John Maddox Roberts - SPQR 02 by The Catiline Conspiracy

Author:The Catiline Conspiracy [Conspiracy, The Catiline]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-25T20:56:08+00:00

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Chapter VII

That year, we held the festival of the October Horse in the Forum. In other years, it was usually held in the Campus Martius, but the augurs had seen signs that were unfavorable to the Campus Martins. Mars wanted the festival held within the city walls this year. In earliest times, the festival had always been in the Forum, but in those days the Forum had been an open field. With its present clutter of public buildings, temples, monuments and speakers' platforms it was a rough place to hold a horse race. But by that time the city was spilling out onto the Campus Martius as well, since it had grown too crowded for the old walls to contain any longer. The old mustering-field for the army was quickly growing as urbanized as the rest of the city.

Holding the race in the Forum was favorable to me in one respect: If it had been in the Campus Martins, the race would have been run in chariots. I was a competent rider, but a wretched charioteer. The chariot has been obsolete for centuries, except for races and ceremonial processions, so I never saw any point in acquiring the skill, although I had taken some lessons out of curiosity. Clodius, on the other hand, was known to practice regularly at the stables of the Greens (he had switched from Red to Green upon becoming a man of the people). It would have been unthinkably disgraceful for any wellborn man to race publicly, but many race-crazed young men practiced assiduously to learn a skill they would never be able to use.

To my further advantage was Clodius himself. He was a bit shorter than I, but of stocky build and he weighed a good many pounds more. Much would depend on the respective strength of the horses we drew. Since they would have been chosen from among the best racehorses of the stables, it was probable that their power would be nearly equal, giving me the advantage.

With half the Subura behind me, I entered the Forum amid thunderous cheers. The whole city seemed to be packed into the ancient city center, or on the balconies and atop the gates and rooftops overlooking it. People had climbed onto the monuments for a better view. Beside me were two other men who would ride for the Subura. They were both handlers for the Circus, expert riders.

Mars in those days was still an extramural god, and had no altar within the city except for a shrine in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, so a temporary altar had been erected in front of the Rostra, similar to the permanent altar on the Campus Martins. There stood the Flamen Martialis and his attendants, ready to conduct the ceremony. Behind the priest, on the Rostra, stood the magistrates of state and the other pontifices and flamines, the augurs, and a few privileged foreigners.

Approaching from the other end of the Forum I saw Publius Clodius and his two companions, backed by the dwellers of the Via Sacra.

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