“Consider it done. My father tells me you wish me to serve you in your campaign for the Consulship. You know I will be happy to be of any help I may.”
“Excellent. I expect to win, but I don’t want any nasty surprises. You know that winning the office is only half of it. It’s no good if you have a colleague you can’t work with.”
“I see. Who is your choice for colleague?”
“I haven’t decided yet. There’s a great field of them this year, all busy canvassing the Centuriate Assembly, some of them trying to bribe me. It’s generally agreed that I’ll be one of next year’s Consuls, and most think that the man I choose to support will be my colleague. I am not so sure of that. When I pick my man, I want you to work on his behalf.”
“Done,” I said. “Have you decided how to divide the office?” In our ancient, unwieldy consular system there were a number of ways the authority of the Consulship could be divided, as agreed before the Consuls took office. Pompey and Crassus, who detested each other and neither of whom would yield an inch, had chosen the most archaic and awkward way: by presiding on alternate days. Others might give the elder colleague senior authority, or one might handle affairs within Rome and the other external matters.
“I’ll decide that when I know who my colleague is to be. Honestly, I can’t see that it makes much difference. The Consulship no longer has the power it used to have.”
This was true. Over the centuries, the praetors had usurped all the judicial powers of the Consuls. As for the military commands, our empire had grown too large for that, and the great generalships went to the men who had already held the highest offices. More and more, the armies were led by men who, like Pompey, had made a virtual lifetime career of soldiering. The last time serving Consuls had led an army had been against Spartacus, and that had ended in disaster.
“Has your father spoken to you of your duties in the Senate?” Celer asked.
“He put me firmly in my place on that score,” I assured him.
“You work for years to get into the Senate, and once you’re in, you start at the bottom all over again. That’s how it always is. Power comes with seniority.”
“What business occupies the Senate these days?” I asked.
“First and foremost, Pompey. The aristocratic party hates and fears him, and it has blocked permission for his triumph. Worse yet, it continues to fight the land grants for his legions.”
“If you will forgive me,” I said, “I thought we were part of the aristocratic party.”
“You know that our family has always eschewed the extremes. The aristocratic faction has been in power since Sulla, and it grows increasingly divorced from political reality.” I listened attentively. This was inside power politics from a man who knew the subject intimately. “Whatever you think of Pompey, he has earned that triumph. It is foolish and ungrateful of the state to withhold it. And if we deny those legions the land they have been promised and fought hard for, then Italy will be full of thousands of professional killers organized, armed and hating us. I don’t want to see a repeat of the last civil war, when contending armies fought within the very streets of Rome.”
“Sir, do I detect the slightest of tilts toward the pro-Pompeian faction?”
“We will support him on these two points only. None can deny the justice of giving Roman soldiers the rewards they have justly earned. The family has patched up relations with Crassus, and we don’t want Pompey for an enemy because of it. Caesar champions Pompey in the Senate, and he is the coming man in Roman power.”
“Caesar?” I said. “He’s never even commanded an army.”
“Neither did Cicero, and look how far he’s come,” Celer pointed out.
“As you will,” I said. “But I’ve fallen afoul of Pompey before.”
“You were never important enough to bother him much.” How true that was. “Besides, to men like Pompey and Crassus, all is forgiven as soon as it is politically expedient. That’s how all sensible men should behave.”
“Are there any other important matters before the Senate?” I asked.
“One that is not so important, but that concerns us. My brother-in-law is still trying to get himself made a plebeian, and we are still trying to prevent him.”
“Ah, Publius Clodius,” I said. “Now there is someone who will never forgive and forget, no matter how politically expedient it may become.” Clodius was one of the patrician Claudians, and he wanted to be a Tribune of the People, an office open only to plebeians. It could be done if he were adopted into a plebeian family, but this was not easy if the Senate were opposed.