Imperium - Харрис Роберт. Страница 28

None of us got much sleep on the night of the raid. In the darkness before dawn we positioned our hired oxcarts at either end of the street to block it, and when Cicero gave the signal we all jumped out carrying our torches. The senator hammered on the door, stood aside without waiting for a reply, and a couple of our burliest attendants took their axes to it. The instant it yielded, we poured into the passage, knocking aside the elderly night watchman, and secured the company’s records. We quickly formed a human chain-Cicero, too-and passed the boxes of wax tablets and papyrus rolls from hand to hand, out into the street and onto our carts.

I learned one valuable lesson that day: if you seek popularity, there is no surer way of achieving it than by raiding a syndicate of tax collectors. As the sun rose and news of our activity spread, an enthusiastic honor guard of Syracusans formed themselves around us, more than large enough to deter the director of the company, Carpinatius, when he arrived to reoccupy the building with a detachment of legionnaires lent to him for the purpose by Lucius Metellus. He and Cicero fell into a furious argument in the middle of the road, Carpinatius insisting that provincial tax records were protected by law from seizure, Cicero retorting that his warrant from the extortion court overrode such technicalities. Cicero conceded afterwards that Carpinatius was right, “but,” he added, “he who controls the street controls the law”-and on this occasion, at least, that man was Cicero.

In all, we must have transported more than four cartloads of records back to the house of Flavius. We locked the gates, posted sentries, and then began the wearying business of sorting through them. Even now, remembering the size of the task that confronted us, I find myself starting to break into a sweat of apprehension. These records, which went back years, not only covered all the state land on Sicily, but also itemized every farmer’s number and quality of grazing animals, and every crop he had ever sown, its size and yield. Here were details of loans issued and taxes paid and correspondence entered into. And it quickly became clear that other hands had already been through this mass of material and removed every trace of Verres’s name. A furious message arrived from the governor’s palace, demanding that Cicero appear before Metellus when the courts reopened the following day, to answer a writ from Carpinatius that he return the documents. Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered outside and was chanting Cicero’s name. At that moment Terentia’s prediction that she and her husband would be ostracized by Rome and end their days as consul and first lady of Thermae seemed more prescient. Only Cicero retained his cool. He had represented enough shady revenue collectors to know most of their tricks. Once it became apparent that the files specifically relating to Verres had been excised, he dug out an old list of all the company’s managers and hunted through it until he came to the name of the firm’s financial director during the period of Verres’s governorship.

“I shall tell you one thing, Tiro,” he said. “I have never come across a financial director yet who did not keep an extra set of records for himself when he handed over to his successor, just to be on the safe side.”

And with that we set off on our second raid of the morning.

Our quarry was a man named Vibius, who was at that moment celebrating Terminalia with his neighbors. They had set up an altar in the garden and there was some corn upon it, also some honeycombs and wine, and Vibius had just sacrificed a suckling pig. (“Very pious, these crooked accountants,” observed Cicero.) When he saw the senator bearing down upon him, he looked a little like a suckling pig himself, but once he had read the warrant, with Glabrio’s praetorian seal attached to it, he reluctantly decided there was nothing he could do except cooperate. Excusing himself from his bemused guests, he led us inside to his tablinum and opened up his strongbox. Among the title deeds, account books, and jewelry, there was a little packet of letters marked “Verres,” and his face, as Cicero broke it open, was one of utter terror. I guess he must have been told to destroy it and had either forgotten or had thought to make some profit out of it.

At first sight, it was nothing much-merely some correspondence from a tax inspector, Lucius Canuleius, who was responsible for collecting export duty on all goods passing through Syracuse harbor. The letters concerned one particular shipment of goods which had left Syracuse two years before, and upon which Verres had failed to pay any tax. The details were attached: four hundred casks of honey, fifty dining room couches, two hundred chandeliers, and ninety bales of Maltese cloth. Another prosecutor might not have spotted the significance, but Cicero saw it at once.

“Take a look at that,” he said, handing it to me. “These are not goods seized from a number of unfortunate individuals. Four hundred casks of honey? Ninety bales of foreign cloth?” He turned his furious gaze on the hapless Vibius. “This is a cargo, isn’t it? Your Governor Verres must have stolen a ship.”

Poor Vibius never stood a chance. Glancing nervously over his shoulder at his bewildered guests, who were staring open-mouthed in our direction, he confirmed that this was indeed a ship’s cargo, and that Canuleius had been instructed never again to attempt to levy tax on any of the governor’s exports.

“How many more such shipments did Verres make?” demanded Cicero.

“I am not sure.”

“Guess then.”

“Ten,” said Vibius fearfully. “Perhaps twenty.”

“And no duty was ever paid? No records kept?”

“No.”

“And where did Verres acquire all these cargoes?” demanded Cicero.

Vibius was almost swooning with terror. “Senator. Please-”

“I shall have you arrested,” said Cicero. “I shall have you transported to Rome in chains. I shall break you on the witness stand before a thousand spectators in the Forum Romanum and feed what’s left of you to the dogs of the Capitoline Triad.”

“From ships, senator,” said Vibius, in a little mouse voice. “They came from ships.”

“What ships? Ships from where?”

“From everywhere, senator. Asia. Syria. Tyre. Alexandria.”

“So what happened to these ships? Did Verres have them impounded?”

“Yes, senator.”

“On what grounds?”

“Spying.”

“Ah, spying! Of course! Did ever a man,” said Cicero to me, “root out so many spies as our vigilant Governor Verres? So tell us,” he said, turning back to Vibius, “what became of the crews of these spy ships?”

“They were taken to the Stone Quarries, senator.”

“And what happened to them then?”

He made no reply.

THE STONE QUARRIES was the most fearsome prison in Sicily, probably the most fearsome in the world-at any rate, I never heard of worse. It was six hundred feet long and two hundred wide, gouged deep into the solid rock of that fortified plateau known as Epipolae, which overlooks Syracuse from the north. Here, in this hellish pit, from which no scream could carry, exposed without protection to the burning heat of summer and the cold downpours of winter, tormented by the cruelty of their guards and the debased appetites of their fellow prisoners alike, the victims of Verres suffered and died.

Cicero, with his notorious aversion to military life, was often charged with cowardice by his enemies, and certainly he was prone to nerves and squeamishness. But I can vouch that he was brave enough that day. He went back to our headquarters and collected Lucius, leaving young Frugi behind to continue his search of the tax records. Then, armed only with our walking sticks and the warrant issued by Glabrio, and followed by the now usual crowd of Syracusans, we climbed the steep path to Epipolae, where the news of Cicero’s approach and the nature of his mission had preceded him. After the senator issued a withering harangue to the captain of the guard, threatening all manner of dire repercussions if his demands were not met, we were allowed to pass through the perimeter wall and onto the plateau. Once inside, refusing to heed warnings that it was too dangerous, Cicero insisted on being allowed to inspect the quarries himself.