Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

In July of that year Marcus Porcius Cato was elected one of the quaestors, and drew a lot for the senior of the three urban quaestors; his two colleagues were the great plebeian aristocrat Marcus Claudius Marcellus and a Lollius from that Picentine family Pompey the Great was happily thrusting into the heart of Roman dominance of Senate and Comitia. With some months to go before he actually took office or was allowed to attend the Senate, Cato occupied his days in studying commerce and commercial law; he hired a retired Treasury bookkeeper to teach him how the tribuni aerarii who headed that domain did their accounting, and he ground away at what did not come at all naturally until he knew as much about State finances as Caesar knew, unaware that what cost him so much pain had been taken in almost instantly by his avowed enemy. The quaestors took their duty lightly and never bothered to concern themselves overmuch with an actual policing of what went on in the Treasury; the important part of the job to the average urban quaestor was liaison with the Senate, which debated and then deputed where the State's moneys were to go. It was accepted practice to cast a cursory eye over the books Treasury staff let them see from time to time, and to accept Treasury figures when the Senate considered Rome's finances. The quaestors also did their friends and families favors if these people were in debt to the State by turning a blind eye to the fact or ordering their names erased from the official records. In short, the quaestors located in Rome simply permitted the permanent Treasury staff to go about their business and get the work done. And certainly neither the permanent Treasury staff nor Marcellus and Lollius, the two other urban quaestors, had any idea that things were about to change radically. Cato had no intention of being lax. He intended to be more thorough within the Treasury than Pompey the Great within Our Sea. At dawn on the fifth day of December, the day he took office, he was there knocking at the door in the side of the basement to the temple of Saturn, not pleased to learn that the sun was well up before anyone came to work. "The workday begins at dawn," he said to the Treasury chief, Marcus Vibius, when that worthy arrived breathless after a harried clerk had sent for him urgently. "There is no rule to that effect," said Marcus Vibius smoothly. "We work within a timetable we set for ourselves, and it's flexible." "Rubbish!" said Cato scornfully. "I am the elected custodian of these premises, and I intend to see that the Senate and People of Rome get value for every sestertius of their tax moneys. Their tax moneys pay you and all the rest who work here, don't forget!" Not a good beginning. From that point on, however, things for Marcus Vibius just got worse and worse. He had a zealot on his hands. When on the rare occasions in the past he had found himself cursed with an obstreperous quaestor, he had proceeded to put the fellow in his place by withholding all specialized knowledge of the job; not having a Treasury background, quaestors could do only what they were allowed to do. Unfortunately that tack didn't stop Cato, who revealed that he knew quite as much about how the Treasury functioned as Marcus Vibius did. Possibly more. With him Cato had brought several slaves whom he had seen trained in various aspects of Treasury pursuits, and every day he was there at dawn with his little retinue to drive Vibius and his underlings absolutely mad. What was this? Why was that? Where was so and so? When had such and such? How did whatever happen? And on and on and on. Cato was persistent to the point of insult, impossible to fob off with pat answers, and impervious to irony, sarcasm, abuse, flattery, excuses, fainting fits. "I feel," gasped Marcus Vibius after two months of this, when he had gathered up his courage to seek solace and assistance from his patron, Catulus, "as if all the Furies are hounding me harder than ever they hounded Orestes! I don't care what you have to do to shut Cato up and ship him out, I just want it done! I have been your loyal and devoted client for over twenty years, I am a tribunus aerarius of the First Class, and now I find both my sanity and my position imperiled. Get rid of Cato!" The first attempt failed miserably. Catulus proposed to the House that Cato be given a special task, checking army accounts, as he was so brilliant at checking accounts. But Cato simply stood his ground by recommending the names of four men who could be temporarily employed to do a job no elected quaestor should be asked to do. Thank you, he would stick to what he was there for. After that Catulus thought of craftier ploys, none of which worked. While the broom sweeping out every corner of the Treasury never wore down or wore out. In March the heads began to roll. First one, then two, then three and four and five Treasury officials found Cato had terminated their tenure and emptied out their desks. Then in April the axe descended: Cato fired Marcus Vibius, and added insult to injury by having him prosecuted for fraud. Neatly caught in the patron's trap, Catulus had no alternative other than to defend Vibius personally in court. One day's airing of the evidence was enough to tell Catulus that he was going to lose. Time to appeal to Cato's sense of fitness, to the time honored precepts of the client and patron system. "My dear Cato, you must stop," said Catulus as the court broke up for the day. "I know poor Vibius hasn't been as careful as perhaps he ought, but he's one of us! Fire all the clerks and bookkeepers you like, but leave poor Vibius in his job, please! I give you my solemn word as a consular and an ex censor that from now on Vibius will behave impeccably. Just drop this awful prosecution! Leave the man something!" This had been said softly, but Cato had only one vocal volume, and that was top of his voice. His answer was shouted in his usual stentorian tones, and arrested all progress out of the area. Every face turned; every ear cocked to listen. "Quintus Lutatius, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" yelled Cato. "How could you be so blind to your own dignitas as to have the effrontery to remind me you're a consular and ex censor, then try to wheedle me out of doing my sworn duty? Well, let me tell you that I will be ashamed if I have to summon the court's bailiffs to eject you for attempting to pervert the course of Roman justice! For that is what you're doing, perverting Roman justice!" Whereupon he stalked off, leaving Catulus standing bereft of speech, so nonplussed that when the case resumed the following day he didn't appear for the defense at all. Instead, he tried to acquit himself of his patron's duty by talking the jury into a verdict of ABSOLVO even if Cato succeeded in producing more damning evidence than Cicero had to convict Verres. Bribe he would not; talk was both cheaper and more ethical. One of the jurors was Marcus Lollius, Cato's colleague in the quaestorship. And Lollius agreed to vote for acquittal. He was, however, extremely ill, so Catulus had him carried into court on a litter. When the verdict came in, it was ABSOLVO. Lollius's vote had tied the jury, and a tied jury meant acquittal. Did that defeat Cato? No, it did not. When Vibius turned up at the Treasury, he found Cato barring his path. Nor would Cato consent to re employ him. In the end even Catulus, summoned to preside over the unpleasantly public scene outside the door into the Treasury, had to give up. Vibius had lost his position, and that was going to be that. Then Cato refused to give Vibius the pay owing to him. "You must!" cried Catulus. "I must not!" cried Cato. "He cheated the State, he owes the State far more than his pay. Let it help to compensate Rome." "Why, why, why?" Catulus demanded. "Vibius was acquitted!" "I am not," shouted Cato, "going to take the vote of a sick man into account! He was out of his head with fever." And so in the end it had to be left. Absolutely sure that Cato would lose, the survivors in the Treasury had been planning all kinds of celebrations. But after Catulus shepherded the weeping Vibius away, the survivors in the Treasury took the hint. As if by magic every account and every set of books settled into perfect order; debtors were made to rectify years of neglected repayments, and creditors were suddenly reimbursed sums outstanding for years. Marcellus, Lollius, Catulus and the rest of the Senate took the hint too. The Great Treasury War was over, and only one man stood on his feet: Marcus Porcius Cato. Whom all of Rome was praising, amazed that the Government of Rome had finally produced a man so incorruptible he couldn't be bought. Cato was famous. "What I don't understand," said a shaken Catulus to his much loved brother in law Hortensius, "is what Cato intends to make of his life! Does he really think he can vote catch by being utterly incorruptible? It will work in the tribal elections, perhaps, but if he continues as he's begun, he'll never win an election in the Centuries. No one in the First Class will vote for him." Hortensius was inclined to temporize. "I understand what an invidious position he put you in, Quintus, but I must say I do rather admire him. Because you're right. He'll never win a consular election in the Centuries. Imagine the kind of passion it needs to produce Cato's sort of integrity!" "You," snarled Catulus, losing his temper, "are a fish fancying dilettante with more money than sense!"