The King's Gambit(64)
The names of Pompey and Crassus were written on this one, Pompey’s complete with his self-chosen cognomen: “Magnus.” It was typical of the man’s gall that he named himself “the Great,” although he later claimed that it was Sulla who had thus hailed him, and that a name granted by a Dictator was legal. To crown it all, he passed the name on to his male heirs in perpetuity, but they never amounted to anything.
The reporting Senator was Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. I put the scroll down and drew a deep breath. Hortalus was my father’s patron and, by extension, my own. Disgrace and exile for him would mean severe consequences for us, even though we were in no way involved in this conspiracy. At least, I hoped that my father was not involved. I opened the scroll. I read it through quickly, like a man lancing an infected wound, wishing to get the pain over with quickly. This was not as easy as it might sound. Hortalus gave very florid speeches, in what was known as the Asiatic style. He wrote the same way. Even in a confidential report, he wrote as if he were holding spellbound a jury in one of his innumerable defenses of ex-governors charged with corruption. Such writing reads very strangely now, since Caesar’s bald and unor-namented yet elegant style revolutionized Latin prose. Between them, Caesar’s books and Cicero’s speeches utterly changed the language as it was taught in my youth. But Hortalus was extravagant even for those days. This report is worth setting down verbatim, as I remember it even after all these years, both for its content and to display Hortalus’s inimitable style.
In Duty to the Senate and People of Rome Conscript Fathers:
[Actually, this was to be seen by the Consuls alone.]
Between the kalends of November, when Jove chastens
mortal pride with thunder most terrifying, lightning most
deadly, and the commencement of the Plebeian Games,
which make gay the hearts of the populace in that seasonwhen first radiant Proserpine descends to the bed of her dread husband, Pluto, [The ink was barely dry on this one, I thought.] I, the Senator Quintus Hortensius Hor-talus, held converse with the royal youth Tigranes, from that land where first fall the rays of Helios, while gloom of night still lies upon the temple roofs of the city of Quirinus. [So the smarmy little bugger’s been in Rome since the first of November, eh? I thought.]
Our conversation touched upon the overweening pride of that military brigand, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and of how that pride may be humbled. Lucullus and his mercenary bands, not content with the spoil of Asia, like the flesh-eating horses of Diomedes, have cast their rapacious eyes upon rich Pontus, and even unto splendid Armenia, seat of the youth’s royal father. The valiant Tigranes the Younger, who of choice has forsaken the luxury of a prince’s life to seek his fortune upon the wine-dark kingdom of Neptune, has offered the services of his adventurous and high-spirited companions, for the sons of Neptune may venture where the sons of Mars cannot. Under his direction, these bold descendants of Ulysses will harry the transports of Lucullus as they ply the foamy realm of the Earthshaker. In return for this, they are to be free of Roman interference for the space of two years. The prince himself wishes, as a friend of Rome, to be supported in his claim to the jeweled throne of Armenia, from which his father has debarred him. As he is grandson to Mithridates of Pontus through his mother, he will be most pleased to rule that land as subject-king when Roman arms have prevailed against the perfidious Oriental. [I’ll just bet he would be, I thought. All of the kingdom and none of the fighting.]
To all this proposal I listened with sympathetic ear, and it is my advice, which you may attend as did the Grecian chiefs to the advice of Nestor of old, that this plan be adopted. It seems a simple and efficient means of both subduing the unruly Lucullus and bringing Roman domination and civilizing influence to the benighted land of fire-worshipping barbarians. For, make no mistake, it shall be the seven-hilled city of Romulus that is supreme lord over all, regardless of which jeweled and scented pseudo-Greek lounges lethargically upon the garish and vulgar thrones of those nations.
As young Tigranes is not officially recognized in the city, and as such recognition would be an affront to his royal father, with whom we are not yet at war, he wears, as it were, the helmet of Pluto, which grants the wearer invisibility. He resides for now at the house of Paramedes of Antioch, whom you know. Should you wish to look with favor upon his proposal, I shall undertake to provide young Tigranes with a limited and unofficial debut in Rome, perhaps through a dinner party attended by a diverse company, drawn from all parties and persuasions.
It is desirable to remove Paramedes from these proceedings as soon as possible, for I know that he is playing a double game, in collusion with Mithridates. I have already made arrangements for this, which shall be executed as soon as I have your agreement and young Tigranes has removed to his new quarters. The person entrusted with this delicate mission is well-known to you, having carried out other such missions in the past.