True to a unique tradition of Rome, all the nearby walls had been slathered with that unique institution of the Latin race: graffiti. Daubed in paint of every color were slogans such as Death to the aristocrats! and The shade of Tribune Ateius calls out for blood! and May the curse of Ateius fall on Crassus and all his friends! All of this was scrawled wretchedly and spelled worse. Rome has an extremely high rate of literacy, mostly so that the citizens can practice this particular art form.
Men nudged one another as I approached, casting one another significant glances, as such men are wont to do. I have no idea what it is that they hope to convey by these gestures, but they seem to enjoy the exercise. Perhaps it gives them a feeling of importance.
“You are not welcome here, Senator,” said a tribune I recognized as Gallus, the cohort of Ateius in his strenuous efforts to deny Crassus the Syrian command.
“Why do I need to be welcome?” I demanded. “I have been appointed iudex with praetorian authority. That calls for no welcome.”
“You’re one of them!” yelled a meager-faced villain.
“One of what?” I said. “One of the citizens?”
“You’re an aristocrat!” the man shouted back.
“Oh, shut up, the lot of you!” I shouted. “I wasn’t appointed by just any praetor! I was appointed by Titus Annius Milo! I imagine that name is known to you.” Now their growling died down. They may not have been among Milo’s adherents, but like most of Rome’s street toughs, they feared him.
“No need for a riot,” Gallus said reluctantly. “What do you want here, Senator?”
“I want to speak with Ateius’s Marsian friend, Sextus Silvius.”
The men nearest the door looked at one another. “He’s not here,” one of them said.
“Is that so? Where might he be?”
“We—we don’t know. Some of the tribune’s closest friends have left the City. When a tribune can be murdered, who is safe?” The man looked to the others for agreement and support. I realized that they were at a loss how to act. The leaders of Ateius’s little factio had disappeared.
“They were probably murdered as well!” said another of the door crowd. The grumbling rose.
I turned around. “Tribune Gallus! I wish to speak with you in privacy. Come with me.”
“You have no authority to order me, Senator,” he blustered, for the sake of his audience. “But, unlike the factio of Crassus and Pompey and the rest of the aristocrats, I respect the institutions of Rome.” He addressed the crowd. “My friends, I will return as soon as I have straightened this man out.”
We walked down the street, out of sight and hearing. A few streets away there was a little park surrounding a shrine to the genius loci of the district, here represented in the traditional fashion as a sculpted snake climbing a stubby column. Withered garlands draped its base, and pigeons pecked at the offerings of bread and fruit left by the people of the neighborhood. I took a seat on a stone bench, and Gallus sat beside me.
“Tribune, in the emergency meeting called by Pompey after the departure of Crassus, you said that you had no foreknowledge of the outrageous behavior of Ateius that day.”
“And I spoke nothing but the truth,” he insisted. Here, away from his crowd, he spoke reasonably, as one public servant to another. “After the lustrum I went to the Temple of Vesta with Pompey and my fellow tribunes, and we all swore this before her fire.”
“Very well. I need to know certain things about the tribune Ateius.”
“I knew him only in our shared public functions,” he said, apparently anxious to distance himself from the man.
“That is, principally, what I need to know. On what matters did the two of you cooperate?”
“Why, on denying Crassus the Syrian command, of course. Everyone knows the harm that will be done to Rome if he—”
“What other business?” I pressed.
“There was no other business. Not for Ateius Capito!”
“Do you mean to say that the two of you spent almost an entire year in office doing nothing but opposing Crassus?”
“Nothing of the sort! Why, I worked with Peducaeus on getting the river wharfs rebuilt, and petitioning the pontifex maximus to extend Saturnalia for an extra day and reform the calendar, which has gotten into dreadful shape, and there’s the whole business of the agrarian laws and the land commissioners to be sorted out—”
I held up a hand to stanch the flow of words. Everybody was complaining about overwork these days.
“I can see that you’ve exhausted yourself in service to the People, as every tribune should. Did Ateius Capito concern himself with none of these pressing matters?”