Colleen McCullough - 1. First Man in Rome

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Early in January the tribune of the plebs Gaius Norbanus arraigned Quintus Servilius Caepio in the Plebeian Assembly on a charge that was phrased as "the loss of his army." Feelings ran high from the very beginning, for by no means all of the People were opposed to senatorial exclusivity, and the Senate was there in its full plebeian numbers to fight for Caepio. Long before the tribes were called upon to vote, violence flared and blood flowed. The tribunes of the plebs Titus Didius and Lucius Aurelius Cotta stepped forward to veto the whole procedure, and were hauled down from the rostra by a furious crowd. Stones flew viciously, clubs cracked around ribs and legs; Didius and Lucius Cotta were manhandled out of the Comitia well and literally forced by the pressure of the throng into the Argiletum, then kept there. Bruised and shocked though they were, they tried screaming their vetos across a sea of angry faces, but were shouted down again and again. The rumor about the Gold of Tolosa had tipped the balance against Caepio and the Senate, there could be no doubt of it; from Head Count clear to First Class, the whole city shrieked imprecations at Caepio the thief, Caepio the traitor, Caepio the self-seeker. People women included who had never evinced any kind of interest in Forum or Assembly events came to see this man Caepio, a criminal on a scale hitherto unimaginable; there were debates about how high the mountain of gold bricks must have been, how heavy, how many. And the hatred was a tangible presence, for no one likes to see a single individual make off with money deemed the property of everyone. Especially so much money. Determined the trial would proceed, Norbanus ignored the peripheral turmoil, the brawls, the chaos when habitual Assembly attenders impinged upon the crowds who had come solely to see and abuse Caepio, standing on the rostra amid a guard of lictors deputed to protect him, not detain him. The senators whose patrician rank meant they could not participate in the Plebeian Assembly were clustered on the Curia Hostilia steps hectoring Norbanus, until a segment of the crowd began to pelt them with stones. Scaurus fell, inanimate, bleeding from a wound on his head. Which didn't stop Norbanus, who continued the trial without even pausing to discover whether the Princeps Senatus was dead or merely unconscious. The voting when it came was very fast; the first eighteen of the thirty-five tribes all condemned Quintus Servilius Caepio, which meant no more tribes were called upon to vote. Emboldened by this unprecedented indication of the degree of hatred felt for Caepio, Norbanus then asked the Plebeian Assembly to impose a specific sentence by vote a sentence so harsh that every senator present howled a futile protest. Again the first eighteen tribes chosen by lot all voted the same way, to visit dreadful punishment upon Caepio. He was stripped of his citizenship, forbidden fire and water within eight hundred miles of Rome, fined fifteen thousand talents of gold, and ordered confined in the cells of the Lautumiae under guard and without speech with anyone, even the members of his own family, until his journey into exile began. Amid shaking fists and triumphant yells that he was not going to get the chance to see his brokers or his bankers and bury his personal fortune, Quintus Servilius Caepio, ex-citizen of Rome, was marched between his guard of lictors across the short distance between the well of the Comitia and the tumbledown cells of the Lautumiae. Thoroughly satisfied with the final events of what had been a deliciously exciting and unusual day, the crowds went home, leaving the Forum Romanum to the tenure of a few men, all senatorial in rank. The ten tribunes of the plebs were standing in polarized groups: Lucius Cotta, Titus Didius, Marcus Baebius, and Lucius Antistius Reginus huddled gloomily together, the four middlemen looked helplessly from their left to their right, and an elated Gaius Norbanus and Lucius Appuleius Saturninus talked with great animation and much laughter to Gaius Servilius Glaucia, who had strolled over to congratulate them. Not one of the ten tribunes of the plebs still wore his toga, torn away in the melee. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was sitting with his back against the plinth of a statue of Scipio Africanus while Metellus Numidicus and two slaves tried to stanch the blood flowing freely from a cut on his temple; Crassus Orator and his boon companion (and first cousin) Quintus Mucius Scaevola were hovering near Scaurus, looking shaken; the two shocked young men Drusus and Caepio Junior were standing on the Senate steps, shepherded by Drusus's uncle Publius Rutilius Rufus, and by Marcus Aurelius Cotta; and the junior consul, Lucius Aurelius Orestes, not a well man at the best of times, was lying full length in the vestibule being tended by an anxious praetor. Rutilius Rufus and Cotta both moved quickly to support Caepio Junior when he suddenly sagged against the dazed and white-faced Drusus, who had one arm about his shoulders. "What can we do to help?" asked Cotta. Drusus shook his head, too moved to speak, while Caepio Junior seemed not to hear. "Did anyone think to send lictors to guard Quintus Servilius's house from the crowds?" asked Rutilius Rufus. "I did," Drusus managed to say. "The boy's wife?" asked Cotta, nodding at Caepio Junior. "I've had her and the baby sent to my house," Drusus said, lifting his free hand to his cheek as if to discover whether he actually existed. Caepio Junior stirred, looking at the three around him in wonder. "It was only the gold," he said. "All they cared about was the gold! They didn't even think of Arausio. They didn't condemn him for Arausio. All they cared about was the gold!" "It is human nature," said Rutilius Rufus gently, "to care more about gold than about men's lives." Drusus glanced at his uncle sharply, but if Rutilius Rufus had spoken in irony, Caepio Junior didn't notice. "I blame Gaius Marius for this," said Caepio Junior. Rutilius Rufus put his hand under Caepio Junior's elbow. "Come, young Quintus Servilius, Marcus Aurelius and I will take you to young Marcus Livius's house." As they moved off the Senate steps, Lucius Antistius Reginus broke away from Lucius Cotta, Didius, and Baebius. He strode across to confront Norbanus, who backed away and took up a stance of aggressive self-defense. "Oh, don't bother!" spat Antistius. "I wouldn't soil my hands with the likes of you, you cur!" He drew himself up, a big man with obvious Celt in him. "I'm going to the Lautumiae to free Quintus Servilius. No man in the history of our Republic has ever been thrown into prison to await exile, and I will not let Quintus Servilius become the first! You can try to stop me if you like, but I've sent home for my sword, and by living Jupiter, Gaius Norbanus, if you try to stop me, I'll kill you!" Norbanus laughed. "Oh, take him!" he said. "Take Quintus Servilius home with you and wipe his eyes not to mention his arse! I wouldn't go near his house, though, if I were you!" "Make sure you charge him plenty!" Saturninus called in the wake of Antistius's diminishing figure. "He can afford to pay in gold, you know!" Antistius swung round and flipped up the fingers of his right hand in an unmistakable gesture. "Oh, I will not! "yelled Glaucia, laughing. "Just because you're a queen doesn't mean the rest of us are!" Gaius Norbanus lost interest. "Come on," he said to Glaucia and Saturninus, "let's go home and eat dinner." Though he was feeling very sick, Scaurus would sooner have died than demean himself by vomiting in public, so he forced his churning mind to dwell upon the three men walking away, laughing, animated, victorious. "They're werewolves," he said to Metellus Numidicus, whose toga was stained with Scaurus's blood. "Look at them! Gaius Marius's tools!" "Can you stand yet, Marcus Aemilius?" Numidicus asked. "Not until I'm feeling surer of my stomach." "I see Publius Rutilius and Marcus Aurelius have taken Quintus Servilius's two young men home," said Numidicus. "Good. They'll need someone to keep an eye on them. I've never seen a crowd so out for noble blood, even in the worst days of Gaius Gracchus," said Scaurus, drawing deep breaths. "We will have to go very quietly for a while, Quintus Caecilius. If we push, those werewolves will push us harder." "Rot Quintus Servilius and the gold!" snapped Numidicus. Feeling better, Scaurus allowed himself to be helped to his feet. "So you think he took it, eh?" Metellus Numidicus looked scornful. "Oh, come, don't try to hoodwink me, Marcus Aemilius!" he said. "You know him as well as I do. Of course he took it! And I'll never forgive him for taking it. It belonged to the Treasury.'' "The trouble is," said Scaurus as he began to walk on what felt like a series of very uneven clouds, "that we have no internal system whereby men like you and me can punish those among our own who betray us." Metellus Numidicus shrugged. "There can be no such system, you are aware of that. To institute one would be to admit that our own men do sometimes fall short of what they should be. And if we show our weaknesses to the world, we're finished." "I'd rather be dead than finished," said Scaurus. "And I." Metellus Numidicus sighed. "I just hope our sons feel as strongly as we do." "That," said Scaurus wryly, "was an unkind thing to say." "Marcus Aemilius, Marcus Aemilius! Your boy is very young! I can't see anything very wrong with him, truly." "Then shall we exchange sons?" "No," said Metellus Numidicus, "if for no other reason than that the gesture would kill your son. His worst handicap is that he knows very well he lives under your disapproval.'' "He's a weakling," said Scaurus the strong. "Perhaps a good wife might help," said Numidicus. Scaurus stopped and turned to face his friend. "Now that's a thought! I hadn't earmarked him for anyone yet, he's so grossly immature. Have you someone in mind?" "My niece. Dalmaticus's girl, Metella Dalmatica. She'll be eighteen in about two years. I'm her guardian now that dear Dalmaticus is dead. What do you say, Marcus Aemilius?" "It's a deal, Quintus Caecilius! A deal!"