Other men than Drusus and the Italian leaders had also worked through that summer; Caepio In had lobbied the knights assiduously, Varius and Caepio combined had managed to harden Comitial resistance to Drusus, and Philippus, his tastes always outrunning his purse, allowed himself to be bought by a group of knights and senators whose latifundia holdings represented the major part of their assets.
Of course no one knew what was coming, but the House knew that Drusus had lodged a request to speak at the meeting on the Kalends of September, and was consumed with curiosity. Many among the senators, carried away by the force of Drusus’s oratory earlier in the year, were now wishing Drusus had talked less well; the initial flush of senatorial supportive enlightenment had dissipated, so that the men who gathered in the Curia Hostilia on the first day of September were resolved to close their ears to Drusus’s magic.
Sextus Julius Caesar was in the chair, September being one of the months during which he held the fasces, which meant the preliminary rites were scrupulously observed. The House sat and rustled restlessly while the omens were consulted, the prayers said, the sacrificial mess cleared away. And when the House finally settled down to business, everything taking precedence over a speech from a tribune of the plebs was dealt with extremely quickly.
Time. It was time. Drusus rose from the tribunician bench below the dais on which sat the consuls, the praetors and the curule aediles, and walked to his usual spot up by the great bronze doors, which—as on previous occasions—he had asked be shut.
“Revered fathers of our country, members of the Senate of Rome,” he began softly, “several months ago I spoke in this House of a great evil in our midst—the evil of the ager publicus. Today I intend to speak about a much greater evil than the ager publicus. One which, unless crushed, will see the end of us. The end of Rome.
“I mean, of course, the people who dwell side by side with us in this peninsula. I mean the people we call Italians.”
A wave of sound passed through the white ranks on either side of the House, more like a rising wind in trees than human voices, or like a swarm of wasps in the distance. Drusus heard it, understood its import, continued regardless.
“We treat them, these thousands upon thousands of people, like third-class citizens. Literally! The first-class citizen is the Roman. The second-class citizen holds the Latin Rights. And the third-class citizen is the Italian. He who is considered unworthy of any right to participate in our Roman congress. He who is taxed, flogged, fined, evicted, plundered, exploited. He whose sons are not safe from us, he whose women are not safe from us, he whose property is not safe from us. He who is called upon to fight in our wars and fund the troops he donates us, yet is expected to consent to his troops being commanded by us. He who, if we had lived up to our promises, would not have to endure the Roman and Latin colonies in his midst—for we promised full autonomy to the Italian nations in return for troops and taxes, then tricked them by seeding our colonies within their borders—thus taking the best of their world off them, as well as withholding our world from them.”
The noise was increasing, though as yet it did not obscure what Drusus was saying; a storm coming closer, a swarm coming closer. Drusus found his mouth dry, had to pause to lick and swallow in the most natural manner he could summon. There must be no obvious nervousness. He pressed on.
“We of Rome have no king. Yet within Italy, every last one of us acts like a king. Because we like the sensation it gives us, we like to see our inferiors crawl about under our regal noses. We like to play at kings! Were the people of Italy genuinely our inferiors, there might be some excuse for it. But the truth is that the Italians are not inferior to us in any natural way. They are blood of our blood. If they were not, how could anyone in this House cast aspersions upon another member of this House for his ‘Italian blood’? I have heard the great and glorious Gaius Marius called an Italian. Yet he conquered the Germans! I have heard the noble Lucius Calpurnius Piso called an Insubrian. Yet his father died gallantly at Burdigala! I have heard the great Marcus Antonius Orator condemned because he took the daughter of an Italian as his second wife. Yet he overcame the pirates, and was a censor!”
“He was indeed a censor,” said Philippus, “and while he was a censor, he permitted thousands and thousands of Italians to enroll themselves as Roman citizens!”
“Do you mean to imply, Lucius Marcius, that I connived at it?” asked Antonius Orator in a dangerous voice.
“I most certainly do, Marcus Antonius!”
Antonius Orator rose to his feet, big and burly. “Step outside, Philippus, and repeat that!” he cried.
“Order! Marcus Livius has the floor!” said Sextus Caesar, beginning to wheeze audibly. “Lucius Marcius and Marcus Antonius, you are both out of order! Sit down and be silent!”
Drusus resumed. “I repeat. The Italians are blood of our blood. They have been no mean part of our successes, both within Italy and abroad. They are no mean soldiers. They are no mean farmers. They are no mean businessmen. They have riches. They have a nobility as old as ours, leading men as educated as ours are, women as cultured and refined as ours are. They live in the same kind of houses as we do. They eat the same kind of food as we do. They have as many connoisseurs of wine as we do. They look like us.”
“Rubbish!” cried Catulus Caesar scornfully, and pointed at Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo from Picenum. “See him? Snub nose and hair the color of sand ! Romans may be red, Romans may be yellow, Romans may be white, but Romans are not sandy! He’s a Gaul, not a Roman! And if I had my way, he and all the rest of the un-Roman mushrooms glowing in the dark of our beloved Curia Hostilia would be pulled up and thrown out! Gaius Marius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Quintus Varius, Marcus Antonius for marrying beneath him, every Pompeius who ever marched down from Picenum with a straw between his teeth, every Didius from Campania, every Pedius from Campania, every Saufeius and Labienus and Appuleius — get rid of the lot, I say!”
The House was in an uproar. Either by name or by inference, Catulus Caesar had managed to insult a good third of its members; but what he said sat very well with the other two thirds, if only because Catulus Caesar had reminded them of their superiority. Caepio alone did not beam quite as widely as he ought — Catulus Caesar had singled out Quintus Varius.
“I will be heard!” Drusus shouted. “If we sit here until darkness falls, I will be heard!”
“Not by me, you won’t!” yelled Philippus.
“Nor by me!” shrieked Caepio.
“Marcus Livius has the floor! Those who refuse to allow him to speak will be ejected!” cried Sextus Caesar. “Clerk, go outside and bring in my lictors!”
Off scurried the head clerk, in marched Sextus Caesar’s twelve lictors in their white togas, fasces shouldered.
“Stand here on the back of the curule dais,” said Sextus Caesar loudly. “We have an unruly meeting, and I may ask you to eject certain men.” He nodded to Drusus. “Continue.”
“I intend to bring a bill before the concilium plebis giving the full Roman citizenship to every man from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Rubico to Vereium, from the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic Sea!” said Drusus, shouting now to make himself heard. “It is time we rid ourselves of this frightful evil—that one man in Italy is deemed better than another man—that we of Rome can keep ourselves exclusive! Conscript Fathers, Rome is Italy! And Italy is Rome! Let us once and for all admit that fact, and put every man in Italy upon the same footing!”
The House boiled into madness, men shouting “No, no, no!,” feet stamping, roars of outrage, boos and hisses, stools flying to crash on the floor around Drusus, fists shaking at Drusus from every tier on either side.
But Drusus stood unmoving and uncowed. “I will do it!” he screamed. “I—will—do—it!”
“Over my dead body!” howled Caepio from the dais.
Now Drusus moved, swung to face Caepio. “If necessary, it will be over your dead body, you overbred cretin! When have you ever had speech or congress with Italians, to know what sort of men they are?” Drusus yelled, trembling with anger.
“In your house, Drusus, in your house! Talking sedition! A nest of them, all dirty Italians! Silo and Mutilus, Egnatius and Vidacilius, Lamponius and Duronius!”
“Never in my house, and never sedition!”
Caepio was on his feet, face purple. “You’re a traitor, Drusus! A blight on your family, an ulcer on the fair face of Rome! I’ll bring you to trial for this!”
“No, you festering scab, it’s I who will bring you to trial! What happened to all that gold from Tolosa, Caepio? Tell this House that! Tell this House how enormous and prosperous your business enterprises are, and how unsenatorial!” Drusus shouted.
“Are you going to let him get away with this?” roared Caepio, turning from one side of the chamber to the other, hands outstretched imploringly. “He’s the traitor! He’s the viper!”
Through all of this exchange Sextus Caesar and Scaurus Princeps Senatus had been calling for order; Sextus Caesar now gave up. Snapping his fingers at his lictors, he adjusted his toga and stalked out of the meeting behind his escort, looking neither to left nor to right. Some of the praetors followed him, but Quintus Pompeius Rufus leaped from the dais in the direction of Catulus Caesar at precisely the same moment as Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo came at Catulus from the far side of the House. Both meant murder, fists doubled, faces ugly. However, before either Pompeius could reach the sneering, haughty Catulus Caesar, Gaius Marius stepped into the fray. Shaking his fierce old head, he grabbed at Pompey Strabo’s wrists and bore them down, while Crassus Orator restrained the furious Pompeius Rufus. The Pompeii were hauled unceremoniously from the chamber, Marius gathering in Drusus as he went, Antonius Orator helping. Catulus Caesar remained standing beside his stool, smiling.
“They didn’t take that too well,” said Drusus, drawing in big deep breaths.
The group had sought the bottom of the Comitia well wherein to shelter and compose itself; within moments a small crowd of angry and indignant partisans had joined it.
“How dared Catulus Caesar say that about us Pompeians!” yelled Pompey Strabo, clutching at his remote cousin Pompeius Rufus as if at a spar in a tempestuous sea. “If I had to put a color on his hair, I’d call it sandy!”
“Quin tacetis, the lot of you!” said Marius, eyes seeking Sulla in vain; until today, at any rate, Sulla had been one of Drusus’s most enthusiastic supporters, hadn’t missed a single meeting during which Drusus had spoken. Where was he now? Had today’s events put him off? Was he perhaps bowing and scraping to Catulus Caesar? Common sense said that was unlikely, but even Marius had not expected such a violent House. And where was Scaurus Princeps Senatus?
“How dared that licentious ingrate Philippus imply that I fiddled the census?” demanded Antonius Orator, ruddy face a richer red. “He backed down soon enough when I invited him to say the same thing outside, the worm!”
“When he accused you, Marcus Antonius, he also accused me!” said Lucius Valerius Flaccus, lifted out of his normal torpor. “He will pay for that, I swear he will!”
“They didn’t take it at all well,” said Drusus, his mind not able to deviate from its beaten track.
“You surely didn’t expect them to, Marcus Livius,” said the voice of Scaurus from behind the group.
“Are you still with me, Princeps Senatus?” Drusus asked when Scaurus elbowed his way to the center of the group.
“Yes, yes!” cried Scaurus, flapping his hands. “I agree it’s time we did the logical thing, if only to avert a war,” he said. “Unfortunately most people refuse to believe the Italians could ever mount a war against Rome.”
“They’ll find out how wrong they are,” said Drusus.
“They will that,” said Marius. He looked about again. “Where is Lucius Cornelius Sulla?”
“Gone off on his own,” said Scaurus.
“Not to one of the opposition?”
“No, just off on his own,” said Scaurus with a sigh. “I very much fear he hasn’t been terribly enthusiastic about anything since his poor little son died.”
“That’s true,” said Marius, relieved. “Still, I did think this fuss might have stimulated him.”
“Nothing can, save time,” said Scaurus, who had also lost a son, in many ways more painfully than Sulla.
“Where do you go from this, Marcus Livius?” asked Marius.
“To the Plebeian Assembly,” said Drusus. “I’ll call a contio for three days hence.”
“You’ll be opposed more strongly still,” said Crassus Orator.
“I don’t care,” said Drusus stubbornly. “I have sworn to get this legislation through—and get it through I will!”
“In the meantime, Marcus Livius,” said Scaurus soothingly, “the rest of us will keep working on the Senate.”
“You ought to do better among those Catulus Caesar insulted, at least,” said Drusus with a faint smile.
“Unfortunately, many of them will be the most obdurately against giving the citizenship away,” said Pompeius Rufus, grinning. “They would all have to speak to their Italian aunties and cousins again, after pretending they don’t have any.”
“You seem to have recovered from the insult!” snapped Pompey Strabo, who clearly hadn’t.
“No, I haven’t recovered at all,” said Pompeius Rufus, still grinning. “I’ve just tucked it away to take out on those who caused it. There’s no point taking my anger out On these good fellows.”
Drusus held his contio on the fourth day of September. The Plebs gathered eagerly, looking forward to a rousing meeting, yet feeling safe to gather; with Drusus in charge, there would be no violence. However, Drusus had only just launched into his opening remarks when Lucius Marcius Philippus appeared, escorted by his lictors and followed by a large group of young knights and sons of senators.
“This assembly is illegal! I hereby demand that it be broken up!” cried Philippus, shoving through the crowd behind his lictors. “Move along, everybody! I order you to disperse!”
“You have no authority in a legally convened meeting of the Plebs,” said Drusus calmly, looking unruffled. “Now go about your proper business, junior consul.”
“I am a plebeian, I am entitled to be here,” said Philippus.
Drusus smiled sweetly. “In which case, Lucius Marcius, kindly conduct yourself like a plebeian, not a consul! Stand and listen with the rest of the plebeians.”
“This meeting is illegal!” Philippus persisted.
“The omens have been declared auspicious, I have adhered to the letter of every law in convoking my contio, and you are simply taking up this meeting’s valuable time,” said Drusus, to an accompaniment of loud cheers from his audience, which may have come to oppose what Drusus wished to talk about, but resented Philippus’s interference.
That was the signal for the young men around Philippus to start pushing and shoving the crowd, ordering it to go home at the same moment as they pulled cudgels from beneath their togas.
Seeing the cudgels, Drusus acted. “This contio is concluded!” he cried from the rostra. “I will not permit anyone to make a shambles out of what should be an orderly meeting!”
But that didn’t suit the rest of the gathering; a few men began pushing and shoving back, a cudgel was swung, and it took Drusus himself, leaping down from the rostra, to make sure no blows were struck, persuade people to go peacefully home.
At which point a bitterly disappointed Italian client of Gaius Marius’s saw red. Before anyone could stop him— including the junior consul’s cluster of apathetic lictors— he had walked straight up to Philippus and walloped him on the nose; then he was gone too quickly to be apprehended, leaving Philippus trying to cope with a pulped nose pouring fountains of blood all over his snowy toga.
“Serves you right,” said Drusus, grinning again, and departed.
“Well done, Marcus Livius,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus, who had watched from the Senate steps. “What now?”
“Back to the House,” said Drusus.
When he went back to the House on the seventh day of September, Drusus met with a better reception, much to his surprise; his consular allies had lobbied to considerable effect.
“What the Senate and People of Rome must realize,” said Drusus in a loud, firm, impressively serious voice, “is that if we go on denying our citizenship to the people of Italy, there will be war. I do not say so lightly, believe me! And before any of you start ridiculing the idea of the people of Italy as a formidable enemy, I would remind you that for four hundred years they have been participating with us in our wars—or, in some cases, warring against us. They know us as a people at war—they know how we war, and it is the same way they war themselves. In the past, Rome has been stretched to her very limits to beat one or two of the Italian nations—is there anyone here who has forgotten the Caudine Forks? That was inflicted upon us by one Italian nation, Samnium. Until Arausio, the worst defeats sustained by Rome all involved the Samnites. So if, in this day and age, the various nations of Italy decide to unite and go to war against us united, the question I ask of myself—and of all of you!—is—can Rome beat them?”
A wave of restlessness passed through the white ranks on either side of the floor where Drusus stood, like wind through a forest of feathery trees; and with it, a sigh like wind.
“I know the vast majority of you sitting here today believe that war is absolutely impossible. For two reasons. The first, because you do not believe the Italian Allies could ever find enough in common to unite against a common enemy. The second, because you will not believe any nation in Italy save Rome is prepared for war. Even among those who support me actively, there are men who cannot believe the Italian Allies are ready for war. Indeed, it might not be inaccurate if I said none of those who support me actively can credit that Italy is ready for war. Where are the arms and armor? they ask. Where the equipment, where the soldiers? And I say, there! Ready and waiting. Italy is ready. If we do not grant Italy the citizenship, Italy will destroy us in war.”
He paused, threw his arms out. “Surely, Conscript Fathers of our Senate, you can see that war between Rome and Italy would be civil war? A conflict between brothers. A conflict upon the soil we call our own, and they call their own. How can we justify to our grandchildren the ruination of their wealth, their inheritances, on grounds as flimsy as these I hear from this assembly every time it meets? There is no victor in civil war. No spoils. No slaves to sell. Think about what I am asking you to do with a care and a detachment greater than any you have ever summoned! This is not a matter for emotions. Not a matter for prejudices. Not a matter for lightness. All I am really trying to do is to save my beloved Rome from the horrors of civil war.”
This time the House really listened. Drusus began to hope. Even Philippus, who sat looking angry and muttered under his breath from time to time, did not interject. Nor—perhaps more significantly—did the vociferous and malignant Caepio. Unless, of course, these were new tactics they had dreamed up during the six intervening days. It might even be that Caepio didn’t want a nose as hugely swollen and sore as Philippus’s.
After Drusus was finished, Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Crassus Orator, Antonius Orator, and Scaevola all spoke in support of Drusus. And the House listened.
But when Gaius Marius rose to speak, the peace shattered. At precisely that moment when Drusus had decided the cause was won. Afterward, Drusus was forced to conclude that Philippus and Caepio had planned it this way all along.
Philippus jumped to his feet. “Enough!” he screamed, jumping off the curule dais. “It is enough, I say! Who are you, Marcus Livius Drusus, to corrupt the minds and the principles of men as great as our Princeps Senatus? That the Italian Marius is on your side I find inevitable, but the Leader of the House? My ears, my ears! Do they truly hear what some of our most revered consulars have said today?”
“Your nose, your nose! Does it truly smell how you smell, Philippus?” mocked Antonius Orator.
“Tace, Italian-lover!” shouted Philippus. “Shut your vile mouth, pull in your Italian-loving head!”
As this last was a reference to a part of the male anatomy not mentioned in the House, Antonius Orator was up from his stool the moment the insult was uttered. Marius on one side of him and Crassus Orator on the other were ready, however, and pulled him back before he could attack Philippus.
“I will be heard!” Philippus yelled. “Wake up to what is being put to you, you senatorial sheep! War? How can there possibly be war? The Italians have no arms and no men! They could hardly go to war with a flock of sheep— even sheep like you!”
Sextus Caesar and Scaurus Princeps Senatus had been calling for order ever since Philippus had inserted himself into the proceedings; Sextus Caesar now beckoned to his lictors, kept inside today as a precaution. But before they could advance upon Philippus, standing in the middle of the floor, he had ripped the purple-bordered toga from his body, and thrown it at Scaurus.
“Keep it, Scaurus, you traitor! Keep it, all of you! I am going into Rome to find another government!”
“And I,” cried Caepio, leaving the dais, “am going to the Comitia to assemble all the People, patrician and plebeian!”
The House dissolved into chaos, backbencher senators milling without purpose, Scaurus and Sextus Caesar calling again and again for order, and most of those in the front and middle rows streaming out of the doors in the wake of Philippus and Caepio.
The lower end of the Forum Romanum was crowded with those who waited to hear how the Senate felt at the end of this session. Caepio went straight to the rostra, shouting for the Whole People to assemble in their tribes. Not bothering with formalities—or with the fact that the Senate had not been legally dismissed, which meant no Comitia could be convoked—he launched into a diatribe against Drusus, who now stood beside him on the rostra.
“Look at him, the traitor!” howled Caepio. “He’s busy giving away our citizenship to every dirty Italian in this peninsula, to every flea-bitten Samnite shepherd, to every mentally incompetent Picentine rustic, to every stinking brigand in Lucania and Bruttium! And such is the caliber of our idiot Senate that it is actually about to let this traitor have his way! But I won’t let them, and I won’t let him!”
Drusus turned to his nine fellow tribunes of the plebs, who had followed him onto the rostra; they were not pleased at the presumption of the patrician Caepio, no matter how they felt about Drusus’s proposal. Caepio had called the Whole People, it was true, but he had done so before the Senate had been dismissed, and he had usurped the territory of the tribunes of the plebs in the most cavalier fashion; even Minicius was annoyed.
“I am going to break this farce up,” said Drusus, tight-lipped. “Are you all with me?”
“We’re with you,” said Saufeius, who was Drusus’s man.
Drusus stepped to the front of the rostra. “This is an illegally convened meeting, and I veto its continuance!”
“Get out of my meeting, traitor!” shouted Caepio.
Drusus ignored him. “Go home, people of this city! I have interposed my veto against this meeting because it is not legal! The Senate is still officially in session!”
“Traitor! People of Rome, are you going to let yourselves be ordered about by a man who wants to give away your most precious possession?” shrieked Caepio.
Drusus lost his patience at last. “Arrest this lout, fellow tribunes of the plebs!” he cried, gesturing to Saufeius.
Nine men surrounded Caepio and took hold of him, quelling his struggles easily; Philippus, who was standing on the floor of the well looking up at the rostra, suddenly thought of urgent business elsewhere, and fled.
“I have had enough, Quintus Servilius Caepio!” said Drusus in a voice which could be heard throughout the lower Forum. “I am a tribune of the plebs, and you have obstructed me in the execution of my duties! Take heed, for this is my only warning. Cease and desist at once, or I will have you thrown from the Tarpeian Rock!”
The Comitia well was Drusus’s fief, and Caepio, seeing the look in Drusus’s eyes, understood; the old rancor between patrician and plebeian was being called into effect. If Drusus did instruct the members of his college to take Caepio and throw him from the Tarpeian Rock, Drusus would be obeyed.
“You haven’t won yet!” Caepio yelled as he pulled free of the restraining hands and stormed off after the vanished Philippus.
“I wonder,” said Drusus to Saufeius as they watched the graceless exit of Caepio, “if Philippus is tired of his house guest yet?”
“I’m tired of both of them,” said Saufeius, and sighed sadly. “You realize, I hope, Marcus Livius, that had the Senate meeting continued, you would have secured your mandate?”
“Of course I do. Why do you think Philippus suddenly went into that manic temper tantrum? What a terrible actor he is!” said Drusus, and laughed. “Throwing his toga away! What next?”
“Aren’t you disappointed?”
“Almost to death. But I will not be stopped. Not until I have no breath left in my body.”
The Senate resumed its deliberations on the Ides, officially a day of rest, and therefore not a day upon which the Comitia could meet. Caepio would have no excuse to quit the session.
Sextus Caesar was looking worn out, his breathing audible throughout the House, but he saw the initial ceremonies to their conclusion, then rose to speak.
“I will tolerate no more of these disgraceful goings-on,” he said, voice clear and carrying. “As for the fact that the chief source of the disruptions emanates from the curule podium—I regard that as an additional humiliation. Lucius Marcius and Quintus Servilius Caepio, you will conduct yourselves as befits your office—which, I take leave to inform you, neither of you adorns! You demean it, both of you! If your lawlessness and sacrilegious conduct continue, I will send the fasces to the temple of Venus Libitina, and refer matters to the electors in their Centuries.” He nodded to Philippus. “You now have the floor, Lucius Marcius. But heed me well! I have had enough. So has the Leader of the House.”
“I do not thank you, Sextus Julius, any more than I thank the Leader of the House, and all the other members who are masquerading as patriots,” said Philippus impudently. “How can a man claim to be a Roman patriot, and want to give our citizenship away? The answer is that he cannot be the one and do the other! The Roman citizenship is for Romans. It should not be given to anyone who is not by family, by ancestry, and by legal writ entitled to it. We are the children of Quirinus. The Italians are not. And that, senior consul, is all I have to say. There is no more to be said.”
“There is much more to be said!” Drusus countered. “That we are the children of Quirinus is inarguable. Yet Quirinus is not a Roman god! He is a god of the Sabines, which is why he lives on the Quirinal, where the city of the Sabines once stood. In other words, Lucius Marcius, Quirinus is an Italian god! Romulus took him into our fold, Romulus made him Roman. But Quirinus belongs equally to the people of Italy. How can we betray Rome by making her mightier? For that is what we will be doing when we give the citizenship to all of Italy. Rome will be Italy, and mighty. Italy will be Rome, and mighty. What as the descendants of Romulus we retain will be ours forever, exclusively. That can never belong to anyone else. But what Romulus gave us is not the citizenship! That, we have already given to many who cannot claim to be the children of Romulus, the natives of the city of Rome. If Romanness is at issue, why is Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis sitting in this august body? His is a name, Quintus Servilius Caepio, that I note you have refrained from mentioning whenever you and Lucius Marcius have sought to impugn the Romanness of certain members of this House!
Yet Quintus Varius is truly not a Roman! He never laid eyes on this city nor spoke Latin in normal congress until he was in his twenties! Yet—here he sits by the grace of Quirinus in the Senate of Rome—a man less Roman by far in his thoughts, in his speech, in his way of looking at things, than any Italian! If we are to do as Lucius Marcius Philippus wants, and confine the citizenship of Rome to those among us who can claim family, ancestry, and legal writ, then the first man to have to leave both this House and the city of Rome would be Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis! He is the foreigner!”
That of course brought Varius cursing to his feet, despite the fact that, as a pedarius, he was not allowed to speak.
Sextus Caesar summoned all his paucity of breath, and roared for order so loudly that order was restored. “Marcus Aemilius, Leader of this House, I see you wish to speak. You have the floor.”
Scaurus was angry. “I will not see this House degenerate to the level of a cock-pit because we are disgraced by curule magistrates of a quality not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Nor will I make reference to the right of any man to sit in this august body! All I want to say is that if this House is to survive—and if Rome is to survive—we must be as liberal to the Italians in the matter of our citizenship as we have been to certain men sitting in this House today.”
But Philippus was on his feet. “Sextus Julius, when you gave the Leader of the House permission to speak, you did not acknowledge that I wished to speak. As consul, I am entitled to speak first.”
Sextus Caesar blinked. “I thought you had done, Lucius Marcius. Are you not done, then?”
“No.”
“Then please, will you get whatever it is you have to say over with? Do you mind waiting until the junior consul has his say, Leader of the House?”
“Of course not,” said Scaurus affably, and sat down.
“I propose,” said Philippus weightily, “that this House strike each and every one of the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus off the tablets. None has been passed legally.”
“Arrant nonsense!” said Scaurus indignantly. “Never in the history of the Senate has any tribune of the plebs gone about his legislating with more scrupulous attention to the laws of procedure than Marcus Livius Drusus!”
“Nonetheless, his laws are not valid,” said Philippus, whose nose was apparently beginning to throb greatly, for he began to pant, fingers fluttering around the shapeless blob in the middle of his face. “The gods have indicated their displeasure.”
“My meetings met with the approval of the gods too,” said Drusus flatly.
“They are sacrilegious, as the events throughout Italy over the past ten months clearly demonstrate,” said Philip-pus. “I say that the whole of Italy has been torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath!”
“Oh, really, Lucius Marcius! Italy is always being torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath,” said Scaurus wearily.
“Not the way it has been this year!” Philippus drew a breath. “I move that this House recommend to the Assembly of the Whole People that the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus be annulled, on the grounds that the gods have demonstrated marked displeasure. And, Sextus Julius, I will see a division. Now.”
Scaurus and Marius were both frowning, sensing in this something as yet hidden, but unable to see what it was. That Philippus would be defeated was certain. So why, after such a brief and uninspiring address, was he insisting upon a division?
The House divided. Philippus lost by a large majority. He then lost his temper, screaming and ranting until he spat; the urban praetor, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, near him on the dais, pulled his toga ostentatiously over his head to ward off the saliva rain.
“Greedy ingrates! Monumental fools! Sheep! Insects! Offal! Butcher’s scraps! Maggots! Pederasts! Fellators! Violators of little girls! Dead flesh! Whirlpools of avarice!” were but some of the names Philippus hurled at his fellow senators.
Sextus Caesar allowed him sufficient time to run down, then had his chief lictor pound the bundle of rods on the floor until the rafters boomed.
“Enough!” he shouted. “Sit down and be quiet, Lucius Marcius, or I will have you ejected from this meeting!”
Philippus sat down, chest heaving, nose beginning to drip a straw-colored fluid. “Sacrilege!” he howled, drawing the word out eerily. After which he did sit quietly.
“What is he up to?” whispered Scaurus to Marius.
“I don’t know. But I wish I did!” growled Marius.
Crassus Orator rose. “May I speak, Sextus Julius?”
“You may, Lucius Licinius.”
“I do not wish to talk about the Italians, or our cherished Roman citizenship, or the laws of Marcus Livius,” Crassus Orator said in his beautiful, mellifluous voice. “I am going to talk about the office of consul, and I will preface my remarks with an observation—that never in all my years in this House have I seen and heard the office of consul abused, abashed, abased as it has been in these last days by Lucius Marcius Philippus. No man who has treated his office—the highest in the land!—the way Lucius Marcius Philippus has, ought to be allowed to continue in it! However, when the electors put a man in office he is not bound by any code save those of his own intelligence and good manners, and the many examples offered him by the mos maiorum.
“To be consul of Rome is to be elevated to a level just a little below our gods, and higher by far than any king. The office of consul is freely given and does not rest upon threats or the power of retribution. For the space of one year, the consul is supreme. His imperium outranks that of any governor. He is the commander-in-chief of the armies, he is the leader of the government, he is the head of the Treasury—and he is the figurehead of every last thing the Republic of Rome has come to mean! Be he patrician or be he New Man, be he fabulously rich or relatively poor, he is the consul. Only one man is his equal, and that man is the other consul. Their names are inscribed upon the consular fasti, there to glitter for all time.
“I have been consul. Perhaps thirty men sitting here today have been consuls, and some of them have been censors as well. I shall ask them how they feel at this moment—how do you feel at this moment, gentlemen consulars, after listening to Lucius Marcius Philippus since the beginning of this month? Do you feel as I feel? Unclean? Disgraced? Humiliated? Do you think it right that this third-time-lucky occupant of our office should go uncensured? You do not? Good! Nor, gentlemen consulars, do I!”
Crassus Orator turned from the front rows to glare fiercely at Philippus on the curule dais. “Lucius Marcius Philippus, you are the worst consul I have ever seen! Were I sitting in Sextus Julius’s chair, I would not be one tenth as patient as he! How dare you swish round the vici of our beloved city preceded by your twelve-lictor escort, calling yourself a consul? You are not a consul! You are not fit to lick a consul’s boots! In fact, if I may borrow a phrase from our Leader, you are not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Instead of being a model of exemplary behavior to your juniors in this assemblage and to those outside in the Forum, you conduct yourself like the worst demagogue who ever prated from the rostra, like the most foul-mouthed heckler who ever stood at the back of any Forum crowd! How dare you take advantage of your office to hurl vituperations at the members of this House? How dare you imply that other men have acted illegally?” He pointed his finger at Philippus, drew a breath, and roared, “I have put up with you long enough, Lucius Marcius Philippus! Either conduct yourself like a consul, or stay at home!”
When Crassus Orator resumed his place the House applauded strenuously; Philippus sat looking at the ground with head at an angle preventing anyone from seeing his face, while Caepio glared indignantly at Crassus Orator.
Sextus Caesar cleared his throat. “Thank you, Lucius Licinius, for reminding me and all who hold this office who and what the consul is. I take as much heed of your words as I hope Lucius Marcius has. And, since it seems none of us can conduct ourselves decently in this present atmosphere, I am concluding this meeting. The House will sit again eight days from now. We are in the midst of the ludi Romani, and I for one think it behooves us to find a more fitting way to salute Rome and Romulus than acrimonious and ill-mannered meetings of the Senate. Have a good holiday, Conscript Fathers, and enjoy the games.”
Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Drusus, Crassus Orator, Scaevola, Antonius Orator and Quintus Pompeius Rufus repaired to the house of Gaius Marius, there to drink wine and talk over the day’s events.
“Oh, Lucius Licinius, you squashed Philippus beautifully!” said Scaurus happily, gulping at his wine thirstily.
“Memorable,” said Antonius Orator.
“And I thank you too, Lucius Licinius,” said Drusus, smiling.
Crassus Orator accepted all this approval with becoming modesty, only saying, “Yes, well, he asked for it, the fool!”
Since Rome was still very hot, everyone had doffed his toga on entering Marius’s house and repaired to the cool fresh air of the garden, there to loll comfortably.
“What I want to know,” said Marius, seated on the coping of his peristyle pool, “is what Philippus is up to.”
“So do I,” said Scaurus.
“Why should he be up to anything?” asked Pompeius Rufus. “He’s just a bad-mannered lout. He’s never been any different.”
“No, there’s something working in the back of his grubby mind,” said Marius. “For a moment there today, I thought I’d grasped it. But then it went, and I can’t seem to remember.”
Scaurus sighed. “Well, Gaius Marius, of one thing you can be sure—we’ll find out! Probably at the next meeting.”
“It should be an interesting one,” said Crassus Orator, and winced, massaged his left shoulder. “Oh, why am I so tired and full of aches and pains these days? I didn’t give a very long speech today. But I was angry, that’s true.”
*
The night was to prove that Crassus Orator paid a higher price for his speech than he would have cared to, had he been asked. His wife, the younger Mucia of Scaevola the Augur, woke up at dawn quite chilled; cuddling against her husband for warmth, she discovered him horribly cold. He had died some hours earlier, at the height of his career and the zenith of his fame.
To Drusus, Marius, Scaurus, Scaevola, and those of similar ideas, his death was a catastrophe; to Philippus and Caepio, it was a judgment in their favor. With renewed enthusiasm Philippus and Caepio moved among the pedarii of the Senate, talking, persuading, coaxing. And felt themselves in excellent case when the Senate reconvened after the ludi Romani were over.
“I intend to ask again for a division upon the question as to whether the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus should be kept on the tablets,” said Philippus in a cooing voice, apparently determined to conduct himself like a model consul. “I do understand how tired of all this opposition to the laws of Marcus Livius many of you must be, and I am aware that most of you are convinced that the laws of Marcus Livius are absolutely valid. Now I am not arguing that the religious auspices were not observed, that the Comitial proceedings were not conducted legally, and that the consent of the Senate was not obtained before any move in the Comitia was made.”
He stepped to the very front of the dais, and spoke more loudly. “However, there is a religious impediment in existence! A religious impediment so large and so foreboding that we in all conscience cannot possibly ignore it. Why the gods should play such tricks is beyond me, I am no expert. But the fact remains that while the auguries and the omens were interpreted favorably before each and every meeting of the Plebeian Assembly held by Marcus Livius, up and down Italy were godly signs indicating a huge degree of divine wrath. I am an augur myself, Conscript Fathers. And it is very clear to me that sacrilege has been done.”
One hand went out; Philippus’s clerk filled it with a scroll Philippus peeled apart.
“On the fourteenth day before the Kalends of January— the day Marcus Livius promulgated his law regulating the courts and his law enlarging the Senate in the Senate—the public slaves went to the temple of Saturn to ready it for the next day’s festivities—the next day, if you remember, was the opening day of the Saturnalia. And they found the woolen bonds swaddling the wooden statue of Saturnus soaked with oil, a puddle of oil upon the floor, and the interior of the statue dry. The freshness of this leakage was not in doubt. Saturnus, everyone agreed at the time, was displeased about something!
“On the day that Marcus Livius Drusus passed his laws on the courts and the size of the Senate in the Plebeian Assembly, the slave-priest of Nemi was murdered by another slave, who, according to the custom there, became the new slave-priest. But the level of the water in the sacred lake at Nemi suddenly fell by a whole hand, and the new slave-priest died without doing battle, a terrible omen.
“On the day that Marcus Livius Drusus promulgated in the Senate his law disposing of the ager publicus, there was a bloody rain on the ager Campanus, and a huge plague of frogs on the ager publicus of Etruria.
“On the day that the lex Livia agraria was passed in the Plebeian Assembly, the priests of Lanuvium discovered that the sacred shields had been gnawed by mice—a most dreadful portent, and immediately lodged with our College of Pontifices in Rome.
“On the day that the tribune of the plebs Saufeius’s Board of Five was convened to commence parceling out the ager publicus of Italy and Sicily, the temple of Pietas on the Campus Martius near the Flaminian Circus was struck by lightning, and badly damaged.
“On the day the grain law of Marcus Livius Drusus was passed in the Plebeian Assembly, the statue of Diva Angerona was discovered to have sweated profusely. The bandage sealing her mouth had slipped down around her neck, and there were those who swore that they had heard her whispering the secret name of Rome, delighted that she could speak at last.
“On the Kalends of September, the day upon which Marcus Livius Drusus introduced in this House his proposed bill to give the Italians our precious citizenship, a frightful earthquake utterly destroyed the town of Mutina in Italian Gaul. This portent the seer Publius Cornelius Culleolus has interpreted as meaning that the whole of Italian Gaul is angry that it too is not to be rewarded with the citizenship. An indication, Conscript Fathers, that if we award the citizenship to peninsular Italy, all our other possessions will want it too.
“On the day that he publicly chastised me in this House, the eminent consular Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator died mysteriously in his bed, and was ice-cold in the morning.
“There are many more portents, Conscript Fathers,” said Philippus, hardly needing to raise his voice, so hushed was the chamber. “I have cited only those which actually occurred on the selfsame day as one of Marcus Livius Drusus’s laws was either promulgated or ratified, but I give you now a further list.
“A bolt of lightning damaged the statue of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, a frightful omen. On the last day of the ludi Romani just concluded, a bloody rain fell on the temple of Quirinus, but nowhere else—and how great a sign of godly wrath is that! The sacred spears of Mars moved. An earth tremor felled the temple of Mars in Capua. The sacred spring of Hercules in Ancona dried up for the first time on record, and there is no drought. A huge gulch of fire opened up in one of the streets of Puteoli. Every gate in the walls of the city of Pompeii suddenly and mysteriously swung shut.
“And there are more, Conscript Fathers, many more! I will have the full list posted on the rostra, so that everyone in Rome can see for himself how adamantly the gods condemn these laws of Marcus Livius Drusus. For they do! Look at the gods chiefly concerned! Pietas, who rules our loyalty and our family duties. Quirinus, the god of the assembly of Roman men. Jupiter Latiaris, who is the Latin Jupiter. Hercules, the protector of Roman military might and the patron of the Roman general. Mars, who is the god of war. Vulcan, who controls the lakes of fire beneath all Italy. Diva Angerona, who knows the secret name of Rome—which, if spoken, can ruin Rome. Saturnus, who keeps the wealth of Rome intact, and rules our stay in time.’’
“On the other hand,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus slowly, “all these omens could well be indicating how terrible matters will be for Italy and Rome if the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus are not kept on the tablets.”
Philippus ignored him, handing the scroll back to his clerk. “Post it on the rostra at once,” he said. He stepped down from the curule dais and stood in front of the tribunician bench. “I will see a division of this House. All those in favor of declaring the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus invalid will stand on my right. All those in favor of keeping the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus on the tablets will stand to my left. Now, if you please.”
“I will take the lead, Lucius Marcius,’’ said Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, getting to his feet. “As Pontifex Maximus, you have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt.’’
A silent House filed down from its tiers, many of the faces as white as the togas beneath; all but a handful of the senators stood on Philippus’s right, their eyes fixed upon the flagging.
“The division is conclusive,” said Sextus Caesar. “This House has moved that the laws of the tribunate of Marcus Livius Drusus be removed from our archives and the tablets destroyed. I shall convoke the Assembly of the Whole People to that effect three days from now.”
Drusus was the last man to leave the floor. When he did walk the short distance from Philippus’s left to his end of the tribunician bench, he kept his head up.
“You are, of course, entitled to interpose your veto, Marcus Livius,” said Philippus graciously as Drusus crossed in front of him; the senators all stopped in their tracks.
Drusus, his face quite blank, looked at Philippus blindly. “Oh, no, Lucius Marcius, I couldn’t do that,” he said gently. “I am not a demagogue! My duties as a tribune of the plebs are always undertaken with the consent of this assemblage, and my peers in this assemblage have declared my laws null and void. As is my duty, I will abide by the decision of my peers.”
“Which rather left,” said Scaurus proudly to Scaevola as the meeting broke up, “our dear Marcus Livius wearing the laurels!”
“It did indeed,” said Scaevola, and twitched his shoulders unhappily. “What do you really think about those omens?”
“Two things. The first, that in no other year has anyone ever bothered to collect natural disasters so assiduously. The second, that to me, if the omens suggest anything, it is that war with Italy will ensue if Marcus Livius’s laws are not upheld.”
Scaevola had of course voted with Scaurus and the other supporters of Drusus; he could not have done otherwise and continued to keep his friends. But he was clearly troubled, and said now, demurring, “Yes, but...”
“Quintus Mucius, you believe! said Marius incredulously.
“No, no, I’m not saying that!” said Scaevola crossly, his common sense warring with his Roman superstition. “Yet—how does one account for Diva Angerona’s sweating, and losing her gag?” His eyes filled with tears. “Or for the death of my first cousin Crassus, my dearest friend?’’
“Quintus Mucius,” said Drusus, who had caught up to the group, “I think Marcus Aemilius is right. All those omens are a sign of what will happen if my laws are invalidated.”
“Quintus Mucius, you are a member of the College of Pontifices,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus patiently. “It all began with the only believable phenomenon, the loss of the oil out of the wooden statue of Saturnus. But we have been expecting that to happen for years! That’s why the statue is swaddled in the first place! As for Diva Angerona—what easier than to sneak into her little shrine, yank down her bandage and give her a bath of some sticky substance guaranteed to leave drops behind? We are all aware that lightning tends to strike the highest point in an area, and you well know that the temple of Pietas was small in every way but one—height! As for earthquakes and gulches of fire and bloody rains and plagues of frogs— tchah! I refuse even to discuss them! Lucius Licinius died in his bed. We should all hope for such a pleasant end!”
“Yes, but—” Scaevola protested, still unconvinced.
“Look at him!” Scaurus exclaimed to Marius and Drusus. “If he can be gulled, how can we possibly blame the rest of those superstition-riddled idiots?”
“Do you not believe in the gods, Marcus Aemilius?” asked Scaevola, awestruck.
“Yes, yes, yes, of course I do! What I do not believe in, Quintus Mucius, are the machinations and interpretations of men who claim to be acting in the name of the gods! I never met an omen or a prophecy that couldn’t be interpreted in two diametrically opposite ways! And what makes Philippus such an expert? The fact that he’s an augur? He wouldn’t know a genuine omen if he tripped over it and it sat up and bit him on his pulverized nose! As for old Publius Cornelius Culleolus—he’s just what his name says he is, Walnut Balls! I would be prepared to take a very large bet with you, Quintus Mucius, that if some clever fellow had chased up the natural disasters and so-called unnatural events which occurred during the year of Saturninus’s second tribunate, he could have produced a list equally imposing! Grow up! Bring some of that healthy courtroom skepticism of yours into this situation, I beg of you!”
“I must say Philippus surprised me,” said Marius gloomily. “I bought him once. But I never realized how crafty the cunnus was.”
“Oh, he’s clever,” said Scaevola eagerly, anxious to divert Scaurus from his shortcomings. “I imagine he thought of this some time ago.” He laughed. “One thing we can be sure of—this wasn’t Caepio’s brilliant idea!”
“How do you feel, Marcus Livius?” asked Marius.
“How do I feel?” Drusus looked pinched about the mouth, and very tired. “Oh, Gaius Marius, I don’t honestly know anymore. It was a clever piece of work, that’s all.”
“You should have interposed your veto,” said Marius.
“In my shoes, you would have—and I wouldn’t have blamed you,” said Drusus. “But I cannot retract what I said at the beginning of my tribunate, please try to understand that. I promised then that I would heed the wishes of my peers in the Senate.”
“There won’t be any enfranchisement now,” said Scaurus.
“Whyever not?” asked Drusus, genuinely astonished.
“Marcus Livius, they’ve canceled all your laws! Or they will!”
“What difference can that make? Enfranchisement hasn’t gone to the Plebeian Assembly yet, I merely put it before the House. Which has voted not to recommend it to the Plebs. But I never promised the House that I wouldn’t take a law to the Plebs if they didn’t recommend it—I said I would seek their mandate first. I have acquitted myself of that promise. But I cannot stop now, just because the Senate said no. The process is not complete. The Plebs must say no first. But I shall try to persuade the Plebs to say yes,” said Drusus, smiling.
“Ye gods, Marcus Livius, you deserve to win!” said Scaurus.
“So I think too,” Drusus said. “Would you excuse me? I have some letters to write to my Italian friends. I must persuade them not to go to war, that the battle isn’t over yet.”
“Nonsense, it isn’t possible!” exclaimed Scaevola. “If the Italians really do mean war should we refuse them the franchise—and I believe you there, Marcus Livius, I really do, otherwise I would have put myself on Philippus’s right— it will take years for them to prepare for war!”
“And there, Quintus Mucius, you’re wrong. They are already on a war footing. Better prepared for war than Rome is.”