A Murder on the Appian Way Read online

  Cicero shook his head. “They weren’t small favors, the sacrifices Milo made for Pompey over the years. But now that Milo’s in trouble and Clodius is no longer a threat, Pompey can’t cut his ties to Milo fast enough!”

  “Pompey may yet come around, if he can be made to see that it’s in his interest,” said Caelius.

  “We can’t count on that,” said Cicero. “Milo will have to make his move without Pompey’s support.”

  Caelius nodded. “I agree. Word will spread tonight about the rescue of Lepidus. That will count in Milo’s favor; Milo stands for order and tradition against the lawless mob. And we shouldn’t underestimate the resentment that decent people feel against the Clodians for burning the Senate House. I think we can count on a favorable crowd tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I said.

  Caelius smiled. “Another contio, this time called by me. Be sure to come, Gordianus. We shall fight fire with fire.”

  “You don’t mean that literally, I hope.”

  Caelius laughed.

  8

  Eco called on me early the next morning, brimming with news.

  “Papa, have you heard what happened at Lepidus’s house yesterday, after the contio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite a battle, apparently. Blood all over Lepidus’s house, they say. His ancestral busts ruined beyond repair. The yarn for the ceremonial looms all a tangled mess. But now he’ll always be known as the interrex who held firm against the mob—he got his five days of fame!”

  “We were damned lucky the violence didn’t start down in the Forum, while we were still in that crowd. What if Milo’s little army had shown up there, instead of waiting in ambush at Lepidus’s house? I’m an old man, Eco. I can’t outrun a mob.”

  “No one forced you to go to the contio, Papa.”

  I grunted.

  “Don’t you trust my new bodyguards?”

  I grunted again. “I suppose the senatorial committee will choose a new interrex today.”

  “That’s the word. No one knows where they’re meeting—probably outside the city. They’ve kept the location secret, afraid of another blockade or a battle. The new interrex will have the authority to call elections, but with things so unsettled it seems unlikely that we’ll actually see new consuls in the next five days. Oh, and speaking of unsettled, there’s to be another contio today, this one—”

  “Called by the not-so-radical tribune Marcus Caelius.”

  “Yes, and they say that—”

  “Milo himself may speak.”

  Eco looked at me archly. “Papa, you’re remarkably well informed for a man who never sets foot in the Forum unless I drag you there. Something tells me you’ve been in touch with Cicero again. Tell me everything.”

  I gave him the details of my visit to Cicero’s house on the previous day.

  Eco drew his own conclusions. “Pompey’s behaving like a bastard, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “What a backstabber! Milo was his ally for years, and now—”

  “Ah, but little things like murder can sour even the sincerest relationships. If Milo killed Clodius, just how far do Pompey’s obligations of friendship extend?”

  Eco looked at me quizzically. “Why do you say ‘if’?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said, ‘If Milo killed Clodius.’”

  “Oh. I suppose I did …”

  “Well, I don’t see why you defend Pompey. This ‘little thing’—this murder—seems only to have strengthened Cicero’s support of Milo.”

  “Yes, one can’t fault Cicero’s loyalty.”

  “I suppose it’s because they’re so much alike.”

  “Cicero and Milo?” I thought of Cicero—frail in youth, dyspeptic in middle age, shrewd, calculating, a model of taste and refinement—and then of Milo, who seemed quite the opposite, with his robust, bullish physique, his bluff manner, and a rough edge to his character that no amount of money or education had ever managed to smooth away. “Alike in what ways, Eco?”

  “Well, they’re the two brightest of the New Men, aren’t they, the two shiniest new stars in the firmament? Or they would be, if Milo could ever get himself elected consul.”

  Eco had a point. Cicero had been the first of his family to attain a magistracy. He had been born with money and means, to be sure, but none of his ancestors had ever held high office. With his election as a quaestor at the age of thirty, he had become, as the parlance goes, a New Man in the halls of power. This in itself was a great achievement. But Cicero’s ascent had not ended with the lower magistracies; he had worked his way all the way up to consul. This was truly remarkable. As a rule the consulship is attained only by candidates already of consular family, men whose ancestors held the consulship before them. Thus do the high nobility, by various traps and schemes, perpetuate their status and exclude newcomers. But against all odds Cicero had attained the consulship, and he was the first New Man of his generation to do so.

  Milo was also a New Man. If he became consul he would be only the second New Man in living memory, after Cicero, to do so.

  “I see what you mean, Eco. I suppose they see themselves as the only two members of a very exclusive club. They’ve risen above their birth—”

  “So that they can now look down on people like you and me from a comfortable height.”

  “But they’re still outsiders and interlopers to the old aristocratic families who were born to privilege and great expectations.”

  “Like their mutual enemy Clodius.”

  “Or Pompey,” I noted. “Or Caesar.”

  “So it’s all the better that they’re so different on the outside,” said Eco. “They get to play each other’s alter ego.”

  “Cicero and Milo, alter egos? Well, Cicero certainly seems determined to stand by Milo, no matter what he’s done, whether the mob likes it or not. And whether Pompey likes it or not, for that matter.”

  “But to what end?” said Eco.

  For my decision to attend Caelius’s contio that day, I have no one to blame but myself.

  The event attracted a considerable crowd—even larger than the crowd that had attended the radical tribunes’ contio the previous day. The news of the battle at Lepidus’s house had made people even more restless and anxious. As I have said, in times of duress Romans gather by instinct in large groups to listen to speeches.

  With Eco’s bodyguards helping to clear the way, we managed to find a good spot in front of the speakers’ platform, despite the crush. I peered at the sea of faces around us, trying to judge the temper of the crowd. I noticed a number of stuffy, conservative types, men of means attended by large retinues of bodyguards and retainers, dressed in immaculate togas spun from superior wool. Eco pointed to such a specimen nearby.

  “Businessman,” he said.

  “Banker,” I countered, merely for the sake of argument.

  “Pro-Milo?”

  “Anti-Clodius, more likely. And probably more outraged by the burning of the Porcian Basilica than the loss of the Senate House.”

  Eco nodded. “Probably impressed that Milo’s men saved Marcus Lepidus.”

  “Probably hopes there’ll be someone to do the same for him if the mob ever attacks his house.”

  “But is Milo the man for him?”

  “Maybe that’s what he’s here to decide.”

  More numerous than the wealthy traders and bankers in the crowd were citizens of more modest appearance, who might have been small shopkeepers or craftsmen or free laborers. Eco nodded in the direction of such a man nearby, a glum-looking fellow attended by a single slave and dressed in a toga with a worn hem. “That one looks to have less to lose than our banker friend.”

  “And less to start with. A fire in his apartment block could wipe him out completely.”

  “Well, if the worst happened, he needn’t go hungry. There’s always the grain dole that Clodius established.”

  I shook my head. “People lik
e him want the state to give them order, more than they want a grain dole. He craves stability no less than our banker friend.”

  “Do you think that’s why he’s here? Looking for law and order?”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s find out.” Eco took my arm and together we slid through the crowd, to the consternation of Eco’s bodyguards, who were hard pressed to follow.

  “Citizen,” said Eco, “don’t I know you?”

  The man looked at Eco appraisingly. “I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, I’m almost certain we frequent the same tavern. You know, that little place—”

  “The Three Dolphins?”

  “That’s it! Yes, I’m sure we’ve spoken before.”

  “Maybe.” The man’s glum expression lightened a bit.

  “Oh, you remember, we once had quite a laugh—you know, at that funny fellow who works there …”

  “Gaius, you mean? Yes, he’s an odd one.” The man chuckled.

  “And of course …” Eco gestured with his hands to suggest an ample bosom.

  The man flashed a crooked smile and nodded. “Ah, the old man’s daughter. The one he claims is still a virgin. Ha!”

  Eco discreetly tapped his foot against mine, as if to say: The fish is hooked. Gaining the confidence of a total stranger is one of the tricks that Eco learned from me, and he likes to show off to his teacher. I saw him glance quickly at the man’s hands, appraising the chapped fingertips and the red stain under the fingernails.

  “Do you still work as a cloth dyer?”

  “What else? Washing and dyeing, washing and dyeing. Over in the Street of the Fullers. Every day for more than twenty years now.”

  “Is that right?” Eco lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “Say, how much did they give you?”

  “What?”

  “This morning. You know what I mean. How much did Milo’s men give you?”

  The fuller looked at Eco and then glanced warily at me.

  “It’s all right,” said Eco. “The fellow’s with me. He’s a harmless mute.”

  I discreetly kicked Eco’s ankle. This was a private joke—it was Eco who had once been a mute, not me. Now he had effectively prevented me from saying a word.

  “So how much did they give you?” said Eco again.

  “Same as everyone else, I imagine,” said the fuller.

  “Yes, but how much?”

  “Well, I never like to say exactly. But enough.” The man tapped at a purse tucked away in his toga and produced a muffled clink. “And a promise for quite a bit more if I’ll vote for him when the time comes. And you?”

  “A hundred sesterces,” said Eco.

  “What! A hundred! They gave me only half that much!”

  “Ah, but the hundred was for both of us.” Eco hooked his thumb at me.

  The man nodded, mollified by Eco’s explanation. Then he frowned. “But if your friend is a mute and can’t even shout his support, it hardly seems fair to pay him as much as—”

  “Ah, but as you can see, the two of us each have two slaves, men with strong lungs, and you appear to have only one. Even with my friend being mute, that gives us five voices to your two.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose …”

  “So, citizen, what do you make of all this?” With an expansive gesture Eco indicated the whole Forum, and by extension the crisis plaguing Rome.

  The fuller shrugged. “Same as usual, only worse. Except that now they’ve gone from character assassination to assassination outright. We’d be lucky if they’d all kill each other off, starting from the top down. Wipe themselves out! But you know how it is when the big fellows start falling—they fall on top of us little fellows and crush us.”

  Eco nodded sagely. “Then you’re not a particularly enthusiastic supporter of Milo?”

  “Fah!” The man curled his lip in disdain. “Oh, he’s certainly better than some others, or else I wouldn’t be here. You couldn’t pay me enough to attend a contio held by the Clodians. That fellow Clodius was worse than a beast in rut. Screwing his own sister! And they say when he was a boy he sold himself to rich old men. You know the song—‘To get ahead, he gave them head, then took his sister to his bed.’ And—”

  “But what about the grain dole?”

  The man was suddenly incensed. “Just another scheme to make himself more powerful! Yes, Clodius set up the grain dole—and then who was put in charge of keeping the lists of eligible citizens? Sextus Cloelius! That’s right, Clodius’s number one henchman, the one who torched the Senate House. As corrupt as they come! Don’t talk to me about the grain dole. It’s all a racket!”

  “A racket?” said Eco.

  “Of course. You must know how it works.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “All right: Sextus Cloelius talks a man into freeing half his household slaves. The slaves become freedmen, but where are they going to go? They still work for their old master, they still live in his house. But as freedmen they can go onto the grain dole, so their master doesn’t have to feed them anymore—the state does! For his cut, Sextus Cloelius enlists these new freedmen into the Clodian gang, to stalk the streets at night and show up at contios to terrorize the opposition. And they get to vote, as well. The grain dole! Clodius passed off the whole nasty business as a big favor he’d done for the common man in Rome, people like me, providing us with a way to feed ourselves in bad times. But it was just a way to supply himself with new voters and gang members—and to feed them at state expense! I tell you, I was born a citizen, and it makes me furious to see Clodius’s gang of ex-slaves getting the same privileges as me. What a conniver that Clodius was, right up to the last—they say he was working out more new schemes to give even more power to freedmen. If he’d had his way he’d have torn down the state and put his gangs in charge of everything. Then we’d have had King Clodius, chopping off heads right and left, and a bunch of ex-slaves bullying the rest of us. We’re all better off with him dead, that’s for sure. Milo did a good thing. I don’t mind turning up to shout a few words of encouragement for him.”

  “And if it puts a little jingle in your purse …” said Eco.

  “Why not?”

  “Yes, why not? Well, I’ll talk to you later, citizen. Perhaps we’ll meet again at the Three Ducks.”

  “The Three Dolphins?” said the fuller.

  “Exactly!” Eco smiled and withdrew, taking my arm. “Well, Papa, was I right about the fellow?”

  “On the contrary, Eco, I was right. Just as I speculated, our friend the fuller came here today to support law and order.”

  “Indeed not! Papa, the man was bribed to be here, probably like three quarters or more of the rest of this crowd. I knew I’d seen some of Milo’s lieutenants passing out money when I walked through the Forum earlier this morning, on my way to your house. I suppose we should be insulted that we weren’t offered anything.”

  “The bribe dispensers all know us by now, Eco.”

  “I suppose that’s it. This little gathering is costing Milo a tidy sum.”

  “Yes, but I was still right.”

  “About what?”

  “About why our friend the fuller is here. He’s looking for the rule of law and order.”

  “And a bribe,” said Eco.

  “And a bribe,” I conceded.

  Caelius and Milo soon arrived, surrounded by a large retinue. As they made their way through the crowd, people craned their necks to get a look at Milo, and when they saw him many began to cheer. Their excitement seemed genuine, and why not? For better or worse, Milo was the man of the hour, and this was his first appearance in public since the incident on the Appian Way. All eyes were on him. All ears were eager to hear him speak.

  With or without bribery, Milo had many supporters. He had been campaigning for the consulship for a long time, and in an effort to expand his support beyond the Best People he had spent a fortune on extravagant games and shows. Rome loves a politician who knows how to stage a spectacle. S
ome magistrates are required to put on shows at various annual festivals, at their own expense, as part of their official duties for the year. Other men put on shows as private citizens, in the guise of funeral games. Whatever the pretext, every politician ascending the rungs of the magistracies is obligated to outdo his rivals in producing the most memorable races and comedies and gladiatorial combats. The practice is so accepted that no one ever seems to notice that providing expensive public entertainments is just as much a kind of electoral bribery as putting coins directly into the purses of voters. Nowadays, people seem to have lost the will to object even to that.

  Marcus Caelius ascended the platform and called the contio to order.

  Caelius had been trained in oratory from boyhood by both Cicero and the late Marcus Crassus. He was their most brilliant pupil. He had mastered the formal challenges of constructing a speech, as well as the technical skills of modulating his voice and casting it to great distances, but more notably, over the years he had crafted a wickedly sarcastic style which set the tone for his whole generation. When older orators striving for new effects attempted to emulate this style, the result was often blatant and shrill, but it was never so when practiced by Caelius himself. This was his genius, that he was able to cast over a large crowd the same charm that he emanated in closer quarters, but without the ironical undercutting that one often felt in his immediate presence. He was able to utter the most vicious innuendoes and obscene double entendres at a public gathering without seeming vindictive or vulgar. Instead, he seemed only effortlessly clever and witty, and quite sincere. This gave him tremendous power as an orator.

  Caelius was not really in his element playing the rabble-rousing tribune at a contio. He was more suited to courts of law, especially as a prosecutor, where he could pour his acid over a squirming victim before an appreciative audience of cultured jurors, educated men like himself who appreciated swift, convoluted wordplay. Still, Caelius commenced his contio displaying the self-assurance he was known for, of the sort that cannot be faked.

  “Good citizens of Rome! You see beside me on the platform today a man you all know—Titus Annius Milo. His name has been on all your lips of late. You have gone to bed at night thinking about him, asking yourselves just what sort of man is this Milo? You’ve awakened in the morning wondering where on earth he might be. And every hour of every day you have considered the same pressing question which you must be considering even now: When will this madness be over?