Imperium

Needless to say, the others were agog to hear why Cicero had summoned them, and once the courts and offices were shut for the day, everyone turned up at Pompey’s mansion, filling all the seats around the table, except for the absent owner’s great throne, which was left empty as a mark of respect. It may seem strange that such clever and learned men as Caesar and Varro were ignorant of the precise tactics which Gracchus had used as tribune, but remember that he had been dead by then for sixty-three years, that huge events had intervened, and that there was not yet the mania for contemporary history which was to develop over the coming decades. Even Cicero had forgotten it until Crassus’s threat dislodged some distant memory from the time when he was studying for the bar. There was a profound hush as he read out the extract from the A

“We would not create the precedent,” Caesar pointed out impatiently. “Gracchus created it for us.”

“Exactly,” said Cicero. “Although the nobles may have murdered him, they did not declare his legislation illegal. I know what Varro means, and to a degree I share his unease. But we are in a desperate struggle, and obliged to take some risks.”

There was a murmur of assent, but in the end the most decisive voices in favor were those of Gabinius and Cornelius, the men who would actually have to stand before the people and push the legislation through, and thus be chiefly subject to the nobles’ retaliation, both physical and legal.

“The people overwhelmingly want this supreme command, and they want Pompey to be given it,” declared Gabinius. “The fact that Crassus’s purse is deep enough to buy two tribunes should not be allowed to frustrate their will.”

Afranius wanted to know if Pompey had expressed an opinion.

“This is the dispatch I sent to him this morning,” said Cicero, holding it up, “and here on the bottom is the reply he sent back instantly, and which reached me here at the same time as you all did.” Everyone could see what he had scrawled, in his large, bold script: the single word “Agreed.” That settled the matter. Afterwards, Cicero instructed me to burn the letter.

THE MORNING OF THE ASSEMBLY was bitterly cold, with an icy wind whipping around the colo

It was a dramatic sight, and I guess I must be one of the very few left alive who witnessed it-the ten tribunes lined up on their bench, among them, like hired gladiators, the two matched pairs of Gabinius and Cornelius (for Pompey) versus Trebellius and Roscius (for Crassus); the priests and the augurs all standing at the top of the steps to the temple; the orange fire on the altar providing a flickering point of color in the grayness; and spread out across the Forum the great crowd of voters, red-faced in the cold, milling around the ten-foot-high standard of their particular tribe. Each standard carried its name proudly in large letters-AEMILIA, CAMILIA, FABIA, etc.-so that its members, if they wandered off, could see where they were supposed to be. There was much joking and horse trading among the groups, until the trumpet of the herald called them to order. Then the official crier gave the legislation its second reading in a penetrating voice, after which Gabinius stepped forward and made a short speech. He had joyful news, he said: the news that the people of Rome had been praying for. Pompey the Great, deeply moved by the sufferings of the nation, was willing to reconsider his position and serve as supreme commander-but only if it was the unanimous desire of them all. “And is it your desire?” demanded Gabinius, to which there was a huge demonstration of enthusiasm. This went on for some time, thanks to the tribal officers. In fact, whenever it seemed the volume might be waning, Cicero would give a discreet signal to a couple of these officers, who would relay it across the Forum, and the tribal standards would start waving again, rekindling the applause. Eventually, Gabinius motioned them to be quiet. “Then let us put it to the vote!”

Slowly-and one had to admire his courage in standing up at all, in the face of so many thousands-Trebellius rose from his place on the tribunes’ bench and came forward, his hand raised to signal his desire to intervene. Gabinius regarded him with contempt, and then roared to the crowd, “Well, citizens, should we let him speak?”

“No!” they screamed in response.

To which Trebellius, in a voice made shrill by nerves, shouted, “Then I veto the bill!”

At any other time in the past four centuries, excepting the year when Tiberius Gracchus was tribune, this would have been the end of the legislation. But on that fateful morning, Gabinius motioned the jeering crowd to be silent. “Does Trebellius speak for you all?”

“No!” they chanted back. “No! No!”

“Does he speak for anyone here?” The only sound was the wind: even the senators who supported Trebellius dared not raise their voices, for they were standing unprotected among their tribes and would have been set upon by the mob. “Then, in accordance with the precedent set by Tiberius Gracchus, I propose that Trebellius, having failed to observe the oath of his office and represent the people, be removed as tribune, and that this be voted on immediately!”

Cicero turned to me. “And now the play begins,” he said.

For a moment, the citizenry simply looked at one another. Then they started nodding, and a sound of realization grew out of the crowd-that is how I think of it now, at any rate, as I sit in my little study with my eyes closed and try to remember it all-a realization that they could do this, and that the grandees in the Senate were powerless to stop them. Catulus, Hortensius, and Crassus, in great alarm, started pushing their way toward the front of the assembly, demanding a hearing, but Gabinius had stationed a few of Pompey’s veterans along the bottom steps and they were not allowed to pass. Crassus, in particular, had lost all his usual restraint. His face was red and contorted with rage as he tried to storm the tribunal, but he was pushed back. He noticed Cicero watching and pointed at him, shouting something, but he was too far away and there was too much noise for us to hear. Cicero smiled at him benignly. The crier read out Gabinius’s motion-“That the people no longer desire Trebellius to be their tribune”-and the electoral clerks dispersed to their stations. As usual, the Suburana were the first to vote, filing up the gangplank two abreast to cast their ballots, then down the stone steps at the side of the temple and back into the Forum. The city tribes followed one after the other, and every one of them voted for Trebellius to be stripped of his office. Then the rural tribes started balloting. This all took several hours, and throughout it Trebellius looked gray with anxiety and frequently conferred with his companion, Roscius. At one point he disappeared from the tribunal. I did not see where he went, but I guess it must have been to plead with Crassus to release him from his obligation. All across the Forum, small huddles of senators gathered as their tribes finished voting, and I noticed Catulus and Hortensius going, grim-faced, from group to group. Cicero also did the rounds, leaving me behind as he circulated among the senators, talking to some of those, such as Torquatus and his old ally Marcellinus, whom he had secretly persuaded to switch to Pompey’s camp.

At length, after seventeen tribes had voted to oust Trebellius, Gabinius ordered a pause in the balloting. He summoned Trebellius to the front of the tribunal and asked him whether he was prepared now to bow to the will of the people, and by so doing keep his tribunate, or whether it would be necessary to hold an eighteenth ballot and cast him out of office. This was Trebellius’s chance to enter history as the hero of his cause, and I have often wondered whether, in his old age, he looked back on his decision with regret. But I suppose he still had hopes of a political career. After a short hesitation, he signaled his assent and his veto was withdrawn. I need hardly add that he was subsequently despised by both sides and never heard of again.

All eyes now turned to Roscius, Crassus’s second tribune, and it was at this point, sometime in the early afternoon, that Catulus appeared again at the foot of the temple steps, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted up to Gabinius, demanding a hearing. As I have mentioned before, Catulus commanded great respect among the people for his patriotism. It was therefore hard for Gabinius to refuse him, not least because he was regarded as the senior ex-consul in the Senate. He gestured to the veterans to let him pass, and Catulus, despite his age, shot up the steps like a lizard. “This is a mistake,” Cicero muttered to me.

Gabinius told Cicero afterwards that he thought the aristocrats, seeing that they had lost, might now be willing to concede in the interests of national unity. But not at all. Catulus railed against the lex Gabinia and the illegal tactics being used to drive it through. It was madness, he declared, for the republic to entrust its security to one man. Warfare was a hazardous business, especially at sea: what would happen to this special command if Pompey was killed? Who would be his replacement? A cry went up of “You!” which, however flattering, was not at all the response that Catulus wanted. He knew he was far too old to go off soldiering. What he really wanted was a dual command-Crassus and Pompey-because even though he detested Crassus personally, he reckoned that the richest man in Rome would at least provide a counterweight to Pompey’s power. But by now Gabinius had begun to realize his error in letting Catulus speak. The winter days were short. He needed to finish the voting by sunset. He roughly interrupted the former consul and told him he had had his say: it was time to put the matter to the ballot. Roscius thereupon sprang forward and tried to make a formal proposal splitting the supreme command in two, but the people were becoming exasperated and refused to give him a hearing. In fact, they set up such a deafening clamor it was said that the noise killed a raven flying overhead and sent it plummeting to the earth. All Roscius could do against the uproar was raise two fingers to veto the legislation and signify his belief that there should be two commanders. Gabinius knew that if he had to call yet another ballot to remove a tribune, he would lose the light, and with it the chance of establishing the supreme command that day-and who could tell what lengths the aristocrats might go to if they had a chance to regroup overnight? So he responded by turning his back on Roscius and ordering the bill to be put regardless.