The Tribune's Curse(28)

With brisk efficiency, the lictors lined us up by height, with the shortest on the left end of the line, the tallest on the right. I found myself standing next to Cato, and he was dressed in full legionary gear, including a shield slung across his back.

“How far are you planning to carry it, Cato?” I asked.

“What do you mean? The full three circuits, of course.”

“You don’t have to, you know,” I said. “Only those under forty have to go the whole course.”

“I was born when Valerius and Herennius were consuls,” he said stiffly.

“The same year I was born?” I said, aghast. “Unbelievable!” Cato was one of those men who give the impression of being elderly from childhood. I had always taken him to be at least ten years my senior, and probably more.

“Ah!” Cato said, ignoring me. “This is splendid! The gods will have to be pleased with this!”

Dawn was creeping over the field, and at last I saw clearly what we had to carry. “Oh, no!”

The priests and the temple slaves had indeed outdone themselves to honor the gods. The litter was the sort that is carried in triumphs, but this one was huge even by triumphal standards, with two support poles the size of ship’s masts. It was beautifully made of the finest woods and decorated with gold, draped heavily with such flowers as were available in November. And atop it, on a high platform, rested the sacrifices.

The lustrum always takes the form known as suovetaurilia, in which three animals are sacrificed: a boar, a ram, and a bull. In the countryside near Rome there are sizable farms that do nothing except breed the exceptional animals required for the major ceremonies. The ram atop the float was not the wooly little creature you picture in hearing those awful pastoral poems, where lovesick shepherds tootle their pipes while mooning over some nymph named Phyllis or Phoebe. This one was the size of a small horse, with huge, curling horns and a haughty look on his face. The boar was the size of a common ox—a fierce-looking creature I wouldn’t want to meet if he were fully conscious. The bull was, I believe, the largest such creature I had ever seen, larger than the fighting animals bred in Spain. He was pure white and was, as required, an absolutely perfect specimen of the breed.

All three creatures has been drugged so that there would be no unseemly bleating, squealing, or bellowing to disrupt the proceedings. Their legs had been doubled beneath them and bound with ropes entwined with fine, golden chains. Horns and tusks were gilded, and the beasts themselves had been heavily sprinkled with gold dust.

“Gold,” I said, disgusted. “Just what we needed. More weight.”

Pompey strode down the line, inspecting. Like most of us, he wore a plain military tunic and boots. He stopped before Cato.

“Senator, all that ironmongery will not be necessary.”

“Consul, I am quite prepared to carry out this ceremony in the ancient fashion, fully armed.”

“Senator—”

“I think it would be most pleasing to the gods if we all did so, in fact,” Cato maintained stoutly.

“Senator!” Pompey snapped, out of patience. “We are losing time! If Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus,” here he poked a finger into his own chest, just in case Cato was in some doubt as to whom he meant, “twice consul, winner of more victories than any other general in Roman history, finds a military tunic the proper uniform for this ceremony, then a senator who has held no offices higher then quaestor and tribune should not find this beneath him!”

“Yes, Consul!” Cato said, with a fine, military salute. While his slaves helped him out of his gear, Pompey addressed the rest of us.

“The pacesetters will take the front position on each pole. These will be the praetor urbanus Titus Annius Milo and Lucius Cornelius Balbus, whom the Censors have just enrolled as a senator in recognition of his heroic military service. They are undoubtedly the two strongest men in this august, but usually out-of-shape, assembly.”

This was the first I’d heard that Balbus was a senator. There was an ancient tradition that heroism could win a man a seat in the curia and a stripe on his tunic, but Sulla had instituted the law that a man had to be elected to at least the quaestorship to be enrolled. But Pompey usually got what he wanted. It was one more piece of evidence that Sulla’s constitution was crumbling and that we were heading back into the anarchic old days.

The lictors positioned me on the left-hand pole, the one Milo captained. I noticed that Clodius was a few men behind me. I wished that he had been placed ahead of me, so that I could watch him suffer. It would have made up a bit for my own agony to come. Two other stalwarts took the rear positions, and we were all arranged.