Under Vesuvius

I held my first assizes in Cumae, a town I had never visited previously. Cumae is believed to be the oldest Greek colony in Italy, perhaps a thousand years old at this time. It was once the capital city of Campania, but that was long ago. As all the world knows, it is the home of the Cumaean Sibyl, the hereditary prophetess of Apollo and, after the Delphic, the most widely consulted of the sibyls. Cumae is always full of people from all over the world who have come to seek her counsel and so, as praetor of the foreigners, there was business there for me to attend to.

Besides the foreigners, the resident Greeks, the Romans, and the Campanians, the other major population group was the Samnites. These people, who spoke the Oscan dialect, had for many years been firm allies of Rome. But within living memory, they had been our implacable enemies, contending for control of central and southern Italy. When my father was a young man, the word 'Samnite' was used interchangeably with 'gladiator,' since most of our Samnite prisoners of war were assigned to that exciting if rather demanding profession.

While Julia and her ladies went to tour the sights of the town, I and my staff held court. The basilica was a fine one, an imposing structure built in the years since Cumae became a Roman colony. Although not as lofty as the vast new Basilica Aemilia in Rome, recently rebuilt by a member of the Aemilian family (using Caesar's money, of course), it had beautiful proportions and tasteful decoration.

Since the weather was splendid, a dais had been set up on the steps of the basilica, shaded by an elaborate awning and facing the town's forum. When I arrived, preceded by my lictors and surrounded by my staff, the bustle and hubbub of the forum stilled, the lounging idlers rose to their feet (save a few crippled beggars), and everyone faced the dais as a gesture of respect. This I took as a good sign. It meant that the people here were content, glowers and rude noises being the rule when they were not.

And why should they not be content? They were members in good standing of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, enjoying all its advantages without being involved with the political infighting of the capital; and Roman justice was always an improvement over whatever system had been in place previously.

A man in the striped robe and bearing the crook-topped staff of an augur solemnly proclaimed that the omens were propitious for official business. A priest performed the required sacrifice, and we were ready to proceed.

A young relative of mine named Marcus Caecilius Metellus stepped forward and proclaimed: 'People of Cumae, attend! On behalf of the Senate and People of Rome, the distinguished Praetor Peregrinus Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger has come from Rome to hear your cases concerning foreigners and render judgment. Hail the Senate and People of Rome!' The crowd returned the salute fervently. Marcus had a fine, trained orator's voice. He was about eighteen at the time, just beginning his public career and soon to serve as military tribune.

A gaggle of local officials joined us on the dais. Like so many Italian towns, Cumae was governed by annually elected duumviri: two local magnates who kept close watch on each other, each determined that his colleague not steal more than himself. The holders of lesser offices-three praetors, a couple of aediles, and so forth-were mostly men who had held the duumvirate themselves, and they took the office in rotation. All these men were members of three or four prominent families who regarded office holding as an ancestral privilege. The same was true of the Senate at Rome, only the pool of families there was somewhat larger.

'Have we sufficient equites present to empanel a jury, should we need one?' I asked a duumvir.

'Easily,' he answered. 'This isn't Rome. We seldom use more than twenty or thirty jurors.'

Roman juries often numbered in the hundreds. Even the richest men found that many difficult to bribe. Not that some didn't try, and successfully at that.

'It's a bad law, anyway,' I said. 'Any free citizen should be eligible for jury duty.'

'That would lead to anarchy!' said an indignant official. 'Only men of property are competent to make legal judgments.' The rest made sounds of agreement. They were all equites, of course.

'We used to say that only men of property could serve in the legions,' I observed. 'How many of you have ever shouldered a spear?' They bristled, and Hermes gave me a nudge. I was starting things badly. 'Oh, well, what's up first?'

Most of the cases that morning involved suits brought against foreign businessmen. By law, such men had to have a citizen partner. Usually, it was this partner, or his advocate, who argued on the foreigner's behalf. Except for an occasional question I had very little part in the proceedings except to listen. I was no legal scholar myself, but on my staff I had several men who were, and these could provide me with any necessary precedents.

Swift justice is the best justice, and I had all but cleared the docket before noon. The last item was the only criminal case of the day: a Greek sailor accused of killing a citizen in a tavern brawl. The man hauled before me in chains was a tough-looking specimen, his dark-tanned skin very little paled by his months in the town's lockup.

'Name?' I demanded.

'Parmenio,' he said.

'Would you prefer to be tried in Greek?' I asked him in that language.

He seemed surprised at such consideration. 'I would.'

One of my lictors smacked him across the back with his fasces. ' 'I would, sir!' ' he barked.

'I would, sir. That is very kind of you, sir.'

'Do you have an advocate?'

'Not even a friend, sir.'

'Then will you speak on your own behalf?'

'I will, sir.'

'Very well. Lictor, call up the witnesses.'

A half score of men who had the look of professional idlers came forward and they all told substantially the same story. Upon a particular date they had been carousing in a particular tavern when an argument broke out between this foreign sailor and a citizen. Flying fists had escalated to flying furniture and the citizen had ended up dead on the floor, brained by a weighty, three-legged stool.

'What have you to say for yourself?' I asked the defendant.

'Not much, Praetor. We were playing at knucklebones and I won most of his money. The last roll, he said I threw the Little Dog when anyone could see that I threw Venus. I called him a liar and he called me a boy-humping Greekling. We fought. I did not intend to kill him, but I did not want him to kill me, either. Also, we were both drunk.'

'Admirably succinct,' I told him. 'Would that all our lawyers appreciated brevity. This is my decision. The fact that you were drunk is neither here nor there. A self-induced incapacity does not constitute a defense. You have killed a citizen, but you did not lurk in ambush or provide yourself with a weapon in advance, and these facts are in your favor. Also, you have not wasted this court's time with a windy self-justification and made us all late for lunch and the baths.

'So I will not sentence you to the cross or the arena. I declare this killing to be death by misadventure in a common brawl. For shedding the blood, not to mention the brains, of a citizen and disturbing the public order, I sentence you to five years as a public slave, your owner to be the town of Cumae. Perhaps five years of cleaning the local sewers and gutters will lead you to a more sober, thoughtful life.'

The relief that rolled off the man was all but palpable. The crowd applauded and declared that this was a sterling example of Roman justice at its best. The truth was, homicide was not regarded as a particularly serious crime, as long as poison or magic were not involved, and a killing in a fair fight hardly qualified as murder at all. It was this man's misfortune that the dead man was a citizen and he was not. No doubt he was already plotting his escape.

I declared the court adjourned and was looking forward to a pleasant afternoon of eating, bathing, and socializing when I noticed a striking man who had stood among the onlookers and now wore an expression of disappointment. He was very tall, with a dark, hawk-featured face and dense, square-cut black beard. He was dressed in a long robe of splendid material, worked with a great deal of gold thread. I sent a lictor to summon him.

He approached, smiling. 'Praetor, your notice does me honor.' He glanced toward the local officials who,