The Tribune's Curse(51)
Pompey pressed a hand against his breast and looked mortally hurt. “My friend! Has Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus, victor on land and sea in all parts of the world, triumphator, and twice consul, ever failed his masters, the Roman people?” Approval and applause from the crowd this time. This was great theater.
“It is not enough to rest on past victories, Pompey!” shouted Folius. “This time the enemy is neither barbarian nor pirate! It must be one of your own little well-born crowd, the Senate!” Roars of agreement. Foreigners are always astonished at the way Roman commoners speak right up to the highest officials. They used to, anyway. Much as I detested him, a man like Folius was worth more than all the lickspittles who fawn on the First Citizen these days.
“Was Quintus Sertorius not a noble Roman and a senator?” Pompey demanded. “And when he offended Rome, did I not hunt him down and slay him?” Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Sertorius bested him in every fight until he was assassinated by his own second-in-command, Perperna. It was Perperna whom Pompey defeated. He got Sertorius’s head secondhand. No matter. The crowd was accustomed to attributing all glory to Pompey, and they cheered mightily.
“Who is to prosecute, Pompey?” Folius shouted. “Who is to investigate?”
“This case,” Pompey cried, “will be handled by the highest judicial authority in Rome, the praetor urbanus, Titus Annius Milo!” He clapped Milo on the shoulder. There was a great roar from the crowd. “I hereby clear from his docket all other business. This murder shall take precedence over all other legal matters before the Roman bar!”
Milo stepped forward. “With the approval of the Senate and People, I will appoint Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger as iudex to investigate this murder. He is to have full praetorian authority, equal to my own, save that I will retain my praetorian imperium.”
“Does this satisfy you, Romans?” Pompey cried.
Now another man pushed forward. I knew him as a supporter of Clodius: a man named Vetilius. He shoved Folius aside, and there was a moment of lively, but fake, scuffling; then Vetilius stretched a pointing hand toward me.
“Everyone knows Milo and Metellus are close as teeth in a comb! Name someone else!”
Yes, please do! I thought.
“And yet,” Pompey said, “is Decius Metellus, one of the Twenty, not known to you all as a great man-hunter, who has brought many a malefactor to justice and revealed more than one plot against the State? He is the son of a Censor, a veteran of many wars, scion of an ancient and distinguished house, and nephew by marriage of our great, conquering general, Caius Julius Caesar!” I could almost hear Pompey’s teeth gritting through his praise of another man’s military glory.
“That is not good enough!” Vetilius shouted. “The People must have a representative here!”
“Then,” Pompey said, “overseeing this investigation on behalf of the People, I name the former tribunes Publius Clodius and Marcus Porcius Cato. Clodius voluntarily gave up his patrician rank to serve as your tribune, and Cato is famed for his honesty and integrity above all other Romans of his generation. Will that satisfy you, Citizens?” Everyone knew how Clodius and Cato detested one another.
Now Cicero stepped forward. There was a little muttering from old Catilinarians in the crowd, but mostly they were respectful.
“Romans! Citizens and Conscript Fathers assembled here on this dire night, listen to me! It is time to put aside politics and faction! In some terrible way we have offended the immortal gods, and we must not fight with one another while our sacred City lies beneath this cloud. I call upon the Pontifical College to review all this year’s ceremonies and festivals, to see if anything was ill done or omitted through oversight or malice.
“In the meantime, I call upon you all to reconcile yourselves while we determine where lies the guilt in this foul murder. I call upon those who stand here upon these steps to demonstrate their reconciliation, putting aside their disputes to serve the gods and the State as Romans used to, in the days of Scaevola and Fabius Maximus.”Good show, Cicero, I thought. Appeals to religion, history, and patriotism all at once.
Well-distributed voices in the crowd began to cry out, “Yes!” and “Show us!”
First, Milo put out his hand. Slowly, reluctantly, Clodius took it. Then both of them grinned, their eyes shooting flames all the while. Pompey put an arm around the shoulders of both. Then Cato and Cicero and I joined the loving little ménage, and there was a veritable orgy of hand-shaking, back-patting, and embracing. The crowd loved it. They had never seen so many deadly enemies standing so close together without their swords drawn.