the grain dole. Since then he's been passed around the family as a bodyguard. He caused some sort of trouble among my nephew's slaves. I ended up with him only a few days ago. They thought I should like looking at him, I suppose. But you say he wrecked your house?'
'And killed a man very dear to me.' 'I see. What shall we do about it?'
'I have no proof. No one was there to see him do it, except his friends. Maybe it was one of his friends who killed Belbo. Perhaps he's innocent, though he seemed to be the leader.'
'Why worry over details? This isn't a court. We both know his sort. I'm sure he's done something or other he deserves to die for. Shall I take care of it for you, Gordianus?'
'What do you mean?'
'I could have the fellow drowned, right here and now. It would only take a word to my chief bodyguard A man like that would put up quite a struggle, I imagine, but between my bodyguards and litter bearers there are enough strong men out there to hold him down for however long it takes. You could have the pleasure of watching. Shall I give the order?'
'You're serious, aren't you?'.
'Yes. But only if you want it. Shall I give the order?'
I considered it. In a single afternoon, I had been invited by Fausta Cornelia to take part in an orgy and by Clodia to watch a man die by my order. Such opportunities were the prerogatives of kings and emperors; why should I refuse? Perhaps I had never really known the meaning of justice or truth, but once I thought I did, and the illusion had comforted me. Now everything had changed All my bearings had slipped out of sight. I felt dizzy and disoriented. Was the world spinning out of control, or was it only me?
'No,' I finally said. 'Your brother is dead, and so is Belbo, and no amount of killing will bring them back. The river flows only forwards.'
Clodia smiled ruefully. 'Very well. The fellow shall never know how close he came to being drowned like a dog. But I'll remember what you told me. I shall keep a close eye on him from now on.'
'Clodia-'
'Yes.'
'Hold out your hand.'
She did so with an arched eyebrow, expecting some trick. I placed her brother's ring on her open palm.
She sighed, shuddered, sobbed, and caught a breath to steady herself. 'Where did you find it?'
'If I say that I found it lying beside the Appian Way, will you be satisfied?'
She looked at the ring for a long time, with an expression of such tenderness that I realized how foolish I was to think that I could hurt her. What could she feel for me, or for any man, compared to what she had felt for her brother?
'Why did you bring it to me? Why not to Fulvia? She's his widow.'
'Yes, but Fulvia has already moved on. She's planning her next marriage — and perhaps the next marriage after that. She's looking towards the future, not the past'
'But Publius's son, his little boy…'
'If you think your nephew should have the ring, I leave that decision to you. I decided to return it to the one who loved him most.'
She closed her hand tightly around it and shut her eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek.
I turned and retraced my footsteps in the soft earth, going back the way I had come. At the corner of the tent I turned back. She blinked her eyes open. 'I almost forgot.' I said. 'I want to invite you to a wedding.'
'A wedding? In your family? Don't tell me it's your daughter, Diana!'
'I'm afraid so.'
'But she's only a child.'
'Not any longer. Time flies.'
'But I shouldn't come. I'm not related, and hardly close enough to the family. It would be most unconventional'
'All the better. I suspect it will be a most unconventional marriage.'
'Your daughter is following after her father, then.'
The thought gave me pause. 'Farewell, Clodia.'
'Farewell, Gordianus.' She gave me a parting glance, then leaned back among the pillows, holding the ring to her breast.
I walked back across the meadow to Davus. Clodia had it exactly right: Diana was following after me. They were all following after me.
If only I knew where I was going…
If only I had the vaguest idea of what was in store for any of us…
Davus was resting in the shade of an oak tree. At my approach he rose to his feet and brushed himself off 'If only I knew where I was going,' I muttered, thinking aloud.
'But, Master, I should have thought that was obvious.'
'What?'
He smiled. 'We're going home now, aren't we?' I heaved a sigh of great relief 'Yes, Davus. Home!'
NOTE
The sources for the murder of Clodius and Milo's trial are remarkable in themselves. The text of Cicero's oration for Milo which has come down to us-most likely an idealized version of the speech he intended to give, prettied up for publication-gives us one view of events, and a clearly prejudiced and deliberately skewed one at that. If it was all we had to go on, it would still make a great story, but we should have no idea of what really happened on the Appian Way.
(And if Cicero had been able to deliver the speech intact, things might have turned out differently — such, at least, was the substance of a bitter jest by Milo. When Cicero proudly sent him a copy, Milo remarked that it was a good thing the orator had not been able to deliver such a stirring speech — otherwise Milo would still be back in Rome, and not in exile in Massilia enjoying the excellent mullets.)
Fortunately, in the next century the scholar Quintus Asconius Pedianus wrote some study guides for his sons to use when reading Cicero's orations, and one of these surviving commentaries analyses the Pro Milone. It reads today as a sort of precursor to the 'true crime' genre. Asconius gives us fascinating details about the desperate parliamentary manoeuvres and frantic damage control by both sides in the wake of Clodius's death. He describes the nuts-and-bolts conduct of the trial, including the selection of the jury. Most important, he gives us an account of the murder completely at odds with the one Cicero puts forth.
In Cicero's day, as now, defence lawyers were not ashamed to come up with fanciful, even outrageous angles to absolve their clients. Then, as now, courtroom sideshows and overlong trials were a serious problem, though Pompey's one-day solutionI
might strike even the most television-weary American as too extreme.
The Pro Milone is available in the Penguin edition of Selected Political Speeches of Cicero, translated by Michael Grant, and in volume 14 of the Loeb Classical Library editions of Cicero, translated by N. H. Watts, who also includes an abbreviated version of Asconius's commentary. The complete text of Asconius can be found in Commentaries on Five Speeches of Cicero, edited and translated by Simon Squires (Bristol Classical Press and Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1990). Our knowledge of the tumultuous events of 52 BC comes from numerous sources which vary gready in importance and reliability, including the histories and commentaries of Appian, Caesar, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Quintilian and Dio Cassius, and the letters of Cicero.
Crucial to any depiction of the murder and trial is an unravelling of the conflicting details and the tangled sequence of events. Three works by modern historians have done much to sort things out: Albert C. Clark's annotated edition of the Pro Milone (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1895), A. W. Lintott's 'Cicero and Milo' (Journal of Roman Studies 64,1974) and James S. Reubel's 'The Trial of Milo in 52 BC: A Chronological Study' (Transactions of the American Philological Association 109,1979). In deference to his scholarship (and for the sake of consistency), I have chiefly relied on Reubel's chronology.
