carried my letters to you before) is about to leave for Gaul and says he will take along a letter from me if I can finish it within the hour, I am writing very quickly and will simply give you what news I can, even at the risk of conveying events that make little sense for lack of context. (Don’t show this letter to your commander, please. I fear that a man who dictates his memoirs on horseback would hardly accept being rushed as an excuse for fashioning such awkward sentences.)
Hopefully, you did receive my last letter, and so you know of the murder of Dio. I scoffed at those who said Dio’s murder was too big a thing to go without consequence and that the scandal would result in someone being punished, but it seems that I was wrong and they were right, up to a point.
The scandal has been enormous. Dio was even better known and more highly regarded than I had realized—or did murder make a martyr of him and render him larger and more beloved in death than he was in life? For a man who is now spoken of in such tones of awe, he was certainly treated very shabbily in the final months of his life, shuffling from one reluctant (perhaps treacherous) host to another, expending his resources until his purse was empty. The senators who now speak of Dio as a second Aristotle and weep at the mention of his name are the same men who refused to allow Dio to speak in their chambers not long ago.
(I’ ve suddenly remembered that old conundrum, which Dio posed to me as a young man in Alexandria: Is it better to be beloved in life and despised after death, or despised in life and revered after death?)
So the debate in the Senate over the Egyptian situation grinds on, freshly fueled by this shameful outrage. Meanwhile a charge of murder was recently brought against one Publius Asicius.
I must say that I was not surprised to see Asicius accused of Dio’s murder. Dio himself suspected this young man of being involved in the failed poisoning attempt at the house of Lucius Lucceius, and told me as much when he visited me. On the very day that Dio’s food taster died of poison, Asicius had paid a visit to Lucceius. By itself, this is a merely circumstantial connection. But then, after Dio left my house, and probably not long after he was stabbed in his bed, I happened to encounter Asicius and our neighbor M.C. in the street, and while I overheard them say nothing directly incriminating, the circumstances, at least in retrospect, struck me as highly suspicious.
So when I heard that the charge had been brought against Asicius, I felt greatly relieved, thinking that if he was guilty, then perhaps the whole ugly truth would be given a chance to come out—and without having to become involved myself. (I imagine you sometimes feel the same relief in your work for Caesar, when an odious task is unexpectedly accomplished without any effort on your part, as if some friendly god had decided to do you a favor.)
But the gods can be fickle with their favors.
Who do you think stepped forward to defend Asicius? Yes, the best defense advocate in Rome, our old friend Marcus Cicero.
When I heard that news, my hope abruptly dwindled. Many things may happen in a trial where Cicero is one of the advocates, but the emergence of the truth is seldom one of them. If justice triumphs, it happens in spite of Cicero’s smoke and mirrors, and will have nothing to do with whether or not the truth was spoken.
They say that Cicero and Asicius were both away from Rome, down the coast, when Asicius was arraigned—Cicero in Neapolis, Asicius across the bay at his family’s villa in Baiae. To discuss the case,Asicius went to fetch Cicero and took him back to Baiae in his magnificent fitter. Well, not
his
, exactly, but a litter lent to Asicius by—can you believe it?—King Ptolemy.
(The complicity is absolutely damning! You would think that a man accused of murdering King Ptolemy’s enemy would hide his connections with the king rather than flaunt them, but
Hopefully, you did receive my last letter, and so you know of the murder of Dio. I scoffed at those who said Dio’s murder was too big a thing to go without consequence and that the scandal would result in someone being punished, but it seems that I was wrong and they were right, up to a point.
The scandal has been enormous. Dio was even better known and more highly regarded than I had realized—or did murder make a martyr of him and render him larger and more beloved in death than he was in life? For a man who is now spoken of in such tones of awe, he was certainly treated very shabbily in the final months of his life, shuffling from one reluctant (perhaps treacherous) host to another, expending his resources until his purse was empty. The senators who now speak of Dio as a second Aristotle and weep at the mention of his name are the same men who refused to allow Dio to speak in their chambers not long ago.
(I’ ve suddenly remembered that old conundrum, which Dio posed to me as a young man in Alexandria: Is it better to be beloved in life and despised after death, or despised in life and revered after death?)
So the debate in the Senate over the Egyptian situation grinds on, freshly fueled by this shameful outrage. Meanwhile a charge of murder was recently brought against one Publius Asicius.
I must say that I was not surprised to see Asicius accused of Dio’s murder. Dio himself suspected this young man of being involved in the failed poisoning attempt at the house of Lucius Lucceius, and told me as much when he visited me. On the very day that Dio’s food taster died of poison, Asicius had paid a visit to Lucceius. By itself, this is a merely circumstantial connection. But then, after Dio left my house, and probably not long after he was stabbed in his bed, I happened to encounter Asicius and our neighbor M.C. in the street, and while I overheard them say nothing directly incriminating, the circumstances, at least in retrospect, struck me as highly suspicious.
So when I heard that the charge had been brought against Asicius, I felt greatly relieved, thinking that if he was guilty, then perhaps the whole ugly truth would be given a chance to come out—and without having to become involved myself. (I imagine you sometimes feel the same relief in your work for Caesar, when an odious task is unexpectedly accomplished without any effort on your part, as if some friendly god had decided to do you a favor.)
But the gods can be fickle with their favors.
Who do you think stepped forward to defend Asicius? Yes, the best defense advocate in Rome, our old friend Marcus Cicero.
When I heard that news, my hope abruptly dwindled. Many things may happen in a trial where Cicero is one of the advocates, but the emergence of the truth is seldom one of them. If justice triumphs, it happens in spite of Cicero’s smoke and mirrors, and will have nothing to do with whether or not the truth was spoken.
They say that Cicero and Asicius were both away from Rome, down the coast, when Asicius was arraigned—Cicero in Neapolis, Asicius across the bay at his family’s villa in Baiae. To discuss the case,Asicius went to fetch Cicero and took him back to Baiae in his magnificent fitter. Well, not
his
, exactly, but a litter lent to Asicius by—can you believe it?—King Ptolemy.
(The complicity is absolutely damning! You would think that a man accused of murdering King Ptolemy’s enemy would hide his connections with the king rather than flaunt them, but
Similar Books
