Imperium - Харрис Роберт - Страница 55

“My support in the elections for praetor.”

“He has a nerve!”

“I suppose he has. I promised to back him, though,” said Cicero carelessly, and seeing my surprise he explained, “At least with him as praetor I shall have one fewer rival for the consulship.”

He laid my notebook on his desk and read it carefully. Then he put his elbows on either side of it, rested his chin in the palms of his hands, hunched forward, and read it again. I pictured his quick thoughts running ahead in the way that water runs along the cracks in a tiled floor-first onward, and then spreading to either side, blocked in one spot, advancing in another, widening and branching out, all the little possibilities and implications and likelihoods in shimmering fluid motion. Eventually he said, half to himself and half to me, “Such a tactic had never been tried before Gracchus used it, and has never been attempted since. One can see why. What a weapon to put into any man’s hands! Win or lose, we should have to live with the consequences for years.” He looked up at me. “I am not sure, Tiro. Perhaps it would be better if you erased it.” But when I made a move toward the desk, he said quickly, “And then again perhaps not.” Instead, he told me to fetch Laurea and a couple of the other slaves and have them run around to all the senators in Pompey’s inner group, asking them to assemble after the close of official business that afternoon. “Not here,” he added quickly, “but in Pompey’s house.” Thereupon he sat down and began writing out, in his own hand, a dispatch to the general, which was sent off with a rider who had orders to wait and return with a reply. “If Crassus wants to summon up the ghost of Gracchus,” he said grimly when the letter had gone, “he shall have him!”

Needless to say, the others were agog to hear why Cicero had summoned them, and once the courts and offices were shut for the day, everyone turned up at Pompey’s mansion, filling all the seats around the table, except for the absent owner’s great throne, which was left empty as a mark of respect. It may seem strange that such clever and learned men as Caesar and Varro were ignorant of the precise tactics which Gracchus had used as tribune, but remember that he had been dead by then for sixty-three years, that huge events had intervened, and that there was not yet the mania for contemporary history which was to develop over the coming decades. Even Cicero had forgotten it until Crassus’s threat dislodged some distant memory from the time when he was studying for the bar. There was a profound hush as he read out the extract from the Annals, and when he had finished, an excited hubbub. Only the white-haired Varro, who was the oldest present, and who remembered hearing from his father about the chaos of the Gracchus tribunate, expressed reservations. “You would create a precedent,” he said, “by which any demagogue could summon the people, and threaten to dispose of any of his colleagues whenever he felt he had a majority among the tribes. Indeed, why stop at a tribune? Why not remove a praetor, or a consul?”

“We would not create the precedent,” Caesar pointed out impatiently. “Gracchus created it for us.”

“Exactly,” said Cicero. “Although the nobles may have murdered him, they did not declare his legislation illegal. I know what Varro means, and to a degree I share his unease. But we are in a desperate struggle, and obliged to take some risks.”

There was a murmur of assent, but in the end the most decisive voices in favor were those of Gabinius and Cornelius, the men who would actually have to stand before the people and push the legislation through, and thus be chiefly subject to the nobles’ retaliation, both physical and legal.

“The people overwhelmingly want this supreme command, and they want Pompey to be given it,” declared Gabinius. “The fact that Crassus’s purse is deep enough to buy two tribunes should not be allowed to frustrate their will.”

Afranius wanted to know if Pompey had expressed an opinion.

“This is the dispatch I sent to him this morning,” said Cicero, holding it up, “and here on the bottom is the reply he sent back instantly, and which reached me here at the same time as you all did.” Everyone could see what he had scrawled, in his large, bold script: the single word “Agreed.” That settled the matter. Afterwards, Cicero instructed me to burn the letter.

THE MORNING OF THE ASSEMBLY was bitterly cold, with an icy wind whipping around the colonnades and temples of the Forum. But the chill did not deter a vast assembly from turning out. On major voting days, the tribunes transferred themselves from the rostra to the Temple of Castor, where there was more space to conduct the ballot, and workmen had been busy overnight, erecting the wooden gangways up which the citizens would file to cast their votes. Cicero arrived early and discreetly, with only myself and Quintus in attendance, for as he said as he walked down the hill, he was only the stage manager of this production and not one of its leading performers. He spent a little while conferring with a group of tribal officers, then retreated with me to the portico of the Basilica Aemilia, from where he would have a good view of the proceedings and could issue instructions as necessary.

It was a dramatic sight, and I guess I must be one of the very few left alive who witnessed it-the ten tribunes lined up on their bench, among them, like hired gladiators, the two matched pairs of Gabinius and Cornelius (for Pompey) versus Trebellius and Roscius (for Crassus); the priests and the augurs all standing at the top of the steps to the temple; the orange fire on the altar providing a flickering point of color in the grayness; and spread out across the Forum the great crowd of voters, red-faced in the cold, milling around the ten-foot-high standard of their particular tribe. Each standard carried its name proudly in large letters-AEMILIA, CAMILIA, FABIA, etc.-so that its members, if they wandered off, could see where they were supposed to be. There was much joking and horse trading among the groups, until the trumpet of the herald called them to order. Then the official crier gave the legislation its second reading in a penetrating voice, after which Gabinius stepped forward and made a short speech. He had joyful news, he said: the news that the people of Rome had been praying for. Pompey the Great, deeply moved by the sufferings of the nation, was willing to reconsider his position and serve as supreme commander-but only if it was the unanimous desire of them all. “And is it your desire?” demanded Gabinius, to which there was a huge demonstration of enthusiasm. This went on for some time, thanks to the tribal officers. In fact, whenever it seemed the volume might be waning, Cicero would give a discreet signal to a couple of these officers, who would relay it across the Forum, and the tribal standards would start waving again, rekindling the applause. Eventually, Gabinius motioned them to be quiet. “Then let us put it to the vote!”

Slowly-and one had to admire his courage in standing up at all, in the face of so many thousands-Trebellius rose from his place on the tribunes’ bench and came forward, his hand raised to signal his desire to intervene. Gabinius regarded him with contempt, and then roared to the crowd, “Well, citizens, should we let him speak?”

“No!” they screamed in response.

To which Trebellius, in a voice made shrill by nerves, shouted, “Then I veto the bill!”

At any other time in the past four centuries, excepting the year when Tiberius Gracchus was tribune, this would have been the end of the legislation. But on that fateful morning, Gabinius motioned the jeering crowd to be silent. “Does Trebellius speak for you all?”

“No!” they chanted back. “No! No!”

“Does he speak for anyone here?” The only sound was the wind: even the senators who supported Trebellius dared not raise their voices, for they were standing unprotected among their tribes and would have been set upon by the mob. “Then, in accordance with the precedent set by Tiberius Gracchus, I propose that Trebellius, having failed to observe the oath of his office and represent the people, be removed as tribune, and that this be voted on immediately!”