John Roberts - The River God

“Why, Lepidus, I hardly recognized you without your fat backside planted in your folding chair.”

“No markets today,” he said, beaming. “I decided to come lend a hand to you poor, sweating drudges. Surely you were expecting me.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t a Senate messenger call on you last night?”

“I’ve been here all night.”

“Decius! This devotion to duty is astounding! Anyway, the interrex has summoned an emergency meeting of the Senate to be held in the Temple of Jupiter tonight before sundown. All the aediles are to assess the condition of the City and submit a report.”

“Fine idea,” I said, “but you can just about see it all from here.” I was thinking that a Senate meeting was just what I wanted.

“Odd sort of fiood, isn’t it?” Lepidus said. The growing light was making the spectacle visible. “All that water just sitting there, more like a lake than a rampaging river. I’ve seen fioods that tore whole buildings from their foundations. I don’t think this one is going to be so bad. Maybe the water will just recede and there will just be some mopping and bailing to do.”

“This fiood,” I told him, “has turned the entire lower part of Rome into a vast chamber pot. And it’s going to stay right there until Helios dries it up.”

“Is that true? Well, my house is right on top of the Quirinal, well away from it all.”

“Lepidus, civic virtue like yours is what made Rome the greatest power in the world.”

“Here comes Cato,” he said, ignoring me. “This should be fun. What do you think he’s here for?”

“He’s here to confer with me,” I told him.

Again I received a stare of round-eyed wonder. “Cato conferring with you? Truly, this is a day for miracles! Let it not be an omen!” He accompanied this old formula against evil with an elaborate traditional hand gesture. There was more laughter from his stooges.

Cato had indeed arrived, and he was not alone. He had at least twenty men with him, most of them young equites or junior senators. I recognized few of them by sight for they were not members of the set with whom I socialized most. They were all stern-faced men with close-cropped or shaven scalps. Ancestor worshipper s t o a man, I thought; stoics an d defender s o f ol d Roma n virtue. Their sour faces were scarred and graced with gaps where teeth had been knocked out, and their knuckles were swollen and broken. These were men who trained hard on the Campus Martius and brawled hard in the streets. I might not invite them to my parties, but they were just the sort of men I wanted at my back that day.

Cato shouldered Lepidus aside. “Hail, Aedile!” he shouted. Lepidus and his lackeys strolled off, smirking and tapping their temples to indicate what they thought of Cato’s soundness of mind.

“I have to get this message off right away, Cato. Give me your opinion.” Baldly, I told him of the condition of the sewers and how I was going to use their horrid state to convene a religious court.

“Unsanctified corpses in the sewers! Infamous!” Cato yelled. “No wonder the gods have forsaken us!” Then, in a quieter voice, “So you are going to prosecute them for sacrilege if you can’t get them for corruption? That is most ingenious, Decius Caecilius.”

“I have my moments. What do you think of this letter?” I handed him a copy, and he began to mumble, reading the words to himself. He had gotten no more than halfway through it before he threw it down. “You moron! Did you learn absolutely nothing from your teachers of style and composition?”

“Better men than you have praised my prose style!” I said, offended.

“This is not some trivial, chatty missive full of gossip and politics! This is a document touching sacerdotal matters to be read by the Pontifex Maximus! You’d better let me show you how this is done.” He slapped the table with a calloused palm, producing a sound like a snapping board. Cato practiced hard with sword, shield, and spear almost every day. “Attend me!” he bellowed to the scribes. “Set this down exactly as I dictate, or I’ll have the hides off your backs!” They jumped at the noise, grabbed fresh sheets, dipped their reed pens, and watched him with rapt, worshipful attention. They never behaved that way with me.

In a slow, sonorous voice, Cato began to translate my letter into the old-fashioned Latin he adored, using forms that had been ancient in the days of Numa Pompilius, the rolling vowels and clanging consonants sounding like a battle hymn. The crowd gathered around the temple silenced to hear the performance, even the ones who didn’t know what it was about and scarcely understood the archaic words. It was almost worth getting up early to hear, and he received a handsome round of applause when he had finished.

We quickly scanned the copies for mistakes; then I sealed the best of them into a copper message tube and handed it to the horse messenger, bidding him ride like the wind for Caesar’s winter camp in Gaul, where I judged Caesar and his army would be for at least another ten days, if I knew Gaulish weather. With luck, decent road conditions, and good, grain-fed horses, he could be back with Caesar’s reply in eight days. Caesar’s system of relay stations was incredibly quick and efficient. This was not so that he could keep in contact with the Senate, which he despised and ignored, but so that he could trumpet the news of his latest victories in the Forum.

We then dispatched foot messengers with copies to the heads of the various priestly colleges, to the tribune of the people, and one to the interrex . I would have given much to see Scipio’s face when he read it.

“Now you must read this. It was among the records I took from the Tabularium two days ago. I only found it late yesterday afternoon, and I’ve discovered quite a bit since then. Do you remember an aedile named Lucilius?”

He took the rolled up papyrus. “Quite well. I thought the man very promising, the sort of conscientious official we rarely see any more. He disappointed me, though. Died quite squalidly.” He began to read loudly, but his voice lowered as consternation replaced his usual expression. He handed it back. “All right. Tell me about this.”

Then Cato sat by me, and we began some serious plotting. I gave him a quick account of my findings of the past few days. He said nothing while I spoke, but I could tell by his various nods and snarls at events and names that he was paying attention and had deep feelings about at least some of it.

“It may not have been such a good idea to send Metellus Scipio a copy of the letter,” he said, when I was finished. “Not only is he implicated in this, but he is interrex . The powers of that office are not entirely clear. They are certainly not those of a dictator, he has no imperium , and he can’t command armies and won’t go out to govern a province; but in civil matters he is in a better position than any pair of consuls. He has no colleague to obstruct him, and some authorities maintain that an interrex can even override a tribunician veto. He might take action against you.”

“I don’t believe he will.”

“Don’t count on family loyalty,” Cato warned. “He is a Metellus by adoption, not by birth.”

“I’m perfectly aware of that. I think he will comply for three reasons: First, he is prouder of his heritage as a Scipio than of his adoption as a Caecilian-”

“That is perfectly understandable,” Cato said.

“-and everyone expects a Scipio to act as a savior of the Republic. Second, he will be stepping down soon anyway and isn’t likely to abuse the powers of the office at this late date. Third, I don’t think he was directly involved anyway.”