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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.
“That’s it,” said Cicero to me as the voting clerks sprang to their stations. “It’s done. Run up to Pompey’s house and tell them to send a message to the general immediately. Write this down: ‘The bill is passed. The command is yours. You must set out for Rome at once. Be sure to arrive tonight. Your presence is required to secure the situation. Signed, Cicero.’” I checked I had his words correctly, then hurried off on my errand, while Cicero plunged back into the crowded Forum to practice his art-cajoling, flattering, sympathizing, even occasionally threatening-for there was nothing, according to his philosophy, that could not be made or undone or repaired by words.
THUS WAS PASSED, by a unanimous vote of all the tribes, the lex Gabinia, a measure which was to have immense consequences-for all those personally concerned, for Rome, and for the world.
As night fell, the Forum emptied and the combatants retired to their respective headquarters-the aristocratic die-hards to the home of Catulus, on the brow of the Palatine; the adherents of Crassus to his own, more modest dwelling, lower down the same hill; and the victorious Pompeians to the mansion of their chief, on the Esquiline. Success had worked its usual fecund magic, and I should think that at least twenty senators crammed themselves into Pompey’s tablinum to drink his wine and await his victorious return. The room was brilliantly illuminated by candelabra, and there was that thick atmosphere of drink and sweat and the noisy racket of masculine conversation which often follows the release of tension. Caesar, Afranius, Palicanus, Varro, Gabinius, and Cornelius were all present, but the newcomers outnumbered them. I cannot remember all their names. Lucius Torquatus and his cousin, Aulus, were certainly present, along with another notable young pair of blue bloods, Metellus Nepos and Lentulus Marcellinus. Cornelius Sisenna (who had been one of Verres’s most enthusiastic supporters) made himself thoroughly at home, putting his feet up on the furniture, as did the two ex-consuls, Lentulus Clodianus and Gellius Publicola (the same Gellius who was still smarting from Cicero’s joke about the philosophy conference). As for Cicero, he sat apart in an adjoining chamber, composing an acceptance speech for Pompey to deliver the next day. At the time, I could not understand his curious quietness, but in hindsight I believe he may have had an intuition that something had just cracked in the commonwealth which it would be hard even for his words to repair. From time to time he sent me out to the vestibule to check on Pompey’s whereabouts.
