A Point of Law by John Maddox Roberts Read Free Book Online

meantime, make a few morning calls, gossip with your friends, and see what you can learn about the candidates for the tribuneships, particularly Scribonius Curio.”
    “Curio?” she said, but I was already out the door.
    O UTSIDE THE MORNING AIR WAS COOL , but not truly cold. This was because we were still using the old calendar, which Caesar, as
Pontifex Maximus
, had allowed to get lamentably out of synchronization with the true season. Thus, while we were still some days prior to the Ides of December, the true date was closer to late October in the new calendar. Caesar’s calendar (actually the work of Sosigenes, the wonderful Alexandrian astronomer) makes more sense, but it lacks the variety and unpredictability of our old one.
    By the time we reached the Forum, the sky was getting gray over the crest of the Esquiline. We passed by the Curia Hostilia, the old Senate House, which was still streaked with black and was near-ruinous. In the riots following the death of Clodius, it had been severely damaged by fire, and, as yet, nobody had undertaken its restoration.
    Past the great portico of the Temple of Saturn, where I had spent a miserable year as treasury quaestor, we came to the Basilica Opimia, which was the only one where courts were sitting that year. The Basilica Porcia had been damaged by the same fire that almost destroyed the Curia, the huge Basilica Aemilia was undergoing lavish restorations, and the Basilica Sempronia was devoted solely to business purposes due to the shortage of basilica space.
    We trudged up the steps, passing a drunk who had staggered his way homeward as far as the Basilica Opimia, then wrapped himself in his cloak and passed out on the steps. Well, I had awakened in many strange parts of Rome myself in past years.
    My father, naturally, was already there. “Slept late enough, did you?”
    “We still beat the crowd to the Forum,” I answered.
    Gradually the light grew, and the crowd duly arrived: my own supporters and a miscellaneous pack of idlers, country people just arrived to take part in the elections, vendors, mountebanks, beggars, and senators.
    Juventius came trudging up the steps in his purple-bordered toga, preceded by his lictors.
    “I see the Metellans are here in force,” he said, as he reached the top. “Where are Fulvius and his people?”
    “Waiting to make a grand entrance, no doubt,” I said. “Now what—”
    “This man is dead!” someone shouted. I looked down the steps to see a little group of people gawping at an inert form on the steps. It seemed that the drunk was actually a corpse. Now that the sun’s rays were slanting into the Forum, I could see that the dark cloak in which he was wrapped was actually a heavily bloodstained toga.
    “Here’s a fine omen,” Juventius said, annoyed. “We may have to meet outdoors if the building has to be purified.”
    “It looks like he died on the steps,” I pointed out. “It isn’t as if he died inside.”
    “If this were a temple,” Father mused, “a purification would be necessary if one drop of blood struck any stone of the building. I’m not sure if that holds true for a basilica though. We may have to consult with a pontifex. Where is Scipio?”
    “It’s all a great bother anyway you look at it,” Juventius said. He turned to one of his lictors. “Let’s have a look at him.”
    The lictor went down the steps and carefully raised a flap of the toga with the butt end of his fasces.
    “Does anyone here know this man?” Juventius demanded of the crowd in general. We all went closer to see.
    “I think we all know him,” I said, feeling a bit queasy, not at the sight, which was a common one, but at its implications. “I’ve only seen him once, and that briefly, but I believe this is Marcus Fulvius.”

3
    L OOKS LIKE THE TRIAL’S OFF ,” SAID someone, sounding disappointed. Probably, I thought, one of the jury, who had been hoping one of us would offer him a bribe. We went back to the top of