The Tribune's Curse (10 page)

Face flaming, Cato resumed his seat. There was much choking, coughing, and clearing of throats. If it hadn’t been such a solemn occasion, the
curia
would have experienced its greatest outburst of hilarity since the day Caesar had said his wife must be above suspicion, seven years earlier.

One after another, the heads of the priestly colleges spoke, as did others who were experts on ritual law. Pompey appointed a special commission, headed by Cicero, to examine all the religious implications of what had happened and come up with remedies. The
lustrum
was only the beginning, allowing us to address the gods in greater detail.

“Now,” Hortensius Hortalus said, “what are we to do about this renegade tribune, Caius Ateius Capito?”

“Nothing can be done to him now,” Pompey said, “but in less than two months’ time, both he and I will step down from office, and at that time I intend personally to prosecute him for sacrilege, for
perduellio
, and for
maiestas!
For offense against the
gods, for offense against the State, and for offense against the Roman people! I want you, Hortensius, and you, Cicero, to assist me in this.”

“Gladly!” said both men at once.

Pompey turned to face the door outside of which was the bench of the tribunes. “Publius Aquillius Gallus!”

The man came to stand in the door, white faced. “Yes, Consul?”

“Of all the Tribunes of the People, you have been closest to Ateius in opposition to Crassus. What was your part in this matter?”

“Consul, I had no idea that he would do this! Like most of Rome, I oppose the aims of Crassus and will do so until I die or he does, and all men know this. But I never knew Ateius intended this impious act and would have done all in my power to stop him. This I swear—that is, after the
lustrum
tomorrow I will swear it before all the gods!”

“I am prepared to believe you,” Pompey said, grimly. “But in this matter mere words are not enough. Tomorrow evening you will go with me to the Temple of Vesta and swear exactly that before her altar and fire, and so will every other tribune, even Trebonius, whom I know to be the enemy of Ateius. As far as I am concerned, the whole institution of the tribuneship has been disgraced.”

After that, there were more speeches and more debate, for men never talk so much as when they are most afraid. This time it was as if a million Gauls were camped outside the gates, or Spartacus were risen from the dead and sitting out there with all our slaves behind him.

I returned to my house after sundown, famished and ill-tempered. I had not eaten since early morning, and nobody in Rome could bathe or shave until the
lustrum
was finished, which didn’t improve things. Julia was wide-eyed with apprehension
when I came in. The figures of the household gods were covered with cloths. The slaves went around on tiptoes.

“The whole City knows what that awful man did,” Julia said. “The most terrible rumors are flying about. What did the Senate decide?”

“I’m forbidden to speak of it,” I told her, “but I can tell you what we are going to do in the morning. The people are being told by the heralds now.” In the distance, I could hear the loud shouts as the heralds went through the streets, telling everyone of the ceremony to be begun before dawn. I described the trial that awaited me.

“Will it be possible?” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Just barely, I think. The worst of it is, I can’t even go sacrifice at the Temple of Hercules for strength.”

“At least you’re in the best condition of your life,” she said encouragingly. “I know that better than anybody!”

F
OR ONCE, I WASN
’
T GROUSING
and complaining at having to rise before dawn. I was too apprehensive for that. I breakfasted lightly, but drank plenty of water, for I was all too aware of how hard I would soon be sweating. I dressed in a red military tunic and
caligae
, since that was the ancient custom when performing the
lustrum
.

“All the patrician women are gathering at the Temple of Vesta,” Julia told me. “That is where I will be.” She had put on her aristocratic Roman lady persona, as she had been drilled by her grandmother to do in times of crisis. I shuddered to think that one day she might turn into Aurelia.

“I will meet you back here, then, my love, although I may have to be carried. Hermes, do you have all my things?”

“Got them right here.” He patted the bulging hide bag that contained most of my military gear, which might be needed at some stage of the ceremony. Surely, I thought, they would not
demand that we wear armor the whole time. But anything was possible.

I kissed Julia and made my way into the street with Hermes close behind me. All the way to the front door, aged Cassandra sprinkled me with dried herbs and called upon obscure rural deities to lend me strength. On that particular morning they probably weren’t listening, but I was not about to turn down any aid, however slight, and it could do no harm.

The streets were crowded as people left their homes to find viewing places atop the wall. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, there was a certain subdued holiday feeling in the air, as there always is when routine is broken for an extraordinary event.

The Senate assembled by torchlight outside the gate nearest the base of the Capitol. Had this been the conventional, five-yearly
lustrum
, the citizens would have been drawn up by centuries, for this ceremony in former times was the purification of the army, and, by extension, of the populace as a whole. Of course, the armies were now far away, and the centuries had become mere voting categories, but we adhered to the ancient forms. The Censors were required to perform the
lustrum
before they left office.

But this was an extraordinary ceremony, and nothing was as usual. We had to hope that the
rex sacrorum
knew what he was doing.

“Senators!” Pompey shouted. “The sun will be up soon, so there’s little time to get organized. The lictors will direct each of you to his place along the support poles. Since there will be a bit of sag to the poles, the shortest men will be nearest the center, the tallest at the ends. Many of the older senators have volunteered to go a part of the way. I’ll take a hand myself for part of the course. But the senators under forty will make the whole three circuits—is that understood? Any of them who fall out had better recall that the Censors will be watching and they haven’t purged the senatorial roles yet. Personally, I want to hear death rattles
from anyone who drops. Lictors! Get them lined up.”

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.

“Now, Senators,” Pompey said, “I want no one to try to run, no matter how late it gets. We’ll never make it that way. We can get this done on time if we keep to a legionary quick pace. You’ve all been drilled in that since you were boys. Rome will rest on your shoulders today. So, lift!” Again came the word, hurled like a deadly missile, and we all stooped, laid hold of the poles, and lifted the tremendous parade float onto our shoulders. Upon the walls the people sighed with satisfaction. The animals seemed not to notice, merely blinking with lordly equanimity.

The
flamines
and other priests set out before us, some of them swinging censers in which incense burned. Atop the walls more incense smoked in braziers. We were burning enough that day to cause a serious shortage of incense throughout Roman territory.

“By the left,” Milo said quietly, “quick step,
march
.” As one man, we all stepped off, left foot first.

In the beginning, the weight seemed quite tolerable, but I knew that would change. Soon the older senators would start dropping out. Then fatigue would take its inexorable toll. And even among the younger senators, for years many had performed no exertion more strenuous than crawling from the cold bath to the hot. They would not last either. I wanted no part of Cato’s foolish nostalgia, but it seemed even to me that we were growing too soft. Unlike Cato and his ilk I did not blame this on foreign influence, but upon our increasing reliance on slaves to do everything for us.

The wall built centuries before by Servius Tullius had once marked out the boundaries of Rome. The City had long since spilled out of its confines, onto the Campus Martius and even across the river into the new Trans-Tiber district, and Sulla had even extended the span of the sacred
pomerium
, but these changes were too recent to make much of an impression. To all Romans of that day, the Servian Wall, following the line of the old
pomerium
, still defined the City.

Much building now lay outside the old wall, but it was surrounded by a span of sacred open ground on which nothing could be built and in which the dead could not be buried. This open ground formed our processional way. It was relatively level, going around the bases of the hills, and it was grassy, for no trees or shrubs were allowed to grow upon it. The old wall was still one of the military defenses of Rome, and you don’t just give your enemy effective cover.

We started out northeast along the base of the Capitol, circling the city to the right. All around us the temple musicians played their double flutes, striving mightily to drown any sound that might disturb the ceremony or be interpreted as an evil omen. Before we had made a half-circuit, I was sweating despite the crisp
breeze. Others were in far worse condition. I heard gasping from the older men and from those less well-conditioned.