John Maddox Roberts - SPQR 03 by The Sacrilege

Author:The Sacrilege [Sacrilege, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-25T20:58:55+00:00

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Chapter IX

It was a fine morning, and we assembled in the Forum dressed in our best togas. It was not an official holiday, but there was a holiday spirit in the air, as there always is when routine is broken. Hortalus got up on the Rostra and proclaimed our mission, and the crowd cheered, praising the Senate's wisdom.

Of course, Pompey had known for days of the Senate's decision, but his flunkies had insisted that we revive the ancient custom of the entire Senate trooping in a body to the victorious general's camp to give him the good news personally. Since they had adequate historical precedent to cite, there was no way the rest of us could get out of it.

As we went down the Via Sacra to the city gate, we all kept good, impassive senatorial faces, but there was plenty of grumbling all around. I did a bit of it myself.

"It had better be the triumph to top all triumphs," somebody groused near me, "since he's putting us to all this trouble."

"Just like Pompey," said somebody else. "Not enough to get his triumph; he has to see the whole Senate come out to him to kiss his glorious backside." This was all to the good, to my way of thinking. In those days the Senate still had a great deal of pride and was an assemblage of peers. We did not like anyone who puffed himself up and gave himself kingly airs. A triumphator received semi-divine honors for a day, and that was thought to be enough for any man.

Pompey's lackeys had been petitioning the Senate to grant him the right to wear his triumphal regalia at all public functions, a piece of abject toadying that horrified all right-thinking Romans. Unfortunately, right-thinking Romans were getting fewer all the time.

Pompey's camp was laid out identically to a legionary camp, but without the customary fortifications. That would have been an intolerable provocation. His soldiers were still under arms, but they showed the lax discipline Pompey allowed between campaigns. Few bothered to wear armor or bear shields, and those detailed to guard the treasure merely belted on their swords and leaned on their spears, most of them passing the time with dice and knucklebones. There were some flaming faces as we made our way to his praetorium. Many felt mortally insulted that Pompey had not bothered to have his men turn out for an inspection parade to honor a visit by the massed Senate.

At the praetorium we found Pompey enthroned on a dais. We walked down the via praetoria between the ranks of his honor guard. These indeed were finely turned out, their mail newly cleaned and oiled, the sun flashing from the polished bronze of their helmets. Their cloaks and their horsehair crests were new and colorful. The damage had been done, though, when the Senate had seen the slovenly louts standing guard. I remembered what Cicero had said about Pompey, that he was a political imbecile. A man

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