Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Caelius did give a terrific speech in support of Milo, who appeared dressed in the blindingly white toga of a consular candidate and stood to listen with a nice mixture of interest and humility. To strike first was a good technique, and Caelius an extremely good orator. When he invited Milo to speak as well, Milo gave a version of the clash on the Via Appia which firmly placed the blame for it on Clodius. As he had worked up his speech very carefully, he sounded splendid. The Plebs went away thoughtful, having been reminded by Milo that Clodius had resorted to violence long before any rival street gangs had come into being, and that Clodius was the enemy of both the First and the Second Classes. Milo himself proceeded from the Forum to the Campus Martius; Pompey was definitely home again. "I'm very sorry, Titus Annius," said Pompey's steward, "but Gnaeus Pompeius is indisposed." A great guffaw of laughter emanated from some inner room, and Pompey's voice came clearly on its dying echoes: "Oh, Scipio, what a thing to happen!" Milo stiffened. Scipio? What was Metellus Scipio doing closeted with Magnus? Milo walked back to Rome in a lather of fear. Pompey had been so enigmatic. Had he made a promise? "You might be pardoned for thinking so" was what he had said. At the time it had seemed crystal clear. Do away with Clodius, and I will reward you. But was that really what he meant? Milo licked his lips, swallowed, became conscious that his heart was beating much faster than a brisk walk could provoke in such a fit man as Titus Annius Milo. "Jupiter!" he muttered aloud. "He set me up! He's flirting with the boni; I'm just a handy tool. Yes, the boni like me. But will they go on liking me if they learn to like Magnus better?" And to think that he had gone today prepared to tell Pompey he would step down as a candidate for consul! Well, not now. No!

Plancus Bursa, Pompeius Rufus and Sallustius Crispus called another meeting of the Plebeian Assembly to answer Caelius and Milo. It was equally well attended, and by the same men. The best speaker of the three was Sallust, who followed the rousing speeches of Bursa and Pompeius Rufus with an even better one. "Absolute claptrap!" Sallust shouted. "Give me one good reason why a man accompanied by thirty slaves armed only with swords should attack a man whose bodyguard consisted of one hundred and fifty bully-boys in cuirasses, helmets and greaves! Armed with swords, daggers and spears! Rubbish! Nonsense! Publius Clodius wasn't foolish! Would Caesar himself have attacked were Caesar in a similar situation? No! Caesar does spectacular things with very few men, Quirites, but only if he thinks he can win! What kind of battleground is the Via Appia for a heavily outnumbered civilian? Flat as a board, no shelter, and, on the stretch where it happened, no help either! And why, if it happened the way Milo's mouthpiece Caelius and Milo himself! say it happened, did a defenseless, humble innkeeper die? We are supposed to believe that Clodius killed him! Why? It was Milo stood to gain by the despicable murder of a poor little man like the innkeeper, not Clodius! Milo, who freed his slaves, if you please, and so very generously that they've scattered far and wide can't be traced, let alone found! But how clever to take along your hysterical wife on a mission of murder! For the only man who might have been able to give us the true story, Quintus Fufius Calenus, was so busy inside a carpentum dealing with a panicked woman that he can say and I believe him, for I know the lady well! " Chuckles everywhere. " he can say he saw nothing! The only testimony we can ever hear about the circumstances in which Publius Clodius actually died is testimony from Milo and his henchmen, murderers all!" Sallust paused, grinning; a neat touch, to disarm Caelius by himself referring to his affair with Fausta. He drew a long breath and launched into his peroration. "All of Rome knows that Publius Clodius was a disruptive influence, and there are many of us who deplored his strategies and tactics. But the same can be said for Milo, whose methods are far less constitutional than Clodius's. Why murder a man who threatens your public career? There are other ways of dealing with such men! Murder is not the Roman way! Murder is inevitably an indication of even nastier things! Murder, Quirites, is the way a man starts to undermine the State! To take it over! A man stands in your path and refuses to get out of it, and you murder him? When you might simply pick him up is Milo a weakling? and lift him out of your path? This is Milo's first murder, but will it be his last? That is the real question we should all be asking ourselves! Who among us can boast a bodyguard like Milo's, far larger than the mere one hundred and fifty he had with him on the Via Appia? Cuirassed, helmeted, greaved! Swords, daggers, spears! Publius Clodius always had a bodyguard, but not like Milo's professionals! I say that Milo intends to overthrow the State! It's he who has created this climate! It's he who has started on a program of murder! Who will be next? Plautius, another consular candidate? Metellus Scipio? Pompeius Magnus, the greatest threat of all? Quirites, I beg you, put this mad dog down! Make sure his tally of murder remains at one!" There were no Senate steps to stand on, but most of the Senate was standing in the well of the Comitia to hear. When Sallust was done, Gaius Claudius Marcellus Major raised his voice from the well. "I convoke the Senate at once!" he roared. "The temple of Bellona on the Campus Martius!" "Ah, things are happening," said Bibulus to Cato. "We're to meet in a venue Pompeius Magnus can attend." "They'll propose that he be appointed Dictator," said Cato. "I won't hear of it, Bibulus!" "Nor will I. But I don't think it will be that." "What, then?" "A Senatus Consultum Ultimum. We need martial law, and who better to enforce it than Pompeius? But not as Dictator." Bibulus was right. If Pompey expected to be asked again, and this time officially, to assume the dictatorship, he gave no sign of it when the House met in Bellona an hour later. He sat in his toga praetexta in the front row among the consulars, and listened to the debate with just the right expression of interest. When Messala Rufus proposed that the House pass a Senatus Consultum Ultimum authorizing Pompey to raise troops and defend the State but not as Dictator Pompey acceded graciously without displaying any chagrin or anger. Messala Rufus gave him the chair gratefully; as the senior consul last year, he had perforce been conducting the meetings, but beyond organizing the appointment of an interrex he could do nothing. And in that he had failed. Pompey didn't. The big jars full of water which held the little wooden balls of the lots were brought out on the spot, and the names of all the patrician leaders of the Senate's decuries were inscribed on the wooden balls. They fitted into one jar; the lid was tied down, the jar spun quickly, and out of the spout near the top a little ball popped. The name on it was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who was the first Interrex. But the lots proceeded until every wooden ball was ejected from the jar not that any member of the Senate wished an endless string of interreges, as had happened last year. The order had to be established, that was all. Everyone confidently expected that the second Interrex, Messala Niger, would successfully hold the elections. "I suggest," said Pompey, "that the College of Pontifices insert an extra twenty-two days in the calendar this year after the month of February. An intercalaris will afford the consuls something fairly close to a full term. Is that possible, Niger?" he asked of Messala Niger, second Interrex and a pontifex. "It will be done," said Niger, beaming. "I also suggest that I issue a decree throughout Italia and Italian Gaul that no male Roman citizen between the ages of forty and seventeen be exempted from military service." A chorus of ayes greeted this. Pompey dismissed the meeting, well satisfied, and returned to his villa, where he was joined shortly afterward by Plancus Bursa, who had received the nod from Pompey indicating a summons. "A few things," said Pompey, stretching luxuriously, "Whatever you want, Magnus." "What I don't want, Bursa, are elections. You know Sextus Cloelius, of course." "Well enough. He did a good job on the crowd when Clodius burned. Not a gentleman, but very useful." "Good. Without Clodius I understand the crossroads college dissidents are leaderless, but Cloelius ran them for Clodius, and now he can run them for me." "And?" "I want no elections," Pompey said again. "I ask nothing else of Cloelius than that. Milo is still a strong contender for the consulship, and if he should get in, he might manage to be a bigger force in Rome than I'd care to see him become. We just can't have Claudians murdered, Bursa." Plancus Bursa cleared his throat noisily. "Might I suggest, Magnus, that you acquire a well-armed and very strong bodyguard? And perhaps give it out that Milo has threatened you? That you fear you might become his next victim?" "Oh, good thinking, Bursa!" cried Pompey, delighted. "Sooner or later," Bursa said, "Milo will have to be tried." "Definitely. But not yet. Let's wait and see what happens when the interreges can't manage to hold elections."