John Roberts - The Tribune's curse

“Consul, welcome! You do my house honor!” He rushed to the old man’s side and led him to the place of honor with his own hand.

“Nonsense, Praetor Urbanus,” Crassus said, apparently in high good humor. “I’m just making a few calls after dinner with the Pontifical College. We’ve been meeting all day, and I’m bored out of my mind. I can only stay a short while.”

“Stay until you depart for the East. My house is yours,” Milo said, magnanimously. He clapped his hands, and the consul’s place was immediately loaded with sweetmeats and iced wine. If Milo was being more than correct in receiving a consul, Fausta was not. She looked on with a coolness bordering contempt.

For my own part, I was shocked. This was the first close look I’d had of Crassus since returning to Rome, and the deterioration since I had last beheld him was marked. His color was high, but only in the cheeks and nose, and that only from the wine. Otherwise, his complexion was gray and deeply lined. His white hair was falling out in patches, and the cords of his neck stood out beneath his chin wattles like lyre strings. The neck itself was scrawny, and upon it his head wobbled like a ball floating upon agitated water.

“Won’t be long now,” Crassus said. “My legions will drive King Orodes of Parthea and his cowardly, savage horsemen to ground, and we’ll bag the lot! Takes more than arrows to frighten Roman soldiers, eh?”

“Of course, you have our heartiest wishes for a swift victory, Consul,” Milo said warmly, managing to keep his smile intact. Most of us shouted traditional congratulations. Even I managed a weak cheer.

Crassus contrived a lopsided, fatuous smile, as if he’d already won. “I’ll bring Orodes home in golden chains and give Rome such a triumph as will make everyone forget Pompey and Lucullus and all the rest!” He raised his cup, slopping wine over his beringed hand. “Death to the Parthians!”

We returned the toast as if we meant it, covering our embarrassment with a lot of old battle slogans. Crassus seemed satisfied with this and nodded away as a slave dried off his hand.

“Jupiter protect us!” I whispered. “Is this really what we are going to send to command an army?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Messius in a voice as low. “At least, he will if he ever leaves the City.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard that a number of influential men have sworn to prevent him from going to join his army when he steps down from office. They say they’ll restrain him by force if need be.”

“I won’t say it’s a bad idea,” I told him, “but I don’t see how they can do that lawfully.”

“People who fear a catastrophe don’t worry much about fine points of law. They may whip up the Plebeian Assembly to stop him by mob action.”

He was speaking of the tribunes, of course. They were the ones who had the greatest influence with that body, and of all the year’s officials, Gallus and Ateius were the most venomously opposed to the Parthian war. This could mean blood on the streets again.

“What about that other one who got the law passed giving Crassus the command? Was it Trebonius?” I asked.

Messius nodded. “He was the only one among the tribunes who was really for the war, but with Crassus’s money and Pompey’s prestige behind him, one was enough. He managed to line up all the other tribunes except the two who’re in the Forum every day. All the rest are a pack of timeservers who’ve spent the year dawdling over the minutiae of Caesar’s agrarian laws and the doings of the land commissioners.” He was referring to one of the burning issues of the day: a series of proposed reforms that were unendingly controversial at the time but are incredibly boring even to think about now.

Crassus chatted with Milo, and the rest of us returned to our small talk. When the dinner was concluded, we strolled about the renovated house, socializing and gossiping. I soon found fat old Lisas by the salt pool, talking with a sturdy-looking young man of soldierly bearing. The genial old pervert greeted me with a welcoming smile.

“Decius Caecilius, my old friend! I’ve just spent the most enjoyable evening speaking with your lovely and most noble wife. Have you met young Caius Cassius?”

“I don’t believe so.” I took the young man’s hand. His direct blue eyes were set in a blocky face of hard planes, burned dark by exposure. He had the thick neck common to wrestlers and to those who train seriously for warfare, developed by wearing a helmet every day from boyhood on.

“The martial young gentleman accompanies Crassus to Parthia,” Lisas said. “I have been telling him what I know of the place and the people.”

“The honorable ambassador warns me not to underestimate the Parthians,” Cassius said. “He says that they are more warlike than we imagine and treacherous in their dealings.” He spoke with an earnestness rare in Romans of his generation. It went well with his soldierly bearing.

“For a people recently settled down from a nomadic existence, they are sophisticated,” Lisas said. “They are cunning in the art of horseback archery, and one should always beware their invitations to parley.”

“I don’t expect that they’ll have any cause to parley except when they surrender,” Cassius said. “The bow hasn’t been made that can send a shaft through a Roman shield, and they can ride around all they like. Sooner or later, they’ll have to come to close quarters to decide the issue, and that’s when we’ll finish them.”

“This is what we all hope,” Lisas said, none too confidently.

“What will be your capacity?” I asked Cassius.

“Military tribune. I was sponsored by Lucullus and confirmed by the Senate.”

Military tribune in those days was a most ambiguous position, a sort of trying-out stage for a young man embarking upon a public career. He might spend the campaign running errands at headquarters. But if he proved promising and capable, he could be granted an important command. All was at the discretion of the general.

“You have my heartiest wishes for a successful and glorious campaign,” I said, with some sincerity. It wasn’t his fault that he was to be commanded by one of the men I most despised.

“I thank you. And now, if you will give me leave, I must go pay my respects to the consul.” He departed, and as he went, I felt cheered to know that we still produced dutiful young men. Because of his later notoriety Cassius’s part in the Parthian war came into question, but as far as I was concerned, any officer who brought himself and his men out of that fiasco alive had my admiration, and I never really lost respect for him.

“An excellent young nobleman,” Lisas said. “One could wish that he had a worthier commander.”

“Don’t tell me you’re against the Parthian war, too,” I said, snagging a full cup from a passing tray.

He shrugged his fat shoulders, and his slaves stood by, alert lest he should topple. “Elimination of Parthia would mean one less threat to Egypt. Were the Roman forces to be commanded by General Pompey, or Gabinius, or even Caesar, busy as that gentleman is, I would have no objection.”

“Surely you don’t object because Crassus is in his dotage?” I said. Ptolemy Auletes remained in power through Roman support, but I suspected that a slightly weaker Rome would be to his liking.

“You are unaware, perhaps, of the consul’s activities when my sovereign master, the most glorious King Ptolemy, was here in Rome almost from the time you departed until last year?”

I had some vague memory of letters mentioning something at the time, but I had been so diverted by terror for my own life that scandals in the capital interested me very little. “I’m afraid not. Will you tell me?”