Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

The Senate resumed its deliberations on the Ides, officially a day of rest, and therefore not a day upon which the Comitia could meet. Caepio would have no excuse to quit the session. Sextus Caesar was looking worn out, his breathing audible throughout the House, but he saw the initial ceremonies to their conclusion, then rose to speak. "I will tolerate no more of these disgraceful goings-on," he said, voice clear and carrying. "As for the fact that the chief source of the disruptions emanates from the curule podium I regard that as an additional humiliation. Lucius Marcius and Quintus Servilius Caepio, you will conduct yourselves as befits your office which, I take leave to inform you, neither of you adorns! You demean it, both of you! If your lawlessness and sacrilegious conduct continue, I will send the fasces to the temple of Venus Libitina, and refer matters to the electors in their Centuries." He nodded to Philippus. "You now have the floor, Lucius Marcius. But heed me well! I have had enough. So has the Leader of the House." "I do not thank you, Sextus Julius, any more than I thank the Leader of the House, and all the other members who are masquerading as patriots," said Philippus impudently. "How can a man claim to be a Roman patriot, and want to give our citizenship away? The answer is that he cannot be the one and do the other! The Roman citizenship is for Romans. It should not be given to anyone who is not by family, by ancestry, and by legal writ entitled to it. We are the children of Quirinus. The Italians are not. And that, senior consul, is all I have to say. There is no more to be said." "There is much more to be said!" Drusus countered. "That we are the children of Quirinus is inarguable. Yet Quirinus is not a Roman god! He is a god of the Sabines, which is why he lives on the Quirinal, where the city of the Sabines once stood. In other words, Lucius Marcius, Quirinus is an Italian god! Romulus took him into our fold, Romulus made him Roman. But Quirinus belongs equally to the people of Italy. How can we betray Rome by making her mightier? For that is what we will be doing when we give the citizenship to all of Italy. Rome will be Italy, and mighty. Italy will be Rome, and mighty. What as the descendants of Romulus we retain will be ours forever, exclusively. That can never belong to anyone else. But what Romulus gave us is not the citizenship! That, we have already given to many who cannot claim to be the children of Romulus, the natives of the city of Rome. If Romanness is at issue, why is Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis sitting in this august body? His is a name, Quintus Servilius Caepio, that I note you have refrained from mentioning whenever you and Lucius Marcius have sought to impugn the Romanness of certain members of this House! Yet Quintus Varius is truly not a Roman! He never laid eyes on this city nor spoke Latin in normal congress until he was in his twenties! Yet here he sits by the grace of Quirinus in the Senate of Rome a man less Roman by far in his thoughts, in his speech, in his way of looking at things, than any Italian! If we are to do as Lucius Marcius Philippus wants, and confine the citizenship of Rome to those among us who can claim family, ancestry, and legal writ, then the first man to have to leave both this House and the city of Rome would be Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis! He is the foreigner!" That of course brought Varius cursing to his feet, despite the fact that, as a pedarius, he was not allowed to speak. Sextus Caesar summoned all his paucity of breath, and roared for order so loudly that order was restored. "Marcus Aemilius, Leader of this House, I see you wish to speak. You have the floor." Scaurus was angry. "I will not see this House degenerate to the level of a cock-pit because we are disgraced by curule magistrates of a quality not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Nor will I make reference to the right of any man to sit in this august body! All I want to say is that if this House is to survive and if Rome is to survive we must be as liberal to the Italians in the matter of our citizenship as we have been to certain men sitting in this House today." But Philippus was on his feet. "Sextus Julius, when you gave the Leader of the House permission to speak, you did not acknowledge that I wished to speak. As consul, I am entitled to speak first." Sextus Caesar blinked. "I thought you had done, Lucius Marcius. Are you not done, then?" "No." "Then please, will you get whatever it is you have to say over with? Do you mind waiting until the junior consul has his say, Leader of the House?" "Of course not," said Scaurus affably, and sat down. "I propose," said Philippus weightily, "that this House strike each and every one of the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus off the tablets. None has been passed legally." "Arrant nonsense!" said Scaurus indignantly. "Never in the history of the Senate has any tribune of the plebs gone about his legislating with more scrupulous attention to the laws of procedure than Marcus Livius Drusus!" "Nonetheless, his laws are not valid," said Philippus, whose nose was apparently beginning to throb greatly, for he began to pant, fingers fluttering around the shapeless blob in the middle of his face. "The gods have indicated their displeasure." "My meetings met with the approval of the gods too," said Drusus flatly. "They are sacrilegious, as the events throughout Italy over the past ten months clearly demonstrate," said Philip-pus. "I say that the whole of Italy has been torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath!" "Oh, really, Lucius Marcius! Italy is always being torn apart by manifestations of divine and godly wrath," said Scaurus wearily. "Not the way it has been this year!" Philippus drew a breath. “I move that this House recommend to the Assembly of the Whole People that the laws of Marcus Livius Drusus be annulled, on the grounds that the gods have demonstrated marked displeasure. And, Sextus Julius, I will see a division. Now." Scaurus and Marius were both frowning, sensing in this something as yet hidden, but unable to see what it was. That Philippus would be defeated was certain. So why, after such a brief and uninspiring address, was he insisting upon a division? The House divided. Philippus lost by a large majority. He then lost his temper, screaming and ranting until he spat; the urban praetor, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, near him on the dais, pulled his toga ostentatiously over his head to ward off the saliva rain. "Greedy ingrates! Monumental fools! Sheep! Insects! Offal! Butcher's scraps! Maggots! Pederasts! Fellators! Violators of little girls! Dead flesh! Whirlpools of avarice!" were but some of the names Philippus hurled at his fellow senators. Sextus Caesar allowed him sufficient time to run down, then had his chief lictor pound the bundle of rods on the floor until the rafters boomed. "Enough!" he shouted. "Sit down and be quiet, Lucius Marcius, or I will have you ejected from this meeting!" Philippus sat down, chest heaving, nose beginning to drip a straw-colored fluid. "Sacrilege!" he howled, drawing the word out eerily. After which he did sit quietly. "What is he up to?" whispered Scaurus to Marius. "I don't know. But I wish I did!" growled Marius. Crassus Orator rose. "May I speak, Sextus Julius?" "You may, Lucius Licinius." "I do not wish to talk about the Italians, or our cherished Roman citizenship, or the laws of Marcus Livius," Crassus Orator said in his beautiful, mellifluous voice. "I am going to talk about the office of consul, and I will preface my remarks with an observation that never in all my years in this House have I seen and heard the office of consul abused, abashed, abased as it has been in these last days by Lucius Marcius Philippus. No man who has treated his office the highest in the land! the way Lucius Marcius Philippus has, ought to be allowed to continue in it! However, when the electors put a man in office he is not bound by any code save those of his own intelligence and good manners, and the many examples offered him by the mos maiorum. "To be consul of Rome is to be elevated to a level just a little below our gods, and higher by far than any king. The office of consul is freely given and does not rest upon threats or the power of retribution. For the space of one year, the consul is supreme. His imperium outranks that of any governor. He is the commander-in-chief of the armies, he is the leader of the government, he is the head of the Treasury and he is the figurehead of every last thing the Republic of Rome has come to mean! Be he patrician or be he New Man, be he fabulously rich or relatively poor, he is the consul. Only one man is his equal, and that man is the other consul. Their names are inscribed upon the consular fasti, there to glitter for all time. "I have been consul. Perhaps thirty men sitting here today have been consuls, and some of them have been censors as well. I shall ask them how they feel at this moment how do you feel at this moment, gentlemen consulars, after listening to Lucius Marcius Philippus since the beginning of this month? Do you feel as I feel? Unclean? Disgraced? Humiliated? Do you think it right that this third-time-lucky occupant of our office should go uncensured? You do not? Good! Nor, gentlemen consulars, do I!" Crassus Orator turned from the front rows to glare fiercely at Philippus on the curule dais. "Lucius Marcius Philippus, you are the worst consul I have ever seen! Were I sitting in Sextus Julius's chair, I would not be one tenth as patient as he! How dare you swish round the vici of our beloved city preceded by your twelve-lictor escort, calling yourself a consul? You are not a consul! You are not fit to lick a consul's boots! In fact, if I may borrow a phrase from our Leader, you are not fit to clean vomit off the streets! Instead of being a model of exemplary behavior to your juniors in this assemblage and to those outside in the Forum, you conduct yourself like the worst demagogue who ever prated from the rostra, like the most foul-mouthed heckler who ever stood at the back of any Forum crowd! How dare you take advantage of your office to hurl vituperations at the members of this House? How dare you imply that other men have acted illegally?" He pointed his finger at Philippus, drew a breath, and roared, "I have put up with you long enough, Lucius Marcius Philippus! Either conduct yourself like a consul, or stay at home!" When Crassus Orator resumed his place the House applauded strenuously; Philippus sat looking at the ground with head at an angle preventing anyone from seeing his face, while Caepio glared indignantly at Crassus Orator. Sextus Caesar cleared his throat. "Thank you, Lucius Licinius, for reminding me and all who hold this office who and what the consul is. I take as much heed of your words as I hope Lucius Marcius has. And, since it seems none of us can conduct ourselves decently in this present atmosphere, I am concluding this meeting. The House will sit again eight days from now. We are in the midst of the ludi Romani, and I for one think it behooves us to find a more fitting way to salute Rome and Romulus than acrimonious and ill-mannered meetings of the Senate. Have a good holiday, Conscript Fathers, and enjoy the games." Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Drusus, Crassus Orator, Scaevola, Antonius Orator and Quintus Pompeius Rufus repaired to the house of Gaius Marius, there to drink wine and talk over the day's events. "Oh, Lucius Licinius, you squashed Philippus beautifully!" said Scaurus happily, gulping at his wine thirstily. "Memorable," said Antonius Orator. "And I thank you too, Lucius Licinius," said Drusus, smiling. Crassus Orator accepted all this approval with becoming modesty, only saying, "Yes, well, he asked for it, the fool!" Since Rome was still very hot, everyone had doffed his toga on entering Marius's house and repaired to the cool fresh air of the garden, there to loll comfortably. "What I want to know," said Marius, seated on the coping of his peristyle pool, "is what Philippus is up to." "So do I," said Scaurus. "Why should he be up to anything?" asked Pompeius Rufus. "He's just a bad-mannered lout. He's never been any different." "No, there's something working in the back of his grubby mind," said Marius. "For a moment there today, I thought I'd grasped it. But then it went, and I can't seem to remember." Scaurus sighed. "Well, Gaius Marius, of one thing you can be sure we'll find out! Probably at the next meeting." "It should be an interesting one," said Crassus Orator, and winced, massaged his left shoulder. "Oh, why am I so tired and full of aches and pains these days? I didn't give a very long speech today. But I was angry, that's true."