Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

Meto was not ignored. The purpose of our retinue was evident at a glance to many in the crowd — an augur, father, son, and followers headed for the Capitoline — and there were spontaneous outbursts of applause for the young man taking his first walk as an adult through the Forum. Meto, smiling happily, eyes wide, seemed dazzled. I was not even sure if he realized that the bursts of applause were for him.

The press of bodies was so dense that several times we had to stop and wait for an opening before proceeding. All around, from one end of the Forum to the other, I caught snatches of heated conversations. Near the Temple of Castor and Pollux two men were discussing an incident in the theatre. The mention of Cicero caught my ear.

'—and the speech he made afterwards was the best he's ever made!' said the first man.

'Absurd!' countered the second. 'It was the low point of his career. Cicero should have resigned in disgrace! Defending such an unfair and un-Roman practice! Once upon a time the theatre was the one place where Romans were truly equal. When I was a boy, the rich and poor all sat shoulder to shoulder. We booed the villains and laughed at the clowns and lusted after the young lovers as a single body.'

'Everyone equal in the theatre? The first four rows have always been for senators.'

'Because being in the Senate is a mark of achievement and distinguished ancestry. But why should there be special seats for certain people just because they have money? They're common folk, the same as I am. We should all sit together, like family, instead of splitting ourselves up between rich andpoor. What, do I smell too strong from honest sweat for a perfumed merchant to sit next to me? Otho's law is a scandal, it's bad for Rome, and for Cicero to defend it—'

'Otho's law makes perfect sense, as you would know if you had really listened to Cicero's speech.'

'I'd rather listen to an actor reciting Plautus — and from the best seats in the theatre, if I make the effort to show up early enough to get them, rather than being shooed away because I don't happen to be of the rich equestrian class, like Cicero's ramify! Why should I have to sit behind some rat-headed equestrian who blocks my view?'

'Obviously you'd rather spit venom than deal in cogent argument.'

'Very well, dismiss me because I never had schooling in rhetoric! Perhaps a fist in your nose would be more convincing?'

Fortunately, an opening in the throng allowed us to pass at that moment. I leaned towards Rufus. 'What is all this scandal about an incident in the theatre? You mentioned it before.'

'You haven't heard about it?'

'No.'

He rolled his eyes. 'It's been the talk of the city for months. It never stops! The easiest way to pick an argument in Rome! You know how it goes sometimes — a simple little incident suddenly attracts everyone's attention, ignites a controversy and becomes the rallying point for issues far greater than anything inherent in the incident itself Well, a few years ago Lucius Roscius Otho was tribune and passed a bill reserving fourteen rows of seats in the theatre for the wealthy equestrians.'

'Yes, I remember.'

'It seemed a liberal measure at the time, at least within the Senate. There havealways been at least four rows reserved for senators; therefore, Otho argued, why not reserve some rows for equestrians? The moneyed set who can't get into the Senate were very pleased, and they've been financing Otho's political career ever since. This year he's serving a term as praetor, and as such he's made sure that his seating law has been scrupulously enforced at all the public festivals. Well, it was in the month of Aprilis, at the very start of the theatre season during the Megalesian Games, at a performance of The Girl from Andros, when Otho himself appeared in the audience. A bunch of young rowdies at the back of the theatre began to boo and hiss, saying they wanted better seats, and why couldn't they sit in some empty seats up in the equestrian rows? They shouted epithets at Otho. In response a contingent in the equestrian section began to applaud Otho. This was taken as an insult by the rowdies, who saw the equestrians' applause as a way of thanking Otho for not forcing them to sit with such trash. More hissing, more cheering, and soon there were threats and spitballs being hurled. The crowd was on the verge of a riot

'Almost immediately, word of the incident got to Cicero in his house on the Palatine — Cicero's eyes and ears are everywhere, and nothing important happens in the city that he doesn't know about at once. A short while later the consul himself appeared at the theatre, with an armed bodyguard. He summoned everyone in the place to the Temple of Bellona and delivered a splendid speech that ended with the whole crowd cheering Otho and returning to their seats to watch the play without further interruption.'

'What did Cicero say?'

'I wasn't there to hear it myself, but I'm sure that Cicero's secretary Tiro transcribed a copy, if you care to read it. Cicero cannot open his mouth without Tiro's scribbling every utterance, as if his master were an oracle. You know that Cicero can be quite convincing when he defends privilege and order. I believe he dwelled upon Otho's honourable service to the state, and scolded those who would be so crude as to hiss and boo an upstanding Roman magistrate. Then he defended extending privileges to the equestrians; not hard for him to do — he comes from the equestrian class himself, of course,' said Rufus, with a patrician's disdainful lift of the eyebrow. 'It's my theory that the more hot-blooded members of the crowd simply got bored and ran off to expend their energies elsewhere, while the more sedate audience members sheepishly returned to enjoy the comedy. Cicero counted the affair as a personal triumph.'

'From the argument we just overheard, there must be those who disagree.'

"The controversy rages on and on. It's always little things that prick at people. Catilina has picked it up as a campaign issue, naturally. Catilina is always ready to be the champion of the discontented.'

A little later I overheard another argument, this one between an orator on a makeshift wooden pedestal and a citizen who refused to let him deliver his speech, engaging him in a heated debate instead.

'The Rullan land reform would have changed everything for the better!' insisted the orator.

'Nonsense!' shouted the citizen. 'It was one of the most poorly thought-out pieces of legislation ever proposed, and Cicero was right to speak out against it'

'Cicero is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Optimates.'

'And why not? It's up to the Best People to speak out against these mad schemes put forward by Caesar simply to curry favour with the mob — and to get his hands on Egypt, into the deal.'

'It was Rullus who proposed the law, not Caesar.'

'Rullus opens his mouth and Caesar's words come out'

'Very well, then, we agree that the argument was not Rullus against Cicero, but Caesar against the Optimates,' said the orator.

'Exactly!'

'And you must also agree that if the Rullan bill had become law, there could have been redistribution of land to the people who need it without recourse to violence or unfair confiscation.'

'Absurd! It would never have worked. Who in Rome wants to head out for the countryside and become a farmer, anyway, when here in the city there's the circus and the festivals and the free grain dole?'

'It's attitudes like that that are ruining the Republic'

'It's Romans who are ruining the Republic, because they've grown soft and lazy. That's why we need the Optimates to keep their hands on the tiller.'

'Their hands in the till, you mean. Better to have the hands of the common man on a plough.'

'Ridiculous — look at the mess up in Etruria with Sulla's veterans. Not one in ten of them turned out to be a decent farmer. Now they're all bankrupt and looking to that demagogue Catilina to bail them out, with fire and sword if he has to.'