The Grass Crown (43 page)

“In which case, why didn’t they go after me?” asked Scaevola, who was still very upset.

“You have too many friends, Quintus Mucius.”

“And Publius Rutilius not enough. That is a disgrace. I tell you, we cannot afford to lose Publius Rutilius! He was his own man, always, and that is rare,” said Scaurus angrily.

“I do not think,” said Drusus, speaking very carefully, “that we will ever succeed in wresting the courts completely away from the knights. If the law of Caepio the Consul didn’t stay on the tablets—and it didn’t—then I don’t see how any other law returning the courts to the Senate can. The Ordo Equester is used to running the courts, it’s had them now for over thirty years. The knights like the power it gives them over the Senate. Not only that, the knights feel inviolate. The law of Gaius Gracchus does not specifically say that a knight-staffed jury is culpable in the matter of taking bribes. The knights insist that the lex Sempronia says they cannot be prosecuted for taking bribes when serving as jurors.”

Crassus Orator was staring at Drusus in alarm. “Marcus Livius, you are by far the best man of praetorian age!” he exclaimed. “If you say such things, what chance does the Senate have?”

“I didn’t say the Senate should abandon hope, Lucius Licinius,” said Drusus. “I just said that the knights would refuse to let the courts go. However, what if we maneuver them into a situation in which they have no choice but to share the courts with the Senate? The plutocrats do not run Rome yet, and they’re well aware of it. So why not put in the thin end of the wedge? Why not have someone propose a new law to regulate the major courts, incorporating a half-and-half membership between Senate and Ordo Equester?”

Scaevola drew in a breath. “The thin end of the wedge! It would be very difficult for the knights to find convincing reasons to decline—to them, it would seem like a senatorial olive branch. What could be fairer than half-and-half? The Senate cannot possibly be accused of trying to wrest control of the courts away from the Ordo Equester, can it?”

“Ha, ha!” said Crassus Orator, grinning. “Within the Senate the ranks are closed, Quintus Mucius. But, as all we senators know, there are always a few knights on any jury with ambitions to dwell within the Curia Hostilia. If the jury is entirely knight, they don’t matter. But if the jury is only fifty percent knight, they can sway the balance. Very clever, Marcus Livius!”

“We can plead,” said Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, “that we senators possess such valuable legal expertise that the courts will be the richer for our presence. And that, after all, we did have exclusive control of the courts for nearly four hundred years! In our modern times, we can say, such exclusivity cannot be allowed to happen. But nor, we can argue, ought the Senate be excluded.” For Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, this was a reasonable argument; he had mellowed somewhat since his experiences as a judge in Alba Fucentia during the days of the lex Licinia Mucia, though Crassus Orator did bring out the worst in him. Yet here they stood together, united in respect of class and its privileges.

“Good thinking,” said Antonius Orator, beaming.

“I agree,” said Scaurus. He turned to face Drusus fully. “Do you intend to do this as a praetor, Marcus Livius? Or do you intend that someone else should do it?”

“I shall do it myself, Princeps Senatus, but not as a praetor,” said Drusus. “I intend to run for the tribunate of the plebs.”

Everyone gasped, and the circle swung to focus on Drusus.

“At your age?” asked Scaurus.

“My age is a distinct advantage,” said Drusus calmly. “Though old enough to be praetor, I seek the tribunate of the plebs. No one can accuse me of youth, inexperience, hotheadedness, a desire to woo the crowds, or any of the usual reasons a man might want the tribunate of the plebs.”

“Then, why do you want to be a tribune of the plebs?” asked Crassus Orator shrewdly.

“I have some laws to promulgate,” said Drusus, still seeming calm and composed.

“You can promulgate laws as a praetor,” said Scaurus.

“Yes, but not with the ease and acceptance a tribune of the plebs possesses. Over the course of the Republic, the passage of laws has become the province of the tribune of the plebs. And the Plebeian Assembly likes its role as lawmaker. Why disturb the status quo, Princeps Senatus?” asked Drusus.

“You have other laws in mind,” said Scaevola softly.

“I do indeed, Quintus Mucius.”

“Give us an idea of what you propose to legislate.”

“I want to double the size of the Senate,” said Drusus.

Another collective gasp; this one accompanied by a collective tensing of bodies.

“Marcus Livius, you begin to sound like Gaius Gracchus,” said Scaevola warily.

“I can see why you might think so, Quintus Mucius. But the fact remains that I want to strengthen the influence of the Senate in our government, and I am broad-minded enough to use the ideas of Gaius Gracchus if they suit my purposes.”

“How can filling the Senate with knights suit any proponent of senatorial dominance?” asked Crassus Orator.

“That was what Gaius Gracchus proposed to do, certainly,” said Drusus. “I propose something slightly different. For one thing, I don’t see how you can argue against the fact that the Senate isn’t big enough anymore. Too few come to meetings, all too often we can’t even form a quorum. If we are to staff juries, how many of us will be forever wearied by constant impaneling? Admit it, Lucius Licinius, a good half or more senators refused jury duty in the days when we entirely staffed the courts. Whereas Gaius Gracchus wanted to fill the Senate with knights, I want to fill it with men of our own senatorial order—plus some knights to keep them happy. All of us have uncles or cousins or even younger brothers who would like to be in the Senate and have the money to qualify, but who cannot belong because the Senate is full. These men I would see admitted ahead of any knights. And what better way to have certain knights who are opposed to the Senate transformed into supporters of the Senate than to make them senators? It is the censors admit new senators, and their choices cannot be argued with.” He cleared his throat. “I know at the moment we have no censors, but we can elect a pair next April, or the April after.”

“I like this idea,” said Antonius Orator.

“And what other laws do you propose promulgating?” asked Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, ignoring the reference to himself and Crassus Orator, who ought by rights still to be censors.

But now Drusus looked vague, and said only, “As yet I do not know, Gnaeus Domitius.”

The Pontifex Maximus snorted. “In my eye you don’t!”

Drusus smiled with innocent sweetness. “Well, perhaps I do, Gnaeus Domitius, but not certainly enough to want to mention them in such august company as this. Rest assured, you will be given an opportunity to have your say about them.”

“Huh,” said Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, looking skeptical.

“What I’d like to know, Marcus Livius, is how long you’ve known you would be seeking the tribunate of the plebs?” asked Scaurus Princeps Senatus. “I wondered why, having been elected a plebeian aedile, you made no move to speak in the House. But you were saving your maiden speech for something better even then, weren’t you?”

Drusus opened his eye wide. “Marcus Aemilius, how can you say such things? As aedile, one has nothing to speak about!”

“Huh,” said Scaurus, then shrugged. “You have my support, Marcus Livius. I like your style.”

“And my support,” said Crassus Orator.

Everyone else agreed to support Drusus as well.

Drusus did not announce his candidacy for the tribunate of the plebs until the morning of the elections, normally a foolhardy ploy—yet, in his case, a brilliant one. It saved his having to answer awkward questions during the pre-electoral period, and it made it look as if, having seen the quality of the tribunician candidates, he simply threw his hands in the air in exasperation, and impulsively declared his own candidacy to improve the standard. The best names the other candidates could produce were Sestius, Saufeius, and Minicius—none of them noble, let alone wonderful. Drusus announced himself only after the other twenty-two had done so.

It was a quiet election, a poor turnout of the electors. Some two thousand voters appeared, a minute percentage of those entitled to cast a ballot. As the well of the Comitia could hold twice that number comfortably, there was no need to shift the venue to a bigger location, such as the Circus Flaminius. The candidates all having declared themselves, the President of the outgoing College of the Tribunes of the Plebs began the voting procedure by calling for the electors to separate into their tribes; the consul Marcus Perperna, a plebeian, kept a stern eye on things in his role as scrutineer. As the attendance was so poor, the public slaves holding the ropes separating tribe from tribe had no need to send the more numerous tribes to rope enclosures outside the Comitia well.

As this was an election, all thirty-five tribes cast their votes simultaneously, rather than—as for the passing of a law or the verdict in a trial—casting their votes one after the other. The baskets in which the inscribed wax ballot tablets were deposited stood on a temporary platform below the well-side of the rostra; the latter remained the province of the outgoing tribunes of the plebs, the candidates, and the consul-scrutineer.

The Well of the Comitia

The temporary wooden addition curved along the contours of the lower tiers of the Comitia well, hiding them. Thirty-five narrow gangways rose steeply from the floor of the well to where the baskets stood some six feet higher, the ropes dividing tribe from tribe extending like pie wedges across the floor and up the tiers of the well on the opposite side from the rostra. Each voter arrived at his ascending gangway, received his wax tablet from one of the custodes, paused to inscribe it with his stylus, then trod up the plank bridge and dropped it into the tribal basket. Having done his electoral duty, he then escaped by walking along the upper tiers of the well until he could leave the scene at either end of the rostra. Those who had found the interest and energy to don a toga and appear to vote normally didn’t leave until the ballots had been counted, so once they were finished, they lingered in the lower Forum chatting, eating snacks, and keeping an eye on progress in the Comitia.

All through this long process, the outgoing tribunes of the plebs stood to the back of the rostra, the candidates nearer to its front, while the President of the outgoing College and the consul-scrutineer sat on a bench right at the front, well able to see what was going on below them in the actual voting arena.

Some tribes—particularly the four urban ones—on this day contained several hundred voters, whereas other tribes had far fewer, perhaps as few as a dozen or two dozen in the case of the more distant rural tribes. Yet each tribe really had just one vote to cast, that of the majority of its members; which gave the distant rural tribes a disproportionately high effectiveness.

As the baskets only held about a hundred tablets, they were removed for counting the moment they were filled, empty baskets put in their place. The counting was kept in his central vision by the consul-scrutineer the whole time; it went on at a large table on the top tier just below him, thirty-five custodes and their assistants as busy as the numbers in their tribes demanded.

And when it was all done about two hours before sunset, the consul-scrutineer read out the results to those voters who had lingered to hear, now standing in the ropeless Comitia well again. He also authorized the publication of the results upon a sheet of parchment pinned to the back (Forum) wall of the rostra, where any Forum frequenter could read it during the succeeding days.

Marcus Livius Drusus was the new President of the College, having polled the most tribes—in fact, all thirty-five tribes had voted for him, an unusual phenomenon. The Minicius, the Sestius, and the Saufeius were also elected, and six more with names so unknown and uninspiring that hardly anyone remembered them—nor had cause to remember them, as they did nothing during their year in office, which began on the tenth day of December, about thirty days hence. Drusus of course was glad he had no formidable opponents.

The College of the Tribunes of the Plebs had its headquarters inside the Basilica Porcia, on the ground floor at the end nearest to the Senate House. This consisted of an open space of floor, a few tables and folding backless chairs, and was grossly encumbered by a number of big pillars; the Basilica Porcia being the oldest of the basilicas, it was also the most awkwardly constructed. Here, on days when the Comitia could not meet or when no meeting had been called, the tribunes of the plebs seated themselves to listen to those who approached them with problems, complaints, suggestions.

Drusus found himself looking forward to this new exercise, and to the delivering of his maiden speech in the Senate. Opposition from the senior magistrates in the Senate was certain, as Philippus had been returned as junior consul behind Sextus Julius Caesar—the first Julian to sit in the consul’s chair in four hundred years. Caepio had been returned as a praetor, though one of eight men rather than the normal six; some years the Senate felt six praetors would not be enough, and recommended the election of eight. This was one such year.

It had been Drusus’s intention to start legislating ahead of any of his fellow tribunes of the plebs, but when the new college was inducted on the tenth day of December, that boor Minicius rushed forward the moment the ceremonies were over and announced in a shrill voice that he was calling his first contio to discuss a much-needed new law. In the past, cried Minicius, the children of a marriage between a Roman citizen and a non-citizen were accorded the status of their father. Too easy! cried Minicius. Too many hybrid Romans! cried Minicius. To wall up this undesirable breach in the citizen citadel, cried Minicius, he announced the promulgation of a new law forbidding the Roman citizenship to all children of a mixed marriage, even when the father was the Roman half.

This lex Minicia de liberis came as a disappointing surprise to Drusus, for it was hailed in the Comitia with shouts of approval, thereby demonstrating that the bulk of the tribal electors at any rate still felt the Roman citizenship must be withheld from all those considered inferior: in other words, the rest of mankind.