John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.6]-Mightier Than The Sword Read Free Page B

Syria,
Crassus told them all to fight Pompey's efforts to become Dictator.
That's good advice, even coming from Crassus. I've spent months trying
to convince the tribunes not to introduce legislation to that effect."
    "What about next
year's tribunes?" I asked.
    "Next year's? I'm
having trouble enough with the ones we have now."
    "Even if Pompey
isn't named Dictator, he's almost sure to be one of next year's
Consuls. If the Tribunes for next year are all Pompey's men, he'll have
near-dictatorial authority and the proconsular province of his
choosing. He'll be able to take Syria from Crassus, or Gaul from
Caesar, if he wants."
    Cicero nodded.
"That has always been Pompey's style —let someone else do all the
fighting, then get the Tribunes to give him command in time for the
kill." Now he looked sharply at me. "What are you getting at, Decius?"
    "Be patient with
me, Marcus Tullius. I have…" at that moment I saw a slave, one of
Asklepiodes's silent Egyptian assistants, making his way toward me,
holding a folded piece of papyrus, which he handed to me. I opened up
the papyrus, read the single word it held, and grinned. "Marcus
Tullius," I said, "if a man were standing for public office and were
caught in some offense against the ancient laws—say, he carried arms
within the boundaries set by Romulus —would it abnegate his
candidacy?" My own solution to the law was to carry a
caestus.
The spiked boxing glove was, technically, sports equipment rather than
a proper weapon.
    "It's a commonly
violated custom in these evil times, but if I were standing for office
against that man I would prosecute him and tie him up in litigation so
thoroughly that he would never take office."
    "That is just
what I needed to know. Marcus Tullius, if I might impose upon you
further, could you meet with me this afternoon at the
ludus
of Statilius Taurus?"
    Now he was
thoroughly mystified, something I seldom managed to do to Cicero.
"Well, my friend Balbus has been writing me from Africa for months to
help him arrange the Games he will be giving when he returns. I could
take care of that at the same time."
    "Thank you,
Marcus Tullius." I started to turn away.
    "And, Decius?"
    I turned back.
"Yes?"
    "Do be
entertaining. That's a long walk."
    "I promise it."
    At the bottom of
the steps I took the tablet thonged to the slave's belt and wrote on
the wax with my stylus. "Take this to your master," I instructed. He
nodded wordlessly and left. Asklepiodes's slaves could speak, but only
in Egyptian, which in Rome was the same thing as being mute. Then I
gave the lictor his orders.
    "Go to Quintus
Cosconius, the man in mourning dress over there with the candidates,
and tell him that he is summoned to confer with me at the Statilian
School in" —I glanced up at the angle of the sun —"three hours."
    He ran off and I
climbed the lower slope of the Capitoline along the Via Sacra to the
Archive. I spoke with Calpurnius, the freedman in charge of estate
titles, and he brought me a great stack of tablets and scrolls, bulky
with thick waxen seals, recording the deeds of the late Aulus
Cosconius. The one for the Aventine town house where I had discovered
his body was a nice little wooden diptych with bronze hinges. Inside,
one leaf bore writing done with a reed pen in black ink. The other had
a circular recess that held the wax seal protecting it from damage.
    "I'll just take
this with me, if you don't mind," I said.
    "But I do mind,"
Calpurnius said. "You have no subpoena from a
Praetor
demanding documents from this office." One always has to deal with such
persons, on public duty. After much wrangling and talking with his
superiors and swearing of sacred oaths upon the altars of the State, I
got away with the wretched document, to be returned the next morning or
forfeit my life.
    Thus armed, I
made my leisurely way toward the river and crossed the Aemilian Bridge
into the Trans-Tiber district. There, among the river port facilities
of Rome's newest district,