A Point of Law(35)

The captives were mostly the women and children of the tribe, or people who were already slaves, and these last were the most numerous. Unlike the Germans, among whom all freeborn men were warriors, the Gallic warriors were aristocrats. The bulk of the population were Gauls born to slavery or to a sort of degraded serfdom that was little better.

The upshot of it all was that, once again, Italy was being inundated by a flood of cheap slaves, with consequent effects on the economy and on society in general, making it harder for freeborn Italians to make a living, throwing yet more peasants out of work. It always happened after a big war. You would think we’d learn better, but we never have.

Cato showed up, plodding around barefooted, walking up and down the rows of tents like a new commander on his first inspection. He came to join us where we watched the market taking shape in front of Pompey’s Portico, just north of his theater. For once, Cato’s ugly face wasn’t scowling.

“These are real Roman soldiers,” he said approvingly. “These men could have gone toe-to-toe with Hannibal’s.”

“Hurts to say it, eh, Cato?” said Scribonius Libo.

“The times are decadent,” Cato answered, “but there is nothing wrong with Italian manhood. I disapprove of Caesar, and I’ve never made a secret of it. He is a man with too much ambition and too little respect for the Senate. But he knows how to use an army. He knows how to train and discipline soldiers, too. He doesn’t spoil and flatter and bribe them like Pompey.”

“You’ll notice,” I commented, “that they are comporting themselves perfectly. Pompey’s veterans have been known to tromp around here at election time fully armed and scowling balefully.”

“Caesar just knows how to make a point more tactfully,” Scribonius Libo said.

“Decius Caecilius, might I have a word with you?” Cato said, placing his hand on my shoulder in that let’s-talk-in-private gesture.

“Certainly.”

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.