The Piglet was dead. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Pontifex Maximus, loyal son to Metellus Piggle-wiggle and loyal friend to Sulla the Dictator, died peacefully in his sleep of a wasting disorder which defied diagnosis. The acknowledged leading light of Roman medicine, Sulla’s doctor Lucius Tuccius, asked the Piglet’s adopted son for permission to do an autopsy.
But the adopted son was neither as intelligent nor as reasonable as his father; the blood son of Scipio Nasica and the elder of Crassus Orator’s two Licinias (the younger was his adoptive mother, wife of the Piglet), Metellus Scipio was chiefly famous for his hauteur and sense of aristocratic fitness.
“No one will tamper with my father’s body!” he said through his tears, and clutching his wife’s hand convulsively. “He will go to the flames unmutilated!”
The funeral was, of course, conducted at State expense, and was as distinguished as its object. The eulogy was given from the rostra by Quintus Hortensius after Mamercus, father of Metellus Scipio’s wife, Aemilia Lepida, declined that honor. Everyone was there, from Catulus to Caesar, from Caepio Brutus to Cato; it was not, however, a funeral which attracted a huge crowd.
And on the day after the Piglet was committed to the flames, Metellus Scipio held a meeting with Catulus, Hortensius, Vatia Isauricus, Cato, Caepio Brutus and the senior consul, Cicero.
“I heard a rumor,” said the bereaved son, red-eyed but now tearless, “that Caesar intends to put himself up as a candidate for Pontifex Maximus.”
“Well, that surely can’t come as a surprise,” said Cicero. “We all know who pulls Labienus’s strings in Magnus’s absence, though at this moment I’m uncertain as to whether Magnus even has any interest in who pulls Labienus’s strings. Popular election to choose all priests and augurs can’t benefit Magnus, whereas it gives Caesar a chance he could never have had when the College of Pontifices chose its own Pontifex Maximus.”
“It never did choose its own Pontifex Maximus,” said Cato to Metellus Scipio. “The only unelected Pontifex Maximus in history—your father—was personally chosen by Sulla, not the College.”
Catulus had a different objection to make against what Cicero said. “How blind you can be about our dear heroic friend Pompeius Magnus!” he threw at Cicero. “No advantage to Magnus? Come, now! Magnus hankers to be a priest or augur himself. He’d get what he hankers after from a Popular election, but never from co-optation within either College.”
“My brother-in-law is right, Cicero,” said Hortensius. “The lex Labiena de sacerdotiis suits Pompeius Magnus very well.”
“Rot the lex Labiena!” cried Metellus Scipio.
“Don’t waste your emotions, Quintus Scipio,” said Cato in his harsh and toneless voice. “We’re here to decide how to prevent Caesar’s declaring his candidacy.”
Brutus sat with his eyes traveling from one angry face to another, bewildered as to why he had been invited to such a senior gathering. He had assumed it was part of Uncle Cato’s relentless war against Servilia for control of her son, a war which frightened yet attracted him, the more so as he got older. Of course it did occur to him to wonder if perhaps, thanks to his engagement to Caesar’s daughter, they thought to have him there to quiz him about Caesar; but as the discussion proceeded and no one applied to him for information, he was forced eventually to conclude that his presence was indeed simply to annoy Servilia.
“We can ensure your election to the College as an ordinary pontifex easily,” said Catulus to Metellus Scipio, “by persuading anyone tempted to stand against you not to stand.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” said Metellus Scipio.
“Who intends to stand against Caesar?” asked Cicero, another member of this group who didn’t quite know why he had been invited. He presumed it was at Hortensius’s instigation, and that his function might be to find a loophole which would prevent Caesar’s candidacy. The trouble was he knew there was no loophole. The lex Labiena de sacerdotiis had not been drafted by Labienus, so much was certain. It bore all the stamps of Caesar’s drafting skill. It was watertight.
“I’m standing,” said Catulus.
“So am I,” said Vatia Isauricus, quiet until now.
“Then, as only seventeen of the thirty-five tribes vote in religious elections,” said Cicero, “we will have to rig the lots to ensure both of your tribes are chosen, but that Caesar’s tribe is not. That increases your chances.”
“I disapprove of bribery,” said Cato, “but I think this is one time we have to bribe.” He turned to his nephew. “Quintus Servilius, you’re by far the richest man here. Would you be willing to put up money in such a good cause?”
Brutus broke out in a cold sweat. So this was why!
He wet his lips, looked hunted. “Uncle, I would love to help you,” he said, voice trembling, “but I dare not! My mother controls my purse strings, not I.”
Cato’s splendid nose thinned, its nostrils turned to blisters? “At twenty years of age, Quintus Servilius?” he blared.
All eyes were upon him, amazed; Brutus shrank down in his chair. “Uncle, please try to understand!” he whimpered.
“Oh, I understand,” said Cato contemptuously, and deliberately turned his back. “It seems then,” he said to the rest, “that we will have to find the money to bribe from out of our own purses.” He shrugged. “As you know, mine is not plump. However, I will donate twenty talents.”
“I can’t really afford anything,” said Catulus, looking miserable, “because Jupiter Optimus Maximus takes every spare sestertius I have. But from somewhere I will find fifty talents.”
“Fifty from me,” said Vatia Isauricus curtly.
“Fifty from me,” said Metellus Scipio.
“And fifty from me,” said Hortensius.
Cicero now understood perfectly why he was there, and said, voice beautifully modulated, “The penurious state of my finances is too well known for me to think you expect anything more from me than an onslaught of speeches to the electors. A service I am extremely happy to provide.”
“Then there only remains,” said Hortensius, his voice quite as melodious as Cicero’s, “to decide which of the two of you will finally stand against Caesar.”
But here the meeting ran into an unexpected snag; neither Catulus nor Vatia Isauricus was willing to stand down in favor of the other, for each believed absolutely that he must be the next Pontifex Maximus.
“Utter stupidity!” barked Cato, furious. “You’ll end in splitting the vote, and that means Caesar’s chances improve. If one of you stands, it’s a straight battle. Two of you, and it becomes a three-way battle.”
“I’m standing,” said Catulus, looking mulish.
“And so am I,” said Vatia Isauricus, looking pugnacious.
On which unhappy note the congress broke up. Bruised and humiliated, Brutus wended his way from the sumptuous dwelling of Metellus Scipio to his betrothed’s unpretentious apartment in the Subura. There was really nowhere else he wanted to go, as Uncle Cato had rushed off without so much as acknowledging his nephew’s existence, and the thought of going home to his mother and poor Silanus held no appeal whatsoever. Servilia would prise all the details out of him as to where he had been and what he had done and who was there and what Uncle Cato was up to; and his stepfather would simply sit like a battered doll minus half its stuffing.
His love for Julia only increased with the passage of the years. He never ceased to marvel at her beauty, her tender consideration for his feelings, her kindness, her liveliness. And her understanding. Oh, how grateful he was for the last!
Thus it was to her that he poured out the story of the meeting at Metellus Scipio’s, and she, dearest and sweetest pet, listened with tears in her eyes.
“Even Metellus Scipio suffered little parental supervision,” she said at the end of the story, “while the others are far too old to remember what it was like when they lived at home with the paterfamilias.”
“Silanus is all right,” said Brutus gruffly, fighting tears himself, “but I am so terribly afraid of my mother! Uncle Cato isn’t afraid of anyone, that’s the trouble.”
Neither of them had any idea of the relationship between her father and his mother—any more than, indeed, did Uncle Cato. So Julia felt no constraints about communicating her dislike of Servilia to Brutus, and said, “I do understand, Brutus dear.” She shivered, turned pale. “She has no compassion, no comprehension of her strength or her power to dominate. I think she is strong enough to blunt the shears of Atropos.”
“I agree with you,” said Brutus, sighing.
Time to cheer him up, make him feel better about himself. Julia said, smiling and reaching out to stroke his shoulder-length black curls, “I think you handle her beautifully, Brutus. You stay out of her way and do nothing to annoy her. If Uncle Cato had to live with her, he might understand your situation.”
“Uncle Cato did live with her,” said Brutus dolefully.
“Yes, but when she was a girl,” said Julia, stroking.
Her touch triggered an impulse to kiss her, but Brutus did not, contenting himself with caressing the back of her hand as she drew it away from his hair. She was not long turned thirteen, and though her womanhood was now manifested by two exquisite little pointed bumps inside the bosom of her dress, Brutus knew she was not yet ready for kisses. He was also imbued with a sense of honor that had come from all his reading of the conservative Latin writers like Cato the Censor, and he deemed it wrong to stimulate a physical response in her that would end in making life for both of them uncomfortable. Aurelia trusted them, never supervised their meetings. Therefore he could not take advantage of that trust.
Of course it would have been better for both of them had he done so, for then Julia’s increasing sexual aversion to him would have surfaced at an early enough age to make the breaking of their engagement an easier business. But because he did not touch or kiss her, Julia could find no reasonable excuse for going to her father and begging to be released from what she knew would be a ghastly marriage, no matter how obedient a wife she forced herself to be.
The trouble was that Brutus had so much money! Bad enough at the time of the betrothal, but a hundred times worse now that he had inherited the fortune of his mother’s family as well. Like everyone else in Rome, Julia knew the story of the Gold of Tolosa, and what it had bought for the Servilii Caepiones. Brutus’s money would be such a help to her father, of that there could be no doubt. Avia said it was her duty as her father’s only child to make his life in the Forum more prestigious, to increase his dignitas. And there was only one way in which a girl could do this: she had to marry as much money and clout as she could. Brutus may not have been any girl’s idea of marital bliss, but in respect of money and clout he had no rival. Therefore she would do her duty and marry someone whom she just didn’t want to make love to her. Tata was more important.
Thus when Caesar came to visit later that afternoon, Julia behaved as if Brutus were the fiancé of her dreams.
“You’re growing up,” said Caesar, whose presence in his home was rare enough these days that he could see her evolving.
“Only five years to go,” she said solemnly.
“Is that all?”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh; “that’s all, tata.”
He settled her into the crook of his arm and kissed the top of her head, unaware that Julia belonged to that type of girl who could dream of no more wonderful husband than one exactly like her father: mature, famous, handsome, a shaper of events.
“Any news?” he asked.
“Brutus came.”
He laughed. “That is not news, Julia!”
“Perhaps it is,” she said demurely, and related what she had been told about the meeting at the house of Metellus Scipio.
“The gall of Cato!” he exclaimed when she was done, “to demand large amounts of money from a twenty-year-old boy!”
“They didn’t get anywhere, thanks to his mother.”
“You don’t like Servilia, do you?”
“I’m in Brutus’s shoes, tata. She terrifies me.”
“Why, exactly?”
This she found difficult to elucidate for the benefit of one famous for his love of undeniable facts. “It’s just a sort of feeling. Whenever I see her, I think of an evil black snake.”
He shook with mirth. “Have you ever seen an evil black snake, Julia?”
“No, but I’ve seen pictures of them. And of Medusa.” She closed her eyes and turned her face into his shoulder. “Do you like her, tata?”
That he could answer with perfect truth. “No.”
“Well then, there you are,’’ said his daughter.
“You’re quite right,” said Caesar. “There indeed I am!”
*
Naturally Aurelia was fascinated when Caesar recounted the story to her a few moments later.
“Isn’t it nice to think that even mutual detestation of you can’t obliterate ambition in either Catulus or Vatia Isauricus?” she asked, smiling slightly.
“Cato’s right, if they both stand they’ll split the vote. And if I have learned nothing else, I now know they’ll rig the lots. No Fabian voters in this particular election!”
“But both their tribes will vote.”
“I can deal with that provided that they both stand. Some of their natural partisans will see the strength of an argument from me that they should preserve their impartiality by voting for neither.”
“Oh, clever!”
“Electioneering,” said Caesar pensively, “is not merely a matter of bribery, though none of those hidebound fools can see that. Bribery is not a tool I dare use, even if I had the wish or the money to go in for it. If I am a candidate for an election, there will be half a hundred senatorial wolves baying for my blood—no vote or record or official will go uninvestigated. But there are many other ploys than bribery.”
“It’s a pity that the seventeen tribes which will vote will not be chosen until immediately beforehand,” said Aurelia. “If they were selected a few days in advance, you could import some rural voters. The name Julius Caesar means a great deal more to any rural voter than either Lutatius Catulus or Servilius Vatia.”
“Nonetheless, Mater, something can be done along those lines. There’s bound to be at least one urban tribe—Lucius Decumius will prove invaluable there. Crassus will enlist his tribe if it’s chosen. So will Magnus. And I do have influence in other tribes than Fabia.”
A small silence fell, during which Caesar’s face became grim; if Aurelia had been tempted to speak, sight of that change in his expression would have deterred her. It meant he was debating within himself whether to broach a less palatable subject, and the chances of that happening were greater if she effaced herself as much as possible. What less palatable subject could there be than money? So Aurelia held her peace.
“Crassus came to see me this morning,” said Caesar at last.
Still she said nothing.
“My creditors are restless.”
No word from Aurelia.
“The bills are still coming in from the days of my curule aedileship. That means I haven’t managed to pay back anything I took as a loan.”
Her eyes dropped to look at the surface of the desk.
“That includes the interest on the interest. There’s talk among them of impeaching me to the censors, and even with one of them my uncle, the censors would have to do what the law says they must. I would lose my seat in the Senate and all my goods would be sold up. That includes my lands.”
“Has Crassus any suggestions?” she ventured to asked.
“That I get myself elected Pontifex Maximus.”
“He wouldn’t lend you money himself?”
“That,” said Caesar, “is a last resort as far as I’m concerned. Crassus is a great friend, but he’s not got hay on his horns for nothing. He lends without interest, but he expects to be paid the moment he calls a loan in. Pompeius Magnus will be back before I’m consul, and I need to keep Magnus on my side. But Crassus detests Magnus, has done ever since their joint consulship. I have to tread a line between the pair of them. Which means I dare not owe either of them money.”
“I see that. Will Pontifex Maximus do it?”
“Apparently so, with opponents as prestigious as Catulus and Vatia Isauricus. Victory would tell my creditors I will be praetor, and I will be senior consul. And that when I go to my consular province I’ll recoup my losses, if not before. They’ll be paid in the end, if not in the beginning. Though compound interest is ghastly and ought to be outlawed, it does have one advantage: creditors charging compound interest stand to make huge profits when a debt is paid, even if only in part.”
“Then you had better be elected Pontifex Maximus.”
“So I think.”
*
The election to choose a new Pontifex Maximus and a fresh face for the College of Pontifices was set for twenty-four days’ time. Who would own the fresh face was no mystery; the only candidate was Metellus Scipio. Both Catulus and Vatia Isauricus declared themselves available for election as Pontifex Maximus.
Caesar threw himself into campaigning with as much relish as energy. Like Catilina, the name and ancestry were an enormous help, despite the fact that neither of the other two candidates was a New Man, or even one of the moderately prominent boni. The post normally went to a man who had already been consul, but this advantage both Catulus and Vatia Isauricus held was negated to some extent at least by their ages: Catulus was sixty-one and Vatia Isauricus sixty-eight. In Rome the pinnacle of a man’s ability, skills and prowess was considered to be his forty-third year, the year in which he ought to become consul. After that he was inevitably something of a has-been, no matter how huge his auctoritas or dignitas. He might be censor, Princeps Senatus, even consul a second time ten years further along, but once he attained the age of sixty he was inarguably past his prime. Though Caesar had not yet been praetor, he had been in the Senate for many years, he had been a pontifex for over a decade, he had shown himself a curule aedile of magnificence, he wore the Civic Crown on all public occasions, and he was known by the voters to be not only one of Rome’s highest aristocrats, but also a man of huge ability and potential. His work in the Murder Court and as an advocate had not gone unnoticed; nor had his scrupulous care of his clients. Caesar in short was the future. Catulus and Vatia Isauricus were definitely the past—and tainted, both of them, with the faint odium of having enjoyed Sulla’s favor. The majority of the voters who would turn up were knights, and Sulla had mercilessly persecuted the Ordo Equester. To counteract the undeniable fact that Caesar was Sulla’s nephew by marriage, Lucius Decumius was deputed to trot out the old stories of Caesar’s defying Sulla by refusing to divorce Cinna’s daughter, and almost dying from disease when in hiding from Sulla’s agents.
Three days before the election Cato summoned Catulus, Vatia Isauricus and Hortensius to a meeting at his house. This time there were no mushrooms like Cicero or youths like Caepio Brutus present. Even Metellus Scipio would have been a liability.
“I told you,” said Cato with his usual lack of tact, “that it was a mistake for both of you to stand. I’m asking now that one of you step down and throw his weight behind the other.”
“No,” said Catulus.
“No,” said Vatia Isauricus.
“Why can’t you understand that both of you split the vote?” cried Cato, pounding his fist on the dowdy table which served him as a desk. He looked gaunt and unwell, for last night had seen a heavy session with the wine flagon; ever since Caepio’s death Cato had turned to wine for solace, if solace it could be called. Sleep evaded him, Caepio’s shade haunted him, the occasional slave girl he used to assuage his sexual needs revolted him, and even talking to Athenodorus Cordylion, Munatius Rufus and Marcus Favonius could occupy his mind only for a short period at a time. He read and he read and he read, yet still his loneliness and unhappiness came between him and the words of Plato, Aristotle, even his own great-grandfather, Cato the Censor. Thus the wine flagon, and thus his shortness of temper as he glared at the two unyielding elderly noblemen who refused to see the mistake they were making.
“Cato is right,” said Hortensius, huffing. He too was not very young anymore, but as an augur he could not stand for Pontifex Maximus. Ambition could not cloud his wits, though his high living was beginning to. “One of you might beat Caesar, but both of you halve the votes either man alone could get.”
“Then it’s time to bribe,” said Catulus.
“Bribe?” yelled Cato, pounding the table until it shook. “There’s no point in even starting to bribe! Two hundred and twenty talents can’t buy you enough votes to beat Caesar!”
“Then,” said Catulus, “why don’t we bribe Caesar?”
The others stared at him.
“Caesar is close to two thousand talents in debt, and the debt is mounting every day because he can’t afford to pay back a sestertius,” said Catulus. “You may take it from me that my figures are correct.”
“Then I suggest,” said Cato, “that we report his situation to the censors and demand that they act immediately to remove Caesar from the Senate. That would get rid of him forever!”
His suggestion was greeted with gasps of horror.
“My dear Cato, we can’t do that!” bleated Hortensius. “He may be a pestilence, but he’s one of us!”
“No, no, no! He is not one of us! If he isn’t stopped he will tear all of us down, so I promise you!” roared Cato, fist hammering the defenseless table again. “Turn him in! Turn him in to the censors!”
“Absolutely not,” said Catulus.
“Absolutely not,” said Vatia Isauricus.
“Absolutely not,” said Hortensius.
“Then,” said Cato, looking cunning, “prevail upon someone well outside the Senate to turn him in—one of his creditors.”
Hortensius closed his eyes. A stauncher pillar of the boni than Cato did not exist, but there were times when the Tusculan peasant and the Celtiberian slave in him succeeded in overcoming truly Roman thought. Caesar was a kinsman to all of them, even Cato, no matter how remote the blood link might be—though in Catulus it was very close, come to think of it.
“Forget anything like that, Cato,” Hortensius said, opening his eyes wearily. “It is un-Roman. There is no more to be said.”
“We will deal with Caesar in the Roman way,” said Catulus. “If you are willing to divert the money you were to contribute toward bribing the electorate into bribing Caesar, then I will go to Caesar myself and offer it to him. Two hundred and twenty talents will make a fine first payment to his creditors. I am confident Metellus Scipio will agree.”
“Oh, so am I!” snarled Cato between his teeth. “However, you spineless lot of fools, you can count me out! I wouldn’t contribute a lead forgery to Caesar’s purse!”
*
Thus it was that Quintus Lutatius Catulus sought an interview with Gaius Julius Caesar in his rooms on the Vicus Patricii between the Fabricius dye works and the Suburan Baths. It took place on the day before the election, quite early in the morning. The subtle splendor of Caesar’s office took Catulus aback; he hadn’t heard that his first cousin once removed had a fine eye for furniture and superior taste, nor had he imagined a side like that to Caesar. Is there nothing the man hasn’t been gifted with? he asked himself, sitting down on a couch before he could be bidden occupy the client’s chair. In which assumption he did Caesar an injustice; no one of Catulus’s rank would have been relegated to the client’s chair.
“Well, tomorrow is the big day,” said Caesar, smiling as he handed a rock-crystal goblet of watered wine to his guest.
“That’s what I’ve come to see you about,” said Catulus, and took a sip of what turned out to be an excellent vintage. “Good wine, but I don’t know it,” he said, sidetracked.
“I grow it myself, actually,” said Caesar.
“Near Bovillae?”
“No, in a little vineyard I own in Campania.”
“That accounts for it.”
“What was it you wished to discuss, cousin?” asked Caesar, not about to be sidetracked into oenology.
Catulus drew a deep breath. “It has come to my attention, Caesar, that your financial affairs are in a state of acute embarrassment. I’m here to ask you not to stand for election as the Pontifex Maximus. In return for doing me that favor, I will undertake to give you two hundred silver talents.” He reached into the sinus of his toga and withdrew a small rolled paper which he extended to Caesar.
Not so much as a glance did Caesar give it, nor did he make any attempt to take it. Instead, he sighed.
“You would have done better to use the money to bribe the electors,” he said. “Two hundred talents would have helped.”
“This seemed more efficient.”
“But wasted, cousin. I don’t want your money.”
“You can’t afford not to take it.”
“That is true. But I refuse to take it nonetheless.”
The little roll remained in Catulus’s extended hand. “Do please reconsider,” he said, two spots of crimson beginning to show in his cheeks.
“Put your money away, Quintus Lutatius. When the election is held tomorrow I will be there in my particolored toga to ask the voters to return me as Pontifex Maximus. No matter what.”
“I beg you, Gaius Julius, one more time. Take the money!’’
“I beg you, Quintus Lutatius, one more time. Desist!”
Whereupon Catulus threw the rock-crystal goblet down on the floor and walked out.
Caesar sat for a moment gazing at the starred pink puddle spreading across the minute checkerboard of mosaic tiles; then he rose, went to the service room for a rag, and wiped the mess up. The goblet fell into small crazed pieces the moment he put his hand upon it, so he carefully collected all the fragments into the rag, bunched it into a parcel, and threw it into the refuse container in the service room. Armed with a fresh rag, he then completed his cleaning.
*
“I was glad he threw the goblet down so hard,” said Caesar to his mother the next morning at dawn when tie called to receive her blessing.
“Oh, Caesar, how can you be glad? I know the thing well—and I know how much you paid for it.”
“I bought it as perfect, yet it turned out to be flawed.”
“Ask for your money back.”
Which provoked an exclamation of annoyance. “Mater, Mater, when will you learn? The crux of the matter has nothing to do with buying the wretched thing! It was flawed. I want no flawed items in my possession.”
Because she just didn’t understand, Aurelia abandoned the subject. “Be successful, my dearest son,” she said, kissing his brow. “I won’t come to the Forum, I’ll wait here for you.”
“If I lose, Mater,” he said with his most beautiful smile, “you’ll wait for a long time! If I lose, I won’t be able to come home at all.”
And off he went, clad in his priest’s toga of scarlet and purple stripes, with hundreds of clients and every Suburan man streaming after him down the Vicus Patricii, and a feminine head poking out of every window to wish him luck.
Faintly she heard him call to his windowed well-wishers: “One day Caesar’s luck will be proverbial!”
After which Aurelia sat at her desk and totted up endless columns of figures on her ivory abacus, though she never wrote one answer down, nor remembered afterward that she had worked so diligently with nothing to show for it.
He didn’t seem to be away very long, actually; later she learned it had been all of six springtime hours. And when she heard his voice issuing jubilantly from the reception room, she hadn’t the strength to get up; he had to go to find her.
“You regard the new Pontifex Maximus!” he cried from the doorway, hands clasped above his head.
“Oh, Caesar!” she said, and wept.
Nothing else could have unmanned him, for in all his life he could never remember her shedding a tear. He gulped, face collapsing, stumbled into the room and lifted her to her feet, his arms about her, her arms about him, both of them weeping.
“Not even for Cinnilla,” he said when he was able.
“I did, but not in front of you.”
He used his handkerchief to mop his face, then performed the same service for her. “We won, Mater, we won! I’m still in the arena, and I still have a sword in my hand.”
Her smile was shaky, but it was a smile. “How many people are out in the reception room?” she asked.
“A terrible crush, that’s all I know.”
“Did you win by much?”
“In all seventeen tribes.”
“Even in Catulus’s? And Vatia’s?”
“I polled more votes in their two tribes than they did put together, can you imagine it?”
“This is a sweet victory,” she whispered, “but why?”
“One or the other of them ought to have stepped down. Two of them split their vote,” said Caesar, beginning to feel that he could face a room jammed with people. “Besides which, I was Jupiter Optimus Maximus’s own priest when I was young, and Sulla stripped me of it. The Pontifex Maximus belongs to the Great God too. My clients did a lot of talking in the Well of the Comitia before the vote was taken, and right up until the last tribe polled.” He grinned. “I told you, Mater, that there is more to electioneering than mere bribery. Hardly a man who voted wasn’t convinced I would be lucky for Rome because I have always belonged to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.”
“It could as easily have gone against you. They might have concluded that a man who had been flamen Dialis would be unlucky for Rome.”
“No! Men always wait for someone to tell them how they ought to feel about the Gods. I just made sure I got in before the opposition thought of that tack. Needless to say, they didn’t.”
*
Metellus Scipio had not lived in the Domus Publica of the Pontifex Maximus since his marriage to Aemilia Lepida some years before, and the Piglet’s barren Licinia had died before him. The State residence of the Pontifex Maximus was vacant.
Naturally no one at the Piglet’s funeral had thought it in good taste to remark on the fact that this one un-elected Pontifex Maximus had been inflicted upon Rome by Sulla as a wicked joke because Metellus Pius stammered dreadfully whenever he was under stress. This tendency to stammer had led to every ceremony’s being fraught with the additional tension of wondering whether the Pontifex Maximus would get all the words out properly. For every ceremony had to be perfect, in word as well as in execution; were it not perfect, it had to begin all over again.
The new Pontifex Maximus was hardly likely to stumble over a word, the more so as it was well known that he drank no wine. Yet another of Caesar’s little electoral ploys, to have that morsel of information well bruited about during the pontifical election. And to have comments made about old men like Vatia Isauricus and Catulus beginning to wander. After nearly twenty years of having to worry about stammers, Rome was delighted to see a Pontifex Maximus in office who would give none but flawless performances.
Hordes of clients and enthusiastic supporters came to offer their help in moving Caesar and his family to the Domus Publica in the Forum Romanum, though the Subura was desolate at the prospect of losing its most prestigious inhabitant. Especially old Lucius Decumius, who had worked indefatigably to see the thing done, yet knew his life would never be the same again with Caesar gone.
“You’re always welcome, Lucius Decumius,” said Aurelia.
“Won’t be the same,” said the old man gloomily. “I always knew you was here next door, that you was all right. But down there in the Forum among the temples and the Vestals! Ugh!”
“Cheer up, dear friend,” said the lady in her sixties with whom Lucius Decumius had fallen in love during her nineteenth year. “He doesn’t intend to rent this apartment or give up his rooms down the Vicus Patricii. He says he still needs his bolt-holes.”
That was the best news Lucius Decumius had heard in days! Off he went to tell his Crossroads Brethren that Caesar would still be a part of the Subura, skipping like a little boy.
*
It worried Caesar not a scrap that he now stood firmly and legally at the head of an institution filled mostly with men who detested him. His investiture in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus concluded, he summoned the priests of his own College to a meeting which he held then and there. This he chaired with such efficiency and detachment that priests like Sextus Sulpicius Galba and Publius Mucius Scaevola breathed sighs of delighted relief, and wondered if perhaps the State religion would benefit from Caesar’s elevation to Pontifex Maximus, obnoxious and all as he was politically. Uncle Mamercus, getting old and wheezy, just smiled; none knew better than he how good Caesar was at getting things done.
Each second year was supposed to see twenty extra days inserted into the calendar to keep it in step with the seasons, but a series of Pontifices Maximi like Ahenobarbus and Metellus Pius had neglected this duty, within the sphere of the College. In future these extra twenty days would be intercalated without fail, Caesar announced firmly. No excuses or religious quibbles would be tolerated. He then went on to say that he would promulgate a law in the Comitia which would intercalate an extra hundred days and finally bring the calendar and the seasons into perfect step. At the moment the season of summer was just beginning when the calendar said that autumn was just about over. This scheme caused mutters of outrage from some, but no violent opposition; all present (including Caesar) knew that he would have to wait until he was consul to have any chance of passing the law at all.
During a lull in the proceedings Caesar gazed about at the interior of Jupiter Optimus Maximus with a frown.
Catulus was still struggling to complete its rebuilding, and the work had fallen far behind schedule once the shell was up. The temple was habitable but uninspiring, and quite lacked the splendor of the old structure. Many of the walls were plastered and painted but not adorned with frescoes or suitably elaborate moldings, and clearly Catulus did not have the enterprise—or perhaps the turn of mind—to badger foreign states and princes into donating wonderful objects of art to Jupiter Optimus Maximus as a part of their homage to Rome. No solid or even skinned gold statues, no glorious Victories driving four-horsed chariots, no Zeuxis paintings—not even as yet an image of the Great God to replace the ancient terracotta giant sculpted by Vulca before Rome was more than an infant crawling onto the world stage. But for the moment Caesar held his peace. Pontifex Maximus was a lifetime job, and he was not yet thirty-seven years old.
After the meeting concluded with his announcement that he would hold his inaugural feast in the temple of the Domus Publica in eight days’ time, he began the short downhill walk from the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to the Domus Publica. Long used to the inevitable crowd of clients who accompanied him everywhere and thus able to shut out their chatter, he moved more slowly than his wont, deep in thought. That he did in truth belong to the Great God was inarguable, which meant he had won this election at the Great God’s behest. Yes, he would have to administer a public kick to Catulus’s backside, and bend his own mind to the urgent problem of how to fill the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus with beauty and treasures in a day and age wherein the best of everything went into private houses and peristyle gardens instead of into Rome’s temples, and wherein the best artists and artisans obtained far greater incomes working in private employment than for the pittance the State was prepared to pay them for working on public buildings.
He had left the most important interview until last, deeming it better to establish his authority within the College of Pontifices before he saw the Vestal Virgins. All the priestly and augural Colleges were a part of his responsibility as titular and actual head of Roman religion, but the College of Vestal Virgins enjoyed a unique relationship with the Pontifex Maximus. Not only was he their paterfamilias; he also shared a house with them.
The Domus Publica was extremely old and had endured no fires. Generations of wealthy Pontifices Maximi had poured money and care into it, even knowing that whatever portable they gave, from chryselephantine tables to inlaid Egyptian couches, could not later be removed for the benefit of family heirs.
Like all the very early Republican Forum buildings, the Domus Publica lay at an odd angle to the vertical axis of the Forum itself, for in the days when it had been built all sacred or public structures had to be oriented between north and south; the Forum, a natural declivity, was oriented from northeast to southwest. Later buildings were erected on the Forum line, which made for a tidier, more attractive overall landscape. As one of the Forum’s largest edifices, the Domus Publica was also rather glaringly obvious to the eye, and did not gladden it. Partly obscured by the Regia and the offices of the Pontifex Maximus, the tall facade on its ground floor was built of unrendered tufa blocks with rectangular windows; the top floor, added by that quirky Pontifex Maximus Ahenobarbus, was opus incertum brickwork with arched windows. An unhappy combination which would—at least from the front aspect of the Sacra Via—be vastly improved by the addition of a proper and imposing temple portico and pediment. Or so thought Caesar, deciding in that moment what his contribution to the Domus Publica would be. It was an inaugurated temple, therefore no law existed to prevent his doing this.
In shape the building was more or less square, though it had a jog on either side which widened it. Behind it was the little thirty-foot-high cliff forming the lowest tier of the Palatine. On top of that cliff was the Via Nova, a busy street of taverns, shops and insulae; an alley ran behind the Domus Publica and gave access to the substructure of the Via Nova buildings. All these premises reared high above the level of the cliff, so that their back windows had a wonderful view of what went on inside the Domus Publica courtyards. They also completely blocked any afternoon sun the residence of the Pontifex Maximus and the Vestal Virgins might have received, which meant that the Domus Publica, already handicapped by its low-lying location, was sure to be a cold place to live in. The Porticus Margaritaria, a gigantic rectangular shopping arcade just uphill from it and oriented on the Forum axis, actually abutted onto its rear end, and sliced off a corner of it.
However, no Roman—even one as logical as Caesar—found anything odd in peculiarly shaped buildings, missing a corner here, sprouting an excrescence there; what could be built on a straight line was, and what had to go around adjacent structures already there, or boundaries so ancient the priests who had defined them had probably followed the track of a hopping bird, went around them. If one looked at the Domus Publica from that point of view, it really wasn’t very irregular. Just huge and ugly and cold and damp.
His escort of clients hung back in awe when Caesar strode up to the main doors, which were of bronze cast in sculpted panels telling the story of Cloelia. Under normal circumstances they were not used, as both sides of the building had entrances. Today, however, was not a normal day. Today the new Pontifex Maximus took possession of his domain, and that was an act of great formality. Caesar pounded three times with the flat of his right hand upon the right-hand leaf of the door, which opened immediately. The Chief Vestal admitted him with a low reverence, then closed it upon the sighing, teary-eyed horde of clients, who now reconciled themselves to a long wait outside, and started thinking of snacks and gossip.
Perpennia and Fonteia had been retired for some years; the woman who was now the Chief Vestal was Licinia, close cousin of Murena and remoter cousin of Crassus.
“But,” she said as she led Caesar up the curving central ramp of the vestibule to another set of beautiful bronze doors at its top, “I intend to retire as soon as possible. My cousin Murena is standing for consul this year, and begged me to remain Chief Vestal long enough to assist him in his canvassing.”
A plain and pleasant woman, Licinia, though not nearly strong enough to fill her position adequately, Caesar knew. As a pontifex he had had dealings with the adult Vestals over the years, and as a pontifex he had deplored their fate since the day Metellus Pius the Piglet had become their paterfamilias. First Metellus Pius had spent ten years fighting Sertorius in Spain, then he had returned aged beyond his years and in no mood to worry about the six female creatures whom he was supposed to care for, supervise, instruct, advise. Nor had his doleful, negative wife been of much help. And, in the way things usually did happen, none of the three women who had in turn become Chief Vestal could cope without firm guidance. As a consequence the College of Vestal Virgins was in decline. Oh, the sacred fire was rigorously tended and the various festivals and ceremonies conducted as was proper. But the scandal of Publius Clodius’s accusations of unchastity still hung like a pall over the six women thought to be a personification of Rome’s good luck, and none of them old enough to have been in the College when it had occurred had emerged from it without terrible scars.
Licinia struck the right-hand door three times with the flat of her right hand, and Fabia admitted them to the temple with a low reverence. Here within these hallowed portals the Vestal Virgins had assembled to greet their new paterfamilias on the only ground within the Domus Publica which was common to both lots of tenants.
So what did their new paterfamilias do? Why, he gave them a cheerful, unreligious smile and walked straight through their midst in the direction of a third set of double doors at the far end of the dimly lit hall!
“Outside, girls!” he said over his shoulder.
In the chilly precinct of the peristyle garden he found a sheltered spot where three stone benches lay alongside each other in the colonnade, then—effortlessly, it seemed—he lifted one around to face the other two. He sat upon it in his gorgeous scarlet-and-purple-striped toga, now wearing the scarlet-and-purple-striped tunic of the Pontifex Maximus beneath it, and with a casual flap of his hand indicated that they were to sit. A terrified silence fell, during which Caesar looked his new women over.
Object of the amorous intentions of both Catilina and Clodius, Fabia was held to be the prettiest Vestal Virgin in generations. Second in seniority, she would succeed Licinia when that lady retired soon. Not a very satisfactory prospect as Chief Vestal; had the College been inundated with candidates when she had been admitted to it, she would never have been admitted at all. But Scaevola, who had been Pontifex Maximus at the time, had no other alternative than to stifle his wish that a plain girl child would be offered, and take this ravishing scion of Rome’s oldest (albeit now entirely adoptive) Famous Family, the Fabii. Odd. She and Cicero’s wife, Terentia, shared the same mother. Yet Terentia possessed none of Fabia’s beauty or sweetness of nature—though she was very much the more intelligent of the two. At the present moment Fabia was twenty-eight years old, which meant that the College would keep her for another eight to ten years.
Then there were two the same age, Popillia and Arruntia. Both charged with unchastity by Clodius, citing Catilina. Far plainer than Fabia, thanks the Gods! When they had stood trial the jury had found no difficulty in deeming them completely innocent, though they had been but seventeen. A worry! Three of these present six would retire within two years of each other, which left the new Pontifex Maximus with the job of finding three new little Vestals to replace them. However, that was ten years away. Popillia of course was a close cousin of Caesar’s, whereas Arruntia, of a less august family, had almost no blood tie to him. Neither had ever recovered from the stigma of alleged unchastity, which meant they clung together and led very sequestered lives.
The two replacements for Perpennia and Fonteia were still children, again of much the same age, eleven.
One was a Junia, sister of Decimus Brutus, daughter of Sempronia Tuditani. Why she had been offered to the College at six years of age was no mystery: Sempronia Tuditani couldn’t stomach a potential rival, and Decimus Brutus was proving ruinously expensive. Most of the little girls came healthily provided for by their families, but Junia was dowerless. Not an insuperable problem, as the State was always willing to provide a dowry for those who lacked one from their families. She would be quite attractive once the pangs of puberty were done with —how did these poor creatures cope with that in such a restricted and motherless environment?
The other child was a patrician from an old though somewhat decayed family, a Quinctilia who was very fat. She too was dowerless. An indication, thought Caesar grimly, of the present College’s reputation: no one who could dower a girl well enough to get her a reasonable husband was going to give her to the Vestals. Costly for the State, and bad luck as well. Of course they had been offered a Pompeia, a Lucceia, even an Afrania, a Lollia, a Petreia; Pompey the Great was desperate to entrench himself and his Picentine followers within Rome’s most revered institutions. But old and sick though he had been, the Piglet was not about to accept any of that stock! Preferable by far to have the State dower children with the proper ancestors —or at least a father who had won the Grass Crown, like Fonteia.
The adult Vestals knew Caesar about as well as he knew them, a knowledge acquired mostly through attendance at the formal banquets and functions held within the priestly Colleges —not, therefore, a deep or even a particularly friendly knowledge. Some private feasts in Rome might degenerate into affairs of too much wine and too many personal confidences, but never the religious ones. The six faces turned in Caesar’s direction held —what? It would take time to find out. Yet his breezy and cheerful manner had thrown them a little off balance. That was deliberate on his part; he didn’t want them shutting him out or concealing things from him, and none of these Vestals had been born when there was last a young Pontifex Maximus in the person of the famous Ahenobarbus. Essential then to make them think that the new Pontifex Maximus would be a paterfamilias to whom they could turn with real security. Never a salacious glance from him, never the familiarity of touch from him, never an innuendo from him. Nor, on the other hand, any coldness, lack of sympathy, off-putting formality, awkwardness.
Licinia coughed nervously, wet her lips, ventured to speak. “When will you be moving in, domine?”
He was, of course, in truth their lord, and he had already decided that it was fitting they should always address him as such. He could call them his girls, but they would never have any excuse to call him their man.
“Perhaps the day after tomorrow,” he said with a smile, stretching his legs out and sighing.
“You will want to be shown over the whole building.”
“Yes, and again tomorrow, when I bring my mother.”
They had not forgotten that he had a highly respected mother, nor were they ignorant of all the aspects of his family structure, from the engagement of his daughter and Caepio Brutus to the dubious folk with whom his empty-headed wife associated. His answer told them clearly what the pecking order would be: mother first. That was a relief!
“And your wife?” asked Fabia, who privately thought Pompeia very beautiful and alluring.
“My wife,” said Caesar coolly, “is not important. I doubt that you’ll ever see her, she leads a busy social life. Whereas my mother is bound to be interested in everything.” He said the last with another of those wonderful smiles, thought for a moment, and added, “Mater is a pearl beyond price. Don’t be afraid of her, and don’t be afraid to talk to her. Though I am your paterfamilias, there are corners of your lives which you will prefer to discuss with a woman. Until now you have had either to go outside this house or confine such discussions to yourselves. Mater has a fount of experience and a mine of common sense. Bathe in the one, and delve in the other. She never gossips, even to me.”
“We look forward to her advent,” said Licinia formally.
“As for you two,” said Caesar, addressing the children, “my daughter isn’t much older than you, and she’s another pearl beyond price. You’ll have a friend to play with.”
Which produced shy grins, but no attempt at conversation. He and his family, he saw with an inward sigh, had a long way to go before these hapless victims of the mos maiorum managed to settle down and accept the new order.
For some moments more he persevered, looking absolutely at ease, then he rose. “All right, girls, that’s enough for one day. Licinia, you may show me over the Domus Publica, please.”
He commenced by walking out into the middle of the sunless peristyle garden and gazing about.