"Honestly, I wasn't suspicious, but I was genuinely surprised that someone would cross-dress and break into a place where Vesta priestesses were having their eyes lit up."
"...Come to think of it, you already knew my name. What the hell are you, who are you?"
"Ah, so I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Danae, a freed slave from the Crassus family who bears the name of Licinii gens."
"The Crassus family? I know their eldest son is Caesar's son-in-law, so why would they want to help me?"
There was a deep suspicion in Pulcher's voice.
What he had done could have been a huge political liability for Caesar.
But he didn't understand why they were taking sides.
Danae replied in a nonchalant voice.
"Wouldn't it put more pressure on Caesar to reveal Mr. Pulcher's identity? I think it would be better for both parties if the case ended with a mysterious intruder."
"Well, maybe.... Come to think of it, that might be true."
"Honestly, I don't think there's much to be gained by covering for someone who's had a major accident like this, but maybe I'm wrong because Master... is never wrong in his judgment."
At Danae's sarcastic comment, Pulcher's face contorted like a piece of wood.
Still, there was nothing to refute because what he did was so big.
"For a freed slave, you have quite a way with words."
"Because I'm a free citizen, too, anyway. The young master also said that I can go out proudly. I prioritize the words of the person I serve above all else."
"...do as you please. I wasn't caught on a leash anyway. But let me ask you one thing. How the hell did you know I was going to infiltrate?"
"I don't know about that, I'm just carrying out my master's orders."
Danae shrugged her shoulders as if she were asking something like that.
Pulcher asked in disbelief.
"No, no matter how you look at it, it's weird. I didn't even tell my family I was going to be here! Even if the plan was blown by a newly bought slave, it doesn't make sense that he'd tell his son-in-law instead of Caesar. You think this makes sense?"
"Why not? When you're around him, this kind of thing doesn't surprise me, or at best, it's like, 'Oh, it's still him.'"
Pulcher didn't know what was what anymore.
He says he feels like he's possessed, which isn't surprising.
He could not help but wonder about the identity of the man named Marcus, whom Danae served.
Of course, it was not as if he didn't recognize the name Marcus, who has been making a name for himself lately.
A rare genius who was instrumental in putting down Catilina's rebellion and later enacted financial reforms.
His love of the republic was also known to be unrealistic, and his love of the people was unrivaled.
But now that I look at it, it seems like that's not all there is to it.
Of course, it was also possible that Danae was grossly overestimating her master.
It's common for slaves to look up to their masters much more than they really do.
"Yeah.... Anyway, to recap, the great Marcus knew I was going to cross-dress and infiltrate the Goddess Temple, and he sent you to help me avoid getting caught?"
"Yes, and he also told me to tell you that if Mr. Pulcher's face is seen by anyone else, he'll help clean up the mess. Like I said, it's not free."
"...Is this really possible to fix?"
"After all, the only witnesses were a few slaves, and the Vesta priestesses didn't see Mr. Pulcher himself, so I think that's enough to dismiss it. That is, of course, if Mr. Pulcher accepts our offer."
"Okay. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Tell me your proposal."
Pulcher had no choice anyway.
Marcus had the power over Pulcher's life and death.
There was no reason for Pulcher to resent him.
No, it was a lifesaver when he calmed down and thought about it.
If he could have gotten away with it, he should have gotten down on his knees and said thank you.
He had no choice but to accept whatever Marcus offered him.
Pulcher was willing to give up his entire fortune even if he was asked to.
He met Danae's eyes directly.
He made a mental note not to freak out, no matter how serious the request was.
But when he heard the demands that came out of Danae's mouth, Pulcher's eyes widened.
"If the trial finds you innocent, be the Clientes of the Master."
"...and, what else?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sure there's something else you want, just say it all at once."
"Is that all?"
It was a much milder proposal than he expected.
Pulcher frowned in disbelief.
"Is that really all you're saying, that's all you're asking for from Claudius Pulcher, with such an enormous debt?"
"Oh, and this is the most important thing: I don't want anyone to know that Mr. Pulcher is under Master's influence. Technically, the two of you have no contact, and we don't want them to realize that."
"If you're going to keep our relationship a secret, you're trying to pull something on me. Yeah, that's the only way I'm willing to accept that."
Pulcher may have been a bit temperamental, but he wasn't stupid.
Marcus wouldn't even try to take advantage of him if he were just a simple fool.
"Then I take it we're in agreement."
"Wait a minute. You're really just going to take my answer and call it a day? Even if I'm going to be Marcus' Clientes, you're going to have to tell me what you're going to do."
"I don't know what the Master plans to do with Mr. Pulcher, but he said that once the trial is over, Mr. Pulcher will naturally want to find Mr. Marcus, and he'll explain it to you then."
"Yeah, well, if you're acquitted, of course you go to thank them. We'll have to do it in secret, though, since you said you don't want anyone to see us, but anyway, we'll talk about it then."
Pulcher shook his head and concluded to himself.
"I guess we have a deal then."
"Wait, but how do I get out of here? There may still be people in the official residence."
"Of course I'm all set, here's your clothes in a bundle. I'm going to put you in a cart and take you home."
Pulcher smiled bitterly and agreed with Danae.
Carried in a cart drawn by the Crassus family, he was able to escape from his official residence without any restraint.
For Pulcher, it was a tense day that he didn't want to relive.
* * *
Having returned home safely, Pulcher deftly returned to his daily life as if nothing had happened.
But when news of what happened at the Bona Dea Festival broke, Rome was turned upside down.
The Romans tended to be very sensitive to blasphemy.
The anger of women, in particular, was enormous.
As the goddess in charge of childbirth was insulted, it was said that all the women present would have a cursed child.
This is why Marcus had brought Julia home in advance.
He wanted to make sure she didn't have a resentful attitude toward such superstitions.
Of course, the outrage of the other citizens, with the exception of Julia, spread like wildfire.
The fact that this blasphemy took place in the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus outraged even more people.
The citizens were so engrossed in the case that they forgot about the conflict between the Senate and Pompeius.
There was a daily barrage of demands to find out who had desecrated the holy ritual.
The Senate saw this as an opportunity.
They saw it as an opportunity to rightfully impeach Caesar, the Pontifex Maximus of the Roman religion.
The anti-Caesar faction, led by Cato, loudly claimed that this was a dereliction of duty by the Pontifex Maximus.
Rumors spread that the intruder was Claudius Pulcher and that he may have done this to target Caesar's wife, Pompeia.
Caesar quickly divorced Pompeia as soon as the rumor spread.
The citizens complained that Caesar, who had always taken other people's women, had taken one of his own for the first time.
At the same time, the Temple of Vesta also named Pulcher as a suspect.
The Vestalis Maxima, Licinia, wants Pulcher to provide proof that he wasn't there that day.
Pulcher, naturally, insisted that the allegations were false and that he was innocent.
He said he would defend his innocence in court if necessary.
Now that the suspect has come out so openly, citizens can't just curse him out.
The Senate immediately held a trial to remove Caesar from office.
The accused was Claudius Pulcher, and the crime was blasphemy against the chastity of the priestess Vesta.
Their strategy was clear.
It is to convict Pulcher and make Pompeia an accomplice.
Caesar would then naturally be held morally responsible for not watching over his wife properly.
While it might not be possible to hold him legally liable, it was possible to put enough pressure on him to step down from his Pontifex Maximus.
If Pulcher had a better reputation in the Senate, he would have been reluctant to use this tactic, but fortunately, many senators didn't like him.
The Claudii gens was prestigious, but there were also many political enemies as it was prestigious.
It was not even necessary to mention how many political opponents Caesar had.
The Senate is determined to end this trial quickly before Pompeius arrives.
They wanted to use this victory as a stepping stone to build on their momentum.
The Senate's intent was to cut through all the procedural hassles and get to a jury verdict in one day.
They put pressure on Pulcher to comply with this demand if he felt confident enough.
To everyone's surprise, Pulcher got what he was hoping for.
In the end, an unprecedented court case was held that resulted in a verdict the same day the trial was held.
Citizens flocked like clouds to see the outcome of the unusual trial, which ended in a day.
Cato was the first in the Senate to condemn Pulcher.
He stepped up to the podium and shouted in a booming voice that Pulcher should be punished immediately.
"What Pulcher has done is not mere blasphemy! He has polluted the rituals of the Vesta priestesses. The sacred ceremonies of the Vesta priestesses have been tainted by Pulcher's filthy desires. This is clearly an attempt to harm the sanctity, or purity, of the Vesta priestesses. Roman law requires that such people be sentenced to death. Therefore! The defendant, Claudius Pulcher, will pay a fitting price for the crime he has committed. Furthermore, his accomplice in this case, Pompeia, will be banned from remarrying for life, and will be forced to reflect on his actions. It is only right that Caesar, the Pontifex Maximus, should also take moral responsibility and step down!"
Some of the citizens who fell for Cato's instigation raised their voices to execute Pulcher immediately.
However, Pulcher's side still showed a relaxed attitude.
Pulcher's lawyers have adamantly denied all charges against him.
"Wise and thoughtful jurors and citizens, this is a trial that makes no sense from the start. Rome traditionally does not tolerate blasphemy, but those who commit blasphemy are judged by the gods, not by us, for that would be presumptuous of us to interfere with what the great gods would do. Even if the gods do not mercifully judge him, the blasphemer is socially buried. If you're a patrician, you lose the election; if you're a plebeian, you're shunned by your neighbors, and that's the end of it. No matter where you look in Roman law, there is no provision for bringing a blasphemer to justice in this way."
The passionate speech on the part of Pulcher stirred up the citizens.
When he sensed the agitation, Pulcher's attitude became more confident.
"The Senate will say: this is no ordinary blasphemy, but a malicious act intended to harm the chastity of the Vesta priestesses. If it really happened, then of course the man should be put to death. But they say the intruder was discovered before the ritual began, which means it happened during the preparation phase, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. And most crucially, there's no hard evidence anywhere that the defendant Claudius Pulcher was the intruder! The defendant himself says he wasn't even there that day. He has no reason to be dragged into this courtroom in the first place."
Citizens were embarrassed when the lawyer's speech was over. According to what is said now, Pulcher seemed to be a falsely accused victim.
Still, the Senate had already predicted that Pulcher would make this argument.
Cato asked the praetor to go straight to the witness stand.
The first to take the stand was Vestalis Maxima, Licinia.
The juror and the public paid tribute as she took the witness stand.
Cato also began to ask questions politely, unlike usual.
"I hear you caught an intruder cross-dressing on the day of the goddess festival. Doesn't the face of the man you saw then match that Pulcher?"
Licinia watched Pulcher carefully as he stood with a confident expression on his face.
Pulcher, however, had a completely different haircut than he did then, and his face looked strangely different.
Licinia sighed and shook her head.
"Unfortunately, the intruder was wearing makeup at the time and I couldn't get a good look at his face, so it's hard to say for sure, but it's possible that it was just a look-alike."
Cato did not give up and summoned other witnesses. The slaves of Pompeia were equally doubtful.
They had no choice but to be careful because the wrong word could bring the owner down with it.
Cato also asked Caesar, the Pontifex Maximus, to testify.
"Caesar, you divorced your wife Pompeia as soon as the scandal broke; wasn't this because you recognized that she had committed a serious sin?"
"Absolutely not."
"Then why did you divorce your wife?"
Caesar gave a shameless answer with a very solemn expression.
"Whoever becomes Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."
The citizens laughed at the absurdity of Caesar's words.
After sensing something was amiss, the Senate stopped asking Caesar to testify.
Cato coughed to clear the air and emphasized that many people had the same impression.
He argued that all the circumstantial evidence pointed to Pulcher as the intruder.
Pulcher didn't stay still either.
He protested that he had been in a villa far from Rome on the day of the Goddess Festival and returned to Rome two days later.
He enlisted several slaves to prove his schedule.
Of course, the testimony of slaves, even those belonging to the defendant, is not given much credence.
Here, additional citizens bought by Marcus testified that they had seen Pulcher near the villa.
They were farmers living nearby where Pulcher's villa was located.
The arguments were evenly matched, but the Pulcher side seemed more likely to win at this point.
The Senate, desperate, threw in a trick.
Cicero, a former consul, stood on the witness stand.
He had originally intended to remain neutral in the trial, but the Senate persuaded him to change his mind.
"The testimony that Pulcher was at a villa far away from Rome is likely false, because I saw Pulcher the morning of the goddess festival. How can he be in Rome in the morning and then travel to a villa far away from Rome in half a day?"
Cicero's testimony quickly turned the mood of the court upside down.
Pulcher was the first to panic, accusing Cicero of lying under oath.
Since the testimony on both sides is completely contradictory, it's now a battle of credibility.
But Cicero, a former consul and a man of great reputation, and Pulcher's witnesses, a group of ordinary citizens and slaves, were not at all balanced.
Pulcher felt he was in danger of going to the juror, but he didn't have a good option.
Before he could do anything about it, the 56 jurors returned a verdict.
The Senate was certain of victory, and Pulcher was pale as a sheet.
However, something else happened.
There were 40 votes for Pulcher's innocence and 16 votes for his guilt.
The jury said it was not balanced to overrule the extreme sentence based on mere circumstantial evidence and testimony.
Pulcher, who was acquitted, looked around the angry senators with a puzzled look.
They were all furious that Pulcher had bribed the jurors.
Of course, it was a conspiracy theory that no one listened to seriously.
The jurors, in this case, were selected more fairly than ever before.
Pulcher didn't find out who was on the jury until the day of the trial.
If he wanted to buy, he didn't have the time.
'No way, Marcus, did he have the jurors all set up beforehand?'
Marcus had told him beforehand to go into the trial with no worries.
He would have said that because he had absolute confidence that he would be found not guilty.
Pulcher realized once again that he owed an irrevocable debt to the man who would become his Patronus.
In the original history, Caesar and the Crassus family came to the aid of the desperate Pulcher, but this time the level of help was different.
Thanks to this, unlike history, Pulcher was more inclined to Marcus than Caesar.
Of course, there were some things that didn't change.
It was revenge and hatred for the Senate and Cicero.
Pulcher knew well that the Senate tried to use him as a scapegoat to pressure the Claudii gens and Caesar.
He was the kind of person who would pay back favors and enemies alike more than once.
Eventually, as soon as the trial was over, Pulcher hid his identity and secretly visited Marcus.
It was to thank for the trial and to seek wisdom to avenge it.
Marcus immediately told Pulcher what he wanted him to do.
"Do you want me to be a tribune, or something?"
"Yes. Even if Mr. Pulcher wanted to take revenge on the Senate, he wouldn't be able to do it without becoming Consul. But that would take too much time. What if you turned the tables and became a tribune? You could sabotage the Senate as early as next year."
The powers of a tribune were not unlike those of a consul. It's safe to say that they were similar, except that the latter was in charge of the military and head of the Senate.
Of course, those two things were the core of the consul, but they were not necessary for Pulcher at all of course.
With a tribune's legislative and judicial powers, and the power to veto bills, Pulcher could do whatever he wanted.
"But I'm from the prestigious Claudii gens, and only plebeians are allowed to run for office."
"That's easy to fix too. Get adopted into a plebeian family. A plebeian can be a patrician, and there's no law that says a patrician can't be a plebeian. There's nothing in Roman law that restricts that."
"That doesn't make sense.... No, it doesn't make sense, but is... really possible?"
"Of course, as long as you have the permission of the Pontifex Maximus of our religion, and I'm sure Caesar would be happy to oblige."
In fact, it was Marcus who stole the method that Pulcher and Caesar would use three years later.
It wasn't a loss for Pulcher, either.
It was rather a benefit because there was no need to think about it for three years.
"If I become a tribune, will you let me do what I want?"
"Just don't go too far. There's no law limiting the number of terms you can serve, and you'll be the most effective check on the Senate if you stay in your position for a long time."
"I see. I'm actually a bit on the temperamental side, and sometimes I rush in without thinking. If you see any signs of that, please restrain me. I'll be happy to comply."
"'Alright, and you can introduce the bills in the Concilium Plebis when I designate them. Of course, there must be no hint of a connection to me. From this day forward, we'll never see each other, and I'll have a third party deliver all my instructions. I'll also finance your campaign through the merchants under me, and you'll just have to stand for election every year."
"Thank you. I will fulfill my duties to the fullest so that you will never feel regret for helping me."
Marcus nodded in approval.
Even if he started his Cursus Honorum next year, there was only so much he could do as a lowly Quaestor.
But it's a whole different story if you can make your tribunes work for you.
The power of the tribune in Rome was more powerful than expected.
However, the vast majority of tribunes do not abuse their power as they later consider entering the Senate.
However, if you don't intend to go up above the tribune like Pulcher, you don't have to look at the Senate.
He could paralyze Rome's government with veto after veto for an entire year if he wanted to.
Almost every foundation has been laid to lead the political situation.
Now all that's missing is one small piece.
And the person to fill that missing piece has finally arrived.
This is the last day of the year 62 BC.
Pompeius, leading ten legions, landed in the harbor of Brundisium with great cheers from the citizens.