriciate and the Plebs had persisted, the Patriciate fighting a losing battle. At the end of it, the Plebs had won the right to have at least one of the two consuls a plebeian, half the places in the pontifical colleges, and the right to call plebeian families noble once a member attained the rank of praetor, and had established the College of the Tribunes of the Plebs, sworn to guard plebeian interests even at the price of lives. Over the centuries since, the role of the tribunes of the plebs had changed. Gradually their assemblage of Roman men, the Plebeian Assembly, had usurped the major share of lawmaking and moved from blocking the power of the Patriciate to protecting the interests of the knight-businessmen who formed the nucleus of the Plebeian Assembly and dictated policy to the Senate. Then a special kind of tribune of the plebs began to emerge, culminating in the careers of two great plebeian noblemen, the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. Who used their office and the Plebeian Assembly to strip power from the Plebs as well as the Patriciate and give a trifle of it to those of lower status and little wealth. They had both died hideously for their pains, but their memory lived on and on. And they were followed by other great men in the job, as different in aims and ideals as Gaius Marius, Saturninus, Marcus Livius Drusus, Sulpicius, Aulus Gabinius, Titus Labienus, Publius Vatinius, Publius Clodius and Gaius Trebonius. But in Gabinius, Labienus, Vatinius and Trebonius a new phenomenon became absolutely established: they belonged to one particular man who dictated their policy; Pompey in the case of Gabinius and Labienus, Caesar in the case of Vatinius and Trebonius. Almost five hundred years of the tribunate of the plebs was embodied in the ten men who sat on that long wooden bench on this first day of March, each clad in a plain white toga, none entitled to lictors, none constrained by the religious rituals which ringed all other Roman executives round. Eight of them had been in the Senate for two or three years before running for the tribunate of the plebs; two of them had entered the Senate upon being elected. And nine of them were nonentities, men whose names and faces would not last beyond their tenure of office. That was not so of Gaius Scribonius Curio, who, as President of the College, occupied the middle of the tribunician bench. He looked the part of a tribune of the plebs, with that urchinish and freckled countenance, that unruly thatch of bright red hair, that vivid aura of huge energy and enthusiasm. A brilliant speaker known to be conservative in his political leanings, Curio was the son of a man who had been censor as well as consul, and young Curio had been one of Caesar's most telling opponents during the year of Caesar's consulship, even though he had not been old enough to enter the Senate at that time. Some of his laws since entering office on the tenth day of the previous December were puzzling, seemed to hint that the bug of tribunician radical extremism had bitten him more deeply than had been expected. First he had tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce a bill endowing a new curator of roads with a five-year proconsular imperium; many suspicious boni deemed this a ploy to give Caesar another, if unmilitary, command. Then as a pontifex he had tried to persuade the College of Pontifices to intercalate an extra twenty-two days into the year at the end of February. Which would have postponed the arrival of the Kalends of March and discussion of Caesar's provinces by twenty-two enormously valuable days. Again he was defeated. The road bill he had shrugged off as unimportant, but the intercalation of a Mercedonius month he clearly regarded as a very serious matter, for when the College of Pontifices kept on adamantly refusing, Curio was so irate he told them exactly what he thought of them. A reaction which provoked Cicero's great friend Caelius to write to Cilicia and inform Cicero that he thought Curio belonged to Caesar. Luckily this shrewd guess was not arrived at by anyone else with an influential ear to whisper into, so on this day Curio sat looking as if he was interested in the scheduled proceedings, but not to any significant degree. The tribunes of the plebs had, after all, been muzzled by that unconstitutional decree forbidding them to veto discussion of Caesar's provinces in the House on pain of being automatically convicted of treason. Paullus handed the meeting to Gaius Claudius Marcellus Major as soon as he had declared the House in session. "Honored senior consul, censors, consulars, praetors, aediles, tribunes of the plebs, quaestors and Conscript Fathers," said Gaius Marcellus Major, on his feet, "this meeting has been convoked to deal with the proconsulship of Gaius Julius Caesar, governor of the three Gauls and Illyricum, in accordance with the law the consuls Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus passed five years ago in the Popular Assembly. As stipulated in the lex Pompeia Licinia, today this House may freely discuss what to do with Gaius Caesar's tenure of office, his provinces, his army and his imperium. Under the law as it existed at the time the lex Pompeia Licinia was passed, the House on this day would have debated which of the senior magistrates in office this year it preferred to send to govern Gaius Caesar's provinces in March of next year, the latest date provided for under the lex Pompeia Licinia. However, during the sole consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus two years ago, the law was changed. It is now possible for the House to debate in a new and different way. Namely, that there is a small group of men sitting here who have been praetors or consuls, but who declined to govern a province following their tenure of office. With full legality this House may decide to utilize those reserves and appoint a new governor or governors for Illyricum and the three Gauls immediately. The consuls and praetors in office this year are disbarred from going to govern a province for five years, but we cannot possibly permit Gaius Caesar to continue to govern for five more years, can we?" Gaius Marcellus Major paused, his dark, not unattractive face reflecting his enjoyment. No one spoke, so he pressed on. "As all of us present here today know, Gaius Caesar has wrought wonders in his provinces. Eight years ago he started out with Illyricum, Italian Gaul and a Further Gaul which consisted of the Roman Gallic Province. Eight years ago he started out with two legions stationed in Italian Gaul and one in the Province. Eight years ago he started out to govern three provinces at peace, as they had been for a very long time. And during his first year the Senate approved of his acting to prevent the migrating tribe of the Helvetii from entering the Province. It did not authorize him to enter that region known as Gallia Comata to make war on one King Ariovistus of the Suebic Germani, titled Friend and Ally of the Roman People. It did not authorize him to recruit more legions. It did not authorize him, having subdued King Ariovistus, to march further into Gaul of the Long-hairs and pursue a war against tribes having no alliances with Rome. It did not authorize him to set up colonies of so-called Roman citizens beyond the Padus River in Italian Gaul. It did not authorize him to recruit and number his legions of non-citizen Italian Gauls as proper, fully Roman legions. It did not authorize him to make war, peace, treaties or accommodations in Gaul of the Long-hairs. It did not authorize him to maltreat ambassadors in good standing from certa
in Germanic tribes." "Hear, hear!" cried Cato. The senators murmured, shifted, looked uneasy; Curio sat on the tribunician bench, looking into the distance; Pompey sat still, gazing at his own face at the back of the curule dais; and the bald, savage-featured Lucius Ahenobarbus sat grinning unpleasantly. "The Treasury," said Gaius Marcellus Major affably, "did not object to any of these unauthorized actions. Nor, by and large, did the members of this august body. For Gaius Caesar's activities brought great profits in their train, for Rome, for his army, and for himself. They made him a hero in the eyes of the lower classes, who adore to see Rome accumulate might, wealth, and the valorous deeds of her generals abroad. They enabled him to buy what he was unable to get from men's genuine good will adherents in the Senate, tame tribunes of the plebs, a dominant faction in Rome's tribal assemblies, and the faces of thousands of his soldiers among the voters of the Centuries on the Campus Martius. And they enabled him to set a new style in governing: they enabled him to change Rome's hallowed mos maiorum, which had never permitted any Roman governor to invade non-Roman-owned territory with the object of conquering it for no better reason than to enhance his personal glory. For what did Rome stand to gain by the conquest of Gallia Comata, compared to what Rome stood to lose? The lives of her citizens, both under arms and engaged in peaceful pursuits. The hatred of peoples who know little of Rome and want no truck with Rome. Who had not and I repeat, had not! attempted to encroach upon Roman territory and Roman property in any way until Gaius Caesar provoked them. Rome in the person of Gaius Caesar and his enormous, illegally recruited army marched into the lands of peaceful peoples and laid them waste. For what real reason? To enrich himself by the sale of a million Gallic slaves, so many slaves that he could afford to look generous from time to time by donating slaves to that enormous, illegally recruited army. Rome has been enriched, yes, but Rome is already rich thanks to the absolutely legal and defensive wars fought by many who are dead and some, like our honored consular Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, who are sitting here today. For what real reason? To make Caesar a hero to the People, to provoke that ill-educated, over-emotional rabble into burning his daughter in our revered Forum Romanum and forcing the magistrates to agree to let her be entombed on the Campus Martius among Rome's heroes. I say this without intending any insult to the honored consular Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, whose beloved wife she was. But the fact remains that Gaius Caesar provoked that response in the People, and it was for the sake of Gaius Caesar that they did it." Pompey sat straight now, regally inclining his head to Gaius Marcellus Major, and looked as if he was in the throes of painful grief admixed with acute embarrassment. Curio, face impassive, sat and listened with sinking heart. The speech was very good, very reasonable, and very tailored to appeal to the members of this exclusive, superiority-conscious body. It sounded as if it was right, correct, constitutional. It was going down extremely well among the backbenchers and among those on the middle tiers whose allegiance swayed from side to side like a sapling in a vortex. For some of it was unanswerable. Caesar was high-handed. But after this speech, how to counter in the only way, which was to point out that Caesar was by no means the first or the only Roman governor and general to set out to conquer? And how to persuade these dismal mice that Caesar knew what he was doing, that all of it was really to safeguard Rome, Italia and Rome's territories from the coming of the Germans? He sighed soundlessly, hunched his head into his shoulders and thrust his feet out so that he could lean his back against the cold blue-white marble of the front of the curule dais. "I say," Gaius Marcellus Major went on, "that it is more than high time this august body put a stop to the career of this man Gaius Julius Caesar. Whose family and connections are so elevated that he genuinely believes himself above the law, above the tenets of the mos maiorum. He is another Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He has the birthright, the intelligence and the ability to be whatever he wishes to be. Well, we all know what happened to Sulla. What happened to Rome under Sulla. It took over two decades to rectify the damage Sulla did. The lives he took, the indignities he inflicted upon us, the autocracy he gathered to himself and used ruthlessly. "I do not say that Gaius Caesar has patterned himself upon Lucius Cornelius Sulla deliberately. I do not believe that is the way the men of these incredibly old patrician families think. I believe that they believe they are just a little under the Gods they sincerely worship, and that, if they are allowed to run amok, nothing is beyond their temerity or their ideas of entitlement." He drew a breath and stared straight at Caesar's youngest uncle, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, who had, throughout the years of Caesar's pro-consulship, maintained an imperturbable detachment. "You all know that Gaius Caesar expects to stand for the consulship next year. You all know that this House refused to permit Gaius Caesar to stand for the consulship in absentia. He must cross the pomerium into the city to declare his candidacy, and the moment he does that, he abandons his imperium. Whereupon I and others present here today will lay charges against him for the many unauthorized actions he has taken. They are treasonous, Conscript Fathers! Recruitment of unauthorized legions invasion of the lands of non-belligerents bestowing our citizenship on men not entitled to it founding colonies of such men and calling them Roman murdering ambassadors who came in good faith they are treasonous! Caesar will stand trial on many charges, and he will be convicted. For the courts will be special ones, and there will be more soldiers in the Forum Romanum than Gnaeus Pompeius put there for the trial of Milo. He will not escape retribution. You all know that. So think on it very carefully. "I am going to propose a motion to strip Gaius Julius Caesar of his imperium, his provinces and his army, and I will do it per discessionem by a division of the House. Further, I move that Gaius Caesar be deprived of all his proconsular authority, imperium and entitlements this very day, the Kalends of March in the year of the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus." Curio didn't move, didn't sit up straight or alter the casual sprawl of his legs. He said, "I veto your motion, Gaius Marcellus." The collective gasp which went up from almost four hundred pairs of lungs sounded like a huge wind, and was followed immediately by rustles, murmurs, scraping stools, one or two clapping hands. Pompey goggled, Ahenobarbus emitted a long howl, and Cato sat bereft of words. Gaius Marcellus Major recovered first. "I move," he said loudly, "that Gaius Julius Caesar be stripped of his imperium, his provinces and his army this very day, the Kalends of March in the year of the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus." "I veto your motion, junior consul," said Curio. A curious pause occurred during which no one moved, no one spoke. All eyes were riveted on Curio, whose face was invisible to those on the curule dais but visible to everyone else. Cato leaped to his feet. "Traitor!" he roared. "Traitor, traitor, traitor! Arrest him!" "Oh, rubbish!" cried Curio, got up from his bench and walked forward into the middle of the purple and white floor, where he stood with feet apart and head up. "Rubbish, Cato, and you know it! All you and your toadies passed was a senatorial decree which has no validity in law nor any, even the most transient, relevance to the constitution! No senatorial decree unsupported by martial law can deprive a properly elected tribune of the plebs of his right to interpose his veto! I veto the junior consul's motion, and I will go on vetoing it! Such is my right! And don't try to tell me that you'll march me off to a quick treason trial, then toss me off the end of the Tarpeian Rock! The Plebs would never stand for it! Who do you think you are, a patrician back in the days before the Plebs put patricians in their place? For someone who prates interminably about the arrogance and lawlessness of patricians, Cato, you behave remarkably like one yourself! Well, rubbish! Sit down and pipe down! I veto the junior consul's motion!" "Oh, wonderful!" screamed a voice from beyond the open doors. "Curio, I adore you! I worship you! Wonderful, wonderful!" And there stood Fulvia haloed by the light from the garden, the swell of her belly unmistakable beneath her orange and saffron gown, her lovely face alight. Gaius Marcellus Major swallowed, shook all over, and lost his temper. "Lictors, remove that woman
!" he shouted. "Throw her out onto the streets where she belongs!" "Don't you lay a finger on her!" snarled Curio. "Whereabouts does it say that a Roman citizen of either sex cannot listen outside the Senate doors when they're open? Touch the granddaughter of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus and you'll be lynched by your despised, ill-educated and over-emotional rabble, Marcellus!" The lictors hesitated; Curio grasped his chance. He strode down the length of the floor, seized his wife by the shoulders and kissed her ardently. "Go home, Fulvia, there's a good girl." And Fulvia, smiling mistily, departed. Curio returned to the middle of the floor, grinning derisively at Marcellus Major. "Lictors, arrest this man!" quavered Gaius Marcellus Major, so angry that beads of foam had gathered at the corners of his mouth and he trembled violently. "Arrest him! I charge him with treason and declare that he isn't fit to be at liberty! Throw him into the Lautumiae!" "Lictors, I command you to stay where you are!" said Curio with impressive authority. "I am a tribune of the plebs who is being obstructed in the pursuit of his tribunician duties! I have exercised my veto in a legal assembly of senatorial men, as is my right, and there is no emergency decree in existence to prevent my doing so! I order you to arrest the junior consul for attempting to obstruct a tribune of the plebs who is exercising his inviolable rights! Arrest the junior consul!" Paralyzed until now, Paullus lumbered to his feet and gestured to his chief lictor, who held the fasces, to drum the end of his bundle of rods on the floor. "Order! Order!" Paullus roared. "I want order! This meeting will come to order!" "It's my meeting, not yours!" yelled Marcellus Major. "Stay out of it, Paullus, I warn you!" "I am the consul with the fasces," the normally lethargic Paullus thundered, "and that means it's my meeting, junior consul! Sit down! Everyone sit down! I will have order or I will have my lictors disband this meeting by force, if necessary! Cato, shut your mouth! Ahenobarbus, don't even think of it! I will have order!" He glared at the impenitent Curio, who resembled a particularly annoying little dog, jauntily unafraid of a pack of wolves. "Gaius Scribonius Curio, I respect your right to exercise your veto, and I agree that to obstruct you is unconstitutional. But I think this House deserves to hear why you have interposed your veto. You have the floor." Curio nodded, passed his hand over his fiery head, and looked hungry because it gave him a chance to lick his lips. Oh, for a drink of water! But to ask for one would be weakness. "My thanks, senior consul. There is no need to dwell upon whatever legal measures certain men here may plan to take against the proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar. They are not relevant, and it was inappropriate for the junior consul to mention them in his speech. He should have confined himself to the reasons why he wishes to move that Gaius Caesar be stripped of his proconsulship and his provinces." Curio walked to the very end of the floor and stood with his back to the doors, now closed. From this vantage point he could see every face, including the faces on the curule dais and the entirety of Pompey's statue. "The junior consul stated that Gaius Caesar invaded peaceful non-Roman territory to enhance his own personal glory. But that is not so. King Ariovistus of the Suebic Germani had entered into a treaty with the Celtic tribe of the Sequani to settle on one-third of the Sequani lands, and it was to encourage a friendly attitude on the part of the Germani that the selfsame Gaius Caesar secured for King Ariovistus the title of Friend and Ally of the Roman People. But King Ariovistus broke his treaty by bringing many more Suebi across the river Rhenus than his treaty allowed, and dispossessing the Sequani. Who in turn threatened the Aedui, who have enjoyed the title of Friend and Ally of the Roman People for a very long time. Gaius Caesar moved to protect the Aedui, as he was obliged to do by the terms of the treaty the Aedui have with us. "He then decided, having encountered the might of the Germani in person," Curio went on, "to seek treaties of friendship for Rome among the Celtic and Belgic peoples of Gallia Comata, and it was for that reason that he entered their lands, not to make war." "Oh, Curio," cried Marcus Marcellus, "I never thought to see the son of your father smear himself with Gaius Caesar's shit and lick himself clean! Gerrae! Nonsense! A man wanting to make treaties doesn't advance at the head of an army, and that's what Caesar did!" "Order," rumbled Paullus. Curio shook his head as if to deplore Marcus Marcellus's stupidity. "He advanced with an army because he's a prudent man, Marcus Marcellus, not a fool like you. No Roman pilum was thrown in an unprovoked act of aggression, nor any tribe's land laid waste. He concluded treaties of friendship, legally binding and tangible treaties, all of which are nailed to the walls of Jupiter Feretrius go look at them, if you doubt me! It was only when those treaties were broken by the Gallic use of force that a Roman pilum was thrown, a Roman sword drawn. Read Gaius Caesar's seven Commentaries you can buy them at any bookshop! For it doesn't seem as if you ever listened to them when they were sent to this august body in the form of official dispatches." "You're not worthy to call yourself a Scribonius Curio!" said Cato bitterly. "Traitor!" "I'm worthy enough, Marcus Cato, to want to see both sides of this business aired!" snapped Curio, frowning. "I didn't veto for any other reason than that it became horribly clear to me that the junior consul and the rest of the boni will suffer no defense of a man who isn't here to defend himself! I do not like the idea of punishing a man without permitting a defense. And it seems to me a worthy thing for a tribune of the plebs to see that justice is done. I repeat, Gaius Caesar was not the aggressor in Gaul of the Long-hairs. "As to those allegations that he recruited legions without the authority to do so, I would remind you that you yourselves sanctioned the recruitment of every one of those legions and agreed to pay them! as the seriousness of the situation in Gaul became steadily more apparent." "After the fact!" shouted Ahenobarbus. "After the fact! And that at law does not constitute authorization!" "I beg to disagree, Lucius Domitius. What about the many thanksgivings this House voted Caesar? And did the Treasury ever complain that the riches Gaius Caesar poured into it were riches Rome neither sanctioned, wanted, or needed? Governments never have enough money, because governments don't earn money all they do is spend it." Curio swung to look directly at Brutus, who visibly shrank. "I don't see any evidence that the boni find the actions of their own adherents reprehensible, yet which kind of action would the majority of this House prefer the direct, unvarnished and very legal reprisals of Gaius Caesar in Gaul, or the furtive, cruel and very illegal reprisals Marcus Brutus made upon the elders of the city of Salamis in Cyprus when they couldn't pay the forty-eight percent compound interest Marcus Brutus's minions demanded? I have heard that Gaius Caesar tried certain Gallic chieftains and executed them. I have heard that Gaius Caesar killed many Gallic chieftains on a battlefield. I have heard that Gaius Caesar cut off the hands of four thousand Gallic men who had warred hideously against Rome at Alesia and Uxellodunum. But nowhere have I heard that Gaius Caesar lent non-citizens money, then shut them up in their own meeting hall until they starved to death! Which is what Marcus Brutus did, this eminent exemplar of everything a young Roman senator ought to be!" "That is an infamy, Gaius Curio," said Brutus between his teeth. "The elders of Salamis did not die at my instigation." "But you know all about them, don't you?" "Through the malicious letters of Cicero, yes!" Curio moved on. "As to the allegations that Caesar awarded the Roman citizenship illegally, show me where has he acted one scrap differently from our beloved but unconstitutional hero Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus? Or Gaius Marius before him? Or any one of many more provincial governors who established colonies? Who recruited men with the Latin Rights rather than the full citizenship? That is a grey area, Conscript Fathers, which cannot be said to have originated with Gaius Caesar. It has become a part of the mos maiorum to reward men owning the Latin Rights with full citizenship when they serve in Rome's armies legally, faithfully, and very often heroically. Nor can any of Caesar's legions be called mere auxiliary legions, filled with non-citizens! Every one of them has Roman citizens serving in it." Gaius Marcellus Major sneered. "For someone who said this was not the time or the place to discuss the charges of treason which will be laid against Gaius Caesar the moment he lays down his imperium
, Gaius Curio, you've spent a great many moments speaking as if you were leading Caesar's defense at his trial!" "Yes, it must look that way," said Curio briskly. "However, I will now move to the crux of the matter, Gaius Marcellus. It is contained in the letter which this body sent to Gaius Caesar early last year. Caesar had written to ask the Senate to treat him exactly as it had treated Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, who stood for his consulship without a colleague in absentia because he was at the time governing both the Spains as well as looking after Rome's grain supply. Certainly, no trouble! cried the Conscript Fathers, gladly endorsing one of the most blatantly unconstitutional measures ever conceived in the fertile minds of this House and pushed with indecent haste through a poorly attended tribal assembly! But for Gaius Caesar, Pompeius Magnus's equal in all respects, this House could find nothing better to say than eat shit, Caesar!" The doughty little terrier showed his teeth. "I will tell you what I intend to do, Conscript Fathers. Namely, I will continue to exercise my veto in the matter of Gaius Caesar's governorships of his provinces until the Senate of Rome agrees to treat Gaius Caesar exactly the way it is pleased to treat Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. I will retract my veto on one condition: that whatever is done to Gaius Caesar is also done at one and the same moment to Gnaeus Pompeius! If this House strips Gaius Caesar of his imperium, his provinces and his army, then this House must in the same breath strip Gnaeus Pompeius of his imperium, his provinces and his army!" Now they were all sitting up! Pompey was actually staring at Curio instead of admiring his own statue, and the little band of consulars who were thought to have some allegiance to Caesar bore grins from ear to ear. "That's telling them, Curio!" cried Lucius Piso. "Tace!" shouted Appius Claudius, who loathed Lucius Piso. "I move," yelled Gaius Marcellus Major, "that Gaius Caesar be stripped of his imperium, his provinces and his army on this day! Stripped!" "I interpose my veto to that motion, junior consul, until you add to it that Gnaeus Pompeius be stripped of his imperium, his provinces and his army on this day! Stripped!" "This House decreed that it would treat the imposition of a veto on the subject of Gaius Caesar's proconsulship as treason! You are a traitor, Curio, and I'll see you die for it!" "I veto that too, Marcellus!" Paullus heaved himself to his feet. "Dismissed!" he roared. "The House is dismissed! Get out of here, all of you!"
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