Fortune's Favorites (97 page)

“How old are they?”

“Can't tell you exactly, but Marcus looks about twelve in size and acts five in mind, so put him at seven or eight. The other two is littler.”

“Yes, they're hulking brutes, all the Antonii. I take it the father of these boys hasn't much money.”

“Always on the edge of disaster, Caesar.”

“I won't do him or his boys any good if I prosecute, then.”

“You won't.”

“I have to take the case, dad.”

“Well, I knows that!”

“What I need are some witnesses. Preferably free men- or women-or children-who are willing to testify. He must be doing it here too. And his victims won't all be vanished slaves.”

“I'll go looking, Caesar.”

His womenfolk knew the moment he came in the front door that some trouble had come upon him, but neither Aurelia nor Cinnilla tried to discover its nature. Under more normal circumstances Aurelia certainly would have, but the baby occupied her attention more than she would have cared to admit, so she missed the significance of Caesar's mood. And therefore the chance to talk him out of prosecuting Gaius Antonius Hybrida, whose nephews were Caesar's close cousins.

The Murder Court was the logical venue, but the more Caesar thought about the case the less he liked the idea of a trial in the Murder Court. For one thing, the president was the praetor Marcus Junius Juncus, who resented his allocation to an ex-aedile's court, but no ex-aediles had volunteered this year; Caesar had already clashed with him during a case he had pleaded in January. The other great difficulty was the un-Roman litigants. It was very difficult indeed in any court to get a favorable verdict when the plaintiffs were foreign nationals and the defendant a Roman of high birth and standing. All very well for his clients to say that they didn't mind losing the case, but Caesar knew a judge like Juncus would ensure the proceedings were kept quiet, the court shoved away somewhere designed to discourage a large audience. And the worst of it was that the tribune of the plebs Gnaeus Sicinius was monopolizing Forum audiences by agitating ceaselessly for a full restoration of all the powers which had used to belong to the tribunes of the plebs. Nobody was interested in anything else, especially after Sicinius had come out with a witticism already going down in the collection of every literary dilettante who amassed political witticisms.

“Why,” the consul Gaius Scribonius Curio had asked him, exasperated, “is it that you harass me and my colleague Gnaeus Octavius, you harass the praetors, the aediles, your fellow tribunes of the plebs, Publius Cethegus, all our consulars and great men, bankers like Titus Atticus, even the poor quaestors!-and yet you never say a word against Marcus Licinius Crassus? Isn't Marcus Crassus worthy of your venom? Or is it Marcus Crassus who is putting you up to your antics? Go on, Sicinius, you yapping little dog, tell me why you leave Crassus alone!”

Well aware that Curio and Crassus had had a falling-out, Sicinius pretended to give the question serious consideration before answering.

“Because Marcus Crassus has hay wrapped around both his horns,” he said gravely.

The very large audience had collapsed on the ground laughing, appreciating every nuance. The sight of an ox with hay wrapped around one horn was common enough; the hay was a warning that the animal might look placid, but it would suddenly gore with the hayed horn. Oxen with hay wrapped around both horns were avoided like lepers. Had Marcus Crassus not possessed the unruffled, bovine look and build of an ox, the remark would not have been so apt; but what made it so hilarious was the inference that Marcus Crassus was such a prick he had two of them.

Therefore, how to attract away some of Sicinius's devoted following? How to give the case the audience it deserved? And while Caesar chewed these matters over, his clients journeyed back to Boeotia to gather evidence and witnesses in the exact way Caesar had instructed; the months went on, the clients returned, and still Caesar had not applied to Juncus to hear the case.

“I do not understand!” cried Iphicrates, disappointed. “If we do not hurry, we may not be heard at all!”

“I have a feeling there's a better way,” said Caesar. “Be patient with me a little longer, Iphicrates. I promise I will make sure you and your colleagues don't have to wait in Rome for more months. Your witnesses are well hidden?”

“Absolutely, just as you ordered. In a villa outside Cumae.”

And then one day early in June, the answer came. Caesar had paused by the tribunal of the praetor peregrinus, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus. The younger brother of the man most of Rome deemed her brightest man of the future was very like Lucullus-and very devoted to him. Separated as children by the vicissitudes of fortune, the bond had not weakened; rather, it had grown much stronger. Lucullus had delayed his climb up the cursus honorum so that he could be curule aedile in tandem with Varro Lucullus, and together they had thrown games of such brilliance that people still talked about them. It was commonly believed that both the Luculli would achieve the consulship in the near future; they were as popular with the voters as they were aristocratic.

“How goes your day?” Caesar asked, smiling; he liked the foreign praetor, in whose court he had pleaded many little cases with a confidence and freedom few other judges engendered. Varro Lucullus was extremely knowledgeable about law, and a man of great integrity.

“My day goes boringly,” said Varro Lucullus, answering the smile with one of his own.

Somehow Caesar's brilliant idea was born and reached full maturity between his question and Varro Lucullus's answer; that was usually what happened, the lightning perception of how to go about some difficult thing after months of puzzling.

“When are you leaving Rome to hear the rural assizes?”

“It's traditional for the foreign praetor to pop up on the Campanian seaside just as summer reaches its most unendurable pitch,” said Varro Lucullus, and sighed. “However, it looks as if I'll be tied down in Rome for at least another month.”

“Then don't cut it short!” said Caesar.

Varro Lucullus blinked; one moment he had been talking to a man whose legal acumen and ability he prized highly, the next moment he was gazing at the space where Caesar had been.

“I know how to do it!” Caesar was saying shortly afterward to Iphicrates in the private parlor he had hired at his inn.

“How?” asked the important man of Thessalonica eagerly.

“I knew I was right to delay, Iphicrates! We're not going to use the Murder Court, nor will we lay criminal charges against Gaius Antonius Hybrida.”

“Not lay criminal charges?” gasped Iphicrates. “But that is the whole object!”

“Nonsense! The whole object is to create a huge stir in Rome. We won't do that in Juncus's court, nor will his court enable us to steal Sicinius's Forum audiences. Juncus will tuck himself away in the smallest, most airless corner of the Basilica Porcia or Opimia, everyone compelled to be present will faint from the heat, and no one who is not compelled to be present will be there at all. The jury will hate us and Juncus will gallop through the proceedings, egged on by jurors and advocates.”

“But what other alternative is there?”

Caesar leaned forward. “I will lay this case before the foreign praetor as a civil suit,” he said. “Instead of charging Hybrida with murder, I will sue him for damages arising out of his conduct while a prefect of cavalry in Greece ten years ago. And you will lodge an enormous sponsio with the foreign praetor-a sum of money far greater than Hybrida's whole fortune. Could you raise two thousand talents? And be prepared if something goes wrong to lose them?”

Iphicrates drew a breath. “The sum is indeed enormous, but we came prepared to spend whatever it takes to make Rome see that she must cease to plague us with men like Hybrida-and the elder Dolabella. Yes, Caesar,” said Iphicrates deliberately, “we will raise two thousand talents. It will take some doing, but we will find it here in Rome.”

“All right, then we lodge two thousand talents in sponsio with the foreign praetor in the civil suit against Gaius Antonius Hybrida. That will create a sensation in itself. It will also demonstrate to the whole of Rome that we are serious.”

“Hybrida won't be able to find a quarter of that sum.”

“Absolutely right, Iphicrates, he won't. But it is in the jurisdiction of the foreign praetor to waive the lodgement of sponsio if he considers there is a case to be answered. And if there's one thing about Varro Lucullus, it's that he is fair. He will waive Hybrida's matching sum, I'm sure of it.”

“But if we win and Hybrida has not lodged two thousand talents as his matching sponsio, what happens?”

“Then, Iphicrates, he has to find it! Because he has to pay it! That's how a civil suit works under Roman law.”

“Oh, I see!” Iphicrates sat back and linked his arms about his knees, smiling gently. “Then if he loses, he's a beggar. He will have to leave Rome a bankrupt-and he will never be able to return, will he?”

“He will never be able to return.”

“On the other hand, if we lose, he takes our two thousand?”

“That's right.”

“Do you think we will lose, Caesar?”

“No.”

Then why are you warning me that something could go wrong? Why do you say we must be prepared to forfeit our money?”

Frowning, Caesar tried to explain to this Greek what he, a Roman through and through, had absorbed from infancy. “Because Roman law is not as watertight as it seems. A lot depends on the judge, and the judge under Sulla's law cannot be Varro Lucullus. In that respect, I pin my faith upon Varro Lucullus's integrity, that he will choose a judge prepared to be dispassionate. And then there is another risk. Sometimes a brilliant advocate will find a hole in the law that can let in an entire ocean-Hybrida will be defended by the best advocates in Rome.” Caesar tensed, held his hands like claws. “If I can be inspired to find an answer to our problem, do you think there is no one else capable of being inspired to find an answer to Hybrida's problem? That is why men like me enjoy legal practice, Iphicrates, when judge and process are free from taint or bias! No matter how conclusive and watertight we think our case is, beware of the bright fellow on the other side. What if Cicero defends? Formidable! Mind you, I don't think he'll be tempted when he learns the details. But Hortensius wouldn't be so fussy. You must remember too that one side has to lose. We are fighting for a principle, and that is the most dangerous reason of all for going to law.”

“I will consult with my colleagues and give you our answer tomorrow,” said Iphicrates.

The answer was that Caesar should proceed to ask the foreign praetor to hear a civil suit against Gaius Antonius Hybrida. Down to Varro Lucullus's tribunal went Caesar with his clients, there to apply to lodge a sponsio of two thousand talents, the sum in damages being demanded from Hybrida.

Varro Lucullus sat mute, deprived of breath, then shook his head in wonder and held out his hand to examine the bank draft. “This is real and you are serious,” he said to Caesar.

“Absolutely, praetor peregrinus.”

“Why not the Extortion Court?”

“Because the suit does not involve extortion. It involves murder-but more than murder! It involves torture, rape, and permanent maiming. After so many years, my clients do not wish to seek criminal justice. They are seeking damages on behalf of the people of Thespiae, Eleusis and Orchomenus whom Gaius Antonius Hybrida damaged. These people are incapable of working, of earning their livings, of being parents or husbands or wives. To support them in comfort and with kindness is costing the other citizens of Thespiae, Eleusis and Orchomenus a fortune that my clients consider Gaius Antonius Hybrida should be paying. This is a civil suit, praetor peregrinus, to recover damages.”

“Then present your evidence in brief, advocate, so that I may decide whether there is a case to be answered.”

“I will offer before your court and the judge you appoint the testimony of eight victims or witnesses of atrocities. Six of these will be residents of the towns of Thespiae, Eleusis and Orchomenus. The other two are residents of the city of Rome, one a freedman citizen, the other a Syrian national.”

“Why do you offer Roman testimony, advocate?”

“To show the court that Gaius Antonius Hybrida is still indulging in his atrocious practices, praetor peregrinus.”

Two hours later Varro Lucullus accepted the suit in his court and lodged the Greek sponsio. A summons was issued against Gaius Antonius Hybrida to appear to answer the charges on the morrow. After which Varro Lucullus appointed his judge. Publius Cornelius Cethegus. Keeping his face straight, Caesar cheered inside. Brilliant! The judge was a man so wealthy he based his whole power upon the claim that he could not be bought, a man so cultivated and refined that he wept when a pet fish or a lapdog died, a man who covered his head with his toga so he couldn't see a chicken being decapitated in the marketplace. And a man who had no love whatsoever for the Antonii. Would Cethegus consider that a fellow senator must be protected, no matter what the crime? Or the civil suit? No, not Cethegus! After all, there was no possibility of loss of Roman citizenship or of exile. This was civil litigation, only money at stake.

Word ran round the Forum Romanum quicker than feet could run; a crowd began to gather within moments of Caesar's appearance before the foreign praetor's tribunal. As Caesar stimulated interest by enlarging upon the injuries Hybrida's victims had sustained, the crowd grew, hardly able to wait for the case to begin on the morrow-could there truly be such awful sights to be seen as a flayed man and a woman whose genitalia had been so cut up she couldn't even urinate properly?

News of the case beat Caesar home, as he could see from his mother's face.

“What is this I hear?” she demanded, bristling. “You're acting in a case against Gaius Antonius Hybrida? That is not possible! There is a blood tie.”

“There is no blood tie between Hybrida and me, Mater.”

“His nephews are your cousins!”

“They are his brother's children, and the blood tie is from their mother. Consanguinity could only matter if it were Hybrida's sons-did he have any, that is!-who were my cousins.”