Rutilia, who was the only sister of Publius Rutilius Rufus, enjoyed the unusual distinction of being married to each of two brothers. Her first husband had been Lucius Aurelius Cotta, colleague in the consulship with Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus some fourteen years earlier; it was the same year Gaius Marius had been tribune of the plebs, and defied Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus.
Rutilia had gone to Lucius Aurelius Cotta as a girl, whereas he had been married before, and already had a nine-year-old son named Lucius, like himself. They were married the year after Fregellae was leveled to the ground for rebelling against Rome, and in the year of Gaius Gracchus’s first term as a tribune of the plebs, they had a daughter named Aurelia. Lucius Cotta’s son was then ten years old, and very pleased to have acquired a little half sister, for he liked his stepmother, Rutilia, very much.
When Aurelia turned five years old, her father, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, died suddenly, only days after the end of his consulship. The widow Rutilia, twenty-four years old, clung for comfort to Lucius Cotta’s younger brother, Marcus, who had not yet found a wife. Love grew between them, and with her father’s and her brother’s permission, Rutilia married her brother-in-law, Marcus Aurelius Cotta, eleven months after the death of Lucius Cotta. With her into Marcus’s care, Rutilia brought her stepson and Marcus’s nephew, Lucius Junior, and her daughter and Marcus’s niece, Aurelia. The family promptly grew: Rutilia bore Marcus a son, Gaius, less than a year later, then another son, Marcus Junior, the year after that, and finally a third son, Lucius, seven years later.
Aurelia remained the only girl her mother bore, fascinatingly situated; by her father, she had a half brother older than herself, and by her mother, she had three half brothers younger than herself who also happened to be her first cousins because her father had been their uncle, where their father was her uncle. It could prove very, very bewildering to those not in the know, especially if the children explained it.
“She’s my cousin,” Gaius Cotta would say, pointing to Aurelia.
“He’s my brother,” Aurelia would riposte, pointing to Gaius Cotta.
“He’s my brother,” Gaius Cotta would then say, pointing to Marcus Cotta.
“She’s my sister,” Marcus Cotta would say in his turn, pointing to Aurelia.
“He’s my cousin,” Aurelia would say last of all, pointing to Marcus Cotta.
They could keep it up for hours; little wonder most people never worked it out. Not that the complex blood links worried any of that strong-minded, self-willed cluster of children, who liked each other as well as loved each other, and all basked in a warm relationship with Rutilia and her second Aurelius Cotta husband, who also happened to adore each other.
The family Aurelius was one of the Famous Families, and its branch Aurelius Cotta was respectably elderly in its tenure of the Senate, though new to the nobility bestowed by the consulship. Rich because of shrewd investments, huge inheritances of land, and many clever marriages, the Aurelius Cottas could afford to have multiple sons without worrying about adopting some of them out, and to dower the daughters more than adequately.
The brood which lived under the roof of Marcus Aurelius Cotta and his wife, Rutilia, was therefore financially very eligible marriage material, but also possessed great good looks. And Aurelia, the only girl, was the best-looking of them all.
“Flawless!” was the opinion of the luxury-loving yet restlessly brilliant Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator, who was one of the most ardent—and important—suitors for her hand.
“Glorious!” was the way Quintus Mucius Scaevola— best friend of and first cousin of Crassus Orator—put it; he too had entered his name on the list of suitors.
“Unnerving!” was Marcus Livius Drusus’s comment; he was Aurelia’s cousin, and very anxious to marry her.
“Helen of Troy!” was how Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Junior described her, suing for her hand.
Indeed, the situation was exactly as Publius Rutilius Rufus had described it to Gaius Marius in his letter; everyone in Rome wanted to marry his niece Aurelia. That quite a few of the applicants had wives already neither disqualified nor dishonored them—divorce was easy, and Aurelia’s dowry was so large a man didn’t need to worry about losing the dowry of an earlier wife.
“I really do feel like King Tyndareus when every important prince and king came to sue for Helen’s hand,” Marcus Aurelius Cotta said to Rutilia.
“He had Odysseus to solve his dilemma,” Rutilia commented.
“Well, I wish I did! No matter whom I give her to, I’m going to offend everyone who doesn’t get her.”
“Just like Tyndareus,” nodded Rutilia.
And then Marcus Cotta’s Odysseus came to dinner, though properly he was Ulysses, being a Roman of the Romans, Publius Rutilius Rufus. After the children—including Aurelia—had gone to bed, the conversation turned as always to the subject of Aurelia’s marriage. Rutilius Rufus listened with interest, and when the moment came, offered his answer; what he didn’t tell his sister and brother-in-law was that the real unraveler of the conundrum was Gaius Marius, whose terse letter he had just received from Africa.
“It’s simple, Marcus Aurelius,” he said.
“If it is, then I’m too close to see,” said Marcus Cotta. “Enlighten me, Ulysses!”
Rutilius Rufus smiled. “No, I can’t see the point of making a song and dance about it, the way Ulysses did,” he said. “This is modern Rome, not ancient Greece. We can’t slaughter a horse, cut it up into four pieces, and make all Aurelia’s suitors stand on it to swear an oath of fealty to you, Marcus Aurelius.”
“Especially not before they know who the lucky winner is!” said Cotta, laughing. “What romantics those old Greeks were! No, Publius Rutilius, I fear what we have to deal with is a collection of litigious-minded, hairsplitting Romans.”
“Pre-cisely,” said Rutilius Rufus.
“Come, brother, put us out of our misery and tell us,” urged Rutilia.
“As I said, my dear Rutilia, simple. Let the girl pick her own husband.”
Cotta and his wife stared.
“Do you really think that’s wise?” asked Cotta.
“In this situation, wisdom fails, so what have you got to lose?” asked Rutilius Rufus. “You don’t need her to marry a rich man, and there aren’t any notorious fortune hunters on your list of suitors, so limit her choice to your list. Nor are the Aurelians, the Julians, or the Cornelians likely to attract social climbers. Besides which, Aurelia is full of common sense, not a scrap sentimental, and certainly not a romantic. She won’t let you down, not my girl!”
“You’re right,” said Cotta, nodding. “I don’t think there’s a man alive could turn Aurelia’s head.”
So the next day Cotta and Rutilia summoned Aurelia to her mother’s sitting room, with the intention of telling her what had been decided about her future.
She walked in; she didn’t drift, undulate, stride, mince. Aurelia was a good plain walker, moved briskly and competently, disciplined hips and bottom to a neat economy, kept shoulders back, chin tucked in, head up. Perhaps her figure erred on the spare side, for she was tall and inclined to be flat-chested, but she wore her draperies with immaculate neatness, did not affect high cork heels, and scorned jewelry. Thick and straight, her palest-icy-brown hair was dragged severely back into a tight bun positioned right where it could not be seen from the front full face, giving her no softening frame of hair. Cosmetics had never sullied her dense and milky skin, without a blemish, faintly pinked across her incredible cheekbones and deepening to a soft rose within the hollows below. As straight and high-bridged as if Praxiteles had chiseled it, her nose was too long to incur animadversions about Celtic blood, and therefore could be forgiven its lack of character—in other words, its lack of truly Roman humps and bumps. Lushly crimsoned, deliciously creased at its corners, her mouth had that folded quality which drove men mad to kiss it into blooming. And in all this wonderful heart-shaped face, with its dented chin and its broad high forehead and its widow’s peak, there dwelled an enormous pair of eyes everyone insisted were not dark blue, but purple, framed in long and thick black lashes, and surmounted by thin, arched, feathery black brows.
Many were the debates at men’s dinner parties (for it could confidently be predicted that among the guests would be two or three of her gazetted suitors) as to what exactly constituted Aurelia’s appeal. Some said it all lay in those thoughtful, detached purple eyes; some insisted it was the remarkable purity of her skin; others plumped for the carved starkness of her facial planes; a few muttered passionately about her mouth, or her dented chin, or her exquisite hands and feet.
“It’s none of those things and yet it’s all of those things,” growled Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator. “Fools! She’s a Vestal Virgin on the loose—she’s Diana, not Venus! Unattainable. And therein lies her fascination,”
“No, it’s those purple eyes,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus’s young son, another Marcus like his father. “Purple is the color! Noble! She’s a living, breathing omen.”
But when the living, breathing omen walked into her mother’s sitting room looking as sedate and immaculate as always, there entered no atmosphere of high drama with her; indeed, the character of Aurelia did not encourage high drama.
“Sit down, daughter,” said Rutilia, smiling.
Aurelia sat and folded her hands in her lap.
“We want to talk to you about your marriage,” said Cotta, and cleared his throat, hoping she would say something to help him elucidate.
He got no help at all; Aurelia just looked at him with a kind of remote interest, nothing more.
“How do you feel about it?” Rutilia asked.
Aurelia pursed her lips, shrugged. “I suppose I just hope you’ll pick someone I like,” she said.
“Well, yes, we hope that too,” said Cotta.
“Who don’t you like?” asked Rutilia.
“Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Junior,” Aurelia said without any hesitation, giving him his whole name.
Cotta saw the justice of that. “Anyone else?” he asked.
“Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” cried Rutilia. “I think he’s very nice, I really do.”
“I agree, he’s very nice,” said Aurelia, “but he’s timid.”
Cotta didn’t even try to conceal his grin. “Wouldn’t you like a timid husband, Aurelia? You could rule the roost!”
“A good Roman wife does not rule the roost.”
“So much for Scaurus. Our Aurelia has spoken.” Cotta waggled head and shoulders back and forth. “Anyone else you don’t fancy?”
“Lucius Licinius.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s fat.” The pursed mouth pursed tighter.
“Unappealing, eh?”
“It indicates a lack of self-discipline, Father.” There were times when Aurelia called Cotta Father, other times when he was Uncle, but her choice was never illogical; when their discourse revealed that he was acting in a paternal role, he was Father, and when he was acting in an avuncular role, he was Uncle.
“You’re right, it does,” said Cotta.
“Is there anyone you would prefer to marry above all the others?” asked Rutilia, trying the opposite tack.
The pursed mouth relaxed. “No, Mother, not really. I’m quite happy to leave the decision to you and Father.”
“What do you hope for in marriage?” asked Cotta.
“A husband befitting my rank who adores his... several fine children.”
“A textbook answer!” said Cotta. “Go to the top of the class, Aurelia.”
Rutilia glanced at her husband, only the faintest shadow of amusement in her eyes. “Tell her, Marcus Aurelius, do!”
Cotta cleared his throat again. “Well, Aurelia, you’re causing us a bit of a problem,” he said. “At last count I have had thirty-seven formal applications for your hand in marriage. Not one of these hopeful suitors can be dismissed as ineligible. Some of them are of rank far higher than ours, some of fortune far greater than ours—and some even have rank and fortune far in excess of ours! Which puts us in a quandary. If we choose your husband, we are going to make a lot of enemies, which may not worry us unduly, but will make life hard for your brothers later on. I’m sure you can see that.”
“I do, Father,” said Aurelia seriously.
“Anyway, your Uncle Publius came up with the only feasible answer. You will choose your husband, my daughter.”
And for once she was thrown off-balance. She gaped. “I?”
“You.”
Her hands went up to press at her reddened cheeks; she stared at Cotta in horror. “But I can’t do that!” she cried. “It isn’t—it isn’t Roman!”
“I agree,” said Cotta. “Not Roman. Rutilian.”
“We needed a Ulysses to tell us the way, and luckily we have one right in the family,” said Rutilia.
“Oh!” Aurelia wriggled, twisted. “Oh, oh!”
“What is it, Aurelia? Can’t you see your way clear to a decision?” asked Rutilia.
“No, it’s not that,” said Aurelia, her color fading to normal, then fading beyond it, and leaving her white-faced. “It’s just—oh, well!” She shrugged, got up. “May I go?”
“Indeed you may.”
At the door she turned to regard Cotta and Rutilia very gravely. “How long do I have to make up my mind?” she asked.
“Oh, there’s no real hurry,” said Cotta easily. “You’re eighteen at the end of January, but there’s nothing to say you have to marry, the moment you come of age. Take your time.”
“Thank you,” she said, and went out of the room.
Her own little room was one of the cubicles which opened off the atrium, and so was windowless and dark; in such a careful and caring family bosom, the only daughter would not have been permitted to sleep anywhere less protected. However, being the only daughter amid such a collection of boys, she was also much indulged, and could easily have grown into a very spoiled young lady did she have the germ of such a flaw in her. Luckily she did not. The consensus of family opinion was that it was utterly impossible to spoil Aurelia, for she had not an avaricious or envious atom in her. Which didn’t make her sweet-natured, or even lovable; in fact, it was a lot easier to admire and respect Aurelia than it was to love her, for she did not give of herself. As a child she would listen impassively to the vainglorious posturing of her older brother or one of her first two younger brothers, then when she had had enough, she would thump him across the ear so hard his head rang, and walk away without a word.
Because as the only girl she needed, her parents felt, a domain of her own marked off-limits to all the boys, she had been given a modestly large and brilliantly sunny room off the peristyle-garden for her own, and a maidservant of her own, the Gallic girl Cardixa, who was a gem. When Aurelia married, Cardixa would go with her to her new husband’s home.
*
One quick glance at Aurelia’s face when she walked into her workroom told Cardixa that something of importance had just occurred; but she said nothing, nor did she expect to be told what it was, for the kind and comfortable relationship between mistress and maidservant contained no girlish confidences. Aurelia clearly needed to be alone, so Cardixa departed.
The tastes of its owner were emblazoned on the room, most of the walls of which were solidly pigeonholed and held many rolls of books; a desk held scrolls of blank paper, reed pens, wax tablets, a quaint bone stylus for inscribing the wax, cakes of compressed sepia ink waiting to be dissolved in water, a covered inkwell, a full shaker of fine sand for blotting work in progress, and an abacus.
In one corner was a full-sized Patavian loom, the walls behind it pegged to hold dozens of long hanks of woolen thread in a myriad of thicknesses and colors—reds and purples, blues and greens, pinks and creams, yellows and oranges—for Aurelia wove the fabric for all her clothes, and loved brilliant hues. On the loom was a wide expanse of misty-thin flame-colored textile woven from wool spun hair-fine; Aurelia’s wedding veil, a real challenge. The saffron material for her wedding dress was already completed, and lay folded upon a shelf until the time came to make it up; it was unlucky to start cutting and sewing the dress until the groom was fully contractually committed.
Having a talent for such work, Cardixa was halfway through making a carved fretwork folding screen out of some striking African cabinet-wood; the pieces of polished sard, jasper, carnelian, and onyx with which she intended to inlay it in a pattern of leaves and flowers were all carefully wrapped within a carved wooden box, an earlier example of her skill.
Aurelia went along the room’s exposed side closing the shutters, the grilles of which she left open to let in fresh air and a muted light; the very fact that the shutters were closed was signal enough that she did not wish to be disturbed by anyone, little brother or servant. Then she sat down at her desk, greatly troubled and bewildered, folded her hands on its top, and thought.
What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi do?
That was Aurelia’s criterion for everything. What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi do? What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi think? How would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi feel? For Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi was Aurelia’s idol, her exemplar, her ready-reckoner of conduct in speech and deed.
Among the books lining the walls of her workroom were all of Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi’s published letters and essays, as well as any work by anyone else which so much as mentioned the name Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi.
And who was she, this Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi? Everything a Roman noblewoman ought to be, from the moment of her birth to the moment of her death. That was who.
The younger daughter of Scipio Africanus—who rolled up Hannibal and conquered Carthage—she had been married to the great nobleman Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in her nineteenth year, which was his forty-fifth year; her mother, Aemilia Paulla, was the sister of the great Aemilius Paullus, which made Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi patrician on both sides.
Her conduct while wife to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was unimpeachable, and patiently over the almost twenty years of their marriage, she bore him twelve children. Gaius Julius Caesar would probably have maintained that it was the endlessly intermarried bloodlines of two very old families—Cornelius and Aemilius—that rendered her babies sickly, for sickly they all were. But, indefatigable, she persisted, and cared for each child with scrupulous attention and great love; and actually succeeded in rearing three of them. The first child who lived to be grown up was a girl, Sempronia; the second was a boy, who inherited his father’s name, Tiberius; and the third was another boy, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus.
Exquisitely educated and a worthy child of her father, who adored everything Greek as the pinnacle of world culture, she herself tutored all three of her children (and those among the nine dead who lived long enough to need tutoring) and oversaw every aspect of their upbringing. When her husband died, she was left with the fifteen-year-old Sempronia, the twelve-year-old Tiberius Gracchus, and the two-year-old Gaius Gracchus, as well as several among the nine dead who had survived infancy.
Everyone lined up to marry the widow, for she had proven her fertility with amazing regularity, and she was still fertile; she was also the daughter of Africanus, the niece of Paullus, and the relict of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus; and she was fabulously wealthy.
Among her suitors was none other than King Ptolemy Euergetes Gross Belly—at that moment in time, late King of Egypt, current King of Cyrenaica—who was a regular visitor to Rome in the years between his deposition in Egypt and his reinstatement as its sole ruler nine years after the death of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. He would turn up to bleat incessantly in the Senate’s weary ear, and agitate and bribe to be let climb back upon the Egyptian throne.
At the time of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus’s death, King Ptolemy Euergetes Gross Belly was eight years younger than the thirty-six-year-old Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi—and considerably thinner in his middle regions than he would be later, when Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi’s first cousin and son-in-law, Scipio Aemilianus, boasted that he had made the indecently clad, hideously fat King of Egypt walk! He sued as persistently and incessantly for her hand in marriage as he did for reinstatement on the Egyptian throne, but with as little success. Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi could not be had by a mere foreign king, no matter how incredibly rich or powerful.
In fact, Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi had resolved that a true Roman noblewoman married to a great Roman nobleman for nearly twenty years had no business remarrying at all. So suitor after suitor was refused with gracious courtesy; the widow struggled on alone to rear her children.
When Tiberius Gracchus was murdered during his tribunate of the plebs, she carried on living with head unbowed, holding herself steadfastly aloof from all the innuendo about her first cousin Scipio Aemilianus’s implication in the murder; and held herself just as steadfastly aloof from the marital hideousnesses which existed between Scipio Aemilianus and his wife, her own daughter, Sempronia. Then when Scipio Aemilianus was found mysteriously dead and it was rumored that he too had been murdered—by his wife, no less, her own daughter—still she held herself steadfastly aloof. After all, she was left with one living son to nurture and encourage in his blossoming public career, her dear Gaius Gracchus.
Gaius Gracchus died with great violence about the time she turned seventy years of age, and everyone assumed that here at last was the blow strong enough to break Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi. But no. Head unbowed, she carried on living, widowed, minus her splendid sons, her only surviving child the embittered and barren Sempronia.
“I have my dear little Sempronia to bring up,” she said, referring to Gaius Gracchus’s daughter, a tiny babe.
But she did retire from Rome, though never from life or from the pursuit of it. She went to live permanently in her huge villa at Misenum, it no less than her a monument to everything of taste and refinement and splendor Rome could offer the world. There she collected her letters and essays and graciously permitted old Sosius of the Argiletum to publish them, after her friends beseeched her not to let them go unknown to posterity. Like their author, they were sprightly, full of grace and charm and wit, yet very strong and deep; in Misenum they were added to, for Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi never lost intellect or erudition or interest as she piled up the total of her years.
When Aurelia was sixteen and Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi eighty-three, Marcus Aurelius Cotta and his wife, Rutilia, paid a duty call—no duty call really, it was an event eagerly looked forward to—upon Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi as they were passing through Misenum. With them they had the full tribe of children, even including the lofty Lucius Aurelius Cotta, who naturally at twenty-six did not consider himself a true member of the tribe. Everyone was issued orders to be quiet as mice, demure as Vestals, still as cats before the pounce—no fidgeting, no jiggling, no kicking the chair legs—under pain of death by indescribably agonizing torture.
But Cotta and Rutilia needn’t have bothered issuing threats foreign to their natures. Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi knew just about everything there was to know of little boys and big boys too, and her granddaughter, Sempronia, was a year younger than Aurelia. Delighted to be surrounded by such interesting and vivid children, she had a wonderful time, and for much longer than her household of devoted slaves thought wise, for she was frail by this time, and permanently blue about the lips and earlobes.
And the girl Aurelia came away captured, inspired— when she grew up, she vowed, she was going to live by the same standards of Roman strength, Roman endurance, Roman integrity, Roman patience, as Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi. It was after this that her library grew rich in the old lady’s writings; then that the pattern of a life to be equally remarkable was laid down.
The visit was never repeated, for the following winter Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi died, sitting up straight in a chair, head unbowed, holding her granddaughter’s hand. She had just informed the girl of her formal betrothal to Marcus Fulvius Flaccus Bambalio, only survivor of that family of the Fulvius Flaccuses who had died supporting Gaius Gracchus; it was fitting, she told the young Sempronia, that as sole heiress to the vast Sempronian fortune, she should bring that fortune as her gift to a family stripped of its fortune in the cause of Gaius Gracchus. Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi was also pleased to be able to tell her granddaughter that she still possessed enough clout in the Senate to procure a decree waiving the provisions of the lex Voconia de mulierum hereditatibus, just in case some remote male cousin appeared and lodged a claim to the vast Sempronian fortune under this antiwoman law. The waiver, she added, extended to the next generation, just in case another woman should prove the only direct heir.
The death of Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi happened so quickly, so mercifully, that the whole of Rome rejoiced; truly the gods had loved—and sorely tried—Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi! Being a Cornelian, she was inhumed rather than cremated; alone among the great and small families of Rome, the members of the gens Cornelius kept their bodies intact after death. A magnificent tomb on the Via Latina became her monument, and was never without offerings of fresh flowers laid all around it. And with the passing of the years it became both shrine and altar, though the cult was never officially recognized. A Roman woman in need of the qualities associated with Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi would pray to her, and leave her fresh flowers. She had become a goddess, but of a kind new to any pantheon; a figure of unconquerable spirit in the face of bitter suffering.
*
What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi do? For once Aurelia had no answer to that question; neither logic nor instinct could graft Aurelia’s predicament onto one whose parents would never, never, never have given her the freedom to choose her own husband. Of course Aurelia could appreciate the reasons why her crafty Uncle Publius had suggested it; her own classical education was more than broad enough to appreciate the parallel between herself and Helen of Troy, though Aurelia did not think of herself as fatally beautiful—more as irresistibly eligible.
Finally she came to the only conclusion Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi would have approved; she must sift through her suitors with painstaking care, and choose the best one. That did not mean the one who attracted her most strongly. It meant the one who measured up to the Roman ideal. Therefore he must be wellborn, of a senatorial family at least—and one whose dignitas, whose public worth and standing in Rome went down the generations since the founding of the Republic without slur or smear or scar; he must be brave, untempted by excesses of any kind, contemptuous of monetary greed, above bribery or ethical prostitution, and prepared if necessary to lay down his life for Rome or for his honor.
A tall order! The trouble was, how could a girl of her sheltered background be sure she was judging aright? So she decided to talk to the three adult members of her immediate family—to Marcus Cotta and to Rutilia and to her elder half brother, Lucius Aurelius Cotta—and ask them for their candid opinions about each of the men on the list of suitors. The three applied to were taken aback, but they tried to help as best they could; unfortunately, each of them when pressed admitted to personal prejudices likely to warp judgment, so Aurelia ended up no better off.
“There’s no one she really fancies,” said Cotta to his wife gloomily.
“Not a solitary one!” said Rutilia, sighing.
“It’s unbelievable, Rutilia! An eighteen-year-old girl without a hankering for anyone! What’s the matter with her?”
“How should I know?” asked Rutilia, feeling unfairly put on the defensive. “She doesn’t get it from my side of the family!”
“Well, she certainly doesn’t get it from mine!” snapped Cotta, then shook himself out of his exasperation, kissed his wife to make up, and slumped back into simple depression. “I would be willing to bet, you know, that she ends up deciding none of them are any good!”
“I agree,” said Rutilia.
“What are we going to do, then? If we’re not careful, we’ll end up with the first voluntary spinster in the entire history of Rome!”
“We’d better send her to see my brother,” Rutilia said. “She can talk to him about it.”
Cotta brightened. “An excellent idea!” he said.
The next day Aurelia walked from the Cotta mansion on the Palatine to Publius Rutilius Rufus’s house on the Carinae, escorted by her maidservant, Cardixa, and two big Gallic slaves whose duties were many and varied, but all demanded plenty of physical strength; neither Cotta nor Rutilia had wanted to handicap the congress between Aurelia and her uncle with the presence of parents. An appointment had been made, for as consul kept to administer Rome— thus freeing up Gnaeus Mallius Maximus to recruit the very large army he intended to take to Gaul-across-the-Alps in late spring—Rutilius Rufus was a busy man. Never too busy, however, to deal with the few items of a family nature which came his way.
Marcus Cotta had called to see his brother-in-law just before dawn, and explained the situation—which seemed to amuse Rutilius Rufus mightily.
“Oh, the little one!” he exclaimed, shoulders shaking. “A virgin through and through. Well, we’ll have to make sure she doesn’t make the wrong decision and remain a virgin for the rest of her life, no matter how many husbands and children she might have.”
“I hope you have a solution, Publius Rutilius,” said Cotta. “I can’t even see a tiny gleam of light.”
“I know what to do,” said Rutilius Rufus smugly. “Send her over to me just before the tenth hour. She can have some dinner with me. I’ll send her home in a litter under strong guard, never fear.”
When Aurelia arrived, Rutilius Rufus sent Cardixa and the two Gauls to his servants’ quarters to eat dinner and wait upon his pleasure; Aurelia he conducted to his dining room, and saw her comfortably ensconced upon a straight chair where she could converse with equal ease with her uncle and whoever might recline to his left.
“I’m only expecting one guest,” he said, getting himself organized oft his couch. “Brrr! Chilly, isn’t it? How about a nice warm pair of woolly socks, niece?”
Any other eighteen-year-old female might have considered death a preferable fate to wearing something as un-glamorous as a nice warm pair of woolly socks, but not Aurelia, who judiciously weighed the ambient temperature of the room against her own state of being, then nodded. “Thank you, Uncle Publius,” she said.
Cardixa was summoned and bidden obtain the socks from the housekeeper, which she did with commendable promptness.
“What a sensible girl you are!” said Rutilius Rufus, who really did adore Aurelia’s common sense as any other man might adore the perfect ocean pearl he found inside a whiskery whelk on the Ostia mud flats. No great lover of women, he never paused to reflect that common sense was a commodity just as rare in men as in women; he simply looked for its lack in women and consequently found it. Thus was Aurelia, his miraculous ocean pearl, found on the mud flats of womankind, and greatly did he treasure her.
“Thank you, Uncle Publius,” said Aurelia, and gave her attention to Cardixa, who was kneeling to remove shoes.
The two girls were engrossed in pulling on socks when the single guest was ushered in; neither of them bothered to look up at the sounds of greeting, the noises of the guest being settled to his host’s left.
As Aurelia straightened again, she looked into Cardixa’s eyes and said, “Thank you,” with one of her very rare smiles.
So when she was fully upright and gazing across the table at her uncle and his guest, the smile still lingered, as did the additional flush bending down had imparted to her cheeks; she looked breathtaking.
The guest’s breath caught audibly. So did Aurelia’s.
“Gaius Julius, this is my sister’s girl, Aurelia,” said Publius Rutilius Rufus suavely. “Aurelia, I would like you to meet the son of my old friend Gaius Julius Caesar—a Gaius like his father, but not the eldest son.”
Purple eyes even larger than usual, Aurelia looked at the shape of her fate, and never thought once of the Roman ideal, or Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi. Or perhaps on some deeper level she did; for indeed he measured up, though only time would prove it to her. At this moment of meeting, all she saw was his long Roman face with its long Roman nose, the bluest of eyes, thickly waving golden hair, beautiful mouth. And, after all that internal debate, all that careful yet fruitless deliberation, she solved her dilemma in the most natural and satisfying way possible. She fell in love.
Of course they talked. In fact, they had a most enjoyable dinner. Rutilius Rufus leaned back on his left elbow and let them have the floor, tickled at his own cleverness in working out which young man among the hundreds he knew would be the one to appeal to his precious ocean pearl. It went without saying that he liked young Gaius Julius Caesar enormously, and expected good things of him in future years; he was the very finest type of Roman. But then, he came from the finest type of Roman family. And, being a Roman of the Romans himself, Publius Rutilius Rufus was particularly pleased that if the attraction between young Gaius Julius Caesar and his niece came to full flower—as he confidently expected it would—a quasi-familial bond would be forged between himself and his old friend Gaius Marius. The children of young Gaius Julius Caesar and his niece Aurelia would be the first cousins of the children of Gaius Marius.
Normally too diffident to quiz anyone, Aurelia forgot all about manners, and quizzed young Gaius Julius Caesar to her heart’s content. She found out that he had been in Africa with his brother-in-law Gaius Marius as a junior military tribune, and been decorated on several occasions—a Corona Muralis for the battle at the Muluchath citadel, a banner after the first battle outside Cirta, nine silver phalerae after the second battle outside Cirta. He had sustained a severe wound in the upper leg during this second battle, and had been sent home, honorably discharged. None of this had she found easy to prise out of him, for he was more interested in telling her of the exploits of his elder brother, Sextus, in the same campaigns.
This year, she found out, he was appointed a moneyer, one of three young men who in their presenatorial years were given an opportunity to learn something of how Rome’s economy worked by being put in charge of the minting of Rome’s coins.
“Money disappears from circulation,” he said, never before having had an audience as fascinating as fascinated. “It’s our job to make more money—but not at our whim, mind you! The Treasury determines how much new money is to be minted in a year; we only mint it.”
“But how can something as solid as a coin disappear?” asked Aurelia, frowning.
“Oh, it might fall down a drain hole, or be burned up in a big fire,” said young Caesar. “Some coins just plain wear out. But most coins disappear because they’re hoarded. And when money is hoarded, it can’t do its proper job.”
“What is its proper job?’’ asked Aurelia, never having had much to do with money, for her needs were simple and her parents sensitive to them.
“To change hands constantly,’’ said young Gaius Caesar. “That’s called circulation. And when money circulates, every hand it passes through has been blessed by it. It buys goods, or work, or property. But it must keep on circulating.”
“So you have to make new money to replace the coins someone is hoarding,” said Aurelia thoughtfully. “However, the coins being hoarded are still there, really, aren’t they? What happens, for instance, if suddenly a huge number of them which have been hoarded are—are—un-hoarded?”
“Then the value of money goes down.”
Having had her first lesson in simple economics, Aurelia moved on to find out the physical side of coining money.
“We actually get to choose what goes on the coins,” said young Gaius Caesar eagerly, captivated by his rapt listener.
“You mean the Victory in her biga?”
“Well, it’s easier to get a two-horse chariot on a coin than a four-horse one, which is why Victory rides in a biga rather than a quadriga,” he answered. “But those of us with a bit of imagination like to do something more original than just Victory, or Rome. If there are three issues of coins in a year—and there mostly are—then each of us gets to pick what goes on one of the issues.”
“And will you pick something?” Aurelia asked.
“Yes. We drew lots, and I got the silver denarius. So this year’s denarius will have the head of Iulus the son of Aeneas on one side, and the Aqua Marcia on the other, to commemorate my grandfather Marcius Rex,” said young Caesar.
After that, Aurelia discovered that he would be seeking election as a tribune of the soldiers in the autumn; his brother, Sextus, had been elected a tribune of the soldiers for this year, and was going to Gaul with Gnaeus Mallius Maximus.
When the last course was eaten, Uncle Publius packed his niece off home in the well-protected litter, as he had promised. But his masculine guest he persuaded to stay a little longer.
“Have a cup or two of unwatered wine,” he said. “I’m so full of water I’m going to have to go out now and piss a whole bucket.’’
“I’ll join you,” said the guest, laughing.
“And what did you think of my niece?” asked Rutilius Rufus after they had been served with an excellent vintage of Tuscania.
“That’s like asking whether I like living! Is there any alternative?”
“Liked her that much, eh?”
“Liked her? Yes, I did. But I’m in love with her too,” said young Caesar.
“Want to marry her?”
“Of course I do! So, I gather, does half of Rome.”
“That’s true, Gaius Julius. Does it put you off?”
“No. I’ll apply to her father—her Uncle Marcus, I mean. And try to see her again, persuade her to think kindly of me. It’s worth a try, because I know she liked me.”
Rutilius Rufus smiled. “Yes, I think she did too.” He slid off the couch. “Well, you go home, young Gaius Julius, tell your father what you plan to do, then go and see Marcus Aurelius tomorrow. As for me, I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.”
*
Though he had made himself sound confident enough to Rutilius Rufus, young Gaius Caesar walked home in less hopeful mood. Aurelia’s fame was widespread. Many of his friends had applied for her hand; some Marcus Cotta had refused to add to his list, others were entered on it. Among the successful applicants were names more august than his, if only because those names were allied to enormous fortunes. To be a Julius Caesar meant little beyond a social distinction so secure even poverty could not destroy its aura. Yet how could he compete against the likes of Marcus Livius Drusus, or young Scaurus, or Licinius Orator, or Mucius Scaevola, or the elder of the Ahenobarbus brothers? Not knowing that Aurelia had been given the opportunity to choose her own husband, young Caesar rated his chances extremely slender.
When he let himself in through the front door and walked down the passageway to the atrium, he could see the lights still burning in his father’s study, and blinked back sudden tears before going quietly to the half-open door, and knocking.
“Come,” said a tired voice.
Gaius Julius Caesar was dying. Everyone in the house knew it, including Gaius Julius Caesar, though not a word had been spoken. The illness had started with difficulty in swallowing, an insidious thing which crept onward, so slowly at first that it was hard to tell whether there actually was a worsening. Then his voice had begun to croak, and after that the pain started, not unbearable at first. It had now become constant, and Gaius Julius Caesar could no longer swallow solid food. So far he had refused to see a doctor, though every day Marcia begged him to.
“Father?”
“Come and keep me company, young Gaius,” said Caesar, who turned sixty this year, but in the lamplight looked more like eighty. He had lost so much weight his skin hung on him, the planes of his skull were just that, a skull, and constant suffering had bleached the life out of his once-intense blue eyes. His hand went out to his son; he smiled.
“Oh, Father!” Young Caesar tried manfully to keep the emotion out of his voice, but could not; he crossed the room to Caesar, took the hand, and kissed it, then stepped closer and gathered his father to him, arms about the skinny shoulders, cheek against the lifeless silver-gilt hair.
“Don’t cry, my son,” Caesar croaked. “It will soon be over. Athenodorus Siculus is coming tomorrow.”
A Roman didn’t cry. Or wasn’t supposed to cry. To young Caesar that seemed a mistaken standard of behavior, but he mastered his tears, drew away, and sat down near enough to his father to retain his clasp of the clawlike hand.
“Perhaps Athenodorus will know what to do,” he said.
“Athenodorus will know what all of us know, that I have an incurable growth in my throat,” said Caesar. “However, your mother hopes for a miracle, and I am far enough gone now for Athenodorus not to even think of offering her one. I have gone forward with living for only one reason, to make sure all the members of my family are properly provided for, and to assure myself they are happily settled.”
Caesar paused, his free hand groping for the cup of unwatered wine which was now his only physical solace. A minute sip or two, and he continued.
“You are the last, young Gaius,” he whispered. “What am I to hope for you? Many years ago I gave you one luxury, which you have not yet espoused—the luxury of choosing your own wife. Now I think the time is here for you to exercise your option. It would make me rest easier if I knew you were decently settled.”
Young Gaius Caesar lifted his father’s hand and laid it against his cheek, leaning forward and taking all the weight of his father’s arm. “I’ve found her, Father,” he said. “I met her tonight—isn’t that strange?”
“At Publius Rutilius’s?” asked Caesar incredulously.
The young man grinned. “I think he was playing matchmaker!”
“An odd role for a consul.”
“Yes.” Young Caesar drew a breath. “Have you heard of his niece—Marcus Cotta’s stepdaughter, Aurelia?”
“The current beauty? I think everyone must have.”
“That’s her. She’s the one.”
Caesar looked troubled. “Your mother tells me there’s a line of suitors clear around the block, including the richest and noblest bachelors in Rome—and even some who are not bachelors, I hear.”
“All absolutely true,” said young Gaius. “But I shall marry her, never fear!”
“If your instincts about her are right, then you’re going to make a rod for your own back,” said the caring father very seriously. “Beauties of her caliber don’t make good wives, Gaius. They’re spoiled, capricious, willful, and pert. Let her go to some other man, and choose a girl of humbler kind.” He bethought himself of a comforting fact, and relaxed. “Luckily you’re a complete nobody compared to Lucius Licinius Orator or Gnaeus Domitius Junior, even if you are a patrician. Marcus Aurelius won’t even consider you, of that I’m sure. So don’t set your heart on her to the exclusion of all others.”
“She’ll marry me, tata, wait and see!”
And from that contention Gaius Julius Caesar did not have the strength to budge his son, so he let himself be helped to the bed where he had taken to sleeping alone, so restless and transient were his periods of sleep.
*
Aurelia lay on her stomach within the closely curtained litter as it jiggled and joggled her up and down the hills between her Uncle Publius’s house and her Uncle Marcus’s house. Gaius Julius Caesar Junior! How wonderful he was, how perfect! But would he want to marry her? What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi think?
Sharing the litter with her mistress, Cardixa watched her with great curiosity; this was an Aurelia she had never seen before. Bolt upright in a corner and carefully holding a candle shielded by thin alabaster so that the interior of the litter was not completely darkened, she noted symptoms of a marked change. Aurelia’s quick tense body was utterly relaxed in a sprawl, her mouth was held less tightly, and creamy eyelids hid whatever lurked in her eyes. Being of excellent intelligence, Cardixa knew exactly the reason for the change; the terribly good-looking young man Publius Rutilius had produced almost like a main course. Oh, cunning old villain that he was! And yet—Gaius Julius Caesar Junior was a very special person, just right for Aurelia. Cardixa knew it in her bones.
Whatever Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi might have done in a similar situation, by the time she arose next morning Aurelia knew her course of action. The first thing she did was to send Cardixa around to the Caesar house with a note for her young man.
“Ask to marry me,” it said baldly.
After which she did nothing at all, simply hid herself in her workroom and appeared for meals as inconspicuously as possible, aware herself that she was changing, and not wanting her vigilant parents to see it before she made her move.
The following day she waited until Marcus Cotta’s clients had been attended to, in no hurry because Cotta’s secretary had informed her there were no meetings of Senate or People for him to attend; he would certainly remain at home for an hour or two after the last client departed.
“Father?”
Cotta looked up from the papers on his desk. “Ah! It’s Father today, is it? Come in, daughter, come in.’’ He smiled at her warmly. “Would you like your mother here too?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then go and fetch her.”
Off she went, reappearing a moment later with Rutilia.
“Sit down, ladies,” said Cotta.
They disposed themselves side by side on a couch.
“Well, Aurelia?”
“Have there been any new applicants?” she asked abruptly.
“As a matter of fact, yes. Young Gaius Julius Caesar came to see me yesterday, and as I have nothing against him, I added him to the list. Which makes my total thirty-eight.”
Aurelia blushed. Fascinated, Cotta stared at her, never having seen her discomposed in his entire acquaintance of her. The tip of a pink tongue came out, wetted her lips. Rutilia, he noted, had swiveled on the couch to observe her daughter, and was equally intrigued by the blush and the discomposure.
“I’ve made up my mind,” Aurelia said.
“Excellent! Tell us,” prompted Cotta.
“Gaius Julius Caesar Junior.”
“What?” asked Cotta blankly.
“Who?” asked Rutilia blankly.
“Gaius Julius Caesar Junior,’’ Aurelia repeated patiently.
“Well, well! The last horse entered in the race,” said Cotta, amused.
“My brother’s late entry,” said Rutilia. “Ye gods, he’s clever! How did he know?”
“He’s a remarkable man,” said Cotta to his wife, then said to his stepdaughter, “You met Gaius Julius Junior at your uncle’s the day before yesterday—was that for the very first time?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s the one you want to marry.”
“Yes.”
“My darling girl, he’s a relatively poor man,” said the mother. “There won’t be any luxury for you as the wife of young Gaius Julius, you know.”
“One doesn’t marry in order to live in luxury.”
“I’m glad you have the good sense to know that, mychild. However, he’s not the man I would have chosen for you,” said Cotta, not really pleased.
“I’d like to know why, Father,” said Aurelia.
“It’s a strange family. Too—too unorthodox. And they’re bound ideologically as well as maritally to Gaius Marius, a man I absolutely detest,” said Cotta.
“Uncle Publius likes Gaius Marius,” said Aurelia.
“Your Uncle Publius is sometimes a little misguided,” Cotta answered grimly. “However, he’s not so besotted that he’d vote against his own class in the Senate just for the sake of Gaius Marius—where I cannot say the same of the Julians of Gaius’s branch! Your Uncle Publius soldiered with Gaius Marius for many years, and that creates an understandable bond. Where old Gaius Julius Caesar welcomed Gaius Marius with open arms, and has taught his whole family to esteem him.”
“Didn’t Sextus Julius marry one of the lesser Claudias not long ago?” asked Rutilia.
“I believe so.”
“Well, that’s an unimpeachable union, at any rate. Maybe the sons are not so attached to Gaius Marius as you think.”
“They’re brothers-in-law, Rutilia.”
Aurelia interjected, “Father and Mother, you left it up to me,” she said sternly. “I am going to marry Gaius Julius Caesar, and that’s that.” It was said with great firmness, but not insolently.
Cotta and Rutilia gazed at her in consternation, finally understanding; the coolly sensible Aurelia was in love.
“That’s true, we did,” said Cotta briskly, deciding there was no alternative save to make the best of it. “Well, off with you!” He waved dismissal to his wife and niece. “I have to get the scribes onto writing thirty-seven letters. And then I had better walk round to see Gaius Julius—father and son, I suppose.”
The general letter Marcus Aurelius Cotta sent out said:
After careful consideration, I decided that I would permit my niece and ward, Aurelia, to choose her own husband. My wife, her mother, agreed. This is to announce that Aurelia has made her choice. Her husband is to be Gaius Julius Caesar Junior, younger son of the Conscript Father Gaius Julius Caesar. I trust you will join with me in offering the couple all felicitations for their coming marriage.
His secretary looked at Cotta with wide eyes.
“All right, don’t just sit there, get onto it!” said Cotta rather gruffly for such an even-tempered man. “I want thirty-seven copies of that within the hour, each one headed to a man on this list.” He shoved the list across the table. “I’ll sign them myself, then they are to be delivered by hand immediately.”
The secretary got to work; so did the gossip grapevine, which easily beat the letters to their recipients. Many were the sore hearts and new grudges when the news got round, for clearly Aurelia’s choice was an emotional one, not an expedient one. Somehow that made it less forgivable; none of the starters on Aurelia’s list of suitors liked being pipped on the post by the younger son of a mere backbencher, no matter how august his lineage. Besides which, the lucky man was far too good-looking, and that was generally felt to be an unfair advantage.
After she recovered from the initial shock, Rutilia was inclined to approve of her daughter’s choice. “Oh, think of the children she’ll have!” she purred to Cotta as he stood being draped in his purple-bordered toga so he could venture forth to visit the Julius Caesar household, situated in a less fashionable part of the Palatine. “If you leave money out of it, it’s a splendid match for an Aurelius, let alone a Rutilius. The Julians are the very top of the tree.”
“You can’t dine off an ancient bloodline,” growled Cotta.
“Oh, come now, Marcus Aurelius, it isn’t that bad! The Marius connection has advanced the Julian fortune mightily, and no doubt it will continue to do so. I can’t see any reason why young Gaius Julius won’t be consul. I’ve heard he’s very bright, as well as very capable.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” said Cotta, unconvinced.
However, he set out in togate magnificence, a handsome man himself, though with the florid complexion all the Aurelius Cottas possessed; it was a family whose members did not live to be very old, for they were subject to apoplexy.
The younger Gaius Julius Caesar was not at home, he was informed, so he asked for the old man, and was surprised when the steward looked grave.
“If you will excuse me, Marcus Aurelius, I will make inquiries,” the steward said. “Gaius Julius is not well.”
This was the first Cotta had heard of an illness, but upon reflection he realized that indeed the old man had not been in the Senate House in some time. “I’ll wait,” he said.
The steward came back quickly. “Gaius Julius will see you,” he said, conducting Cotta to the study. “I should warn you that his appearance will shock you.”
Glad he had been warned, Cotta concealed his shock as the bony fingers managed the enormous task of poking forward to offer a handshake.
“Marcus Aurelius, it is a pleasure,” Caesar said. “Sit down, do! I’m sorry I cannot rise, but my steward will have told you I am not well.” A faint smile played around the fine lips. “A euphemism. I’m dying.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Cotta uneasily, seating himself on the edge of a chair with twitching nostrils; there was a peculiar smell in the room, of something unpleasant.
“Surely so. I have a growth in my throat. It was confirmed this morning by Athenodorus Siculus.”
“It grieves me to hear you say it, Gaius Julius. Your presence in the House will be sorely missed, especially by my brother-in-law Publius Rutilius.”
“He’s a good friend.” Caesar’s red-rimmed eyes blinked tiredly. “I can guess why you’re here, Marcus Aurelius, but please tell me.”
“When the list of my niece and ward Aurelia’s suitors got so long—and so filled with powerful names—that I had to fear the choosing of her husband would leave my sons with more enemies than friends, I permitted her to choose her own spouse,” said Cotta. “Two days ago she met your younger son at the house of her uncle, Publius Rutilius, and today she tells me she has chosen him.”
“And you dislike it as much as I do,” said Caesar.
“I do.” Cotta sighed, shrugged. “However, I passed my word on the matter, so I shall adhere to it.”
“I made the same concession to my younger son many years ago,” said Caesar, and smiled. “We will agree to make the best of it then, Marcus Aurelius, and hope that our children have more sense than we do.”
“Indeed, Gaius Julius.”
“You will want to know my son’s circumstances.”
“He told me when he applied for her hand.”
“He may not have been forthcoming enough. There is more than sufficient land to ensure his seat in the Senate, but at the moment, nothing more,” said Caesar. “Unfortunately, I am not in a position to purchase a second house in Rome, and that is a difficulty. This house goes to my older son, Sextus, who married recently and lives here with his wife, now in the early stages of her first pregnancy. My death is imminent, Marcus Aurelius. After my death, it is Sextus who becomes the paterfamilias, and upon his marriage my younger son will have to find another place to live.”
“I’m sure you know Aurelia is heavily dowered,” said Cotta. “Perhaps the most sensible thing to do is to invest her dowry in a house.” He cleared his throat. “She inherited a large sum from her father, my brother, which has been invested for some years now. In spite of the market ups and downs, it stands at the moment at about one hundred talents. Forty talents will buy a more than respectable house on the Palatine or the Carinae. Naturally the house would be put in your son’s name, but if at any time a divorce should occur, your son would have to replace the sum the house cost. But divorce aside, Aurelia would still have a sufficient sum left in her own right to ensure she doesn’t want.”
Caesar frowned. “I dislike the thought that my son will live in a private dwelling funded by his wife,” he croaked. “It would be a presumption on his part. No, Marcus Aurelius, I think something is called for that will safeguard Aurelia’s money better than the purchasing of a house she will not own. A hundred talents will buy an insula in excellent condition anywhere on the Esquiline. It should be bought for her, in her name. The young couple can live rent-free in one of the ground-floor apartments, and your niece can enjoy an income from renting the rest of the apartments, an income larger than she can get from other kinds of investments. My son will have to strive of his own volition to earn the money to buy a private house, and that will keep his courage and ambitions high.”
“I couldn’t allow Aurelia to live in an insula!” said Cotta, aghast. “No, I’ll slice off forty talents to buy a house, and leave the other sixty talents safely invested.”
“An insula in her own name,” said Caesar stubbornly. He gasped, choked, leaned forward fighting for breath.
Cotta poured a cup of wine and placed it in the clutching hand, assisting the hand to Caesar’s lips.
“Better,” said Caesar in a little while.
“Perhaps I ought to come back,” said Cotta.
“No, let’s thrash this out now, Marcus Aurelius. We do agree, you and I, that this match is not the one we would have chosen for either participant. Very well then, let us not make it too easy for them. Let us teach them the price of love. If they belong together, a little hardship can only strengthen their bond. If they do not, a little hardship will accelerate the break. We will ensure that Aurelia keeps all of her dowry, and we will not injure my son’s pride any more than we can help. An insula, Marcus Aurelius! It must be of the best construction, so make sure you employ honest men to inspect it. And,” the whispering voice went on, “don’t be too fussy about its location. Rome is growing rapidly, but the market for inexpensive housing is far steadier than for housing of those moving upward. When times are hard, those moving upward slide down, so there are always tenants looking for cheaper rent.”
“Ye gods, my niece would be a common landlady!” cried Cotta, revolted by the idea.
“And why not?” asked Caesar, smiling tiredly. “I hear she’s a colossal beauty. Won’t the two roles marry? If they won’t, perhaps she should think twice about marrying my son.”
“It is true that she’s a colossal beauty,” said Cotta, smiling broadly at a secret joke. “I shall bring her to meet you, Gaius Julius, and let you make of her what you will.” He got to his feet, leaned over to pat the thin shoulder. “My last word is this: it shall be left to Aurelia to decide what happens to her dowry. You put your proposition of the insula to her yourself, and I shall put my suggestion of a house forward. Is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal,” said Caesar. “But send her quickly, Marcus Aurelius! Tomorrow, at noon.”
“Will you tell your son?”
“Indeed I will. He can fetch her to me tomorrow.”
*
Under normal circumstances Aurelia didn’t dither about what she was going to wear; she loved bright colors and she liked to mix them, but the decision was as crisp and no-nonsense as was all else about her. However, having been notified that she was to be fetched by her betrothed to meet her prospective parents-in-law, she dithered. Finally she chose an underdress of fine cerise wool, and overlaid it with a drapery of rose-pink wool, fine enough to let the deeper color below show through, and overlaid that with a second drapery of palest pink, as fine as her wedding veil. She bathed, then scented herself with attar of roses, but her hair was dragged back into its uncompromising bun, and she refused her mother’s offering of a little rouge and stibium.
“You’re too pale today,” Rutilia protested. “It’s the tension. Go on, look your best, please! Just a dab of rouge on your cheeks, and a line around your eyes.”
“No,” said Aurelia.
Pallor turned out not to matter, anyway, for when Gaius Julius Caesar Junior called to fetch her, Aurelia produced all the color her mother could have wished.
“Gaius Julius,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Aurelia,” he said, taking it.
After that, they didn’t know what to do.
“Well, go on, goodbye!” said Rutilia irritably; it felt so odd to be losing her first child to this extremely attractive young man, when she only felt eighteen herself.
They set off, Cardixa and the Gauls trailing behind.
“I should warn you that my father isn’t well,” said young Caesar with tight control. “He has a malignant growth in his throat, and we fear he will not be with us much longer.”
“Oh,” said Aurelia.
They turned a corner. “I got your note,” he said, “and hurried to see Marcus Aurelius immediately. I can’t believe you chose me!”
“I can’t believe I found you,” she said.
“Do you think Publius Rutilius did it deliberately?”
That triggered a smile in her. “Definitely.”
They walked the rest of the block, turned a corner. “I see you’re not a talker,” said young Caesar.
“No,” said Aurelia.
And that was all the conversation they managed before the Caesar residence was reached.
One look at his son’s chosen bride caused Caesar to change his thinking somewhat. This was no spoiled, capricious beauty! Oh, she was everything he had heard she was—colossally beautiful—but not in any accepted mode. Then again, he reasoned, that was probably why to her alone did they append the hyperbole “colossal.” What wonderful children they would have! Children he would not live to see.
“Sit down, Aurelia.” His voice was scarcely audible, so he pointed to a chair right alongside his own, but enough to the front for him to see her. His son he placed upon his other side.
“What did Marcus Aurelius tell you about the talk we had?” he asked then.
“Nothing,” said Aurelia.
He went right through the discussion of her dowry he had had with Cotta, making no bones about his own feelings, or about Cotta’s.
“Your uncle your guardian says the choice is yours. Do you want a house or an insula?” he asked, eyes on her face.
What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi do? This time she knew the answer: Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi would do the most honorable thing, no matter how hard. Only now she had two honors to consider, her beloved’s as well as her own. To choose the house would be more comfortable and familiar by far, but it would injure her beloved’s pride to know his wife’s money provided their house.
She took her gaze off Caesar and stared at his son very gravely. “Which would you prefer?” she asked him.
“It’s your decision, Aurelia,” he said.
“No, Gaius Julius, it’s your decision. I am to be your wife. I intend to be a proper wife, and know my proper place. You will be the head of our house. All I ask in return for yielding the first place to you is that you always deal with me honestly and honorably. The choice of where we live is yours. I will abide by it, in deed as well as word.”
“Then we will ask Marcus Aurelius to find you an insula, and register the deeds of ownership in your name,” young Caesar said without hesitation. “It must be the most profitable and well-built real estate he can find, and I agree with my father—its location is of no moment. The income from the rents will be yours. We will live in one of its ground-floor apartments until I am in a position to buy us a private dwelling. I will support you and our children from the income of my own land, of course. Which means that you will have the full responsibility for your insula—I will not be a part of it.”
She was pleased, it showed at once, but she said nothing.
“You’re not a talker!” said Caesar, amazed.
“No,” said Aurelia.
*
Cotta got to work with a will, though his intention was to find his niece a snug property in one of the better parts of Rome. However, it was not to be; look though he would, the wisest and shrewdest investment was a fairly big insula in the heart of the Subura. Not a new apartment block (it had been built by its single owner some thirty years before, and since this owner had lived in the larger of its two ground-floor apartments, he had built to last), it had stone-and-concrete footings and foundations up to fifteen feet in depth and five feet in width; the outer and load-bearing walls were two feet thick, faced on either side with the irregular brick-and-mortar called opus incertum, and filled with a stout mixture of cement and small-stone aggregate; the windows were all relief-arched in brick; the whole was reinforced with wooden beams at least a foot square and up to fifty feet in length; foot-square wooden beams supported floors of concrete aggregate in the lower storeys and wooden planks in the upper storeys; the generous light-well was load-bearing yet retained its open nature through a system of two-foot-thick square pillars every five feet around its edge, joined at every floor by massive wooden beams.
At nine storeys of nine feet each in height including the foot-thick floors, it was quite modest—most of the insulae in the same neighborhood were two to four storeys higher— but it occupied the whole of a small triangular block where the Subura Minor ran into the Vicus Patricii. Its blunted apex faced the crossroads, its two long sides ran one down the Subura Minor and the other down the Vicus Patricii, and its base was formed by a lane which ran through from one street to the other.
Their first sight of it had come at the end of a long string of other properties; Cotta, Aurelia, and young Caesar were by this inured to the patter of a small, glib salesman of impeccably Roman ancestry—no Greek freedman sales staff for the real-estate firm of Thorius Postumus!
“Note the plaster on the walls, both inside and out,” droned the agent. “Not a crack to be seen, foundations as firm as a miser’s grip on his last bar of gold... eight shops, all under long lease, no trouble with the tenants or the rents... two apartments ground-floor with reception rooms two storeys high... two apartments only next floor up... eight apartments per floor to the sixth floor... twelve apartments on the seventh, twelve on the eighth... shops all have an upper floor for living in... additional storage above false ceilings in the sleep cubicles of the ground-floor apartments...”
On and on he extolled the virtues of the property; after a while Aurelia shut him out and concentrated upon her own thoughts. Uncle Marcus and Gaius Julius could listen to him and take heed. It was a world she didn’t know, but one she was determined to master, and if it meant a very different life-style than the one she knew, that was surely all to the good.