More disturbing were the accurate reports from the temples, where the sacrifices had been almost uniformly disastrous. Sacrificial animals had struggled; the priest’s assistant had needed more than a single blow of the hammer to stun them; unclean animals had intruded; or priests had stumbled over the ancient formulae. In front of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, an Etruscan haruspex, upon examining the liver of the sacrificed bull, had fled in horror. It is my own tendency to flee in horror from any liver, but haruspices are expected to be made of sterner stuff. Even as we waited at the base of the Capitol, Crassus was atop it sacrificing to Capitoline Jupiter.
My fellow senators were crowded onto the steps of the Temple of Saturn, and all around us were the members of the various priestly colleges wearing their insignia. The Vestals stood on the steps of their temple, surrounded by a well-behaved crowd made up mostly of women.
There were senators present who rarely came into the City twice in a year. I saw Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, my father’s old patron and colleague, who had retired to his country estate when his career in the courts was eclipsed by Cicero’s. He was deep in conversation with Marcus Philippus, one of the previous year’s consuls. I knew exactly what they were talking about: fishponds. Since the death of Lucullus the year before, Hortensius and Philippus had been unrivalled for the extravagance and magnificence of their fishponds, which contained both salt and fresh water, were the size of small lakes, and were surrounded by colonnades and porticoes, and whose every last mullet and lamprey they seemed to know by name. I suppose every man needs a hobby.
Cicero himself was there, back from exile but not really safe in the City. That morning, however, all the malice in Rome was directed elsewhere.
I thrust my way through the press to Cato’s side. “The betting is five to three that he doesn’t make it alive past the Golden Milestone,” I said. “It’s ten to one and climbing that he doesn’t get to the City gate on his feet.”
“I loathe the man,” Cato said with some degree of understatement, “but a Roman magistrate should be allowed to depart for his province without interference.”
“They just shouldn’t be allowed to take office, eh?” I said, studying the fine new scar on his forehead. In the elections of the year before, he had tried to stop Pompey and Crassus from standing for consul. In the subsequent riot he had been badly injured.
“It was Crassus’s hired thugs who started the brawl,” Cato said, stiffly.
“I’m sorry I missed it.” I sighed.
“You’d have been in your element.” He looked uphill. “Here they come.”
A hush fell over the great mob as the procession made its way down the steeply sloping Capitoline Street. First came two files of lictors, twelve in each file. One file, Pompey’s, wore togas. The lictors of Crassus wore red tunics cinched with broad, black leather belts studded with bronze—field dress for lictors accompanying a promagistrate in his province. Behind them strode the consuls.
“Pompey is with him,” Cato said, relieved. “He may make it to the gate yet.”
It was a splendid gesture on Pompey’s part. He had set aside his personal animosity to see his colleague safely out of Rome. Pompey was still an immensely popular man, and his presence just might avert violence. Close behind Pompey, I saw an enormous man who had a mustache in the Gallic fashion. He wore a toga the size of a ship’s sail, so I knew he was a citizen. I had never before seen a Roman citizen wearing a mustache.
“Who’s the hairy-lipped giant?” I asked.
“Lucius Cornelius Balbus,” Cato said. “He’s a close friend of Pompey and Caesar. He soldiered under Pompey against Sertorius. Pompey gave him citizenship as a reward for heroism.” Of course, I had heard the name, and Caesar had spoken to me of him often, but this was the first look I’d had of him. He was from Gades, in Spain. The people around there are a mixture of Carthaginian and Greek and Gallic, with the latter predominating and probably accounting for his lip adornment.
The year’s praetors walked behind the consuls, and I saw Milo and Metellus Scipio and a few others I knew. One of the Censors, Messala Niger, was with them, but his colleague, Servilius Vatia Isauricus, was not. Vatia was very elderly and probably had stayed home. I saw a man come from the crowd and fall in beside Milo. It was his brother-in-law, the almost equally handsome Faustus Sulla.
“Senators!” Cato called. “Let us fall in behind the serving officials. We must not allow the dignity of public office to be molested by an unruly mob.” Nicely put, I thought. Nothing to indicate support for Pompey or Crassus, whom everyone knew to be among his personal enemies. Cato stepped forth fearlessly, muttering out of the side of his mouth: “Decius, stay close to me. Allienus, Fonteius, Aurelius Strabo, and Aurelius Flaccus, come to the front.” He called for others, assembling all the Senate’s most notorious veteran street brawlers; there was no lack of such men in that august body. When a man like Milo could make it all the way to praetor, you can imagine what the back benches were like.