A Point of Law(5)

I looked out over the Forum crowd. No uproar yet. I didn’t really expect one. Scurrilous accusations against candidates were among the more common entertainments of any election. Strolling entertainers and vendors were everywhere, doing a great business as always when the voters thronged the City. I wished that I could consult with Julia, whose political acumen exceeded even that of my own family. But she had gone back home. In any case, it would have been a scandal beyond redemption had I been seen discussing politics with my wife right out in public.

“Here he comes!” It was the excited voice of Sallustius. He was still standing close by, eager to pick up gossip from the Metellan faction.

I followed his pointing finger and saw a commotion within the crowd. In the sea of scalps I detected a motion heading our way, the way a shark’s fin cuts the water. As it got closer, the motion resolved itself into a little knot of men striding along purposefully in our direction. In their lead was a tall, light-haired man who had the look of a Forum warrior—the sort who does all of his fighting in the courts. I recognized some of the men behind him as old followers of Clodius. The others were strangers to me.

“Decius Caecilius Metellus!” the man cried as he reached us.

“That’s me,” Father said. “What do you want?”

For an instant the man was nonplussed. His timing had been upset. “Not you! I meant your son.” He leveled a skinny finger toward me.

“Then why didn’t you say so, you whey-faced buffoon? Until I croak, he’s Decius the Younger.” Our faction whooped and clapped. People began to pack the already crowded area, sensing a good show.

“He’s talking to your whelp, you bald-headed old fart!” shouted one of the man’s flunkies.

Father squinted in the man’s direction. “Who’s that? Oh, I remember you. I had your mother flogged from the City for whoring and spreading disease.” Of course, he had no idea who the man was, but he would never let a trifling detail like that stop him.

I was maintaining a dignified silence, which the light-haired man duly noted.

“Can’t you speak Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger? I accuse you of bribery, corruption, oppression of Roman citizens, and collusion with enemies of Rome during your naval operations on Cyprus!”

“And you would be—?” I inquired.

“I am Marcus Fulvius.” He drew himself to his full height, adopting an orator’s pose.

My mouth dropped open. “Not the Marcus Fulvius? The Marcus Fulvius who is renowned in Baiae for public fornication with goats? The Marcus Fulvius who took on an entire auxilia cohort of Libyan perverts until the oil supply ran out? To think Rome has been graced with such a celebrity.” Now the whole Forum was laughing. The man’s face reddened, but he held his ground. He was about to shout something when Cato stepped forward, seized his hand, and turned it palmside up.

“Here’s a hand that never held a sword,” he said with withering scorn, and nobody could pour on the scorn more witheringly than Marcus Porcius Cato. “Listen to me, you small-town nobody. Go put in some time with the legions, distinguish yourself in arms before you dare come to Rome and accuse a veteran of Gaul and Iberia, the crusher of pirates and exposer of a score of traitors.”

This was making a bit much of my military and court record, but the words were deadly earnest and nobody was laughing now. I doubt that it was affection for me speaking. Cato despised men who came from out of town to make their reputations in Rome.

“Any Roman citizen may bring suit against any other in public court,” Fulvius said. “As you know well, Marcus Porcius.”

Hortensius Hortalus came forward. “That is very true. In fact, it was my impression that you made this very accusation this morning in the extortion court of Marcus Juventius Laterensis. Wherefore do you now, Marcus Fulvius, repeat these charges here in the ancient and sacred gathering place of the comitia, thus bringing disturbance to the grave deliberations of the citizens of Rome as they partake in the most venerable of our Republican institutions, the choosing among candidates for the highest offices?”

This speech would sound stilted and awkward in my mouth, but it was always a joy to hear Hortalus speak. The sonorous vowels of his old-fashioned Latin flowed over the crowd like honey.

Fulvius yanked his hand away from Cato. “I speak forth boldly because I want Rome to know it is a degenerate criminal who demands that the citizens grant him imperium. This man”—Once again he extended the skinny, slightly dirty-nailed finger toward my face, this time shaking with ill-bridled wrath—“laid hands on crucial naval stores, public property, citizens! And sold them for his own profit! He set his slaves to break into the houses of honest Roman citizens, to beat and torture them until they bought their lives with gold! He took great bribes from foreign merchants who trafficked with the very pirates he was sent to suppress. This is the man who wants to preside over a court that will try Roman citizens. This is the man who would go forth to govern a propraetorian province and command legions, no doubt to plunder our provincials and betray our allies!”