Marcus Aurelius Betrayed (15 page)

“No,” he screamed. “Don’t.”

Vulso brought the burning hot metal closer.

He began to scream in terror. “Isarion,” he yelled. “I got it from Isarion the antiques dealer.”

The man began to cry as Vulso backed off and doused the tongs in a vat of water. The Centurion opened the shutters and let in the light.

XXIII

THE TRIAL OF SECUNDUS BEGINS

T
he trial of Secundus for judicial murder under the
Lex Cornelia
started precisely at the 3
^rd
morning hour. Proculus called the court to order and the judge and his assessor filed in behind two lictors, each carrying a bundle of rods enclosing an axe, the symbol of magisterial power. Severus took his seat on the Tribunal and surveyed the scene.

Secundus, draped in a defendant’s black toga to show tragedy and evoke sympathy, occupied the bench on one side of the front row with his lawyer, while the lawyer’s entourage of clerks and assistants, all dressed in white, sat to the side and behind them. On the other side of the front row sat the prosecution witnesses, including several of the women from the House of Selene.

The benches for spectators were packed with eminent looking men in togas over broad and narrow striped Senatorial and Equestrian tunics. Secundus had his friends out in force. And in the midst of them was the Prefect himself. It was a strong show of support for Secundus.

Behind the benches, in the semi-circular standing room area at the back of the courtroom was a crowd of people in ordinary tunics. Severus judged from the winks, smiles and whispering going on among them that they were the private claque of Secundus’ lawyer, hired to attend the trial and cheer for points in Secundus’ favor, while razzing the opposition.

Judge Severus braced himself. He had plenty of experience with Roman courtroom claques. He could handle them, but the chore was always unpleasant. And he would be under the scrutiny of powerful government officials whose support of the defendant was evident.

Severus signaled to Proculus to begin reading the charges. A slightly sinister murmur emanated from the back of the courtroom. Severus asked the defendant’s lawyer if he wished to make any statements before taking evidence.

The lawyer, a large boisterous looking man, with a red face and bulbous nose, took an orator’s stance in front of the tribunal and introduced himself as Septimus Eggius.

“Judge,” announced Eggius, “I request an adjournment.”

“On what grounds?” responded Severus.

“We are waiting for the arrival of a witness, without whom we cannot possibly defend ourselves.”

“And who is this witness?”

“His name is Isarion, judge. He is presently on the island of Rhodes, but last week I sent a messenger requesting him to return to Alexandria as quickly as possible. He should be on his way, but he has not yet arrived.”

“Do you have other witnesses or evidence to present besides Isarion?”

“Well, yes, judge, we do, but Isarion is a most critical witness and I...”

Severus interrupted him. “We can then proceed with the trial as far as possible and later adjourn for a reasonable time to await Isarion if you feel then that his testimony is still necessary. Therefore, I deny the motion for an adjournment.”

There was a commotion among the audience, both the eminent observers on the benches and the not so eminent ones standing in the back. Severus waited a few moments in silence for the disturbance to subside. It didn’t.

He called for order and cautioned the spectators against outbursts in a manner both polite and threatening.

“I will open the trial by putting certain documents in evidence,” announced the judge, beginning the case against Secundus. Proculus read from the list the judge had given him, which included the file of the case so far, including Ganymede’s confession. He then began calling as witnesses the courtesans from the House of Selene. Aurora, the red-haired woman who had shared the Prefect’s couch, was first and reviewed the events from the time the
hetairai
arrived to the death of Titus Pudens. Under careful guidance from questioning by the judge, she was led to emphasize the riotous behavior of the defendant almost as much as to establish that Ganymede never had an opportunity to be near the Prefect’s couch. Her testimony was supported by Andromache, the woman who had been paired with the missing Homeric scholar Philogenes. She was the one who remembered Ganymede behind her couch, and not near the Prefect’s. There was also testimony from the other courtesans at the party. Although each courtesan
admitted she sometimes didn’t see what was going on, in total they seemed to nullify the possibility that Ganymede could have poisoned the Prefect’s drinking cup.

Affidavits were read into the record from the Prefect, saying he was too drunk to remember anything, and from the Isis priest Petamon to the same effect.

Then the judge produced a surprise witness: one of the young slave-girls of the Prefect who had served his couch during the orgy. She had been interviewed secretly in the judge’s chambers in the hour before court convened. The 12-year-old was quite charming and earned the Prefect many admiring glances from the officials in the audience. But Secundus went pale as she supported the testimony of the courtesans that Ganymede was in another part of the room and had never approached the Prefect’s couch.

“I knew all along that Ganymede couldn’t have tried to kill the master,” she volunteered. “But no one ever asked me before you did,
kyrie
.”

Severus dismissed her and then had Proculus read the statement of the torturer Rufus, blaming Secundus for ordering excessive pain. Then Severus turned to Secundus’ lawyer.

“Your client, Eggius, appears on the evidence to have wrongly procured the confession and execution of an innocent man, just as the charge sheet accuses. What is your defense?”

This was Eggius’ moment. He sensed the urging of the crowd behind him. He took an orator’s stance, moved his arm out in a wide dramatic sweep, and spoke.

“To paraphrase the immortal Cicero,” he began in stentorian voice, “it is the beginning of my defense which causes me the greatest anxiety, for, despite my years of experience and learning, I am not sure whether
my ability is worthy of defending a client so eminent as” -- he pointed to Secundus -- “a trusted member of the staff of the Prefect of Egypt. A Prefect, moreover” -- here he turned and gestured toward the Prefect in the audience -- “whose long years of service have made him an excellent judge of men as well of affairs.”

A burst of applause and cheers from the claque greeted the compliment to the Prefect. Calvus nodded and smiled in acknowledgment.

“Not only that,” continued Eggius, “my client is not only of the Prefect’s governmental family, as it were, but also a member of his own family -- his stepson.”

The attribution drew more applause.

Severus called the court to order sharply. The lictors snapped their bundles of rods and axes to attention. The crowd settled down.

Eggius paced the floor in front of the Tribunal, his head down. When there was sufficient silence, he stopped suddenly, and looked right at the judge. He pointed to his client. “And I have proof, judge, proof of the most persuasive kind, that Secundus is innocent.”

The crowd clapped loudly.

“What is my proof?” asked Eggius rhetorically. “It is that Secundus can be guilty only if Ganymede is innocent. But I have new proof that Ganymede is guilty. Convincing, positive proof.” He stopped dramatically. The crowd hung on his words. Severus bent forward in his chair with an interested look.

Eggius reached into the folds of his toga and pulled out a scroll. He held it above his head.

“This document! This document proves that Ganymede is guilty and that, therefore, Secundus is innocent!”

The crowd cheered. Eggius waved the scroll above his head. With a motion of his hands, the lawyer silenced his claque and turned to the judge.

“I call to the Tribunal the witnesses Nefertari and Herakleia, slaves of the scholar Philogenes.”

Severus, Flaccus and Proculus exchanged looks. The old woman and the young girl who Severus had interviewed some time before at Philogenes’ apartment came up to the Tribunal. Eggius asked them to identify the seal on the document the lawyer held. They both said it was the personal seal of their master, the Homeric scholar Philogenes.

“He always had it with him,” said the old woman. “It had an engraving he liked.” She pointed to the seal impression. “A scene from Homer.”

“You may continue, Eggius,” said Severus mildly.

Eggius dismissed the witnesses and addressed the judge and the courtroom.

“This document, sealed with the seal of the famous Homeric scholar Philogenes, who was himself at the Prefect’s party, states positively that he, Philogenes, saw with his own eyes the slave Ganymede pour wine into the Prefect’s dolphin cup.”

The claque burst into uncontrolled cheers. Eggius waved the scroll once again, as if cheering on the claque with it. Eggius then motioned them to be silent and turned grandly to the judge.

“I offer it in evidence.”

The crowd cheered again. Secundus was beaming from ear to ear.

So was Vulso. So was Severus.

A clerk brought the scroll from Eggius to the judge. Severus took it, inspected the seal, and broke it. Then
he turned to Proculus and nodded. Proculus in turn nodded to a clerk standing by the door and the clerk left the courtroom. Severus watched him go and then opened the scroll, relaxed in his chair and slowly read it. Eggius kept the crowd respectfully silent during the judge’s reading. Severus made a show of finishing, let the document furl up, and asked a question.

“I understand, Eggius, that this Homeric scholar Philogenes has disappeared?”

“That’s true, judge,” answered Eggius quickly. “But as you can see from the date, he executed the document before the date of his disappearance. And his affidavit is good evidence, judge, since we can’t locate the witness himself.”

“Was this document sealed before witnesses?” asked the judge.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” answered Eggius. “It was made in the presence of my client, Secundus, in his office in the Hadrianum. Philogenes executed it as evidence in the case against Ganymede, in the normal course of Secundus’ investigation. The investigation,” he sneered, “that is alleged to have been faulty and incomplete.”

“Then why wasn’t it in the file that Secundus showed me when I first arrived?” asked Severus skeptically.

“It had been misplaced in another file,” answered Eggius in a tone suggesting honest mistake. “A clerical error, judge.”

“I see,” said Severus cynically. “In other words, Secundus knew of this document’s existence all along but chose not to bring it to my attention before now. Not when I first talked to him or when I first put it to him that Ganymede was innocent.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. He had anticipated the question and had an answer for it.

“My client, judge, was so shocked by this baseless accusation, that he lost his composure in your presence. When he told me about this document, it was felt it was better to present it in open court in order to squelch these charges once and for all. After all, judge, what is on the other side. Only the testimony by some women that they didn’t see what they may not have been looking at. But Philogenes saw, and he saw Ganymede do it.”

The lawyer looked even more smug than Secundus. A few notables in the audience began audibly congratulating the defendant.

“Secundus to the Tribunal!” snapped Judge Severus. The defendant looked at his lawyer uncertainly. Eggius also looked uncertain but indicated that he should stand before the Tribunal. Secundus did so.

Severus glared at the figure in the black toga. The judge was fully prepared for what was going to happen in the courtroom. He saw two clerks enter the court, one with a sealed box, the other with a sheaf of affidavits, and station themselves against the wall.

Severus shot his questions at Secundus. “Were you present when Philogenes sealed this document?”

“I was.”

“Did it occur in your office in the Hadrianum?”

“It did.”

“Was the date the” -- Severus checked the document -- “third day before the Kalends of June?”

“Yes.”

“Do you swear an oath that you witnessed it at that time and place?”

“I do.”

“Who found this affidavit of Philogenes?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“When I went back to my office after I was granted bail.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In the file of another case. The one right next to Ganymede’s in my file box.”

“You are to return to your seat, Secundus. Caius Vulso to the Tribunal.”

The big Centurion pushed his way through the crowd and stood before Judge Severus. He described concisely how a few days ago he had entered the apartment Secundus had shared with Cupid while both were out and how he had searched it. He then told what he found.

“It was on the table right next to Secundus’ travel bag. It was the draft of an affidavit being forged. An affidavit allegedly from the scholar Philogenes, claiming he saw Ganymede pour wine into the Prefect’s cup. At the time I saw it, it was undated and unfinished and covered with red editing marks.”

“Did you make an exact copy of this document and have it placed under seal of a Roman court that very day?”

“I did.”

The clerk holding the box was called forward. The affidavits of the two court clerks who had witnessed Vulso’s copy being placed into the box were read into evidence. The seal on the box was opened and the copy of the incompletely forged Philogenes affidavit was taken out.

The judge had both documents brought to him and held open in front of him for comparison. “It is obvious,” said the judge studying both, “that the writing the Centurion found a few days ago was an incomplete draft
of the complete document that the defendant alleges was presented to him weeks before. To be complete before it was incomplete presents almost a proof by contradiction in the geometry of Euclid, a
reductio ad absurdum
, a logical impossibility. Therefore, the defendant’s so-called evidence must be false.”