“Let’s see how long we can keep it that way,” I advised. When will you notify Rome?”
“It’s too late for a ship to sail today. I’ll compose a letter to the Senate this evening and dispatch it to Rome at first light. I can’t detach any of your ships, and Caesar’s stripped the naval base as you learned. I’ll hire a ship to row hard to Tarsus. There is a naval base there, and the commander is a friend of mine, Lentulus Scaevola. He’ll detach a fast cutter to take the letter to Brundisium or Tarentum. A rider can carry the letter to the house of Cicero in Rome, and Cicero can present it to the Senate.”
I thought about it for a moment. “I probably can’t get word there any faster. Are you and Cicero on good terms these days?”
“Excellent. He’ll call a special meeting of the Senate for this.” He was all but grinning, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. Cleopatra looked from one of us to the other, clearly mystified.
“Let’s do it that way then.” Finished with my examination of the area around the bed, I straightened. “And now, if you don’t mind, the princess and I are overdue for dinner and some rest.”
“Go ahead. I’ll see to things here. Doson!” He bellowed the name, but the majordomo had been waiting just outside the bedchamber door. He hurried in. “General Gabinius?”
“You may release the household staff, but none of them are to leave the house or talk to anyone outside until I say so. They are to attend to their late master’s guests as always. Begin preparations for a funeral and tell everyone to mourn quietly. They can wail as loud as they like at the funeral.”
The majordomo bowed. “It shall be as you say, General.” We left and repaired to the garden. Slaves appeared and efficiently set about making us comfortable and getting us fed. Despite swollen eyes and tear tracks, they didn’t appear especially grief stricken, merely anxious in the usual fashion of slaves when the master is dead and their future uncertain.
“Is this the way you Romans always do things?” Cleopatra asked. “I find it difficult to believe that a serving Roman official is deferring to a mere exile! Why did you not take charge and arrange affairs to your own liking?”
I took a sip of the excellent wine and selected a seedcake. “Rome is a republic, not a monarchy,” I reminded her. “I am not a viceroy, and Gabinius is not a powerless nobody, like someone your father would exile, stripping him of lands, wealth, and influence. Rome is governed by great families whose leading members hold the consulships and praetorships. Their supporters comprise Romans of all levels. There are the bulk of the senators, who are men who have held the lesser offices; the class of equites, who have money and property but who don’t go into politics, like our friend Sergius Nobilior the banker; and the great bulk of the citizenry, who vote in the Plebeian Assembly. There is also the Centuriate Assembly and the Tribunician Committee, but these days real power lies in the Senate and the Plebeian Assembly.”
I dipped the seedcake in honey. “Politics consists of a constant rearrangement of support and power blocs, as each of the great families seeks to place as many of its own members and supporters in high public office as it can. Yesterday’s deadly enemy becomes today’s staunch ally. An exile voted by an indignant Senate may be rescinded by a friendly tribune passing a law in the Plebeian Assembly.”
She shook her head. “It sound like anarchy. It’s political chaos.” “It can be confusing, but it works well for us. For instance, the nearest naval base is at Tarsus. The commander there is Scaevola, and he is a supporter of Pompey, who detests the Metelli. If I were to send that letter under my own seal, he’d put it on the slowest scow on the sea.
“I would send the letter to Cicero to read to the Senate. Cicero has always been friendly with me and usually with my family as well. He once attacked Gabinius in a lawsuit. As I recall, he characterized Gabinius as ‘a prancing, effeminate dancing boy in hair curlers.’”
“That is difficult to imagine,” she replied.
“Nothing is too scurilous in a Roman lawsuit. A few years later, he ably defended Gabinius in a lawsuit for extortion; but Cicero was no longer so popular in Rome, and Gabinius was exiled. Gabinius is a strong supporter of Caesar though. So when Caesar returns from Gaul, he will have Gabinius recalled and restored to all his honors. This sort of thing happens all the time.”
She sipped at her wine and said nothing for a while, then declared, “You people are insane. That is no way to run a petty city-state, much less a great empire. Can you really administer anything on a basis of friendships and feuds and temporary pacts of assistance between families and individuals? Can anything of importance be decided when four separate assemblies have to take a vote? When one consul can overrule the other and a decision of the Senate can be blocked by the veto of a single tribune? It is madness!”