Time to Depart Read Free Page B

quite capable of running Plato's on her own. Maybe things were different once, but nowadays she really doesn't need a king of crime creaming off the top of her income.' He leant back and went on with his usual modesty: 'Oh I had some luck in the timing. Balbinus believed himself untouchable, but there was a new mood in the underworld. People were ready to revolt. I noticed the change before he did, that's all.'
    The point was, Petronius Longus had noticed. Many an enquiry captain would have had his nose so close to the pavings he wouldn't have spotted the flies on the balcony.
    'Take your credit for sniffing the air,' I commanded. 'And then for fixing it!'
    He smiled quietly.
    'So your jury convicted, and Marponius did his own career some pod by handing out a death penalty - I presume the Assembly ratified the sentence. Did Balbinus appeal any further?'
    'Straight to Vespasian - and it came straight back: negative.'
    'That's something!' I commented. We were both cynics about the Establishment. 'Who signed the chitty?'
    'Titus.'
    'Vespasian must have approved.'
    'Oh yes.' Only the Emperor has the final power of removing life from a Roman citizen, even if the citizen's life smells like a pile of cat's turds. 'I was quite impressed by the quick response,' Petro admitted. 'I don't really know whether Balbinus offered money to officials, but if he tried it he was wasting his time. Things at the Palace seem to be scented like Paestum violets nowadays.' One good result of the new Flavian Caesars. Graft had gone over the balcony with Nero, apparently. Petro seemed confident anyway. 'Well it was the result I wanted, so that's that.'
    'Here we are!' I congratulated him. 'Ostia at dawn!'
    'Ostia,' he agreed, perhaps more cautiously. 'Marponius gets a free meal at the Palace; I get a scroll with a friendly message from Titus Caesar; the underworld gets a warning -'
    'And Balbinus?'
    'Balbinus,' growled Petronius Longus bitterly, 'gets time to depart.'

IV

    I suppose it is a comfort to us all - we who carry the privilege of being full citizens of the Empire - to know that except in times of extreme political chaos when civilisation is dispensed with, we can do what we like yet remain untouchable.
    It is, of course, a crime for any of us to profiteer while on foreign service; commit parricide; rape a vestal virgin; conspire to assassinate the Emperor; fornicate with another man's slave; or let amphorae drop off our balconies so as to dent fellow citizens' heads. For such evil deeds we can be prosecuted by any righteous free man who is prepared to pay a barrister. We can be invited before a praetor for an embarrassing discussion. If the praetor hates our face, or merely disbelieves our story, we can be sent to trial, and if the jury hates us too we can be convicted. For the worst crimes we can be sentenced to a short social meeting with the public strangler. But, freedom being an inalienable and perpetual state, we cannot be made to endure imprisonment. So while the public strangler is looking up a blank date in his calendar, we can wave him goodbye.
    In the days of Sulla so many criminals were skipping punishment, and it was obviously so cheap to operate, that finally the law enshrined this neat dictum: no Roman citizen who was sentenced to the death penalty might be arrested, even after the verdict, until he had been given time to depart. It was my right; it was Petro's right; and it was the right of the murderous Balbinus Pius to pack a few bags, assume a smug grin, and flee.
    The point is supposed to be that living outside the Empire is, for a citizen, a penalty as savage as death. Balbinus must be quaking. Whoever thought that one up was not a travelling man. I had been outside the Empire, so my verdict was not quite that of a jurist. Outside the Empire can be perfectly liveable. Like anywhere, all you need to survive comfortably is slightly more cash than the natives. The sort of criminals who can afford the fare in the first place