John Roberts - A Point of Law

“At least it wasn’t a snake,” I said. “When a snake gets into the temple and swallows a goose egg, the city’s on edge for days waiting for disaster. People need something to take their minds off all this peace and quiet. Now would be a good time for some games. It’s been almost two months since the Plebeian Games and the next official celebrations won’t be until spring. Hasn’t anybody important died? A good munera would be just the thing.”

“Valerius Flaccus is just back from Cilicia. He was at the ludus yesterday arranging for his father’s funeral games, but that won’t be until March.” Hermes trained with weapons at the Statilian school on most mornings when he had no duties to perform for me, like that day’s canvassing for votes.

“What a time for Rome’s wealthy and bereaved to turn stingy.” One by one my men left us to return to their own homes, accepting my thanks for their support and promising to be at my home before dawn to accompany me to the basilica. By the time we reached home, only Hermes and the torch boy were with me.

Once inside I sent Hermes off to his bed and sought my own. Julia was already asleep. I threw off my clothes and lay down beside her, pleasantly tired and only slightly annoyed by the day’s proceedings. It was still good to be back in Rome, and anything was better than being in Gaul.

In the morning the slaves brought water for me to splash on my face, and within a few minutes I was sitting in the triclinium being shaved, having my hair dressed, and eating breakfast all at once. I was almost awake. Julia came in to supervise my grooming.

“Did you find out anything yesterday?” I asked her.

“Some odd things, but you don’t have time to hear about it if you’re going to be in the Forum at sunrise. Come home for lunch and I’ll tell you about it then.”

“All right. In the meantime, make a few morning calls, gossip with your friends, and see what you can learn about the candidates for the tribuneships, particularly Scribonius Curio.”

“Curio?” she said, but I was already out the door.

Outside the morning air was cool, but not truly cold. This was because we were still using the old calendar, which Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus , had allowed to get lamentably out of synchronization with the true season. Thus, while we were still some days prior to the Ides of December, the true date was closer to late October in the new calendar. Caesar’s calendar (actually the work of Sosigenes, the wonderful Alexandrian astronomer) makes more sense, but it lacks the variety and unpredictability of our old one.

By the time we reached the Forum, the sky was getting gray over the crest of the Esquiline. We passed by the Curia Hostilia, the old Senate House, which was still streaked with black and was near-ruinous. In the riots following the death of Clodius, it had been severely damaged by fire, and, as yet, nobody had undertaken its restoration.

Past the great portico of the Temple of Saturn, where I had spent a miserable year as treasury quaestor, we came to the Basilica Opimia, which was the only one where courts were sitting that year. The Basilica Porcia had been damaged by the same fire that almost destroyed the Curia, the huge Basilica Aemilia was undergoing lavish restorations, and the Basilica Sempronia was devoted solely to business purposes due to the shortage of basilica space.

We trudged up the steps, passing a drunk who had staggered his way homeward as far as the Basilica Opimia, then wrapped himself in his cloak and passed out on the steps. Well, I had awakened in many strange parts of Rome myself in past years.

My father, naturally, was already there. “Slept late enough, did you?”

“We still beat the crowd to the Forum,” I answered.

Gradually the light grew, and the crowd duly arrived: my own supporters and a miscellaneous pack of idlers, country people just arrived to take part in the elections, vendors, mountebanks, beggars, and senators.

Juventius came trudging up the steps in his purple-bordered toga, preceded by his lictors.

“I see the Metellans are here in force,” he said, as he reached the top. “Where are Fulvius and his people?”

“Waiting to make a grand entrance, no doubt,” I said. “Now what-”

“This man is dead!” someone shouted. I looked down the steps to see a little group of people gawping at an inert form on the steps. It seemed that the drunk was actually a corpse. Now that the sun’s rays were slanting into the Forum, I could see that the dark cloak in which he was wrapped was actually a heavily bloodstained toga.

“Here’s a fine omen,” Juventius said, annoyed. “We may have to meet outdoors if the building has to be purified.”

“It looks like he died on the steps,” I pointed out. “It isn’t as if he died inside.”

“If this were a temple,” Father mused, “a purification would be necessary if one drop of blood struck any stone of the building. I’m not sure if that holds true for a basilica though. We may have to consult with a pontifex. Where is Scipio?”

“It’s all a great bother anyway you look at it,” Juventius said. He turned to one of his lictors. “Let’s have a look at him.”

The lictor went down the steps and carefully raised a flap of the toga with the butt end of his fasces.

“Does anyone here know this man?” Juventius demanded of the crowd in general. We all went closer to see.

“I think we all know him,” I said, feeling a bit queasy, not at the sight, which was a common one, but at its implications. “I’ve only seen him once, and that briefly, but I believe this is Marcus Fulvius.”

"Looks like the trial’s off,” said someone, sounding disappointed. Probably, I thought, one of the jury, who had been hoping one of us would offer him a bribe. We went back to the top of the steps to talk this matter over.

Word spread through the Forum with bewildering speed and within seconds the whole mob had flocked to the western end, at the foot of the Capitoline, to get a look at the body and at us.

“This could get ugly,” Juventius said.

“Why?” I asked him. “The man is-was-all but unknown. It’s not like he was Tribune of the People or a gang leader like Clodius.”

“You know how it works,” Juventius said. “He was a nobody. He dared to challenge one of the great families. He ended up dead. How do you think they’re going to interpret it?”

“The man was an impertinent scoundrel who must have had plenty of enemies,” Father said. “Anyone could have killed him.”

“Would just anyone,” Juventius replied hotly, “have killed him and left his body on the steps of this basilica on the morning his case was to be heard in my court?”

“Lower your voice,” I advised him. “You’re encouraging a bad mood here yourself.”

“Oh, I am? I do hope you had plenty of witnesses as to your whereabouts last night, young Decius Caecilius, because you now face charges a good deal more serious than skinning some pack of provincials and tax-gouging publicani .”

“Are you calling me a suspect in this man’s murder?” I shouted, forgetting my own advice. Among other things, I hated being called “Young Decius,” even when my father was there.

“Uh-oh,” Hermes said, touching my arm and pointing to the southeast. A pack of determined men were pushing their way through the crowd. In their forefront was a man with a swollen nose and two blackened eyes. He was the one Hermes had punched the previous day. They shoved everyone out of their way until they stood over the body of Fulvius. At the bloody sight, they cried out in dismay.

“We met this morning at the house of Marcus Fulvius,” said the black-eyed man, his voice slightly distorted by his swollen nasal passages. “We waited for him to come out so we could accompany him to court. When he did not come out by gray dawn, we made search for him. He was nowhere to be found. We came to the Forum expecting to find him here, and when we reached the Temple of the Public Lares, at the north end of the Forum, we heard that someone lay murdered in the basilica.