Cicero - Anthony Everitt [67]
Metellus Nepos launched his attack on the last day of the year. It was the custom that, just before leaving office, Consuls gave a public account of their stewardship to the People gathered at the Assembly Ground in the Forum. Cicero was looking forward to his first major opportunity to publicize his record, but Metellus Nepos put a stop to the festivities. Accompanied by a fellow Tribune, he used his power of veto and refused to let Cicero speak. Seated on benches in front of the Speakers’ Platform, they told Cicero that he could only make the traditional oath on leaving office and then had to step down.
Cicero agreed to do as asked, but he was determined to have the last word. Instead of the usual formula, he improvised a new oath. He said: “I swear to you that I have saved my country and maintained her supremacy.” Later in the day he appealed to Metellus Nepos through intermediaries to soften his hostile attitude. Metellus Nepos replied that his hands were tied, for he could not go back on his public statement. He had insisted that someone “who had punished others without a hearing should not be given the right to speak himself.”
The message was sinister and unmistakable. Metellus Nepos, and so presumably Pompey, was in alliance with populares like Caesar. The Tribune went on to promote a bill commissioning Pompey to restore order in Italy, but by then Catilina was dead and his army destroyed. So another decree was laid before the People, allowing Pompey to stand for the Consulship in his absence. Caesar, now Praetor, was on hand to help and seated himself with Metellus Nepos on the platform in front of the Temple of the Castors in the Forum to superintend the vote.
AS expected, Cato, also a Tribune that year, entered a veto. But Metellus Nepos had assembled a troop of gladiators and other fighters, who were waiting in the side streets. He now unleashed them on the crowd, and most of the Senatorial party withdrew under a hail of blows—except, to no one’s surprise, for Cato, who obstinately held his ground until one of the Consuls, fearing for his safety, pulled him inside the Temple. Yet despite these strong-arm measures, there was too much opposition from the assembled crowd to proceed with the vote, and the proposal was abandoned.
The Senate sensed that Metellus Nepos had overplayed his hand and suspended both him and Caesar from their official functions. Caesar knew when to recognize defeat: he dismissed his lictors, changed out of his purple-edged toga and went home. However, with typical tactical brilliance, he quickly retrieved the situation. When noisy crowds shouted for his reinstatement, he went out into the Forum and persuaded them to disperse. It is hard to avoid wondering whether this was improvisation or a cleverly scripted piece of street theater. In any event, the Senate was so surprised and gratified by his good behavior that it pardoned him and he returned to his duties as Praetor. AS for Metellus Nepos, he made his way back to Pompey to report the failure of his mission.
Undaunted by the attempt to undermine him, the former Consul decided that he needed a new, more opulent house to match his prestige. Towards the end of 62, he purchased one of the grandest mansions in the city’s grandest quarter, the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Forum. It belonged, unsurprisingly, to Crassus. The house stood on a northeastern spur of the Palatine and had a magnificent view of the city. Its location could not have been more convenient; the Forum was only a few minutes’ walk—or litter ride—down Victory Rise. Cicero’s visitors and hangers-on did not have far to go to pay their morning calls. Space in the city center was in short supply and the house was one of the few with a substantial garden.