Blood in the Forum

by Vincent B Davis II

  Tiberius was amongst the last to arrive, but certainly created the most excitement. Rather than applause, there were gasps, as if he were a mythological creature come to life. As if they believed him to be a thing of legend. But here he now stood in the flesh, as real as a man can be.

  He alone seemed unaffected by the stress of the day, taking the time to shake the hands of those closest to him, and addressing many by name and asking about the state of their affairs or the health of their wives and children.

  At last he passed through our midst and into the temple, surrounded by those who hated him most, as carelessly as a carpenter sitting down at his workbench.

  Several of the men and woman gathered there tried to squirm past me, but I used some of the intimidation tactics I had learned in Spain to keep my place. I was determined to have a front row to the fate of the Republic, if it was to be decided this day.

  The proceedings of the day began slowly. That month’s presiding consul took the floor and laid out the topics of discussion, careful to glance at his co-consul seated directly before him, where they communicated with gestures and a nod of the head. There were several items on the day’s agenda, but most of them pertaining to foreign emissaries or other administrative necessities. Even the crusty old men who typically reveled in such monotony tapped their feet anxiously, stealing glances to the floor where Tiberius sat on a bench with the nine other tribunes.

  After all the other issues were out of the way, the topic of Tiberius’ land redistribution legislation was finally on the table.

  The presiding consul, Calpurnius Piso, spoke first.

  “I consider this piece of legislation an affront to the Roman constitution, and the mos maiorum everything we have was built upon.” This generated a few nervous chuckles, since it was his friend Gaius Laelius who first proposed the measure to the Senate before they shut him down. “It is not the land redistribution that I find unfit, it is the man who proposes it. I, above all else, should have the respect of this august body for opposing it, since it is a measure which I sought to pass myself.” He now turned to Tiberius. “But I respect this house. And I listened to my elders both in years and in experience. If only the same could be said for this boy,” he said, flicking his wrist at Tiberius in distaste. “But instead he has pissed on this house, pissed on our tradition—”

  “This topic is not about my means, which were constitutional in and of themselves, but about the legislation,” Tiberius rose to his feet and cut off the consul coldly.

  “And if only we needed more proof, he has given it to us! The consul has the floor, boy, not you!” The other leading member of the Scipiones, Scipio Nasica, shouted.

  “That’s tribune to you, if you please,” Tiberius corrected, returning to his seat.

  “Consul Piso still has the floor,”

  “I have nothing further to say. This bill cannot be passed, if only to prevent the precedence of circumventing the senate and going directly before the mob… and the precedence of spoiled young men spitting on their leadership. Before long, we may be paying homage to those still in on their mother’s teat.” Piso took his seat to applause and sparse laughter, but the mood was too tense for it to catch on.

  The other Proconsuls were given the opportunity to speak, and each said the same thing. They were repulsed by Tiberius’ tactics, and some said more poignantly that they were repulsed by the man himself.

  The Pontifex Maximus Scipio Nasica was the most long-winded of the bunch, giving his fellow senators a lengthy exhortation about the tradition of the ancestors and how morals lay at the root of Rome’s success. Few listened. It was almost time for the tribune himself to speak, and everyone was anxious to hear what he had to say.

  I thought, presumably with everyone else, that Scipio would not be addressing the matter. Everyone around him was tugging on his toga, imploring, begging him to stand up. But he exhaled and shook his head.

  In irritation, and only after ignoring them for some time, did the general stand to his feet.

  “Honor demands honesty. I will address something before I speak. Tiberius bested me in debate yesterday.” I expected a few laughs, but there were none. “He is a brilliant orator, that, none of us can take from him. He knows what the people want to hear, he understands their desire.” He paused for a moment here, and turned his entire body towards his brother-in-law across the senate floor. “Tiberius, this may work for twenty years. Perhaps even thirty. But eventually this will all crumble down around us. And it will be the very people you seek to appease that will suffer the brunt of the consequences. An even more ambitious man will take your place. And that man’s measures will not fall within the confines of land redistribution. In time this senate will be no more, and there will only be the most crafty and witty man at the pinnacle of power. He will rule the seven hills and all the glory here contained.”

  With that, Scipio took his seat. All eyes shifted to the Tribune, who nodded his head with interest and respectful consideration.

  It was the first time his measure had been brought up before the Senate while he was there to defend it. And at last he would address the words spoken against him.

  He stood to his feet and adjusted himself as he had on the rostra the previous evening. He again waited for total silence.

  “Conscript Fathers, I am honored to speak with you today.” A few murmurs of incredulity began, but the force of Tiberius’ voice was too commanding to be drowned out. “And I am honored to be able to correct you. You remain here, in this holy place, speaking of my legislation as if it were still yours to decide upon. But the people have already spoken. You have no more say in the matter.” He paused and let the full measure of his words sink in, the fat old senators gasping and choking on his insolence. “I will tell all of you the same thing I told our conquering hero, my brother-in-law Scipio Aemilianus: if you can convince the people that they are wrong, and their opinions change, I will repeal my own law before it is voted upon tomorrow. Otherwise, you are too late.”

  “May I remind you,” one of the other tribunes stood to his feet. Although it was quite a distance away from my position outside the senate house, I recalled the man as Marcus Octavius, one of Scipio’s dinner guests the night prior. “You are not the only man who speaks for the people, colleague.”

  Tiberius pondered the man with intense curiosity.

  “And when the measure is put to a vote tomorrow, I will use my tribune’s veto to block it.”

  Two-thirds of the chamber immediately erupted in applause. The other third, Tiberius’ loyal supporters, the Claudians, stood to their feet and shouted over themselves at the hapless tribune. Neither of these bodies of senators could drown out the roar of the mob surrounding me. Octavius stood there with his eyes downcast, but saying nothing more.

  For the first time, Tiberius truly appeared stunned. He had been bested, it seemed. His vascular forearms flexed and the muscles in his neck twitched. For a moment he was at a total loss for words, but fortunately the roar of both senatorial parties continued for some time.

  “You will veto the motion?” Tiberius asked as the roar continued.

  “I will!” Octavius exclaimed as the tumult picked up again.

  Tiberius picked up his feet and strode for the exit.

  Both parties instantly fell silent.

  “You have the floor, Tribune, speak!” the consul shouted. But he did not pause.

  As he exited, myself and the other gatherers parted as if he were a high priest or a leper, unwilling to touch him or impede his path.

  Had he really given up so easily?

  We watched as he paced away from the Temple of Castor and Pollux, even the senators pouring out from their seats to join us.

  But he didn’t take the path to the right, leading to his mother’s home on the Palatine. Instead, he walked straight up the steps to the Rostra.

  He stood as still as his broken statues now do, and waited for a crowd to assemble.

  He said nothing for a lo
ng while.

  “Marcus Octavius!” He shouted. We waited for something to follow. “Marcus Octavius!” He bellowed again, like a general crying for the head of an enemy king. “Marcus Octavius!”

  Now the people began to rally his cry, like the general’s finest men.

  “Marcus Octavius! Marcus Octavius!” They shouted out.

  I turned back to the temple just in time to see Octavius being pushed from the midst of the senators. They may have been supporting him, but he would have to stand alone.

  He walked slowly, reluctantly, towards the rostra. His eyes darted this way and that, searching for a means of escape, but on every side the people cried out his name.

  “Marcus Octavius says he will veto my law as you, the people, vote upon it tomorrow!” Tiberius said as his colleague joined him on the platform. “And is it your will that my legislation be vetoed?” The people roared in disapproval. Tiberius paced over to Octavius and talked with him quietly for a moment. I could see, even from that distance, that Octavius was shaking.

  When they had finished speaking, Tiberius squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head in bitter disappointment.

  “And who votes to elect the tribunes?” Tiberius asked the mob.

  “Us!” The people roared.

  “And who are they supposed to speak for?”

  “Us!”

  “If it is just, then, that the people should elect those who should defend their rights, how much more just is it that the people should have the right to depose the man who actively fights against them!” The whole city gasped. Head’s turned as everyone wondered what he was proposing. We believed we understood, but such a measure had never been presented in Rome’s history. “One of us has sold out. Sold out like a prostitute in an Aventine brothel. Either myself or Octavius has abused his power as tribune and has forgotten who elected him, and who he is to protect!”

  “It’s him, it’s him!”

  “It’s not you, Tiberius!” the people cried.

  “Therefore,” Tiberius adjusted himself and raised his arm as if this little bout of oratory had been planned, “I propose that tomorrow we vote instead on which tribune should be able to continue in his role. One of us does not stand for the will of the people. The other does. Only one will remain. And a week hence, my bill will be voted on. And it will be carried or squashed by the will of the people!”

  Octavius remained where he was, planted like a root, flabbergasted. His mouth open like a sea-bass. If he and the nobles had surprised Tiberius, then their efforts had been paid back in full.

  The senate rushed down from the temple, forgetting that their session had not been officially concluded, to heckle down their enemy. But he had already departed. Surrounded by his loyal patriots, he was already well on his way home before the horde of senators had made it to the rostra.

  Scipio Aemilianus remained in the Senate house, seated on his bench with his hands in his lap.

  I believe he alone saw what was coming next. And he did not like it.

  I followed Aemilianus and his retinue back to his palace on the Palatine, passing by roving hordes of the people who were celebrating as if the praecones had just announced the conquest of a foreign enemy. And who could blame them? The nobles had made their last attempt to block their hero’s measures, and he had outwitted them all. And the way he spoke, he made it clear that it was their victory rather than his, almost as if he hadn’t even devised the plan to begin with. He was just a spokesman. Although any man with half a brain could see that wasn’t the case, he was talented at maintaining that appearance before those who did not.

  Not long after we returned home, several litters appeared at our doorsteps. As far as I knew, Scipio hadn’t sent for any of them, but the senatorial leaders knew exactly where to go to strategize their defense. It wasn’t long before Scipio’s tablinum was bustling with Rome’s finest and their secretaries. Among them were Gaius Laelius and the Pontifex Maximus, Scipio Nasica, both pale as ghosts and trembling with anger.

  “Where’s Octavius?” Laelius asked, his voice calmer than his eye portrayed.

  Out of the noble men gathered, he was the only one without a lineage tracing back to Rome’s founding. In fact, he was descended from shepherds. His father had been a devoted friend and ally of Scipio Africanus, however, and that made him fit for such fine company. Regardless, it appeared to me that he had more nobility in his little finger than the others possessed throughout their rotund bodies. His face was etched like his late father’s statue with strength and dignity. He had a strong, bovine jaw line but his small brown eyes shone with wisdom and consideration.

  “I instructed him not to come, for his safety,” Scipio Aemilianus replied, slouching in his chair and rubbing his temples.

  “For ours, you mean,” Scipio Nasica said, crossing his arms. The Pontifex Maximus and former consul was an odd looking man, to say the least. He had a compressed face that seemed too small for his head. His lips were perpetually pursed like he had just bitten into a sour grape, and his nose was long and beaked, always turned up at others. His frame wasn’t adequately designed to uphold the body fat he had collected in his old age, his bone-thin hands serving as a reminder of a slender youth long behind him.

  “If the mob catches wind that we had anything to do with his position, they might not stop with voting him out of office. They might bludgeon him to death in the streets… such an event wouldn’t seem out of place these days.”

  “He’s probably right, our best chance of success is if the people can believe the man acted on his own volition and truly believes the bill is against them. Perhaps they can at least sympathize with the man.” Laelius placed a hand on his chin.

  “Did that seem like a sympathetic crowd to you?” Nasica bellowed, stepping closer to the proconsul and forcing him to meet his eyes. It seemed he was unused to being politically outwitted, and he didn’t know how to contain his repulsion.

  Scipio Aemilianus simply seemed exhausted. Beaten, he sunk further in his chair and rolled his eyes as other voices of concern and consternation rose around the room.

  I stopped paying attention. My mind drifted to simpler things, and I considered what I had missed over the past few weeks. Perhaps my daughter had learned to say a few new words. Perhaps she was beginning to see her uncle as her father. Perhaps her wobble had become a walk.

  “We have a spy in our midst,” Nasica’s stern voice jarred me from my thoughts. For a moment, I thought they were talking about me. My face turned as pink as the autumn peach.

  “I’m no spy, dear cousin,” a soft voice came from the back of the room. All eyes turned to Sempronia, who had seated herself in the back of the room behind the bloated bodies of Rome’s elite.

  “You’ll call me Pontifex Maximus, damn you. And I’m not your cousin, I’m your husband’s. And if he were to ask me, the marriage between you two was crafted by evil spirts.” Nasica turned to his cousin. “I don’t want her here, Aemilianus. She’ll report everything we say to her damn brother.”

  “I’m a dutiful wife,” Sempronia said, not without humor in her eyes. “And if there are conspiracies of the state involving my husband, I believe I should be well informed.”

  “Get out, Sempronia,” Scipio flicked his hand to the door. His irritation with his comrades was compounded by his wife’s inquisition.

  “See how brave this man is.” She stood and gestured to her husband. Her beauty was striking in a room full of balding and puffy men in togas. “He can fight off enemies in every corner of the Republic but he can’t stand up to the nobles who berate his wife.” She turned and began to walk out, “He’s a coward.”

  One any other occasion, Scipio would have been expected to respond to such flagrant disrespect from a member of his household, but he resigned to handle one catastrophe at a time.

  “He simply cannot do this, Aemilianus. There is no precedent for ousting a tribune in all the Republic’s history. I’ve consulted the annals. There is nothing that justifie
s this treason.” Nasica slammed his fists on the desk, in an attempt to wake up the general, as if he weren’t already aware.

  “And is there any law that specifically states he cannot? If we had longer to strategize I’m certain we’d develop a plan to stop this, but we do not. The bastard is clever, I’ll give him that. I’m beginning to suspect he saw this coming all along. He knew tomorrow was an auspicious day for voting, but he never intended to have his legislation passed tomorrow… he was waiting until we showed our hand.” Scipio Aemilianus met the gaze of the Pontifex Maximus. He didn’t reproach his cousin’s obnoxious behavior, but those piercing eyes forced him to recoil.

  “So who has a suggestion? Who has a plan? Or did you all gather here to remind me of the situation I was present to witness just hours ago?” Aemilianus said, finally standing to his feet.

  He looked around the room, gesturing to each man in turn, but none gave any suggestions.

  “You paying attention, lad? You’ll have to deal with this one day too,” Aemilianus turned to me. I shuffled nervously and swelled with pride, as that comment confirmed what he once said about me around a campfire in Spain: that perhaps I would one day be his successor.

  “I have an idea,” I said. I instantly regretted it, but I wanted to capitalize on my general’s trust.

  “That’s more than the rest of these noblemen, so speak,” Aemilianus said.

  “Both men could sacrifice their sacrosanctitas. One of them will lose it tomorrow, but Octavius can speak up before the vote and offer that they both lose it. Then they can duel. The victor will be revealed to be the gods’ favored.”

  There was silence for a moment, before the room erupted with laughter. Only Scipio Aemilianus wasn’t slapping his knee in condescension.

  “Who on Gaia’s earth is this brute? And why is he here?” Nasica asked.

  “Often times I wish we were still in Spain, where that is exactly how disputes such as this would be handled. Unfortunately, we are not,” Scipio said, glaring at those who were mocking me.