I found Paterculus in his tent, which was situated in the praetorium not far from Caesar’s. The Prefect of the Camp was going over some paperwork with a clerk. When I entered, he looked up with all the warmth and interest of a rock. “What can I do for you, Senator?” Leave it to a man like that to turn a civilian title of respect into a disgusting epithet.
“A little information about the last night of the late Titus Vinius, if you please,” I said, putting as much upper-class disdain into my tone as I could, which was considerable. Time to put this ill-bred sod in his place.
“Last saw him at evening parade. Will that do?” So much for intimidation.
“Hardly. Did you not attend the meeting Caesar held afterward? The one with the Provincials bringing land disputes for judgment?”
“Why should I have? I had duties to attend to; inspecting the guard, posting the officers of the gates, that sort of thing. I’m responsible for the security of this camp, you know. Do you think I get to laze around like a tribune?”
I allowed his insolence to pass. “Then I take it that the location, movement, and disposition of civilians to, within, and from the camp also lie within your purview?”
“They do. You talk just like a lawyer.”
“A qualification I share with our commander and Proconsul,” I reminded him. “At what time must foreigners leave the camp?”
“When the sunset trumpet sounds, unless they have an extended pass from me or from the Proconsul or the legatus, and those permissions have to be submitted to me first.”
“Were there any such special passes granted that evening?”
“Yes, to the party with the land disputes. Caesar thought the business might extend well after sunset, so he had me make out passes for them.”
“Did the pass list them all by name?”
“No, of course not. It was for the party as a whole. There were forty or fifty of them.”
“So many? Nobody mentioned that many at the meeting.”
“These are substantial men, by local standards; big land-owners. They arrived with personal guards, grooms, slaves to handle their animals, the lot. Most of them stayed in the forum or the livestock compound while the meeting was going on.”
“Who had charge of the pass?”
He looked honestly puzzled. “What on earth could that mean to you?”
“It has considerable bearing on the matter,” I said, looking serious and wise to cover my confusion.
“The Druids held it. It’s their custom. Gauls think writing is some sort of magic. For all they know, you hand them a papyrus with writing on it, you might be putting a curse on them. They think their Druids are proof against evil magic.”
“Do you know which Druid took charge of the pass?”
“It was the youngest one brought it to me for validation, but any of them might have presented it at the gate.”
“Are departing civilians allowed to use any of the gates?”
He shook his head. “Only the Porta Praetoria.”
“Who was the officer in charge of the Praetoria that night?”
He turned to the clerk. “Get the roster.”
The clerk wore armor, so he was another soldier pulling special duty. He didn’t bother to look for the roster. “It was the ninth night after the full moon, so it was the tribune of the Ninth Cohort.”
“That’s Publius Aurelius Cotta,” Paterculus informed me. “Another snot-nosed shavetail sent to plague my days.”
“Was he on the gate all night?”
Paterculus looked at me as if I had handed him a mortal insult. “No officer of the guard leaves his post unless properly relieved. If he does, by every god of the State I’ll see him beheaded in front of the whole army, no matter how ancient and illustrious his name is!” Obviously, I had trod on the sensitive corns of his authority.
“Very good, Prefect. Carry on.” I turned neatly and walked out of the tent. Behind me I fancied I could hear him fuming.
I pondered upon the minutiae of military practice as I went in search of Aurelius Cotta. Soldiers could blithely ignore the grossest acts of cruelty and depravity, yet grow infuriated over minuscule breaches of procedure and precedence. To an inspecting centurion, a speck of rust on a sword blade or a dangling bootlace was exactly the same thing as a military defeat: It was something that shouldn’t happen and must be punished. He could work up precisely the same amount and degree of rage over each.
That same centurion could watch his soldiers sacking an enemy village, slaughtering and raping and destroying everything in sight, and it was “just the boys acting up a bit.” The fundamental difference between the military and the civilian mentality, I believe, is a totally divergent sense of proportion.