“I thought tribunes were military officers,” he said.
“Military tribunes are low-ranking officers, appointed by the Senate, who continually embarrass our generals with their inexperience and clumsiness.” Having been one, I could speak with authority. “Tribunes of the people are elected by the plebs and have had considerable power, including the power of veto over a senatorial decree.”
“ ‘Have had’?” Tigranes said, with an excellent grasp of Latin tenses.
“Well, yes,” I said, floundering somewhat because I was so puzzled myself. “Actually, under the Sullan constitution, which still stands, the tribunes of the people have been stripped of most of their old powers.” Sulla, one need hardly point out, had been a patrician.
“And yet Claudius wants to be a tribune,” Tigranes said. “Will this be difficult?”
“Well, let me see. He’ll have to have a plebeian sponsor, which is no problem since so many of his kinsman are Clo-dians. There will be legislation to force through the Senate. They are always reluctant to see such social fluidity. It can be complicated.”
“I marvel at this multiplicity of governmental voices,” Tigranes said. “In my homeland, the Great King says what is to be, and it is.”
“We’ve done well out of our system,” I assured him. At that moment, the new guest entered. It was none other than my father’s patron, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. Everybody expected a sudden clashing of guests, because Hortalus had defended Verres, whom Cicero had prosecuted with such spectacular success. However, the two men remained quite civil, in that odd fashion that lawyers have.
I excused myself to go to the privy. Actually, I only needed a few moments to ponder the makeup of the night’s odd gathering. Upon reflection, I realized it was not so disparate after all. Virtually every man present was a supporter of Pompey. Within a month, Pompey and Crassus would step down from consular office to take up proconsular command. One of the Consuls for the next year was none other than Quintus Hortensius Hortalus.
Now, while Pompey and Crassus were technically equal in rank, Crassus was not one tenth the general Pompey was. It was clear to everyone that Pompey coveted the eastern command now held by Lucullus. It would be the spectacular crown to Pompey’s brilliant military career to add the eastern kingdoms to Rome’s holdings. The problem was, it looked as if Lucullus was going to do exactly that before Pompey had the chance.
Perhaps I should say something about Lucullus here.
He was an altogether admirable man whose reputation had suffered of late because he did not belong to the all-important family we all know so well. He is remembered now because of his later writings on the nature of the good life and because of his patronage of the arts, but in those days he was our most brilliant general. He was one of the few genuinely fine Romans I ever knew, able in political and military life, a patron of the arts, ferocious in battle, magnanimous in the moment of victory. I know it sounds like the praise of a lackey, but we were not related and I never owed him anything, so you may take it as true. Unlike so many of our generals who bought the goodwill of their soldiers by allowing them great license, especially after a battle, Lucullus was a strict disciplinarian, and as a result his troops had little affection for him when the campaigning was rough.
It is an oddity of soldiers that they will hate most officers who beat them and discipline them strictly, but will worship others for the same qualities. In my lifetime I have known two generals whose soldiers reveled in the strictness of their rule. One was Drusus, beloved stepson of our First Citizen. The other was Caius Julius, who had that wonderful facility for persuading men to do those things directly contrary to their own interests but ideal for his. I do not by this mean to equate Caesar with Drusus, for the latter is a splendid man, if somewhat dim of apprehension, while Caius Julius was the most brilliantly cold-blooded schemer Rome ever produced.
But I am getting ahead of myself. At that moment, on that night, I had only Tigranes and Publius and Claudia on my mind. Especially Claudia. It pained me that she would contemplate lowering her social status, but that would have
no bearing on our personal relationship. It was the knowledge that, when Publius Claudius changed his status and became Clodius, he would instantly become a figure of controversy and acrimony. That meant that he would be a target for assassins, and so would she, if she persisted in backing his fortunes.
I returned to find the guests being conducted into the dining room. We all crawled onto the couches, a rather undignified procedure dictated by tradition, and slaves took our sandals and passed out wreaths: laurel, I noted, probably in honor of the foreign guest’s Greek tastes. The dinner was arranged in the old style, with three couches arranged around three sides of a square table, three guests to each couch.