A Point of Law s-10

by John Maddox Roberts

  We walked up the steps of the Portico and into the shade of the colonnade. Its rear wall was beautifully adorned with frescoes. Displaying uncharacteristic taste, Pompey had chosen mythological subjects instead of glorifying his own victories.

  “I attended the contio yesterday,” Cato began. “I think you should challenge its constitutionality. First, it was quite informal. There were no sacrifices, no taking of auguries, so its decisions cannot have the binding power of law.”

  “By custom,” I said, “a contio is held to discuss a pending matter and decide whether a meeting of the comitia is called for. Sacrifices and auguries are not necessary.”

  “Exactly. Yet Manilius proceeded as if he had the power to call for a trial at the contio, when it requires a vote in the full comitia to do that. Oh, he was very smooth. He acted like the gravest, most deliberate magistrate since Fabius Cunctator, but his tactics were radical! In the first place, the comitia tributa has no right to try a capital case.”

  “But is it truly a capital case?” I asked. “It’s just a common murder. It’s not parricide, so there is no sacrilege involved. He wasn’t killed by poison or magic. It was nothing but an ordinary stabbing, although it was carried out with rare zeal. It’s not as if I was charged with a really serious crime like arson or treason.”

  “Nonsense! The victim, though obscure, was a man of good family. You, too, are a man of good family and high reputation. If you are not to be tried in one of the standing courts, you should appeal for trial before the whole comitia centuriata, with all classes represented, where the tribunes don’t control everything.”

  “There’s no time. Not if I’m to stand in the election. If I stall, Manilius and Fulvius’s faction will use it as grounds for impeachment and try to keep me from assuming office.” A sitting magistrate could not be prosecuted; but if the election itself were to be invalidated, he could be prevented from taking his place.

  “Then what will you do? You haven’t time to formulate a good defense, and they’ve had plenty of time to work up their plot, whatever it is.”

  “I intend to prove myself innocent before it comes to trial.”

  He looked skeptical. Like Julia, Cato had little faith in the concept of mere innocence.

  Foreigners were often mystified by our old Republican system, with its welter of popular assemblies, courts, officials with rival jurisdictions, political factions, and competing clientela, but it all made perfect sense to us. Well, almost perfect. As in this case, there was often dispute about anyone’s right to do anything.

  Over the generations, the various classes had fought over political power; first, patrician against plebeian; then the nobiles and senators against the equites and lower plebs; until now the classes were hopelessly intertwined. I was a perfect example: a plebeian by birth, a nobiles by heritage, having many consuls among my ancestors; an eques by property qualification, and a senator by election. I was not a patrician, but by that year the patrician families were all but extinct, and the only exclusive privileges they had left were certain priesthoods, which suited me perfectly. Only a fool wanted to be Flamen Dialis or Rex Sacrorum.

  Most foreigners assumed that the Senate ran things. While the Senate was full of powerful men, its own powers were restricted almost completely to foreign affairs. Cicero got into huge trouble by trying the Catilinarian conspirators in the Senate and executing them without appeal. Even though the immensely conservative Cato fully approved of his actions, Cicero was exiled by the comitia tribute, then later recalled by a vote of the comitia centuriata.

  SPQR, our ancient civic insignia, stood for “the Senate and People of Rome,” and we meant it.

  Now, of course, it is all changed. Most of the old bodies and institutions remain, but they all just do what the First Citizen tells them to. Once we savaged each other so thoroughly that it is no wonder we were such a terror to our enemies. I fear that Rome has no great future now that it is a monarchy in all but name.

  But such thoughts did not disturb me at the time. This accusation of murder was just one more excitement in the general excitement of election time. It was an annoyance, but anything was better than being in Gaul.

  “Cato, you recall the crowd that denounced me on the basilica steps yesterday? Were they at the contio?”

  “They were there. Still denouncing you, too.”

  “Did they happen to mention that they caught me in the house of Fulvius, rifling through his belongings?”

  “Never said a word about it. Oh, there was some gossip going around that you and your boy Hermes were seen leaping from a balcony and running like the Furies were after you, but I’ve heard that so often that I discounted it. What were you up to?”

  “Gathering evidence. The door wasn’t locked and no one was there to forbid me to enter, so it wasn’t housebreaking. What interests me is that they said nothing about it.”

  “It does seem odd. What did you find?”

  “Nothing immediately useful. But he was living unusually well for a penurious man, in a house owned by Caius Claudius Marcellus.”

  “A political favor then,” he said. “But of what sort? He’s an ardent anti-Caesarian, but like you he has a marriage tie with Caesar.”

  “Really? I was unaware of that.”

  “Yes, his wife is Octavia. She is a granddaughter of Caesar’s sister.”

  “A great-niece? That’s not much of a connection.”

  “In this case it could be. Caesar has shown great favor toward her brother, young Caius Octavius. If he doesn’t breed an heir soon, he may adopt the boy. A few months ago the lad gave the funeral eulogy for his grandmother, Julia. Did a splendid job of it for one so young.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” I said. And that was true of most of us. It was just as well for our peace of mind that we didn’t know what the future had in store for that particular brat, who was all of twelve years old at the time.

  “A couple of years ago, when Caesar and Pompey were patching up one of their breaches, Caesar wanted Octavia to divorce Marcellus and marry Pompey. Caesar would set aside Calpurnia and marry Pompey’s daughter. But it didn’t work out somehow.”

  “That must have made for some tense domestic suppers at Caesar’s house,” I said.

  “Why?” Cato was honestly mystified at the suggestion that these women might resent being ordered to divorce and remarry at someone’s political whim. Pompey’s daughter was married to Faustus Sulla and had two children by him. In the event, Pompey had actually married the daughter of Metellus Scipio. She was the widow of Publius Crassus, who had died with his father at Carrhae. Our political marriages were as complicated as our electoral politics.

  “Claudius Marcellus bids fair to be one of next year’s consuls,” I said. “What is he likely to do?”

  “Now that Caesar’s soldiers are here, his colleague will be Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus. You’ve seen the huge renovations going on at the Basilica Aemilia?”

  “It’s hard to miss.”

  “Well, Lucius will preside at its rededication, and his name will be carved on it as restorer, but it’s Caesar’s money that’s paid for the work.”

  Erection or restoration of monuments was enormously important to any man’s prestige. Families traditionally saw to the upkeep of the monuments of their ancestors, as witness my new roof on the Porticus Metelli. By restoring the old basilica, Lucius Aemilius not only glorified himself, but he received credit for his piety in honoring his ancestors.

  Something else occurred to me. Like many of Rome’s older structures, the Basilica Aemilia had more than one name. People sometimes called it the Basilica Fulvia.

  It was barely noon when I went to the house of Callista. I had intended to call later, but since I might be arrested at anytime I thought it prudent to stop by early. Hermes was with me as usual, and the long walk to the Trans-Tiber took us through an almost deserted Rome because so much of the population had flocked to the Campus Martius to see the soldiers from Gaul. Like most
of Caesar’s self-glorifying schemes, this one had proved to be a resounding success.

  The majordomo greeted me at the door and guided me toward the peristyle garden. From that direction I could hear the sound of feminine voices in conversation. One of them said something, another laughed. Ordinarily I find such sounds pleasant, even soothing. But one of those voices sounded disturbingly familiar.

  The two women were seated at a table next to a beautiful pool. One of them, naturally, was Callista. The other was Julia.

  “Why, Senator!” Callista exclaimed, “I was not expecting you so early. How wonderful to have you and your lovely wife as my guests at the same time!”

  “An unexpected pleasure indeed,” I said. “Julia, I am surprised you didn’t go out to see all those brawny, sweaty legionaries.”

  “Oh, soldiers are such a common sight, even my uncle’s. But I couldn’t pass up a chance to meet the most learned lady in Rome. We have been having the most marvelous discussion on the work of Archimedes.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment.” During our stay in Alexandria, Julia had dragged me along to see every tiresome philosopher and scholar in that whole overeducated city. She had an enthusiasm for learning that entirely eluded me.

  “Once I began to study your documents, Senator,” Callista said, “I found myself so enthralled that I quite forgot the time. Eventually, my servants tired of replenishing the lamps and forced me to go to bed. But I was up at dawn and right back to work.”

  “I never expected such zeal and cannot adequately thank you,” I said. “So you now have them translated?”

  “I am afraid not. But I have made an excellent beginning. And I’ve made the most interesting discovery!”

  “How so?” I asked, trying to mask my disappointment. Such rapid success was far too much to hope for.

  She took the pages from a small chest upon the table. “You recall that I was puzzled by the repetition of the letter delta?”

  “Indeed, I do.”

  “Well, I was in despair when I finally went to bed last night. But I must have been visited by a god while I slept because when I awoke this morning I knew what it meant. It is something quite unprecedented.” She had a look of almost daemonic enthusiasm.

  “What might this have been?” I asked her.

  “Nothing!”

  I was stunned. “I fail to-”

  “Let her explain, dear,” Julia said. “We’ve discussed a bit of this, and I want to hear more.”

  I sat and a servant brought me a cup. “Please do,” I urged.

  “I know that it sounds absurd, but that delta means nothing at all, and that is what is so exciting. You see, I noticed that the delta was always repeated after a string of other letters, three to eight or so, and that nowhere was a delta doubled. When I woke this morning I realized that whoever encoded these documents intended to simplify decoding by separating the words with the delta, rather the way that some people, when writing, leave a small space between individual words.”

  “I see,” I said. “It seems simple enough.”

  “It is deceptively simple. But the implications are astounding. It is the use of a symbol to mean nothing at all! I think this is quite unprecedented. There is a subset of philosophy involving the meaning of symbols. I intend to correspond with some philosophers I know to discuss the implications of this. I think it could have great applications in mathematics as well.”

  “I daresay it could,” I said, trying to sound wise. I had no idea what the woman was babbling about. To this day I have no idea. A symbol for nothing?It was as ridiculous as the paradoxes of Zeno.

  Julia spoke up. “Callista thinks this might have been the very concept Archimedes was working on when that horrible soldier killed him.”

  “Well,” I said, “that sort of thing happens in a war. He shouldn’t have spoken rudely to the man. Callista, were you able to make any other headway on the letters?”

  “I am almost certain that the language is common Latin. The length and arrangement of the words suggest this. I haven’t yet discovered the key to the letter substitution though. I had thought it would be simple, but now I am sure it is not. A mind subtle enough to invent this delta symbol probably devised something more complex.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but you might be giving him too much credit. He may have hit on the delta as a handy way to separate words without giving a consideration to the deeper implications.” Whatever on earth those might be, I thought.

  “You could be right,” she said doubtfully. “Did you happen to see, where you found these documents, any books, poems, other writings?”

  “Why?”

  “I believe this code employs substitution of one letter for another-in this case each Greek letter stands for a letter of the Latin alphabet-but in order to decipher it, I must have the key.”

  “Key?” I said. “What might that be?”

  “It could be a written instruction, but more likely what has been used will be a well-known book, such as the Homeric poems, Pindar, something like that. If one has the book and knows the system of substitution, decipherment becomes an easy if tedious process.”

  I was not following this, but I trusted the woman to know what she was talking about.

  “Now that I think of it, there were a few scrolls in a holder next to the desk. And one lying on it.” I searched my mind for memories of that stimulating afternoon. “The one on the desk was partially unrolled and it looked like it was one he read a lot. You know how it is with a favorite book-the papyrus was like cloth, and the edges had turned fuzzy. But it wasn’t some famous work like the Iliad.”

  “It isn’t necessary that it be a famous work,” Callista said. “Merely that each correspondent have a copy, and the copies must be identical-no copyist’s errors, and ideally each line of each column should begin with exactly the same word. Sometimes a letter substitution involves counting inward from the first character in a specific line.”

  She had lost me again. “Then the books would almost have to come from the same copyist.”

  “That would be best. What sort of book was it?”

  “It was a textbook of court speeches. They’re standard teaching tools for the rhetoric schools that specialize in teaching lawyers. They use famous legal speeches, or sometimes hypothetical speeches appropriate for hypothetical cases, to demonstrate how to build logical arguments for or against particular positions. This one seemed to be about points of law-the sort of legal hairsplitting that keeps expert pleaders in demand.”

  “Law is not a specialty of mine,” she said. “Is there a standard text for these things?”

  “No, but I happen to know who trained the man in question: Aulus Sulpicius Galba, now duumvir of Baiae.”

  “And has this man written such a text?” Callista asked. “Almost any book can be used for encoding, and it would make sense for a man to use the work most familiar to him.”

  “Almost certainly, since he is a law teacher. I could probably find a copy. I might even be able to get the original that I saw yesterday.”

  “Decius,” Julia said, “you will do nothing of the sort. You are far too old for burglary. Send Hermes to steal it.”

  Callista was looking from one to the other of us as if we were specimens of some exotic beast she was studying. Julia caught her look. “It is quite all right,” she assured the woman. “The man is dead.”

  “Of course it might not be the key,” Callista said, “but it seems to be a good candidate for the job, and I have little hope of making a quick translation without it.”

  “Then I’ll get it for you,” I said. I turned around. “Where’s Hermes?”

  “If I know him,” Julia said, “he’s wherever the best-looking women in this house are kept.”

  “But that’s right in this courtyard,” Hermes said gallantly. He was standing just within a doorway that led to a dining room. He had, however, been chatting up a pretty slave girl.

  “Curb your insolence,” Julia said. �
��Can you go find us that book without being seen?”

  He thought a moment, going over the urban terrain. “I’ll bribe my way into one of the houses that opens on another street, then cross the common courtyard. If there’s nobody in the house and the book is still there, I’ll get it.”

  “Then go and come back here as quickly as you can-no stopping on the way, mind.”

  “I shall be as my namesake,” he said, hurrying from the poolside as swiftly and silently as a leopard.

  “He seems to be a versatile lad,” Callista noted with some approval.

  “Every politician needs one,” I told her.

  While we waited for Hermes to return with his loot, we fell to discussing my situation. I told them of my conversation with Cato, about the confusion of marriages and planned marriages that decorated the recent past.

  “I know Octavia and her brother only slightly,” Julia admitted, referring to the wife of Caius Marcellus. “Caesar’s sister, another Julia, married Atius Balbus and their daughter, Atia, married Caius Octavius. The younger Caius Octavius and Octavia are their children. The elder Octavius died some time back. Atia is now married to Lucius Philippus, I believe.”

  “I know their father,” I said. “A few years ago, when Octavius was praetor, Clodius and I brawled our way right into his court. I’d have cut his throat right there in public if the lictors hadn’t separated us.”

  “Just as well you didn’t succeed,” Julia observed. “I heard there was a Vestal present in the court that day.”

  “Right,” I said. “They’d probably have hurled me off the Tarpeian Rock or tied me in a weighted sack and tossed me off the Sublician Bridge.”

  “You Romans have such imaginative punishments,” Callista said.

  “That’s nothing,” I told her. “You ought to see what we do to parricides or arsonists.”

  “And yet you are not under arrest even though you are charged with murder.”

  “We Romans,” Julia told her, “have a robust sense of justice. We reserve our harshest punishments for crimes that endanger the whole community. Rome is a firetrap so arson is the most serious of crimes. Treason endangers us all. Sacrilege, parricide, and incest anger the gods and draw the wrath of the immortals upon the whole City.”