I pointed to one of the tables beneath the latticed windows that lined one of the long, southeast-facing walls. He arranged them neatly and stood back, not letting the documents out of his sight. We began to go over them.
“Publius Manilius Scrofa,” Hermes read, “is a native of Rome, born in the Via Sacra district. He is a plebeian of the rural Pinarian Tribe, enrolled in an Equestrian Century. He is twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and has no children.”
He read this from the document Manilius filed when he declared himself a candidate. It told me little. He had to be plebeian or he couldn’t be a tribune. Nobody who wasn’t equestrian could afford public office. All citizens belonged to tribes, and old, respected families always belonged to rural tribes and thought the urban tribes were all riffraff. Via Sacra might put him in Clodius’s old camp—he’d been a great hero in the Via Sacra—but not necessarily.
I picked up a document from the last censorship, five years previously. It affirmed that Manilius qualified for the equestrian order, possessing a fortune of 415,000 sesterces. I showed this to Hermes.
“Just over the line for an eques,” he noted. “That’s not much to finance a political career.”
“I wonder how his fortune would assess now. A tribune is in a position to make himself rich during his year in office.”
“Maybe his father died and he inherited,” Hermes pointed out. “Or he could have borrowed. The censors’ assessment is on property. It doesn’t take debt into account. A lot of cash-poor candidates borrow heavily rather than sell their lands and buildings.”
“Very true,” I said. “But I can’t think of any way we can find out. There is no law requiring anyone to disclose the nature of his finances.” I pondered this for a moment. “But, to maintain equestrian status, he had to file a list of his landed properties. Let’s see what’s here. It could tell us something.”
We rummaged through the documents until we found a property statement filed with the electoral board that regulated the status of candidates between censorships. The previous year Manilius had listed the same property as during the last censorship, plus a new cash income of one hundred and twenty thousand sesterces per annum from an estate he hadn’t possessed then.
“Well, well,” I said. “It seems that young Manilius has come into possession of a fine estate in—guess where.”
“Baiae?” Hermes answered.
“Where else? Ever since this business started, all roads lead to Baiae.”
“Pretty substantial estate, too,” Hermes observed, going down the list of its assets. “Two hundred iugera of land, divided into plowland, pasture, orchards, and vineyards, as well as a villa with colonnades and formal garden, olive press, wine press, ninety slaves, and twenty tenant families. Plus, it’s right on the bay and has its own permanent, stone wharf.”
“Not quite princely but very substantial,” I noted. “It would be nice to know who owned it before it came into his possession.”
“They’re all Pompey’s clients in the south, aren’t they?” Hermes asked.
“Not everyone. And Baiae’s become so popular that it’s practically neutral ground.”
The beautiful little town on the Bay of Neapolis at the southern end of Campania had become the most fashionable resort in Italy. During the hottest months, when Rome became intolerable, most wealthy families abandoned the capital for their country estates. Those who could afford it bought a villa in Baiae as a summer retreat. Cicero had one. So did Lucullus, Pompey, and many others. If you couldn’t afford a place there, you tried to cadge an invitation.
“Too bad we don’t have a few more days to work on this,” Hermes said. “We could go down to Baiae and find out who gave him the estate. It’d be a good excuse for a trip to Baiae, anyway.”
“We shouldn’t have to go that far.”
“Oh? You have a plan?”
“Always. I think we should go call on Caius Claudius Marcellus, brother of our consul and most likely consul for next year.”
THE CITY WAS BEGINNING TO GET noisy. The soldiers were pouring in through the gates, flooding the taverns, and beginning to spread their money around. The day had turned into an impromptu holiday. Nobody seemed concerned that I was still running around loose.
The house of the Claudia Marcelli was well up on the Palatine. It was actually a veritable compound, holding the houses of a number of prominent members of that family. By asking, I found the proper door and announced myself. I was conducted into the atrium of a house that was fine but not pretentiously so, with a display of death masks that seemed to go back to the Tarquins. Romans who could boast such ancestry felt little need for greater display. The wealth of a Crassus could not buy lineage like that.