Imperium

“What is he saying about me?” asked Sthenius. “What is he going to do?”
I made no answer, for I did not know myself.
By now, it was clear that Hortensius had realized something was going on but was unsure exactly what. The order of business had been posted in its usual place beside the door of the Senate House. I saw Hortensius stop to read it-the prosecution of persons in their absence on capital charges should be prohibited in the provinces-and turn away, mystified. Gellius Publicola was sitting in the doorway on his carved ivory chair, surrounded by his attendants, waiting until the entrails had been inspected and the auguries declared favorable before summoning the senators inside. Hortensius approached him, palms spread wide in inquiry. Gellius shrugged and pointed irritably at Cicero. Hortensius swung around to discover his ambitious rival surrounded by a conspiratorial circle of senators. He frowned and went over to join his own aristocratic friends: the three Metellus brothers-Quintus, Lucius, and Marcus-and the two elderly ex-consuls who really ran the empire, Quintus Catulus (whose sister was married to Hortensius) and the double triumphator, Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus. Merely writing their names after all these years raises the hairs on my neck, for these were such men, stern and unyielding and steeped in the old republican values, as no longer exist. Hortensius must have told them about the motion, because slowly all five turned to look at Cicero. Immediately thereafter a trumpet sounded to signal the start of the session, and the senators began to file in.
The old Senate House was a cool, gloomy, cavernous temple of government, split by a wide central aisle of black and white tile. Facing across it on either side were long rows of wooden benches, six deep, on which the senators sat, with a dais at the far end for the chairs of the consuls. The light on that November afternoon was pale and bluish, dropping in shafts from the unglazed windows just beneath the raftered roof. Pigeons cooed on the sills and flapped across the chamber, sending small feathers and even occasionally hot squirts of excrement down onto the senators below. Some held that it was lucky to be shat on while speaking, others that it was an ill omen, a few that it depended on the color of the deposit. The superstitions were as numerous as their interpretations. Cicero took no notice of them, just as he took no notice of the arrangement of sheep’s guts, or whether a peal of thunder was on the left or the right, or the particular flight path of a flock of birds-idiocy all of it, as far as he was concerned, even though he later campaigned enthusiastically for election to the College of Augurs.
By ancient tradition, then still observed, the doors of the Senate House remained open so that the people could hear the debates. The crowd, Sthenius and I among them, surged across the Forum to the threshold of the chamber, where we were held back by a simple rope. Gellius was already speaking, relating the dispatches of the army commanders in the field. On all three fronts, the news was good. In southern Italy, the vastly rich Marcus Crassus-he who once boasted that no man could call himself wealthy unless he could keep a legion of five thousand solely out of his income-was putting down Spartacus’s slave revolt with great severity. In Spain, Pompey the Great, after six years’ fighting, was mopping up the last of the rebel armies. In Asia Minor, Lucius Lucullus was enjoying a glorious run of victories over King Mithradates. Once their reports had been read, supporters of each man rose in turn to praise his patron’s achievements and subtly denigrate those of his rivals. I knew the politics of this from Cicero and passed them on to Sthenius in a superior whisper: “Crassus hates Pompey and is determined to defeat Spartacus before Pompey can return with his legions from Spain to take all the credit. Pompey hates Crassus and wants the glory of finishing off Spartacus so that he can rob him of a triumph. Crassus and Pompey both hate Lucullus because he has the most glamorous command.”
“And whom does Lucullus hate?”
“Pompey and Crassus, of course, for intriguing against him.”
I felt as pleased as a child who has just successfully recited his lesson, for it was all just a game then, and I had no idea that we would ever get drawn in. The debate came to a desultory halt, without the need for a vote, and the senators began talking among themselves. Gellius, who must have been well into his sixties, held the order paper up close to his face and squinted at it, then peered around the chamber, trying to locate Cicero, who, as a junior senator, was confined to a distant back bench, near to the door. Eventually, Cicero stood to show himself, Gellius sat, the buzz of voices died away, and I picked up my stylus. There was a silence, which Cicero allowed to grow, an old trick to increase tension. And then, when he had waited so long it seemed that something must be wrong, he began to speak-very quietly and hesitantly at first, forcing his listeners to strain their ears, the rhythm of his words hooking them without their even knowing it.
“Honorable members, compared to the stirring accounts of our men in arms to which we have lately listened, I fear what I say will sound small indeed.” And now his voice rose: “But if the moment has come when this noble House no longer has ears for the pleas of an innocent man, then all those courageous deeds are worthless, and our soldiers bleed in vain.” There was a murmur of agreement from the benches beside him. “This morning there came into my home just such an innocent man, whose treatment by one of our number has been so shameful, so monstrous, and so cruel that the gods themselves must weep to hear of it. I refer to the honorable Sthenius of Thermae, recently resident in the miserable, misgoverned, misappropriated province of Sicily.”
At the word “ Sicily,” Hortensius, who had been sprawling on the front bench nearest the consul, twitched slightly. Without taking his eyes from Cicero he whispered to Quintus, the eldest of the Metellus brothers, who promptly leaned behind him and beckoned to Marcus, the junior of the fraternal trio. After receiving his instructions, Marcus bowed to the presiding consul and hurried down the aisle toward me. For a moment I thought I was about to be struck-they were tough, swaggering fellows, those Metelli-but he did not even look at me. He lifted the rope, ducked under it, pushed through the crowd, and disappeared.
Cicero, meanwhile, was hitting his stride. After our return from Molon, with the precept Delivery, delivery, delivery carved into his mind, he had spent many hours at the theater, studying the methods of the actors, and had developed a considerable talent for mime and mimicry. Using only the smallest touch of voice or gesture, he could, as it were, populate his speeches with the characters to whom he referred. He treated the Senate that afternoon to a command performance: the swaggering arrogance of Verres was contrasted with the quiet dignity of Sthenius; the long-suffering Sicilians shrank before the vileness of the public executioner, Sextius. Sthenius himself could hardly believe what he was witnessing. He had been in the city but a day, and here he was, the subject of a debate in the Roman Senate itself. Hortensius, meanwhile, kept glancing toward the door, and as Cicero began to work toward his peroration-“Sthenius seeks our protection, not merely from a thief, but from the very man who is supposed to punish thieves!”-he finally sprang to his feet. Under the rules of the Senate, a serving praetor always took precedence over a humble member of the pedarii, and Cicero had no choice but to give way.
“Senators,” boomed Hortensius, “we have sat through this long enough! This is surely one of the most flagrant pieces of opportunism ever seen in this noble House! A vague motion is placed before us, which now turns out to relate to one man only. No notice is given to us about what is to be discussed. We have no means of verifying whether what we are hearing is true. Gaius Verres, a senior member of this Order, is being defamed with no opportunity to defend himself. I move that this sitting be suspended immediately!”