The King's Gambit(26)

On our way to my father’s house, there occurred one of those common, trifling events that somehow turn out to have, not so much consequences, but reverberations later. An all-white litter came by, carried by men in the white tunics of temple slaves. Immediately, we halted and bowed low. Inside the litter was one of the vestal virgins. These ladies, consecrated to the goddess of the hearth, have prestige second to none in Rome. They are so holy that, should a felon being led to execution encounter a vestal in his path, he is immediately freed. This puts little hope in the hearts of malefactors. Vestals do not leave the temple very often, while criminals are executed in multitudes.

When she was past, we went on. I had not recognized her. The Temple of Vesta is frequented mostly by women, and the vestals were chosen from girls of good family not yet in their teens. I knew personally only a single vestal, an aunt who, after her term of service was over, had very sensibly declined to leave the temple for the dubious advantages of a middle-aged marriage and had chosen to remain a vestal for life. The term of service is thirty years: ten to learn the duties of a vestal, ten to practice them and ten to teach the novices. A life like that does not prepare a woman for life in the outside world.

We did not get as far as my father’s house. Instead, we almost collided with him as he and his whole crowd of clients strode toward the Forum.

“To the Curia,” my father said. “A messenger has arrived from the East. Important news from the war.” I had wanted to speak with him about the odd occurrences of the day before, but now that would have to be postponed. As we neared the Curia the crowds grew dense. In the almost magical fashion I knew so well, word had spread throughout the city that there was important news from the East. We reached the Forum to find a veritable sea of close-packed humanity. Father’s lictors strode forward with their fasces and the crowd parted before them like water before a warship’s ram.

The mob smelled of garlic, garum and rancid olive oil. Questions were shouted at us as if we knew more than they did. Rumors flew back and forth in the immemorial fashion: victory for Rome; defeat and disaster for Rome; plague approaching Rome; even a revival of the slave insurrection. And, of course, everybody talked about the latest omens: Fifty eagles circled the Capitol last night; a child was born with a snake’s head in Paestum; the sacred geese had spoken in human tongue, prophesying doom for the city. Sometimes I think there is a town in Italy where the only occupation is to think up and disseminate omens.

Praetors in their purple-bordered togas filed into the Curia while their attendants crowded the steps and portico outside. The lictors stood to one side, and as we ascended the steps Father summoned them.

“Get this mob into some kind of order,” he told them. “The citizens will soon hear an important announcement, and I want them looking and behaving like Romans when they do.”

“Yes, Praetor,” said Regulus, the chief of the lictors. He shouted for the heralds, and as we entered the Curia we could hear them calling for the citizens to assemble by tribes.

Inside, the Curia was utterly packed. Sulla had nearly doubled the size of the Senate in order to fill it with his cronies and reward his followers, but he had not seen fit to build us a larger Curia to accommodate them. Pompey had given the two Censors for the year, both adherents of his, the task of weeding out corrupt and unworthy Senators, but this had alleviated the situation only slightly. My father went to sit with the praetors while I made my way to where the rest of the committee members stood, in the rear of the house.

Down in front, before the theater-style tiers of benches, sat the Consuls side by side in their curule chairs. Pompey, the most illustrious soldier of the age, still looked absurdly young for the office he held. He was, in fact, not constitutionally qualified for the Consulate, nor for any of the higher military commands he had wielded. He had never been quaestor, aedile or praetor and, at thirty-six, he was still not old enough to be Consul. Still, much may be forgiven a man who has an army at the gates, and there he sat. His main ambition was to own all the military glory in the world, but he was not a total political dunce like so many military men, and some aspects of his Consulate had been exemplary. The purge of the Senate I have already alluded to, and he had reformed the courts so justly that only the corrupt and venal could complain, which they duly did.

Crassus was a different matter. He had all the political qualities for the office but was sadly lacking in the military department. This was due to bad luck more than anything else, for the commands he had been assigned following his domestic office tenures had been lacking in opportunities. While Pompey had been winning glory in the civil wars in Italy, Sicily and Africa, and in Spain against Sertorius and Perperna, Crassus had been fighting slaves. Even then, Pompey had taken some of what little glory there is in a servile war, for he had smashed the force under the Gallic gladiator Crixus that had left Spartacus to make its own way home. Crassus had made up for some of his disappointment with a memorable gesture. He had crucified six thousand captured slaves all along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome. As rebels they were now useless as slaves, and they served as an example to other malcontents. It also let everyone else know that Marcus Licinius Crassus was not a man to be trifled with.