Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

The curule elections were held a little later in Quinctilis than usual, and the favored candidates were definitely Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso. They canvassed strenuously, but were too canny to give Cato any opportunity to cry bribery. Capricious public opinion swung away from the boni again; it promised to be a good election result for the triumvirs. At which point, scant days before the curule elections, Lucius Vettius crawled out from beneath his stone. He approached young Curio, whose Forum speeches were directed mostly in Pompey's direction these days, and told him that he knew of a plan to assassinate Pompey. Then he followed this up by asking young Curio if he would join the conspiracy. Curio listened intently and pretended to be interested. After which he told his father, for he had not the kidney of a conspirator or an assassin. The elder Curio and his son were always at loggerheads, but their differences went no further than wine, sexual frolics and debt; when danger threatened, the Scribonius Curio ranks closed up. The elder Curio notified Pompey at once, and Pompey called the Senate into session. Within moments Vettius was summoned to testify. At first the disgraced knight denied everything, then broke down and gave some names: the son of the future consular candidate Lentulus Spinther, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, hitherto known as Caepio Brutus. These names were so bizarre no one could believe them; young Spinther was neither a member of the Clodius Club nor famed for his indiscretions, Lepidus's son had an old history of rebellion but had done nothing untoward since his return from exile, and the very idea of Brutus as an assassin was ludicrous. Whereupon Vettius announced that a scribe belonging to Bibulus had brought him a dagger sent by the housebound junior consul. Afterward Cicero was heard to say that it was a shame Vettius had no other source of a dagger, but in the House everyone understood the significance of the gesture: it was Bibulus's way of saying that the projected crime had his support. "Rubbish!" cried Pompey, sure of one thing. "Marcus Bibulus himself took the trouble to warn me back in May that there was a plot afoot to assassinate me. Bibulus can't be involved." Young Curio was called in. He reminded everyone that Paullus was in Macedonia, and apostrophized the whole business as a tissue of lies. The Senate was inclined to agree, but felt it wise to detain Vettius for further questioning. There were too many echoes of Catilina; no one wanted the odium of executing any Roman, even Vettius, without trial, so this plot was not going to be allowed to escalate out of senatorial control. Obedient to the Senate's wishes, Caesar as senior consul ordered his lictors to take Lucius Vettius to the Lautumiae and chain him to the wall of his cell, as this was the only preventative for escape from that rickety prison. Though on the surface the affair seemed utterly incongruous, Caesar felt a stirring of disquiet; this was one occasion, self preservation told him, when every effort ought to be made to keep the People apprised of developments. Matters should not be confined to the interior of the Senate chamber. So after he had dismissed the Conscript Fathers he called the People together and informed them what had happened. And on the following day he had Vettius brought to the rostra for public questioning. This time Vettius's list of conspirators was quite different. No, Brutus had not been involved. Yes, he had forgotten that Paullus was in Macedonia. Well, he might have been wrong about Spinther's son, it could have been Marcellinus's son after all, both Spinther and Marcellinus were Cornelii Lentuli, and both were future consular candidates. He proceeded to trot out new names: Lucullus, Gaius Fannius, Lucius Ahenobarbus, and Cicero. All boni or boni flirts. Disgusted, Caesar sent Vettius back to the Lautumiae. However, Vatinius felt Vettius needed sterner handling, so he hied Vettius back to the rostra and subjected him to a merciless inquisition. This time Vettius insisted he had the names correct, though he did add two more: none other than that thoroughly respectable pillar of the establishment, Cicero's son in law Piso Frugi; and the senator Iuventius, renowned for his vagueness. The meeting broke up after Vatinius proposed to introduce a bill in the Plebeian Assembly to conduct a formal enquiry into what was rapidly becoming known as the Vettius Affair. By this time none of it made any sense beyond an inference that the boni were sufficiently fed up with Pompey to conspire to assassinate him. However, not even the most perceptive analyst of public life could disentangle the confusion of threads Vettius had woven? No, tied up in knots. Pompey himself now believed there was a plot in existence, but could not be brought to believe that the boni were responsible. Hadn't Bibulus warned him? But if the boni were not the culprits, who was? So he ended like Cicero, convinced that once Vatinius got his enquiry into the Vettius Affair under way, the truth would out. Something else gnawed at Caesar, whose left thumb pricked. If he knew nothing more, he knew that Vettius loathed him, Caesar. So where exactly was the Vettius Affair going to go? Was it in some tortuous way aimed at him? Or at driving a wedge between him and Pompey? Therefore Caesar decided not to wait the month or more until the official enquiry would begin. He would put Vettius back on the rostra for another public interrogation. Instinct told him that it was vital to do so quickly. Maybe then the name of Gaius Julius Caesar would not creep into the proceedings. It was not to be. When Caesar's lictors appeared from the direction of the Lautumiae, they came alone, and hurrying white faced. Lucius Vettius had been chained to the wall in his cell, but he was dead. Around his neck were the marks of big strong hands, around his feet the marks of a desperate struggle to hang on to life. Because he had been chained it had not occurred to anyone to set a guard on him; whoever had come in the night to silence Lucius Vettius had come and gone unseen.

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Standing by in a mood of pleasant expectation, Cato felt the blood drain from his face, and was profoundly glad the attention of the throng around the rostra was focused upon the angry Caesar, snapping instructions to his lictors to make enquiries of those in the vicinity of the prison. By the time those around him might have turned to him for an opinion as to what was going on, Cato was gone. Running too fast for Favonius to keep up. He burst into Bibulus's house to find that worthy sitting in his peristyle, one eye upon the cloudless sky, the other upon his visitors, Metellus Scipio, Lucius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Piso. "How dare you, Bibulus?" Cato roared. The four men turned as one, jaws slack. "How dare I what?" asked Bibulus, plainly astonished. "Murder Vettius!" "What?" "Caesar just sent to the Lautumiae to fetch Vettius to the rostra, and found him dead. Strangled, Bibulus! Why? Oh, why did you do that? I would never have consented, and you knew I would never have consented! Political trickery is one thing, especially when it's aimed at a dog like Caesar, but murder is despicable!" Bibulus had listened to this looking as if he might faint; as Cato finished he rose unsteadily to his feet, hand outstretched. "Cato, Cato! Do you know me so little? Why would I murder a wretch like Vettius? If I haven't murdered Caesar, why would I murder anyone? The rage in the grey eyes died; Cato looked uncertain, then held his own hand out. "It wasn't you?" "It wasn't me. I agree with you, I always have and I always will. Murder is despicable." The other three were recovering from their shock; Metellus Scipio and Ahenobarbus gathered round Cato and Bibulus, while Gaius Piso leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "Vettius is really dead?" Metellus Scipio asked. "So Caesar's lictors said. I believed them." "Who?" asked Ahenobarbus. "Why?" Cato moved to where a flagon of wine and some beakers stood on a table, and poured himself a drink. "I really thought it was you, Marcus Calpurnius," he said, and tipped the beaker up. "I'm sorry. I ought to have known better." "Well, we know it wasn't us," said Ahenobarbus, "so who?" "It has to be Caesar," said Bibulus, helping himself to wine. "What did he have to gain?" asked Metellus Scipio, frowning. "Even I can't tell you that, Scipio," said Bibulus. At which moment his gaze rested on Gaius Piso, the only one still sitting. An awful fear filled him; he drew in his breath audibly. "Piso!" he cried suddenly. "Piso, you didn't!" The bloodshot eyes, sunk into Gaius Piso's fleshy face, blazed scorn. "Oh, grow up, Bibulus!" he said wearily. "How else was this idiocy to succeed? Did you and Cato really think Vettius had the gall and the guts to carry your scheme through? He hated Caesar, yes, but he was terrified of the man too. You're such amateurs! Full of nobility and high ideals, weaving plots you've neither the talent nor the cunning to push to fruition sometimes you make me sick, the pair of you!" "The feeling goes both ways!" Cato shouted, fists doubled. Bibulus put his hand on Cato's arm. "Don't make it worse, Cato," he said, the skin of his face gone grey. "Our honor is dead along with Vettius, all thanks to this ingrate." He drew himself up. "Get out of my house, Piso, and never come back." The chair was overturned; Gaius Piso looked from one face to the next, then deliberately spat upon the flagstones at Cato's feet. "Vettius was my client," he said, "and I was good enough to use to coach him in his role! But not good enough to give advice. Well, fight your own fights from now on! And don't try to incriminate me, either, hear me? Breathe one word, and I'll testify against the lot of you!'' Cato dropped to sit on the stone coping around the fountain playing in the sun, droplets flashing a myriad rainbows; he covered his face with his hand& and rocked back and forth, weeping. "Next time I see Piso, I'll flatten him!" said Ahenobarbus fiercely. "The cur!" "Next time you see Piso, Lucius, you'll be very polite," said Bibulus, wiping away his tears. "Oh, our honor is dead! We can't even make Piso pay. If we do, we're looking at exile."