When Diocles returned at the end of the nextday, his whole body radiated suppressed excitement, but there wasanother undertone there, which he explained as soon as he sat down.I am afraid I did not even allow him to quench his thirst asScribonius and I waited to hear what had transpired this day.
"Murena has the prosecution scared," heannounced as his opening words.
I was only vaguely aware of the sound ofsuddenly expelled air, telling me that I was not the only one whohad been holding his breath.
"He tried to produce evidence, testimonyfrom one of Marcellus' freedmen," Diocles went on, "but youwouldn't believe the reaction that got from the prosecution!"
He paused to catch his breath, and I finallyrelented and poured him a cup of wine, mainly because I sawScribonius was thinking of something to say.
"What kind of reaction?" he asked. "Werethey angry?"
"Yes," Diocles considered. "But it was morethan that. It was like they were surprised. They immediately askedfor a recess so that they could talk among themselves, and when thePraetor granted it, they scurried outside like their togas were onfire."
"What was the courtroom like?" I asked him,the idea of escaping a Tribunal mounting with every heartbeat.
Diocles laughed.
"What do you think it was like? You couldn'thear yourself think! The Praetor had to have help getting itquieted down. Everyone was talking to the man sitting next to themas they argued over what it meant."
"Which part?" I mused. "The witness’ or theprosecution's reaction?"
He thought for a moment, then replied,"Actually, I think that what caused the uproar was more the way theprosecutors jumped up and started shouting. Right before that, whenMurena said he had a witness, nobody was that agitated. Then, evenwhen he said who the witness was. Or," he amended, "who the witnessworked for, it's hard to remember because they reacted so quickly.But I don't think anyone on the jury was surprised the way theprosecutors were."
"Which means that Murena produced a witnessthey didn't expect him to find," Scribonius mused. To Diocles, "Howlong is the recess?"
"Three days," was Diocles' answer.
That seemed excessively long to me, and Isaid as much. I saw my two friends exchange a glance, but it wasScribonius who broke the news to me.
"That's how long it would take Augustus tocome from his villa," Scribonius told me quietly. "My guess is thathe's going to show up and testify."
Although Octavian had returned to Rome afterhis extended absence a few years before, he had a tendency toexcuse himself at certain times. This in itself is not unusual; thewealthy of Rome are constantly shuttling back and forth from theirvarious properties. However, if one was a suspicious man, I supposeit could be argued that it was the timing of his absences thatmight raise an eyebrow or two, and what was going on in Rome at thetime. By disappearing from the Forum, and from his house on thePalatine, Octavian could give the appearance that the business ofrunning the state was not dependent on him or his decisions. That,at least so I surmise, had been his aim when he had announced thathe was leaving Rome the week before the Primus trial began, to letthe people know that he had no personal interest in the trial, itbeing simply another piece of state business. Murena's introductionof a witness to support Primus' assertion that Octavian had giventhe order, through Marcellus, to conduct this campaign in Thrace,destroyed that fiction. Perhaps if it had been someone other thanhis son-in-law he would have stayed put, but one of the firstthings I had learned on my arrival in Rome was that, prior to theyounger man's death in Hispania, Octavian had been dropping verybroad hints that Marcellus was his chosen heir. Naturally, he wasalways careful to couch it in terms that made it clear he was onlyreferring to Octavian's vast fortune, and not anything having to dowith the state. That, as he undoubtedly knew better than anyoneleft alive, would smack of a hereditary kingship; after all, theman to whom he owed his current status and fortune had paid theultimate price when members of his class thought he was assumingthe purple mantle for himself. To my knowledge, the only people whowere fooled were the people of my class, who I imagine were not somuch fooled as they did not care that much, since their daily liveswould not change. So, even with his youth, Marcellus wielded anenormous amount of power, even if it was indirect, in the form ofinfluence with his father-in-law. Or at least, so most peoplepresumed.
Therefore, when the trial resumed the fourthmorning after the prosecution asked for the recess, Diocles hadrisen even earlier than before. In fact, I think it is fair to saythat he essentially spent the night outside the Curia in order tosecure his seat. Despite the fact that I stayed away from theForum, even in the wine shops around the Campus, a variety ofpeople, from every class, talked of little else, to the point whereI could only spend a few moments before I escaped back to myquarters. Scribonius had told me, in a tone that brooked noargument, that he would not be departing Rome until after my fatewas decided, despite the risk he ran, especially now that it hadbeen discovered by Lucullus that he was in fact alive. My friendwas dismissive of any danger, especially from Lucullus.
"He's got enough to worry about," he toldme. "Like whether or not you're going to kill him."
I could not dispute that, but it still didnot sit well with me, knowing that my friend was putting himself inany kind of jeopardy. He assured me that he was keeping a lowprofile, and I will admit that he seemed to appear and disappear atodd times, always wearing his cloak. Nevertheless, he was always inmy quarters, waiting with me for
