A Point of Law(87)
The crowd vented an ugly grumble. This was looking bad. What made it worse was that everything he said was perfectly true.
“He’s not talking like a prosecutor,” Father said. “He’s talking like a candidate!”
“What’s the difference?” asked Creticus, setting off a nervous chuckle from the others.
“And now,” Manilius went on, “absolutely no one is surprised that an obscure man, a man of great family but one who had not yet won distinction in Rome, was murdered. And why? Because he had shown the temerity to attack, openly and honestly, a member of one of the Senate’s most powerful families! Did he attack this Metellus from behind, at night, with a dagger? No! He accused him openly of criminal malfeasance on Cyprus, took his accusation to a praetor, and then went to the Forum and sought out Metellus, repeating the charges in public, to his face. Are these the actions of a cowardly, dishonest, conniving wretch? Are these not, rather, the actions of a man devoted to the service of the state in the greatest Roman tradition?” This was received with an angry, frightening cheer. Gaul was sounding better by the minute.
“The esteemed senator Marcus Porcius Cato,” he drove on relentlessly, giving an amazingly contemptuous twist to the word “esteemed,” “has denounced the family of Marcus Fulvius as infamous. Upon what basis does he make this scurrilous charge? Residence at Baiae? Only Cato, that upright, righteous defender of Roman virtue, could find fault with that lovely resort city, where Cicero, Hortensius Hortalus, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus himself all own villas!” This time there was derisive laughter, which was at least better than the angry growl.
“You’ve locked your teeth into the wrong backside this time, Cato,” said Creticus.
“He denounces this murdered man’s grief-stricken sister as a scandalous woman. And why? Merely because, in her extremity of distress, she performed a womanly gesture of mourning hallowed by a thousand years or more of funerary custom, one immortalized in many poems written by those very ancestors Cato professes to admire. It fell from practice only because the women of his own class now consider themselves too dignified for such low-bred demonstrations. They think such things are beneath them!”
“She wasn’t grieving for her brother!” Cato cried. “The bitch was pissed off that her boyfriend got his head bloodied!” But his shout went unheard in the roar that met Manilius’s harangue.
“And who might be this Fulvius, and his sister Fulvia, whose family Cato defames? They are the grandchildren of the Gracchi! Their great-grandmother was the sanctified Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi! And her father was Scipio Africanus, greatest of Roman generals and savior of the Republic, humbler of Carthage, who defeated Hannibal at Zama! This is the lineage Cato compares disparagingly with that of Caecilius Metellus! And we all remember who robbed that greatest of generals of all his richly deserved honors, don’t we?”
Probably, most of the crowd was a bit hazy about such distant history, but someone out there had been well primed.
“Cato the Censor!” bellowed a Stentorian voice.
“Exactly,” Manilius cried, with a gesture of triumph. “Cato the Censor, great-great-grandfather of the man who so basely denigrates a man whose career was so promising, cut tragically short by murder!”
“He was my great-great-great-grandfather!” Cato cried to no avail. “And he was the finest, most patriotic Roman who ever lived!” Once again his voice was drowned by the roar of the crowd.
“It could be worse,” I told him. “At least they’re mad at you, not me.”
“Patron!” The call came from below, and I looked down. It was young Burrus, looking concerned. “Do you want to make a run for it? We’ll get you out safely.”
“Might be the best idea,” Father said. “Go join Caesar in Gaul, come back when this is all forgotten.”
“No,” I told young Burrus. “I’m not ready to panic yet. I have a few things to say to this political rat. But stay handy. I may want to panic later.”
“How will you play this?” Scipio wanted to know.
“We’ll start out the old way, then see what develops.”
“This man,” Manilius cried, pointing now at me, “unwilling, nay, afraid to face Marcus Fulvius in court, instead set upon him at night and murdered him! He had not the courage to step up to him decently and stab him. Instead, he and his slaves or confederates held Marcus Fulvius from behind and butchered him wretchedly with knives. We all saw that ravaged corpse, did we not? Marcus Fulvius was rent with a score of gashes, as if he were tortured to death rather than given a clean, soldierly thrust in the heart. This was not mere hatred, but the cruelest of malice!”