chair alone by the speaker’s podium, a central position that placed him under the baleful view of all three hundred senators.
To add insult to this charge, Aulus Atilius Caiatinus, the junior consul, had been temporarily granted Scipio’s power. He had appointed his patron, Duilius, as the lead prosecutor, pitting Scipio against his arch enemy. The ancients had put men convicted of treason to death, but Scipio, if found guilty, would face exile, a punishment of living-death that would end his every ambition and destroy his political life. The Senate was baying for blood, for retribution, and Scipio could trust no other to speak for him. He would defend himself, putting his faith in his oratorical skills, his stature as a member of an ancient line of patricians, and the one defence that might save him: the revelation of a traitor.
‘Senators of Rome,’ a voice called out, and Scipio turned to see Duilius walk out from his seat in the front row of senators.
‘Today I am tasked with a grave duty, one demanded of me by my consul,’ Duilius turned and nodded to Caiatinus, ‘and my city, whose power and safety has been irrevocably injured by one man, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina.’
A murmur of anger swept across the Senate and the speaker hammered his gavel to restore silence.
Duilius turned to Scipio, meeting his hostile stare, wary of him despite the overwhelming evidence. The importance of his prosecutorial task caused him to pause. Here was a chance to finally rid himself — and Rome — of a man who never saw beyond the limits of his own ambition, who forfeited the safety of Rome many times for his own ends, whose offences were so well hidden that even Duilius did not know of their full extent, much less of any evidence that he could ever expose. Only Scipio’s reckless attack at Drepana stood against him and, in prosecuting him for that crime, Duilius would expunge all the consul’s previous wrongs, wiping them forever from the heart of Rome.
Duilius first called the captain of the Poena to testify. He was a man who fearlessly commanded a flagship but he stammered through his testimony under the glare of the most powerful men in Rome. He spoke of Scipio’s desecration of the ancient ritual to confirm divine approval and many of the elder senators gasped in disbelief at Scipio’s blatant effrontery to the will of the gods, in itself a crime that demanded dire punishment.
Duilius then called other captains to speak of the decision to withdraw the southern flank and retreat to Lilybaeum as the battle raged, but Scipio neatly cross-examined them, forcing each to admit that the situation was beyond hopeless when he had issued the order. Duilius nodded to Scipio to concede the point, wanting to lull him slightly, and the consul smiled coldly at the gesture. Only then did Duilius call his last witness.
Atticus limped forward. He ignored the gazes and whispers of the entire chamber, keeping his eyes and attention locked on Scipio, knowing him to be the most dangerous viper in the nest. He vividly recalled their last encounter on this very floor, and how Scipio had bested him, and he glanced at Duilius out of the corner of his eye, taking strength from his presence. He and Duilius had prepared in detail, predicting every counter-argument that Scipio might make, every defence he might employ. All that was needed now was for Atticus to deliver the final, fatal strike, and he brushed his doubts aside as the Senate came to order.
Duilius began with a detailed account of Atticus’s career in the war against Carthage, his command of the flagship at Mylae, his promotion to prefect for his valour at Cape Ecnomus, his part in the victory at Cape Hermaeum. The senators listened in silence, many of them only sitting forward with attention as Duilius ended his introduction and began his questioning.
‘Prefect Perennis,’ Duilius said. ‘Can you recount your conversation with the consul on the evening before the battle?’
‘I warned him that the fleet was not yet ready for an open, offensive battle.’
‘Not ready?’ Duilius asked, raising his voice above the murmur of surprise.
‘With the loss of the corvus, the enemy holds the advantage over us in seamanship. Our only chance is to drill our sailing crews in how to ram and our legionaries in how to board.’
‘And our fleet is not yet trained in these tactics?’ Duilius asked, looking to Scipio, wondering why he was not interrupting to challenge Atticus’s view on fleet tactics, a view that was not universally held, and the only weak point in their attack.
‘No,’ Atticus responded evenly, also perplexed, his carefully prepared response to Scipio’s expected rebuttal no longer needed. ‘The fleet was not ready and I made this fact clear to the consul.’
‘Thank you, Prefect,’ Duilius said, and he turned to the senators, his gaze level in silent but obvious criticism of Scipio’s foolhardy dismissal of Atticus’s warning. Many of them nodded in agreement, looking to the consul with censorious expressions, their decision on Scipio’s guilt already made.
Scipio stood up amidst the growing sound of disorder and looked to the speaker. The older man hammered his gavel and silence descended once more, albeit with an undertone of whispered conversations as senators debated the evidence privately.
‘Prefect Perennis,’ Scipio began, his tone offhand, ‘who do you claim was present when you say you made this warning?’
As Duilius had advised him, Atticus ignored the sceptical subtext of Scipio’s question and he turned to the consul.
‘You and Prefect Ovidius,’ he replied.
‘And with Ovidius dead,’ Scipio said, ‘the Senate only has your word that you ever spoke such a warning to me.’
A number of angry voices were raised at Scipio’s accusation of perjury and Duilius stepped forward. ‘The prefect’s word is beyond question,’ he said.
Scipio smiled coldly. ‘Really…?’ he replied, and he turned his back on Atticus. ‘Where were you born, Perennis?’ he asked.
‘Locri.’
‘So your ancestors are not of Rome,’ Scipio said, his tone mildly accusatory.
‘They are Greek,’ Atticus said proudly, refusing to be baited by Scipio’s attempt to blacken his word, again perplexed by the insubstantiality of the consul’s attack.
Duilius stepped forward again. ‘The prefect’s loyalty to Rome is also beyond question, and I put to you, Senators, that the consul is engaged in a futile attempt to somehow besmirch the prefect’s honour in the hope it will lessen the impact of his damning testimony.’
The chamber rang with murmurs of agreement, but Scipio ignored them. He was ready to make his decisive strike, to call his own witnesses: two men whom he had questioned in depth since Drepana and who, by the grace of Fortuna, had revealed auspicious information that could yet save him.
‘You say the prefect’s loyalty is beyond question?’ he asked the Senate, before nodding towards the entrance to the chamber.
Calix and Baro entered and stood where all could see them. Scipio introduced Baro and then spoke of Calix, referring to him as the Rhodian, a mercenary in the paid service of Carthage at Lilybaeum, but a man who had also served Rome honourably in the past. Atticus looked only to Baro, his initial shock turning quickly to suspicion and then resentment that his second-in-command should stand before him.
‘Baro,’ Scipio began, the entire Senate now poised to listen with interest. ‘Tell us how this man, the Rhodian, escaped the blockade at Lilybaeum.’
Baro described the event in detail, mentioning how the Rhodian had first slipped through the blockade and how they had expected his eventual attempt to escape. He spoke of the final chase, with the Orcus leading the Roman pursuit, the Rhodian’s galley only a ship-length ahead, before ending with a carefully scripted condemnation.
‘We were in full pursuit and were about to catch his ship when the prefect ordered us to break off,’ he concluded.
‘Because we could not pursue him through the shallows,’ Atticus protested angrily, never taking his eyes off Baro.
‘At least, that is what you told your crew at the time,’ Scipio interjected.
‘He’s standing here now,’ Duilius said, indicating the Rhodian, trying to avoid a trap he could not have foreseen. ‘We can ask him if Perennis was correct.’
‘I have only two questions to ask of this man,’ Scipio said, and he turned to Calix. ‘Who was on board your ship when you escaped?’
