Ptolemy XI Theos Philopator Philadelphus, nicknamed Auletes the Flautist, had ascended the throne of Egypt during the dictatorship of Sulla, not long after the irate citizens of Alexandria had literally torn the previous King of nineteen days limb from limb; this was their retaliation for his murder of their beloved Queen, his wife of nineteen days.
With the death of this King, Ptolemy Alexander II, there had ended the legitimate line of the Ptolemies. Complicated by the fact that Sulla had held Ptolemy Alexander II hostage for some years, taken him to Rome, and forced him to make a will leaving Egypt to Rome in the event that he died without issue. A tongue-in-cheek testament, as Sulla was well aware that Ptolemy Alexander II was so effeminate he would never sire children. Rome would inherit Egypt, the richest country in the world.
But the tyranny of distance had defeated Sulla. When Ptolemy Alexander II parted company from himself in the agora at Alexandria, the palace cabal knew how long it would take for the news of his death to reach Rome and Sulla. The palace cabal also knew of two possible heirs to the throne living much closer to Alexandria than Rome. These were the two illegitimate sons of the old King, Ptolemy Lathyrus. They had been brought up first in Syria, then were sent to the island of Cos, where they had fallen into the hands of King Mithridates of Pontus. Who spirited them off to Pontus and in time married them to two of his many daughters, Auletes to Cleopatra Tryphaena, and the younger Ptolemy to Mithridatidis Nyssa. It was from Pontus that Ptolemy Alexander II had escaped and fled to Sulla; but the two illegitimate Ptolemies had preferred Pontus to Rome, and stayed on at the court of Mithridates. Then when King Tigranes conquered Syria, Mithridates sent the two young men and their wives south to Syria and Uncle Tigranes. He also apprised the palace cabal in Alexandria of the whereabouts of the two last-ever Ptolemies.
Immediately after the death of Ptolemy Alexander II, word was hurried to King Tigranes in Antioch, who gladly obliged by sending both Ptolemies to Alexandria with their wives. There the elder, Auletes, was made King of Egypt, and the younger (henceforth known as Ptolemy the Cyprian) was dispatched to be regent of the island of Cyprus, an Egyptian possession. As their queens were his own daughters, the ageing King Mithridates of Pontus could congratulate himself that eventually Egypt would be ruled by his descendants.
The name Auletes meant a flautist or piper, but Ptolemy called Auletes had not received the sobriquet because of his undeniable musicality; his voice happened to be very high and fluting. Luckily, however, he was not as effeminate as his younger brother, the Cyprian, who never managed to sire any children: Auletes and Cleopatra Tryphaena confidently expected to give Egypt heirs. But an un-Egyptian and unorthodox upbringing had not inculcated in Auletes a true respect for the native Egyptian priests who administered the religion of that strange country, a strip no more than two or three miles wide that followed the course of the river Nilus all the way from the Delta to the islands of the First Cataract and beyond to the border of Nubia. For it was not enough to be King of Egypt; the ruler of Egypt had also to be Pharaoh, and that he could not be without the agreement of the native Egyptian priests. Failing to understand, Auletes had made no attempt to conciliate them. If they were so important in the scheme of things, why were they living down in Memphis at the junction of the Delta with the river, rather than in the capital, Alexandria? For he never did come to realize that to the native Egyptians, Alexandria was a foreign place having no ties of blood or history to Egypt.
Extremely exasperating to learn then that all Pharaoh’s wealth was deposited in Memphis under the care of the native Egyptian priests! Oh, as King, Auletes had control of the public income, which was enormous. But only as Pharaoh could he run his fingers through the vast bins of jewels, build pylons out of gold bricks, slide down veritable mountains of silver.
Queen Cleopatra Tryphaena, the daughter of Mithridates, was far cleverer than her husband, who suffered from the intellectual disadvantages so much breeding of sister with brother and uncle with niece brought in its train. Knowing that they could not produce any offspring until Auletes was at least crowned King of Egypt, Cleopatra Tryphaena set to work to woo the priests. The result was that four years after they had arrived in Alexandria, Ptolemy Auletes was officially crowned. Unfortunately only as King, not as Pharaoh. Thus the ceremonies had been conducted in Alexandria rather than in Memphis. They were followed by the birth of the first child, a daughter named Berenice.
Then in the same year which had seen the death of old Queen Alexandra of the Jews, another daughter was born; her name was Cleopatra. The year of her birth was ominous, for it saw the beginning of the end for Mithridates and Tigranes, exhausted after the campaigns of Lucullus, and it saw renewed interest from Rome in the annexation of Egypt as a province of the burgeoning empire. The ex-consul, Marcus Crassus, was prowling in the shadows. When little Cleopatra was only four and Crassus became censor, he tried to secure the annexation of Egypt in the Senate. Ptolemy Auletes shivered in fear, paid huge sums to Roman senators to make sure the move failed. Successful bribes. The threat of Rome diminished.
But with the arrival of Pompey the Great in the East to terminate the careers of Mithridates and Tigranes, Auletes saw his allies to the north vanish. Egypt was worse than alone; her new neighbor on each side was now Rome, ruling both Cyrenaica and Syria. Though this change in the balance of power did solve one problem for Auletes. He had been desirous of divorcing Cleopatra Tryphaena for some time, as his own half sister by the old King, Ptolemy Lathyrus, was now of an age to marry. The death of King Mithridates enabled him to do so. Not that Cleopatra Tryphaena lacked Ptolemaic blood. She had several dollops from her father and her mother. Just not enough of it. When the time came for Isis to endow him with sons, Auletes knew that both Egyptians and Alexandrians would approve of these sons far more if they were of almost pure Ptolemaic blood. And he might at last be created Pharaoh, get his hands on so much treasure that he could afford to buy Rome off permanently.
So Auletes finally divorced Cleopatra Tryphaena and married his own half sister. Their son, who in time would rule as Ptolemy XII, was born in the year of the consulship of Metellus Celer and Lucius Afranius; his half sister Berenice was then fifteen, and his half sister Cleopatra eight. Not that Cleopatra Tryphaena was murdered, or even banished. She remained in the palace at Alexandria with her two daughters and contrived to stay on good terms with the new Queen of Egypt. It took more than divorce to devastate a child of Mithridates, and she was, besides, maneuvering to secure a marriage between the baby male heir to the throne and her younger girl, Cleopatra. That way the line of King Mithridates in Egypt would not die out.
Unfortunately Auletes mishandled his negotiations with the native Egyptian priests following the birth of his son; twenty years after arriving in Alexandria he found himself as far from being Pharaoh as he had been when he arrived. He built temples up and down the Nilus; he made offerings to every deity from Isis to Horus to Serapis; he did everything he could think of except the right thing.
Time then to dicker with Rome.
Thus it was that at the beginning of February in the year of Caesar’s consulship, a deputation of one hundred Alexandrian citizens came to Rome to petition the Senate to confirm the King of Egypt’s tenure of the throne.
The petition was duly presented during February, but an answer was not forthcoming. Frustrated and miserable, the deputation—under orders from Auletes to do whatever was necessary, and stay as long as might be needed—settled down to the grinding task of interviewing dozens of senators and trying to persuade them to help rather than hinder. Naturally the only thing the senators were interested in was money. If enough of it changed hands, enough votes might be secured.
The leader of the deputation was one Aristarchus, who was also the King’s chancellor and leader of the current palace cabal. Egypt was so riddled with bureaucracy that she had been enervated by it for two or three thousand years; it was a habit the new Macedonian aristocracy imported by the first Ptolemy had not been able to break. Instead, the bureaucracy stratified itself in new ways, with the Macedonian stock at the top, those of mixed Egyptian and Macedonian blood in the middle, and the native Egyptians (save for the priests) at the bottom. Further complicated by the fact that the army was Jewish. A wily and subtle man, Aristarchus was the direct descendant of one of the more famous librarians at the Alexandrian Museum, and had been a senior civil servant for long enough to understand how Egypt worked. Since it was no part of the aims of the Egyptian priests to have the country end up being owned by Rome, he had managed to persuade them to augment that portion of Auletes’s income left over from paying to run Egypt, so he had vast resources at his fingertips. Vaster, indeed, than he had given Auletes to understand.
By the time he had been in Rome for a month he divined that seeking votes among the pedarii and senators who would never rise higher than praetor was not the way to get Auletes his decree. He needed some of the consulars—but not the boni. He needed Marcus Crassus, Pompey the Great and Gaius Caesar. But as he arrived at this decision before the existence of the triumvirate was generally known, he failed to go to the right man among those three. He chose Pompey, who was so wealthy he didn’t need a few thousand talents of Egyptian gold. So Pompey had simply listened with no expression on his face, and concluded the interview with a vague promise that he would think about it.
Approaching Crassus was not likely to do any good, even if Crassus’s attraction to gold was fabled. It was Crassus who had wanted to annex, and as far as Aristarchus knew he might still want to annex. Which left Gaius Caesar. Whom the Alexandrian decided to approach in the midst of the turmoil over the second agrarian law, and just before Julia married Pompey.
Caesar was well aware that a Vatinian law passed by the Plebs could endow him with a province, but could not grant him funds to meet any of his expenses. The Senate would dole him out a stipend reduced to bare bones in retaliation for going to the Plebs, and make sure that it was delayed in the Treasury for as long as possible. Not what Caesar wanted at all. Italian Gaul owned a garrison of two legions, and two legions were not enough to do what Caesar fully intended to do. He needed four at least, each up to full strength and properly equipped. But that cost money—money he would never get from the Senate, especially as he couldn’t plead a defensive war. Caesar intended to be the aggressor, and that was not Roman or senatorial policy. It was delightful to have fresh provinces incorporated into the empire, but it could happen only as the result of a defensive war like the one Pompey had fought in the East against the kings.
He had known whereabouts the money to equip his legions was going to come from as soon as the Alexandrian delegation arrived in Rome, but he bided his time. And made his plans, which included the Gadetanian banker Balbus, fully in his confidence.
When Aristarchus came to see him at the beginning of May, he received the man with great courtesy in the Domus Publica, and conducted him through the more public parts of the building before settling him in the study. Of course Aristarchus admired, but it was not difficult to see that the Domus Publica did not impress the chancellor of Egypt. Small, dark and mundane: the reaction was written all over him despite his charm. Caesar was interested.
“I can be as obtuse and roundabout as you wish,” he said to Aristarchus, “but I imagine that after being in Rome for three months without accomplishing anything, you might appreciate a more direct approach.”
“It is true that I would like to return to Alexandria as soon as possible, Gaius Caesar,” said the obviously pure Macedonian Aristarchus, who was fair and blue-eyed. “However, I cannot leave Rome without bearing positive news for the King.”
“Positive news you can have if you agree to my terms,” Caesar said crisply. “Would senatorial confirmation of the King’s tenure of his throne plus a decree making him Friend and Ally of the Roman People be satisfactory?’’
“I had hoped for no more than the first,” said Aristarchus, bracing himself. “To have King Ptolemy Philopator Philadelphus made a Friend and Ally as well is beyond my wildest dreams.”
“Then expand the horizon of your dreams a little, Aristarchus! It can be done:”
“At a price.”
“Of course.”
“What is the price, Gaius Caesar?”
“For the first decree confirming tenure of the throne, six thousand gold talents, two thirds of which must be paid before the decree is procured, and the final third one year from now. For the Friend and Ally decree, a further two thousand gold talents payable in a lump sum beforehand,” said Caesar, eyes bright and piercing. “The offer is not negotiable. Take it or leave it.”
“You have aspirations to be the richest man in Rome,” said Aristarchus, curiously disappointed; he had not read Caesar as a leech.
“On six thousand talents?” Caesar laughed. “Believe me, chancellor, they wouldn’t make me the richest man in Rome! No, some of it will have to go to my friends and allies, Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. I can obtain the decrees, but not without their support. And one doesn’t expect favors from Romans extended to foreigners without hefty recompense. What I do with my share is my business, but I will tell you that I have no desire to settle down in Rome and live the life of Lucullus.”
“Will the decrees be watertight?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll draft them myself.”
“The total price then is eight thousand gold talents, six thousand of which must be paid in advance, two thousand a year from now,” said Aristarchus, shrugging. “Very well then, Gaius Caesar, so be it. I agree to your price.”
“All the money is to be paid directly to the bank of Lucius Cornelius Balbus in Gades, in his name,” Caesar said, lifting one brow. “He will distribute it in ways I would prefer to keep to myself. I must protect myself, you understand, so no moneys will be paid in my name, or the names of my colleagues.”
“I understand.”
“Very well then, Aristarchus. When Balbus informs me that the transaction is complete, you will have your decrees, and King Ptolemy can forget at last that the previous King of Egypt ever made a will leaving Egypt to Rome.”
*
“Ye gods!” said Crassus when Caesar informed him of these events some days later. “How much do I get?”
“A thousand talents.”
“Silver, or gold?”
“Gold.”
“And Magnus?’’
“The same.”
“Leaving four for you, and two more to come next year?”
Caesar threw back his head and laughed. “Abandon all hope of the two thousand payable next year, Marcus! Once Aristarchus gets back to Alexandria, that’s the end of it. How can we collect without going to war? No, I thought six thousand was a fair price for Auletes to pay for security, and Aristarchus knows it.”
“Four thousand gold talents will equip ten legions.”
“Especially with Balbus doing the equipping. I intend to make him my praefectus fabrum again. As soon as word comes from Gades that the Egyptian money has been deposited there, he’ll start for Italian Gaul. Both Lucius Piso and Marcus Crassus—not to mention poor Brutus—will suddenly be earning money from armaments.”
“But ten legions, Gaius?”
“No, no, only two extra to begin with. I’ll invest the bulk of the money. This will be a self-funding exercise from start to finish, Marcus. It has to be. He who controls the purse strings controls the enterprise. My time has come, and do you think for one moment that anyone other than I will control this enterprise? The Senate?”
Caesar got to his feet and lifted his arms toward the ceiling, fists clenched; Crassus suddenly saw how thick the muscles were in those deceptively slender limbs, and felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. The power in the man!
“The Senate is a nothing! The boni are nothing! Pompeius Magnus is nothing! I am going to go as far as I have to go to become the First Man in Rome for as long as I live! And after I die, I will be called the greatest Roman who ever lived! Nothing and no one will stop me! I swear it by my ancestors, all the way back to Goddess Venus!”
The arms came down, the fire and the power died. Caesar sat in his chair and looked at his old friend ruefully. “Oh, Marcus,” he said, “all I have to do is get through the rest of this year!”
His mouth was dry. Crassus swallowed. “You will,” he said.
*
Publius Vatinius convoked the Plebeian Assembly and announced to the Plebs that he would legislate to remove the slur of being a surveyor from Gaius Julius Caesar.
“Why are we wasting a man like Gaius Caesar on a job which might be suited to the talents of our stargazer Bibulus, but is infinitely beneath a governor and general of Gaius Caesar’s caliber? He showed us in Spain what he can do, but that is minute. I want to see him given the chance to sink his teeth into a task worthy of his metal! There’s more to governing than making war, and more to generaling than sitting in a command tent. Italian Gaul has not received a decent governor in a decade and more, with the result that the Delmatae, the Liburni, the Iapudes and all the other tribes of Illyricum have made eastern Italian Gaul a very dangerous place for Romans to live in. Not to mention that the administration of Italian Gaul is a disgrace. The assizes are not held on time if they’re held at all, and the Latin Rights colonies across the Padus are foundering.
“I am asking you to give Gaius Caesar the province of Italian Gaul together with Illyricum as of the moment this bill becomes ratified!” cried Vatinius, shrunken legs hidden by his toga, face so ruddy that the tumor on his forehead disappeared. “I further ask that Gaius Caesar be confirmed by this body as proconsul in Italian Gaul and Illyricum until March five years hence! And that the Senate be stripped of any authority to alter one single disposition we make in this Assembly! The Senate has abrogated its right to dole out proconsular provinces because it can find no better job for a man like Gaius Caesar than to survey Italia’s traveling livestock routes! Let the stargazer survey mounds of manure, but let Gaius Caesar survey a better prospect!”
Vatinius’s bill had gone before the Plebs and it stayed with the Plebs, contio after contio; Pompey spoke in favor, Crassus spoke in favor, Lucius Cotta spoke in favor—and Lucius Piso spoke in favor.
“I can’t manage to persuade one of our craven tribunes to interpose a veto,” said Cato to Bibulus, trembling with anger. “Not even Metellus Scipio, do you believe that? All they answer is that they like living! Like living! Oh, if only I was still a tribune of the plebs! I’d show them!”
“And you’d be dead, Marcus. The people want it, why I don’t know. Except that I think he’s their long-odds bet. Pompeius was a proven quantity. Caesar is a gamble. The knights think he’s lucky, the superstitious lot!”
“The worst of it is that you’re still stuck with the traveling stock routes. Vatinius was very careful to point out that one of you would be doing that necessary job.”
“And I will do it,” Bibulus said loftily.
“We have to stop him somehow! Is Vettius progressing?”
Bibulus sighed. “Not as well as I’d hoped. I wish you were more of a natural schemer, Cato, but you aren’t. It was a good idea, but Vettius isn’t the most promising material to work with.”
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“No, don’t!” cried Bibulus, alarmed. “Leave him to me.”
“Pompeius is to speak in the House, I note. Advocating that the House give Caesar everything he wants. Pah!”
“He won’t get the extra legion he wants, so much is sure.”
“Why do I think he will?”
Bibulus smiled sourly. “Caesar’s luck?” he asked.
“Yes, I don’t like that attitude. It makes him look blessed.”
Pompey did speak in favor of Vatinius’s bills to give Caesar a magnificent proconsular command, but only to increase the endowment.
“It has been drawn to my attention,” said the Great Man to the senators, “that due to the death of our esteemed consular Quintus Metellus Celer, the province of Gaul-across-the-Alps has not been given a new governor. Gaius Pomptinus continues to hold it in this body’s name, apparently to the satisfaction of this body, though not with the approval of Gaius Caesar, or me, or any other proven commander of troops. It pleased you to award a thanksgiving to Pomptinus over our protests, but I say to you now that Pomptinus is not competent to govern Further Gaul. Gaius Caesar is a man of enormous energy and efficiency, as his governorship of Further Spain showed you. What would be a task too big for most men is not big enough for him, any more than it would be for me. I move that this House award Gaius Caesar the governorship of the further Gallic province as well as the nearer, together with its legion. There are many advantages. One governor for these two provinces will be able to move his troops around as they are needed, without his being obliged to distinguish between forces in the two provinces. For three years Further Gaul has been in a state of unrest, and one legion to control those turbulent tribes is ridiculous. But by combining the two provinces under the one governor, Rome will be spared the cost of more legions.”
Cato’s hand was waving; Caesar, in the chair, smiled broadly and acknowledged him. “Marcus Porcius Cato, you have the floor.”
“Is that how confident you are, Caesar?” roared Cato. “That you think you can invite me to speak with impunity? Well, it may be so, but at least my protest against this carving up of an empire will go down on our permanent record! How loyally and splendidly the new son-in-law speaks up for his new father-in-law! Is this what Rome has been reduced to, the buying and selling of daughters? Is this how we are to align ourselves politically, by buying or selling a daughter? The father-in-law in this infamous alliance has already used his minion with the wen to secure for himself a proconsulship I and the rest of Rome’s true patriots strove with might and main to deny him! Now the son-in-law wants to contribute another province to tata! One man, one province! That is what the mos maiorum says. Conscript Fathers, don’t you see the danger? Don’t you understand that if you accede to Pompeius’s request, you are putting the tyrant in his citadel with your own hands? Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
Pompey had listened looking bored, Caesar with that annoying expression of mild amusement.
“It makes no difference to me,” Pompey said. “I put forward the suggestion for the best of motives. If the Senate of Rome is to retain its traditional right to distribute our provinces to their governors, then it had better do so. You can ignore me, Conscript Fathers. Feel free! But if you do, Publius Vatinius will take the matter to the Plebs, and the Plebs will award Further Gaul to Gaius Caesar. All I’m saying is that you do the job rather than let the Plebs do it. If you award Further Gaul to Gaius Caesar, then you control the award. You can renew the commission each New Year’s Day or not, as you please. But if the matter goes to the Plebs, Gaius Caesar’s command of Further Gaul will be for five years. Is that what you want? Every time the People or the Plebs passes a law in what used to be the sphere of the Senate, another bit of senatorial power has been nibbled away. I don’t care! You decide.”
This was the sort of speech Pompey gave best, plain and unvarnished and the better for being so. The House thought about what he had said, and admitted the truth of it by voting to award the senior consul the province of Further Gaul for one year, from next New Year’s Day to the following one, to be renewed or not at the Senate’s pleasure.
“You fools!” Cato shrieked after the division was over. “You unmitigated fools! A few moments ago he had three legions, now you’ve given him four! Four legions, three of which are veteran! And what is this Caesar villain going to do with them? Use them to pacify his provinces in the plural? No! He’ll use them to march on Italia, to march on Rome, to make himself King of Rome!”
It was not an unexpected speech, nor for Cato a particularly wounding one; no man present, even among the ranks of the boni, actually believed Cato.
But Caesar lost his temper, an indication of the tremendous tensions he had been living under for months, released now because he had what he needed.
He rose to his feet, face flinty, nostrils distended, eyes flashing. “You can yell all you like, Cato!” he thundered. “You can yell until the sky falls in and Rome disappears beneath the waters! Yes, all of you can squeal, bleat, yell, whine, grizzle, criticize, carp, complain! But I don’t care! I have what I wanted, and I got it in your teeth! Now sit down and shut up, all of you pathetic little men! I have what I wanted. And if you make me, I will use it to crush your heads!”
They sat down and they shut up, simmering.
*
Whether that protest against what Caesar saw as injustice was the cause, or whether the cause was an accumulation of many insults including a marriage, from that day onward the popularity of the senior consul and his allies began to wane. Public opinion, angry enough at Bibulus’s watching the skies to have given Caesar the two Gauls, now swung away until it hovered approvingly before Cato and Bibulus, who were quick to seize the advantage.
They also managed to buy young Curio, who had been released from his promise to Clodius and thirsted to make life difficult for Caesar. At every opportunity he was back on the rostra or on Castor’s platform, satirizing Caesar and his suspect past unmercifully—and in an irresistibly entertaining way. Bibulus too entered the fray by posting witty anecdotes, epigrams, notes and edicts upon (thus adding insult to injury) Caesar’s bulletin board in the lower Forum.
The laws went through nonetheless; the second land act, the various acts which together made up the leges Vatiniae endowing Caesar with his provinces, and many more inconspicuous but useful measures Caesar had been itching for years to implement. King Ptolemy XI Theos Philopator Philadelphus called Auletes was confirmed in his tenure of the Egyptian throne, and made Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Four thousand talents remained in Balbus’s bank in Gades, Pompey and Crassus having been paid, and Balbus, together with Titus Labienus, hurried north to Italian Gaul to commence work. Balbus would procure armaments and equipment (where possible from Lucius Piso and Marcus Crassus), while Labienus started to enlist the third legion for Italian Gaul.
His sights set upon a war to the northeast and along the basin of the Danubius, Caesar regarded Further Gaul as a nuisance. He had not recalled Pomptinus, though he detested the man, preferring to deal with troubles along the Rhodanus River by diplomatic means. King Ariovistus of the German Suebi was a new force in Further Gaul; he now held complete sway over the area between Lake Lemanna and the banks of the Rhenus River, which divided Further Gaul from Germania. The Sequani had originally invited Ariovistus to cross into their territory with the promise that he would receive one third of Sequani land. But the Suebi kept pouring across the great river in such numbers that Ariovistus was soon demanding two thirds of the Sequani lands. The domino effect had spread the disturbances to the Aedui, who had been titled Friend and Ally of the Roman People for years. Then the Helvetii, a sept of the great tribe Tigurini, began to issue out of their mountain fastnesses to seek more clement living at a lower altitude in Further Gaul itself.
War threatened, so much so that Pomptinus established a more or less permanent camp not far from Lake Lemanna, and settled down with his one legion to watch events.
Caesar’s discerning eye picked Ariovistus as the key to the situation, so in the name of the Senate he began to parley with the German King’s representatives, his object a treaty which would keep what was Rome’s Rome’s, contain Ariovistus, and calm the huge Gallic tribes the German incursion was provoking. That in doing so he was infringing the treaties Rome already had with the Aedui worried him not one bit. More important to establish a status quo spelling the least danger possible to Rome.
The result was a senatorial decree calling King Ariovistus a Friend and Ally of the Roman People; it was accompanied by lavish gifts from Caesar personally to the leader of the Suebi, and it had the desired effect. Tacitly confirmed in his present position, Ariovistus could sit back with a sigh of relief, his Gallic outpost a fact acknowledged by the Senate of Rome.
Neither of the Friend and Ally decrees had proven difficult for Caesar to procure; innately conservative and against the huge expense of war, the Senate was quick to see that confirming Ptolemy Auletes meant men like Crassus couldn’t try to snaffle Egypt, and that confirming Ariovistus meant war in Further Gaul had been averted. It was hardly even necessary to have Pompey speak.
*
In the midst of all this waning popularity, Caesar acquired his third wife, Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Just eighteen, she turned out to be exactly the kind of wife he needed at this time in his career. Like her father she was tall and dark, a very attractive girl owning an innate calm and dignity which rather reminded Caesar of his mother, who was the first cousin of Calpurnia’s grandmother, a Rutilia. Intelligent and well read, unfailingly pleasant, never demanding, she fitted into life in the Domus Publica so easily that she might always have been there. Much the same age as Julia, she was some compensation for having lost Julia. Particularly to Caesar.
He had of course handled her expertly. One of the great disadvantages of arranged marriages, particularly those of rapid genesis, was the effect on the new wife. She came to her husband a stranger, and if like Calpurnia she was a self-contained person, shyness and awkwardness built a wall. Understanding this, Caesar proceeded to demolish it. He treated her much as he had treated Julia, with the difference that she was wife, not daughter. His love-making was tender, considerate, and lighthearted; his other contacts with her were also tender, considerate, and light-hearted.
When she had learned from her delighted father that she was to marry the senior consul and Pontifex Maximus, she had quailed. How would she ever manage? But he was so nice, so thoughtful! Every day he gave her some sort of little present, a bracelet or a scarf, a pair of earrings, some pretty sandals he had seen glitter on a stall in the marketplace. Once in passing he dropped something in her lap (though she was not to know how practised he was at that). The something moved and then mewed a tiny squeak—oh, he had given her a kitten! How did he know she adored cats? How did he know her mother hated them, would never let her have one?
Dark eyes shining, she held the ball of orange fur against her face and beamed at her husband.
“He’s a little young yet, but give him to me at the New Year and I’ll castrate him for you,” said Caesar, finding himself quite absurdly pleased at the look of joy on her very appealing face.
“I shall call him Felix,” she said, still smiling.
Her husband laughed. “Lucky because he’s fruitful? In the New Year that will be a contradiction in terms, Calpurnia. If he isn’t castrated he’ll never stay at home to keep you company, and I will have yet one more tom to throw my boot at in the middle of the night. Call him Spado, it’s more appropriate.”
Still holding the kitten, she got up and put one arm about Caesar’s neck, kissed him on the cheek. “No, he’s Felix.”
Caesar turned his head until the kiss fell on his mouth. “I am a fortunate man,” he said afterward.
“Where did he come from?’’ she asked, unconsciously imitating Julia by kissing one white fan at the corner of his eye.
Blinking away tears, Caesar put both arms about her. “I am moved to make love to you, wife, so put Felix down and come with me. You make it easier.”
A thought he echoed to his mother somewhat later.
“She makes it easier to live without Julia.”
“Yes, she does. A young person in the house is necessary, at least for me. I’m glad it’s so for you too.”
“They’re not alike.”
“Not at all, which is good.”
“She liked the kitten better than the pearls.”
“An excellent sign.” Aurelia frowned. “It will be difficult for her, Caesar. In six months you’ll be gone, and she won’t see you for years.”
“Caesar’s wife?” he asked.
“If she liked the kitten better than the pearls, I doubt her fidelity will waver. It would be best if you quicken her before you go—a baby would keep her occupied. However, these things cannot be predicted, and I haven’t noticed that your devotion to Servilia has waned. A man only has so much to go round, Caesar, even you. Sleep with Calpurnia more often, and with Servilia less often. You seem to throw girls, so I worry less about a son.”
“Mater, you’re a hard woman! Sensible advice which I have no intention of taking.”
She changed the subject. “I hear that Pompeius went to Marcus Cicero and begged him to persuade young Curio to cease his attacks in the Forum.”
“Stupid!” Caesar exclaimed, frowning. “I told him it would only give Cicero a false idea of his own importance. The savior of his country is bitten by the boni these days, it gives him exquisite pleasure to decline any offer we make him. He wouldn’t be a committeeman, he wouldn’t be a legate in Gaul next year, he wouldn’t even accept my offer to send him on a trip at State expense. Now what does Magnus do? Offers him money!”
“He refused the money, of course,” said Aurelia.
“Despite his mounting debts. I never saw a man so obsessed with owning villas!”
“Does this mean you will unleash Clodius next year?”
The eyes Caesar turned on his mother were very cold. “I will definitely unleash Clodius.”
“What on earth did Cicero say to Pompeius to make you so angry?”
“The same kind of thing he said during the trial of Hybrida. But unfortunately Magnus displayed sufficient doubt of me to let Cicero think he stood a chance to wean Magnus away from me.”
“I doubt that, Caesar. It’s not logical. Julia reigns.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Magnus plays both ends against the middle, he wouldn’t want Cicero knowing all his thoughts.”
“I’d worry more about Cato, if I were you. Bibulus is the more organized of the pair, but Cato has the clout,” said Aurelia. “It’s a pity Clodius couldn’t eliminate Cato as well as Cicero.”
“That would certainly guard my back in my absence, Mater! Unfortunately I can’t see how it can be done.”
“Think about it. If you could eliminate Cato, you’d draw all the teeth fixed in your neck. He’s the fountainhead.”
*
The curule elections were held a little later in Quinctilis than usual, and the favored candidates were definitely Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso. They canvassed strenuously, but were too canny to give Cato any opportunity to cry bribery. Capricious public opinion swung away from the boni again; it promised to be a good election result for the triumvirs.
At which point, scant days before the curule elections, Lucius Vettius crawled out from beneath his stone. He approached young Curio, whose Forum speeches were directed mostly in Pompey’s direction these days, and told him that he knew of a plan to assassinate Pompey. Then he followed this up by asking young Curio if he would join the conspiracy. Curio listened intently and pretended to be interested. After which he told his father, for he had not the kidney of a conspirator or an assassin. The elder Curio and his son were always at loggerheads, but their differences went no further than wine, sexual frolics and debt; when danger threatened, the Scribonius Curio ranks closed up.
The elder Curio notified Pompey at once, and Pompey called the Senate into session. Within moments Vettius was summoned to testify. At first the disgraced knight denied everything, then broke down and gave some names: the son of the future consular candidate Lentulus Spinther, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, hitherto known as Caepio Brutus. These names were so bizarre no one could believe them; young Spinther was neither a member of the Clodius Club nor famed for his indiscretions, Lepidus’s son had an old history of rebellion but had done nothing untoward since his return from exile, and the very idea of Brutus as an assassin was ludicrous. Whereupon Vettius announced that a scribe belonging to Bibulus had brought him a dagger sent by the housebound junior consul. Afterward Cicero was heard to say that it was a shame Vettius had no other source of a dagger, but in the House everyone understood the significance of the gesture: it was Bibulus’s way of saying that the projected crime had his support.
“Rubbish!” cried Pompey, sure of one thing. “Marcus Bibulus himself took the trouble to warn me back in May that there was a plot afoot to assassinate me. Bibulus can’t be involved.”
Young Curio was called in. He reminded everyone that Paullus was in Macedonia, and apostrophized the whole business as a tissue of lies. The Senate was inclined to agree, but felt it wise to detain Vettius for further questioning. There were too many echoes of Catilina; no one wanted the odium of executing any Roman, even Vettius, without trial, so this plot was not going to be allowed to escalate out of senatorial control. Obedient to the Senate’s wishes, Caesar as senior consul ordered his lictors to take Lucius Vettius to the Lautumiae and chain him to the wall of his cell, as this was the only preventative for escape from that rickety prison.
Though on the surface the affair seemed utterly incongruous, Caesar felt a stirring of disquiet; this was one occasion, self-preservation told him, when every effort ought to be made to keep the People apprised of developments. Matters should not be confined to the interior of the Senate chamber. So after he had dismissed the Conscript Fathers he called the People together and informed them what had happened. And on the following day he had Vettius brought to the rostra for public questioning.
This time Vettius’s list of conspirators was quite different. No, Brutus had not been involved. Yes, he had forgotten that Paullus was in Macedonia. Well, he might have been wrong about Spinther’s son, it could have been Marcellinus’s son—after all, both Spinther and Marcellinus were Cornelii Lentuli, and both were future consular candidates. He proceeded to trot out new names: Lucullus, Gaius Fannius, Lucius Ahenobarbus, and Cicero. All boni or boni flirts. Disgusted, Caesar sent Vettius back to the Lautumiae.
However, Vatinius felt Vettius needed sterner handling, so he hied Vettius back to the rostra and subjected him to a merciless inquisition. This time Vettius insisted he had the names correct, though he did add two more: none other than that thoroughly respectable pillar of the establishment, Cicero’s son-in-law Piso Frugi; and the senator Iuventius, renowned for his vagueness. The meeting broke up after Vatinius proposed to introduce a bill in the Plebeian Assembly to conduct a formal enquiry into what was rapidly becoming known as the Vettius Affair.
By this time none of it made any sense beyond an inference that the boni were sufficiently fed up with Pompey to conspire to assassinate him. However, not even the most perceptive analyst of public life could disentangle the confusion of threads Vettius had—woven? No, tied up in knots.
Pompey himself now believed there was a plot in existence, but could not be brought to believe that the boni were responsible. Hadn’t Bibulus warned him? But if the boni were not the culprits, who was? So he ended like Cicero, convinced that once Vatinius got his enquiry into the Vettius Affair under way, the truth would out.
Something else gnawed at Caesar, whose left thumb pricked. If he knew nothing more, he knew that Vettius loathed him, Caesar. So where exactly was the Vettius Affair going to go? Was it in some tortuous way aimed at him? Or at driving a wedge between him and Pompey? Therefore Caesar decided not to wait the month or more until the official enquiry would begin. He would put Vettius back on the rostra for another public interrogation. Instinct told him that it was vital to do so quickly. Maybe then the name of Gaius Julius Caesar would not creep into the proceedings.
It was not to be. When Caesar’s lictors appeared from the direction of the Lautumiae, they came alone, and hurrying white-faced. Lucius Vettius had been chained to the wall in his cell, but he was dead. Around his neck were the marks of big strong hands, around his feet the marks of a desperate struggle to hang on to life. Because he had been chained it had not occurred to anyone to set a guard on him; whoever had come in the night to silence Lucius Vettius had come and gone unseen.
*
Standing by in a mood of pleasant expectation, Cato felt the blood drain from his face, and was profoundly glad the attention of the throng around the rostra was focused upon the angry Caesar, snapping instructions to his lictors to make enquiries of those in the vicinity of the prison. By the time those around him might have turned to him for an opinion as to what was going on, Cato was gone. Running too fast for Favonius to keep up.
He burst into Bibulus’s house to find that worthy sitting in his peristyle, one eye upon the cloudless sky, the other upon his visitors, Metellus Scipio, Lucius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Piso.
“How dare you, Bibulus?” Cato roared.
The four men turned as one, jaws slack.
“How dare I what?” asked Bibulus, plainly astonished.
“Murder Vettius!”
“What?”
“Caesar just sent to the Lautumiae to fetch Vettius to the rostra, and found him dead. Strangled, Bibulus! Why? Oh, why did you do that? I would never have consented, and you knew I would never have consented! Political trickery is one thing, especially when it’s aimed at a dog like Caesar, but murder is despicable!”
Bibulus had listened to this looking as if he might faint; as Cato finished he rose unsteadily to his feet, hand outstretched. “Cato, Cato! Do you know me so little? Why would I murder a wretch like Vettius? If I haven’t murdered Caesar, why would I murder anyone?”
The rage in the grey eyes died; Cato looked uncertain, then held his own hand out. “It wasn’t you?”
“It wasn’t me. I agree with you, I always have and I always will. Murder is despicable.”
The other three were recovering from their shock; Metellus Scipio and Ahenobarbus gathered round Cato and Bibulus, while Gaius Piso leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
“Vettius is really dead?” Metellus Scipio asked.
“So Caesar’s lictors said. I believed them.”
“Who?” asked Ahenobarbus. “Why?”
Cato moved to where a flagon of wine and some beakers stood on a table, and poured himself a drink. “I really thought it was you, Marcus Calpurnius,” he said, and tipped the beaker up. “I’m sorry. I ought to have known better.”
“Well, we know it wasn’t us,” said Ahenobarbus, “so who?”
“It has to be Caesar,” said Bibulus, helping himself to wine.
“What did he have to gain?” asked Metellus Scipio, frowning.
“Even I can’t tell you that, Scipio,” said Bibulus. At which moment his gaze rested on Gaius Piso, the only one still sitting. An awful fear filled him; he drew in his breath audibly. “Piso!” he cried suddenly. “Piso, you didn’t!”
The bloodshot eyes, sunk into Gaius Piso’s fleshy face, blazed scorn. “Oh, grow up, Bibulus!” he said wearily. “How else was this idiocy to succeed? Did you and Cato really think Vettius had the gall and the guts to carry your scheme through? He hated Caesar, yes, but he was terrified of the man too. You’re such amateurs! Full of nobility and high ideals, weaving plots you’ve neither the talent nor the cunning to push to fruition—sometimes you make me sick, the pair of you!”
“The feeling goes both ways!” Cato shouted, fists doubled.
Bibulus put his hand on Cato’s arm. “Don’t make it worse, Cato,” he said, the skin of his face gone grey. “Our honor is dead along with Vettius, all thanks to this ingrate.” He drew himself up. “Get out of my house, Piso, and never come back.”
The chair was overturned; Gaius Piso looked from one face to the next, then deliberately spat upon the flagstones at Cato’s feet. “Vettius was my client,” he said, “and I was good enough to use to coach him in his role! But not good enough to give advice. Well, fight your own fights from now on! And don’t try to incriminate me, either, hear me? Breathe one word, and I’ll testify against the lot of you!’’
Cato dropped to sit on the stone coping around the fountain playing in the sun, droplets flashing a myriad rainbows; he covered his face with his hand& and rocked back and forth, weeping.
“Next time I see Piso, I’ll flatten him!” said Ahenobarbus fiercely. “The cur!”
“Next time you see Piso, Lucius, you’ll be very polite,” said Bibulus, wiping away his tears. “Oh, our honor is dead! We can’t even make Piso pay. If we do, we’re looking at exile.”
*
The sensation surrounding the death of Lucius Vettius was all the worse because of its mystery; the brutal murder lent a ring of truth to what might otherwise have been dismissed as a fabrication. Someone had plotted to assassinate Pompey the Great, Lucius Vettius had known who that someone was, and now Lucius Vettius was silenced. Terrified because Vettius had said his name (and also the name of his loyal and loving son-in-law), Cicero shifted the blame to Caesar, and many of the minor boni followed his example. Bibulus and Cato declined to comment, and Pompey blundered from one bewilderment to another. Logic said very loudly and clearly that, the Vettius Affair had no meaning or basis in fact, but those involved were not disposed to think logically.
Public opinion veered away from the triumvirs yet again, and seemed likely to remain adverse. Rumors about Caesar proliferated. His praetor Fufius Calenus was booed at the theater during the ludi Apollinares; gossip had it that Caesar through Fufius Calenus intended to cancel the right of the Eighteen to the bank of reserved seats just behind the senators. Gladiatorial games funded by Aulus Gabinius were the scene of more unpleasantness.
Convinced now that his religious tactics were the best way, Bibulus struck. He postponed the curule and Popular elections until the eighteenth day of October, publishing this as an edict on the rostra, the platform of Castor’s and the bulletin board for public notices. Not only was there a stench in the lower Forum arising from the body of Lucius Vettius, said Bibulus, but he had also seen a huge shooting star in the wrong part of the sky.
Pompey panicked. His tame tribune of the plebs was bidden summon the Plebs into meeting, and there the Great Man spoke at length about the irresponsibility Bibulus was displaying more blatantly than any shooting star could display itself in the night skies. As an augur himself, he informed the despondent crowd, he would swear that there was nothing wrong with the omens. Bibulus was making everything up in order to bring Rome down. The Great Man then talked Caesar into convoking the People and speaking against Bibulus, but Caesar could not summon up the enthusiasm to put his usual fire into his speech, and failed to carry the crowd. What ought to have been an impassioned plea that the People should follow him to Bibulus’s house and there beg that Bibulus put an end to all this nonsense emerged without any passion whatsoever. The People preferred to go to their own homes.
“Which simply demonstrates their good sense,” Caesar said to Pompey over dinner in the Domus Publica. “We’re approaching this in the wrong way, Magnus.”
Very depressed, Pompey lay with his chin on his left hand and shrugged. “The wrong way?” he asked gloomily. “There just isn’t a right way, is the trouble.”
“There is, you know.”
One blue eye turned Caesar’s way, though the look accompanying it was skeptical. “Tell me this right way, Caesar.”
“It’s Quinctilis and election time, correct? The games are on, and half of Italia is here to enjoy itself. Hardly anyone in the Forum crowd at the present moment is a regular. How do they know what’s been happening? They hear of omens, junior consuls watching the skies, men murdered in prison, and terrific strife between factions in office as Rome’s magistrates. They look at you and me, and they see one side. Then they look at Cato and hear of Bibulus, and they see another side. It must seem stranger than a Pisidian ritual.”
“Huh!” said Pompey, chin back on his hand. “Gabinius and Lucius Piso are going to lose, that’s all I know.”
“You’re undoubtedly right, but only if the elections were to be held now,” said Caesar, brisk and energetic once more. “Bibulus has made a mistake, Magnus. He should have left the elections alone, let them be held now. Were they held now, both the consuls would be solidly boni. By postponing them, he’s given us time and the chance to retrieve our position.”
“We can’t retrieve our position.”
“If we agitate against this latest edict, I agree. But we stop agitating against it. We accept the postponement as legitimate, as if we wholeheartedly condone Bibulus’s edict. Then we work to recover our clout with the electorate. By October we’ll be back in favor again, Magnus, wait and see. And in October we’ll have the consuls of our faction, Gabinius and Lucius Piso.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I am absolutely sure of it. Go back to your Alban villa and Julia, Magnus, please! Stop worrying about politics in Rome. I shall skulk until I give the House my legislation to stop governors of provinces fleecing their flocks, which won’t be for another two months. We lie low, do nothing and say nothing. That gives Bibulus and Cato nothing to scream about. It will also silence young Curio. Interest dies when nothing happens.”
Pompey tittered. “I heard that young Curio really rammed his fist up your arse the other day.”
“By referring to events during the consulship of Julius and Caesar, rather than Caesar and Bibulus?” asked Caesar, grinning.
“In the consulship of Julius and Caesar is really very good.”
“Oh, very witty! I laughed when I heard it too. But even that can work in our favor, Magnus. It says something young Curio should have paused to think about before he said it—that Bibulus is not a consul, that I have had to be both consuls. By October that will be very apparent to the electors.”
“You cheer me enormously, Caesar,” said Pompey with a sigh. He thought of something else. “By the way, Cato seems to have had a severe falling out with Gaius Piso. Metellus Scipio and Lucius Ahenobarbus are siding with Cato. Cicero told me.”
“It was bound to happen,” said Caesar gravely, “as soon as Cato found out that Gaius Piso had Vettius murdered. Bibulus and Cato are fools, but they’re honorable fools when it comes to murder.”
Pompey was gaping. “Gaius Piso did it?”
“Certainly. And he was right to do it. Vettius alive was no threat to us. Vettius dead can be laid at my door. Didn’t Cicero try to persuade you of that, Magnus?”
“Well…” muttered Pompey, going red.
“Precisely! The Vettius Affair happened in order to make you doubt me. Then when I began publicly questioning Vettius, and kept on publicly questioning him, Gaius Piso saw that the ploy was going to fail. Hence Vettius’s death, which prevented all conclusions save those founded in sheer speculation.”
“I did doubt you,” said Pompey gruffly.
“And very naturally. However, Magnus, do remember that you are of far more use to me alive than dead! It’s true that did you die, I’d inherit a great many of your people. But do you live, your people are bound to support me to the last man. I am no advocate of death.”
*
Because the Plebs and the plebeian magistrates did not function under the auspices, Bibulus’s edict could not prevent the election of plebeian aediles or tribunes of the plebs. Those went to the polls at the end of Quinctilis as scheduled, and Publius Clodius was returned as president of the new College of Tribunes of the Plebs. No surprise in that; the Plebs were very prone to admire a patrician who cared so much about the tribunate of the plebs that he would abrogate his status in order to espouse it. Clodius had besides a wealth of clients and followers due to his generosity, and his marriage to Gaius Gracchus’s granddaughter brought him many thousands more. In him, the Plebs saw someone who would support the People against the Senate; did he support the Senate, he would never have abrogated his patrician status.
Of course the boni succeeded in having three tribunes of the plebs elected, and Cicero was so afraid that Clodius would succeed in trying him for the murder of Roman citizens without trial that he had spent lavishly to secure the election of his devoted admirer Quintus Terentius Culleo.
“Not,” said Clodius to Caesar, breathless with excitement, “that I’m very worried by any of them. I’ll sweep them into the Tiber!”
“I’m sure you will, Clodius.”
The dark and slightly mad-looking eyes flashed. “Do you think you own me, Caesar?’’ Clodius asked abruptly.
Which question provoked a laugh. “No, Publius Clodius, no! I wouldn’t insult you by dreaming of it, let alone thinking it. A Claudian—even a plebeian one!—belongs to no one save himself.”
“In the Forum they’re saying that you own me.”
“Do you care what they’re saying in the Forum?”
“I suppose not, provided that it doesn’t damage me.” Clodius uncoiled with a sudden leap, sprang to his feet. “Well, I just wanted to ascertain that you didn’t think you owned me, so I’ll be off now.”
“Oh, don’t deprive me of your company quite yet,” Caesar said gently. “Sit down again, do.”
“What for?”
“Two reasons. The first is that I’d like to know what you plan for your year. The second is that I’d like to offer you any help you might need.”
“Is this a ploy?”
“No, it’s simply genuine interest. I also hope, Clodius, that you have sufficient sense to realize that help from me might make all the difference to the legality of your laws.”
Clodius thought about this in silence, then nodded. “I can see that,” he said, “and there is one area in which you can help.”
“Name it.”
“I need to establish better contact with real Romans. I mean the little fellows, the herd. How can we patricians know what they want if we don’t know any of them? Which is where you’re so different from the rest, Caesar. You know everyone from the highest to the lowest. How did you do that? Teach me,” said Clodius.
“I know everyone because I was born and brought up in the Subura. Every day I rubbed shoulders with the little fellows, as you call them. At least I detect no shade of patronage in you. But why do you want to get to know the little fellows? They’re of no use to you, Clodius. They don’t have votes which matter,”
“They have numbers,” said Clodius.
What was he after? Apparently interested only as a matter of courtesy, Caesar sat back in his chair and studied Publius Clodius. Saturninus? No, not the same type, Mischief? Certainly. What could he do? A question to which Caesar confessed he could find no answer. Clodius was an innovator, a completely unorthodox person who would perhaps go where no one had been before. Yet what could he do? Did he expect to draw thousands upon thousands of little fellows to the Forum to intimidate the Senate and the First Class into doing whatever it was that the little fellows wanted? But that would happen only if their bellies were empty, and though grain prices were high at the moment, Cato’s law prevented the price’s being handed down to the little fellows. Saturninus had seen a crowd of gigantic proportions and been inspired to use it to further his own end, which was to rule Rome. Yet when he summoned it to do his bidding, it never came. So Saturninus died. If Clodius tried to imitate Saturninus, death would be his fate too. Long acquaintance with the little fellows—what an extraordinary way to describe them!—gave Caesar insight none of his own big fellows could hope to have. Including Publius Clodius, born and brought up on the Palatine. Well, perhaps Clodius wanted to be Saturninus, but if so, all he would discover was that the little fellows could not be massed together destructively. They were just not politically inclined.
“I met someone you know in the Forum the other day,” Clodius remarked some time later. “When you were trying to persuade the crowd to follow you to Bibulus’s house.”
Caesar grimaced. “A stupidity on my part,” he said.
“That’s what Lucius Decumius said.”
The impassive face lit up. “Lucius Decumius? Now there’s a fascinating little fellow! If you want to know about the little fellows, Clodius, then go to him.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a vilicus, the custodian of the crossroads college my mother has housed since before I was born. A little depressed these days because he and his college have no official standing.”
“Your mother’s house?” asked Clodius, brow wrinkling.
“Her insula. Where the Vicus Patricii meets the Subura Minor. These days the college is a tavern, but they still meet there.”
“I shall look Lucius Decumius up,” said Clodius, sounding well satisfied.
“I wish you’d tell me what you plan to do as a tribune of the plebs,” said Caesar.
“I’ll start by making changes to the lex Aelia and the lex Fufia, that’s certain. To permit consuls like Bibulus the use of religious laws as a political ploy is lunatic. After I get through with them, the lex Aelia and the lex Fufia will hold no attraction for the likes of Bibulus.”
“I applaud that! But do come to me for help in drafting.”
Clodius grinned wickedly. “Want me to make it a retroactive law, eh? Illegal to watch the skies backward as well as forward?”
“To shore up my own legislation?” Caesar looked haughty. “I will manage, Clodius, without a retroactive law. What else?”
“Condemn Cicero for executing Roman citizens without trial, and send him into permanent exile.”
“Excellent.”
“I also plan to restore the crossroads colleges and other sorts of brotherhoods outlawed by your cousin Lucius Caesar.”
“Which is why you want to visit Lucius Decumius. And?”
“Make the censors conform.”
“An interesting one.”
“Forbid the Treasury clerks to engage in private commerce.”
“Well overdue.”
“And give the People completely free grain.”
The breath hissed between Caesar’s teeth. “Oho! Admirable, Clodius, but the boni will never let you get away with it.”
“The boni will have no choice,” said Clodius, face grim.
“How will you pay for a free grain dole? The cost would be prohibitive.”
“By legislating to annex the island of Cyprus. Don’t forget that Egypt and all its possessions—chiefly Cyprus—were left to Rome in King Ptolemy Alexander’s will. You reversed Egypt by getting the Senate to award Ptolemy Auletes tenure of the Egyptian throne, but you didn’t extend your decree to cover his brother of Cyprus. That means Cyprus still belongs to Rome under that old will. We’ve never exercised it, but I intend to. After all, there are no kings in Syria any more, and Egypt can’t go to war alone. There must be thousands and thousands of talents lying around in the palace at Paphos just waiting for Rome to pick them up.”
It came out sounding quite virtuous, which pleased Clodius immensely. Caesar was a very sharp fellow; he’d be the first to smell duplicity. But Caesar didn’t know about the old grudge Clodius bore Ptolemy the Cyprian. When pirates had captured Clodius, he had made them ask Ptolemy the Cyprian for a ten-talent ransom, trying to emulate Caesar’s conduct with his pirates. Ptolemy the Cyprian had simply laughed, then refused to pay more than two talents for the hide of Admiral Publius Clodius, saying that was all he was worth. A mortal insult. Well, Ptolemy the Cyprian was about to pay considerably more than two talents to satisfy Clodius’s thirst for revenge. The price would be everything he owned, from his regency to the last golden nail in a door.
Had Caesar known this story, he wouldn’t have cared; he was too busy thinking of a different revenge. “What a splendid idea!” he said affably. “I have just the person to entrust with a delicate mission like the annexation of Cyprus. You can’t send someone with sticky fingers or Rome will end with less than half of what’s there, and the grain dole will suffer. Nor can you go yourself. You’ll have to legislate a special commission to annex Cyprus, and I have just the person for the job.”
“You do?’’ asked Clodius, taken aback at a kindred malice.
“Give it to Cato.”
“Cato?”
“Absolutely. It must be Cato! He’ll ferret out every stray drachma from the darkest corner, he’ll keep immaculate accounts, he’ll number off every jewel, every golden cup, every statue and painting—the Treasury will get the lot,” said Caesar, smiling like the cat about to break the mouse’s neck. “You must, Clodius! Rome needs a Cato to do this job! You need a Cato to do this job! Commission Cato, and you’ll have the money to pay for a free grain dole.”
Clodius went whooping away, leaving Caesar to reflect that he had just managed to do the most personally satisfying piece of work in years. The opponent of all special commissions, Cato would find himself hemmed into a corner with Clodius aiming a spear at him from every direction. That was the beauty of the Beauty, as Cicero was prone to refer to Clodius, punning on his nickname. Yes, Clodius was very clever. He had seen the nuances of commissioning Cato immediately. Another man might offer Cato a loophole, but Clodius wouldn’t. Cato would have no choice other than to obey the Plebs, and he would be away for two or three years. Cato, who loathed being out of Rome these days for fear his enemies would take advantage of his absence. The Gods only knew what havoc Clodius was planning for next year, but if he did nothing more to oblige Caesar than eliminate Cicero and Cato, then Caesar for one would not complain.
“I’m going to force Cato to annex Cyprus!” said Clodius to Fulvia when he got home. His face changed, he scowled. “I ought to have thought of it for myself, but it’s Caesar’s idea.”
By now Fulvia knew exactly how to deal with Clodius’s more mercurial mood swings. “Oh, Clodius, how truly brilliant you are!” she cooed, worshiping him with her eyes. “Caesar is accustomed to use other people, now here you are using him! I think you ought to go right on using Caesar.”
Which interpretation sat very well with Clodius, who beamed and started congratulating himself on his perception. “And I will use him, Fulvia. He can draft some of my laws for me.”
“The religious ones, definitely.”
“Do you think I ought to oblige him with a favor or two?”
“No,” said Fulvia coolly. “Caesar’s not fool enough to expect a fellow patrician to oblige him—and by birth you’re a patrician, it’s in your bones.”
She got up a little clumsily to stretch her legs; her new pregnancy was beginning to hamper her, and she found that a nuisance. Just when Clodius would be at the height of his tribunate, she would be waddling. Not that she intended baby woes to interfere with her presence in the Forum. In fact, the thought of scandalizing Rome afresh by appearing publicly at eight and nine months was delectable. Nor would the birth ordeal keep her away for more than a day or two. Fulvia was one of the lucky ones: she found carrying and bearing children easy. Having stretched her aching legs, she lay down again beside Clodius in time to smile at Decimus Brutus when he came in, looking jubilant because of Clodius’s victory at the polls.
“I have a name—Lucius Decumius,” said Clodius.
“For your source of information about the little fellows, you mean?’’ asked Decimus Brutus, lying down on the couch opposite.
“I mean.”
“Who is he?” Decimus Brutus began to pick at a plate of food.
“The custodian of a crossroads college in the Subura. And a great friend of Caesar’s, according to Lucius Decumius, who swears he changed Caesar’s diapers and got up to all sorts of mischief with him when Caesar was a boy.”
“So?” asked Decimus Brutus, sounding skeptical.
“So I met Lucius Decumius and I liked him. He also liked me. And,” said Clodius, his voice sinking to a conspiratorial whisper, “I’ve found my way into the ranks of the lowly at last—or at least that segment of the lowly which can be of use to us.”
The other two leaned forward, food forgotten.
“If Bibulus has demonstrated nothing else this year,” Clodius went on, “he’s shown what a mockery constitutionality can be. In the name of Law he’s put the triumvirs outside it. The whole of Rome is aware that what he’s really done is to use a religious trick, but it’s worked. Caesar’s laws are in jeopardy. Well, I’ll soon make that sort of trick illegal! And once I do, there will be no impediment to prevent my passing my laws legally.’’
“Except persuading the Plebs to pass them in the first place,” sneered Decimus Brutus. “I can name a dozen tribunes of the plebs foiled by that factor! Not to mention the veto. There are at least four other men in your College who will adore to veto you.”
“Which is where Lucius Decumius is going to come in extremely handy!” cried Clodius, his excitement obvious. “We are going to build a following among the lowly which will intimidate our Forum and senatorial opponents to the point whereat no one will have the courage to interpose a veto! No law I care to promulgate will not be passed!”
“Saturninus tried that and failed,” said Decimus Brutus.
“Saturninus thought of the lowly as a crowd, he never knew any names or shared drinks with them,” Clodius explained patiently. “He failed to do what a really successful demagogue must do—be selective. I don’t want or need huge crowds of lowly. All I want are several groups of real rascals. Now I took one look at Lucius Decumius and knew I’d found a real rascal. We went off to a tavern on the Via Nova and talked. Chiefly about his resentment at being disqualified as a religious college. He claimed to have been an assassin in his younger days, and I believed him. But, more germane to me, he let it slip that his and quite a few of the other crossroads colleges have been running a protection ploy for—oh, centuries!”
“Protection ploy?” asked Fulvia, looking blank.
“They sell protection from robbery and assault to shopkeepers and manufacturers.”
“Protection from whom?”
“Themselves, of course!” said Clodius, laughing. “Fail to pay up, and you’re beaten up. Fail to pay up, and your goods are stolen. Fail to pay up, and your machinery is destroyed. It’s perfect.”
“I’m fascinated,” drawled Decimus Brutus.
“It’s simple, Decimus. We will use the crossroads brethren as our troops. There’s no need to fill the Forum with vast crowds. All we need are enough at any one time. Two or three hundred at the most, I think. That’s why we have to find out how they’re gathered, where they’re gathered, when they’re gathered. Then we have to organize them like a little army—rosters, everything.”
“How will we pay them?” Decimus Brutus asked. He was a shrewd and extremely capable young man, despite his appearance of mindless vice; the thought of work which would make life difficult for the boni and all others of boringly conservative inclination he found immensely appealing.
“We pay them by buying their wine out of our own purses. One thing I’ve learned is that uneducated men will do anything for you if you pay for their drinks.”
“Not enough,” said Decimus Brutus emphatically.
“I’m well aware of that,” said Clodius. “I’ll also pay them with two pieces of legislation. One: legalize all of Rome’s colleges, sodalities, clubs and fraternities again. Two: bring in a free grain dole.” He kissed Fulvia and got up. “We are now venturing into the Subura, Decimus, where we will see old Lucius Decumius and start laying our plans for when I enter office on the tenth day of December.”
*
Caesar promulgated his law to prevent governors’ extorting in their provinces during the month of Sextilis, sufficiently after the events of the month before to have allowed tempers to cool down. Including his own.
“I am not acting in a spirit of altruism,” he said to the half-filled chamber, “nor do I object to a capable governor’s enriching himself in acceptable ways. What this lex Iulia does is to prevent a governor’s cheating the Treasury, and protect the people of his province against rapacity. For over a hundred years government of the provinces in the provinces has been a disgrace. Citizenships are sold. Exemptions from taxes, tithes and tributes are sold. The governor takes half a thousand parasites with him to drain provincial resources even further. Wars are fought for no better reason than to ensure a triumph upon the governor’s return to Rome. If they refuse to yield a daughter or a field of grain, those who are not Roman citizens are subjected to the barbed lash, and sometimes decapitated. Payment for military supplies and equipment isn’t made. Prices are fixed to benefit the governor or his bankers or his minions. The practice of extortionate moneylending is encouraged. Need I go further?”
Caesar shrugged. “Marcus Cato says my laws are not legal due to the activities of my consular colleague in watching the skies. I have not let Marcus Bibulus stand in my way. I will not let him stand in the way of this bill either. However, if this body refuses to give it a consultum of approval, I will not take it to the People. As you see from the number of buckets around my feet, it is an enormous body of law. Only the Senate has the fortitude to plough through it, only the Senate appreciates Rome’s predicament anent her governors. This is a senatorial law, it must have senatorial approval.” He smiled in Cato’s direction. “You might say I am handing the Senate a gift—refuse it, and it will die.”
Perhaps Quinctilis had acted as a catharsis, or perhaps the degree of rancor and rage had been such that the sheer intensity of emotion could not be maintained a moment longer; whatever the reason might have been, Caesar’s extortion law met with universal approval in the Senate.
“It is magnificent,” said Cicero.
“I have no quarrel with the smallest subclause,” said Cato.
“You are to be congratulated,” said Hortensius.
“It’s so exhaustive it will last forever,” said Vatia Isauricus.
Thus the lex Iulia repetundarum went to the Popular Assembly accompanied by a senatus consultum of consent, and passed into law halfway through September.
“I’m pleased,” said Caesar to Crassus amid the turmoil of the Macellum Cuppedenis, filled to overflowing with country visitors in town for the ludi Romani.
“You ought to be, Gaius. When the boni can’t find anything wrong, you should demand a new kind of triumph awarded only for the perfect law.”
“The boni could find absolutely nothing wrong with my land laws either, but that didn’t stop their opposing me,” said Caesar.
“Land laws are different. There are too many rents and leases at stake. Extortion by governors in their provinces shrinks the Treasury’s revenues. It strikes me, however, that you ought not to have limited your law against extortion to the senatorial class only. Knights extort in the provinces too,” said Crassus.
“Only with gubernatorial consent. However, when I’m consul for the second time, I’ll bring in a second extortion law aimed at the knights. It’s too long a process drafting extortion laws to permit more than one per consulship.”
“So you intend to be consul a second time?”
“Definitely. Don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t mind, actually,” said Crassus thoughtfully. “I’d still love to go to war against the Parthians, earn myself a triumph at last. I can’t do that unless I’m consul again.”
“You will be.”
Crassus changed the subject. “Have you settled on your full list of legates and tribunes for Gaul yet?” he asked.
“More or less, though not firmly.”
“Then would you take my Publius with you? I’d like him to learn the art of war under you.”
“I’d be delighted to put his name down.”
“Your choice of legate with magisterial status rather stunned me—Titus Labienus? He’s never done a thing.”
“Except be my tribune of the plebs, you’re inferring,” said Caesar, eyes twinkling. “Acquit me of that kind of stupidity, my dear Marcus! I knew Labienus in Cilicia when Vatia Isauricus was governor. He likes horses, rare in a Roman. I need a really able cavalry commander because so many of the tribes where I’m going are horsed. Labienus will be a very good cavalry commander.”
“Still planning on marching down the Danubius to the Euxine?”
“By the time I’m finished, Marcus, the provinces of Rome will marry Egypt. If you win against the Parthians when you’re consul for the second time, Rome will own the world from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus River.” He sighed. “I suppose that means I’ll also have to subdue Further Gaul somewhere along the way.”
Crassus looked thunderstruck. “Gaius, what you’re talking about would take ten years, not five!”
“I know.”
“The Senate and the People would crucify you! Pursue a war of aggression for ten years? No one has!”
While they stood talking the crowd swirled around them in an ever-changing mass, quite a few among it with cheery greetings for Caesar, who answered with a smile and sometimes asked a question about a member of the family, or a job, or a marriage. That had never ceased to fascinate Crassus: how many people in Rome did Caesar know? Nor were they always Romans. Liberty-capped freedmen, skullcapped Jews, turbaned Phrygians, longhaired Gauls, shaven Syrians. If they had votes, Caesar would never go out of office. Yet Caesar always worked within the traditional forms. Do the boni know how much of Rome lies in the palm of Caesar’s hand? No, they do not have the slightest idea. If they did, it wouldn’t have been a sky watch. That dagger Bibulus sent to Vettius would have been used. Caesar would be dead. Pompeius Magnus? Never!
“I’ve had enough of Rome!” Caesar cried. “For almost ten years I’ve been incarcerated here—I can’t wait to get away! Ten years in the field? Oh, Marcus, what a glorious prospect that is! Doing something which comes more naturally to me than anything else, reaping a harvest for Rome, enhancing my dignitas, and never having to suffer the boni carping and criticizing. In the field I’m the man with the authority, no one can gainsay me. Wonderful!”
Crassus chuckled. “What an autocrat you are.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but the difference is that I don’t want to run the whole world, just the financial side of it. Figures are so concrete and exact that men shy away from them unless they have a genuine talent for them. Whereas politics and war are vague. Every man thinks if he has luck he can be the best at them. I don’t upset the mos maiorum and two thirds of the Senate with my brand of autocracy, it’s as simple as that.”
*
Pompey and Julia returned more or less permanently to Rome in time to help Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso campaign for the curule elections on the eighteenth day of October. Not having set eyes on his daughter since her marriage, Caesar found himself a little shocked. This was a confident, vital, sparkling and witty young matron, not the sweet and gentle adolescent of his imagination. Her rapport with Pompey was astonishing, though who was responsible for it he could not tell. The old Pompey had vanished; the new Pompey was well read, entranced by literature, spoke learnedly of this painter or that sculptor, and displayed absolutely no interest in quizzing Caesar about his military aims for the next five years. On top of which, Julia ruled! Apparently totally unembarrassed, Pompey had yielded himself to feminine domination. No imprisonment in frowning Picentine bastions for Julia! If Pompey went somewhere, Julia went too. Shades of Fulvia and Clodius!
“I’m going to build a stone theater for Rome,” the Great Man said, “on land I bought out between the saepta and the chariot stables. This business of erecting temporary wooden theaters five or six times a year whenever there are major games is absolute insanity, Caesar. I don’t care if the mos maiorum says theater is decadent and immoral, the fact remains that Rome falls over itself to attend the plays, and the ruder, the better. Julia says that the best memorial of my conquests I could leave Rome would be a huge stone theater with a lovely peristyle and colonnade attached, and a chamber big enough to house the Senate on its far end. That way, she says, I can get around the mos maiorum—an inaugurated temple for the Senate at one end, and right up the top of the auditorium a delicious little temple to Venus Victrix. Well, it has to be Venus, as Julia is directly descended from Venus, but she suggested we make her Victorious Venus to honor my conquests. Clever chicken!” Pompey ended lovingly, stroking the fashionably arranged mass of hair belonging to his wife. Who looked, thought a tickled Caesar, insufferably smug.
“Sounds ideal,” said Caesar, sure they wouldn’t listen.
Nor did they. Julia spoke. “We’ve struck a bargain, my lion and I,” she said, smiling at Pompey as if they shared many thousands of secrets. “I am to have the choice of materials and decorations for the theater, and my lion has the peristyle, the colonnade and the new Curia.”
“And we’re going to build a modest little villa behind it, alongside the four temples,” Pompey contributed, “just in case I ever get stranded on the Campus Martius again for nine months. I’m thinking of standing for consul a second time one of these days.”
“Great minds think alike,” said Caesar.
“Eh?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, tata, you should see my lion’s Alban palace!” cried Julia, hand tucked in Pompey’s. “It’s truly amazing, just like the summer residence of the King of the Parthians, he says.” She turned to her grandmother. “Avia, when are you going to come and stay with us there? You never leave Rome!”
“Her lion, if you please!” snorted Aurelia to Caesar after the blissful couple had departed for the newly decorated palace on the Carinae. “She flatters him shamelessly!”
“Her technique,” Caesar said gravely, “is certainly not like yours, Mater. I doubt I ever heard you address my father by any name other than his proper one, Gaius Julius. Not even Caesar.”
“Love talk is silly.”
“I’m tempted to nickname her Leo Domitrix.”
“The lion tamer.” That brought a smile at last. “Well, she is obviously wielding the whip and the chair!”
“Very lightly, Mater. There’s Caesar in her, her blatancy is actually quite subtle. He’s enslaved.”
“That was a good day’s work when we introduced them. He’ll guard your back well while you’re away on campaign.”
“So I hope. I also hope he manages to convince the electors that Lucius Piso and Gabinius ought to be consuls next year.”
The electors were convinced; Aulus Gabinius was returned as senior consul, and Lucius Calpurnius Piso as his junior colleague. The boni had worked desperately to avert disaster, but Caesar had been right. So firmly boni in Quinctilis, public opinion was now on the side of the triumvirs. Not all the canards in the world about marriages of virgin daughters to men old enough to be their grandfathers could sway the voters, who preferred triumviral consuls to bribes, probably because Rome was empty of rural voters, who tended to rely on bribes for extra spending money at the games.
Even lacking hard evidence, Cato decided to prosecute Aulus Gabinius for electoral corruption. This time, however, he did not succeed; though he approached every praetor sympathetic to his cause, not one would agree to try the case. Metellus Scipio suggested that he should take it directly to the Plebs, and convened an Assembly to procure a law charging Gabinius with bribery.
“As no court or praetor is willing to charge Aulus Gabinius, it becomes the duty of the Comitia to do so!” shouted Metellus Scipio to the crowd clustered in the Comitia well.
Perhaps because the day was chill and drizzling rain, it was a small turnout, but what neither Metellus Scipio nor Cato realized was that Publius Clodius intended to use this meeting as a tryout for his rapidly fruiting organization of the crossroads colleges into Clodian troops. The plan was to use only those members who had that day off work, and to limit their number to less than two hundred. A decision which meant that Clodius and Decimus Brutus had needed to avail themselves of two colleges only, the one tended by Lucius Decumius and the one tended by his closest affiliate.
When Cato stepped forward to address the Assembly, Clodius yawned and stretched out his arms, a gesture which those who noticed him at all took to mean that Clodius was reveling in the fact that he was now a member of the Plebs and could stand in the Comitia well during a meeting of the Plebs.
It meant nothing of the kind. As soon as Clodius had finished yawning, some one hundred and eighty men leaped for the rostra and tore Cato from it, dragged him down into the well and began to beat him unmercifully. The rest of the seven hundred Plebs took the hint and disappeared, leaving an appalled Metellus Scipio on the rostra with the three other tribunes of the plebs dedicated to the cause of the boni. No tribune of the plebs possessed lictors or any other kind of official bodyguard; horrified and helpless, the four of them could only watch.
The orders were to punish Cato but leave him in one piece, and orders were obeyed. The men vanished into the soft rain, job well done; Cato lay unconscious and bleeding, but unbroken.
“Ye gods, I thought you were done for!” said Metellus Scipio when he and Ancharius managed to bring Cato round.
“What did I do?” asked Cato, head ringing.
“You challenged Gabinius and the triumvirs without owning our tribunician inviolability. There’s a message in it, Cato—leave the triumvirs and their puppets alone,” said Ancharius grimly.
A message which Cicero received too. The closer the time came to Clodius’s stepping into office, the more terrified Cicero grew. Clodius’s constant threats to prosecute were regularly reported to him, but all his appeals to Pompey met with nothing more than absent assurances that Clodius wasn’t serious. Deprived of Atticus (who had gone to Epirus and Greece), Cicero could find no one interested enough to help. So when Cato was attacked in the Well of the Comitia and word got out that Clodius was responsible, poor Cicero despaired.
“The Beauty is going to have me, and Sampsiceramus doesn’t even care!” he moaned to Terentia, whose patience was wearing so thin that she was tempted to pick up the nearest heavy object and crown him with it. “I don’t begin to understand Sampsiceramus! Whenever I talk to him privately he tells me how depressed he is—then I see him in the Forum with his child bride hanging on his arm, and he’s wreathed in smiles!”
“Why don’t you try calling him Pompeius Magnus instead of that ridiculous name?” Terentia demanded. “Keep it up, and with that tongue in your mouth, you’re bound to slip.”
“What can it matter? I’m done for, Terentia, done for! The Beauty will send me into exile!”
“I’m surprised you haven’t gone down on your knees to kiss that trollop Clodia’s feet.”
“I had Atticus do it for me, to no avail. Clodia says she has no power over her little brother.’’
“She’d prefer you to kiss her feet, that’s why.”
“Terentia, I am not and never have been engaged in an affair with the Medea of the Palatine! You’re usually so sensible—why do you persist in carrying on about a nonsense? Look at her boyfriends! All young enough to be her sons—my dearest Caelius! The nicest lad! Now he moons and drools over Clodia the way half of female Rome moons and drools over Caesar! Caesar! Another patrician ingrate!”
“He probably has more influence with Clodius than Pompeius does,” she offered. “Why not appeal to him?”
The savior of his country drew himself up. “I would rather,” he said between his teeth, “spend the rest of my life in exile!”
*
When Publius Clodius entered office on the tenth day of December, the whole of Rome waited with bated breath. So too did the members of the inner circle of the Clodius Club, particularly Decimus Brutus, who was Clodius’s general of crossroads college troops. The Well of the Comitia was too small to contain the huge crowd which assembled in the Forum on that first day to see what Clodius was going to do, so he transferred the meeting to Castor’s platform and announced that he would legislate to provide every male Roman citizen with five modii of free wheat per month. Only that part of the crowd—a minute part—belonging to the crossroads colleges Clodius had enlisted knew what was coming; the news broke on most of the listening ears as an utter surprise.
The roar which went up was heard as far away as the Colline and Capena Gates, deafened those senators standing on the steps of the Curia Hostilia even as their eyes took in the extraordinary sight of thousands of objects shooting into the air—Caps of Liberty, shoes, belts, bits of food, anything people could toss up in exultation. And the cheering went on and on and on, never seemed likely to stop. From somewhere flowers appeared in every hand; Clodius and his nine dazed fellow tribunes of the plebs stood on Castor’s platform smothered in them, Clodius beaming and clasping his hands together over his head. Suddenly he bent and began to throw the flowers back at the crowd, laughing wildly.
Still bearing the marks of his brutal beating, Cato wept. “It is the beginning of the end,” he said through his tears. “We can’t afford to pay for all that wheat! Rome will be bankrupt.”
“Bibulus is watching the skies,” said Ahenobarbus. “This new grain law of Clodius’s will be as invalid as everything else passed this year.”
“Oh, learn sense!” said Caesar, standing close enough to hear. “Clodius isn’t one-tenth as stupid as you are, Lucius Domitius. He’ll keep everything in contio until New Year’s Day. Nothing will go to the vote until December is over. Besides, I still have my doubts about Bibulus’s tactics in relation to the Plebs. Their meetings are not held under the auspices.”
“I’ll oppose it,” said Cato, wiping his eyes.
“If you do, Cato, you’ll be dead very quickly,” said Gabinius. “Perhaps for the first time in her history, Rome has a tribune of the plebs without the scruples which caused the fall of the Brothers Gracchi, or the loneliness which led to the death of Sulpicius. I don’t think anyone or anything can cow Clodius.”
“What next will he think of?’’ asked Lucius Caesar, face white.
Next came a bill to restore full legality to Rome’s colleges, sodalities, fraternities and clubs. Though it was not as popular with the crowd as the free grain, it was so well received that after this meeting Clodius was chaired on the shoulders of crossroads brethren, shouting themselves hoarse.
And after that Clodius announced that he would make it utterly impossible for a Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus to disrupt government ever again. The Aelian and Fufian laws were to be amended to permit meetings of People and Plebs and the passing of laws when a consul stayed home to watch the skies; to invalidate them, the consul would have to prove the occurrence of an unpropitious omen within the day on which the meeting took place. Business could not be suspended due to postponed elections. None of the changes were retroactive, nor did they protect the Senate and its deliberations, nor did they affect the courts.
“He’s strengthening the Assemblies at the entire expense of the Senate,” said Cato drearily.
“Yes, but at least he hasn’t helped Caesar,” said Ahenobarbus. “I’ll bet that’s a disappointment for the triumvirs!”
“Disappointment, nothing!” snapped Hortensius.
“Don’t you recognize the Caesar stamp on legislation by now? It goes just far enough, but not further than custom and tradition allow. He’s much smarter than Sulla, is Caesar. There are no impediments to a consul’s staying home to watch the skies, simply ways around it when he does. And what does Caesar care about the supremacy of the Senate? The Senate isn’t where Caesar’s power lies, it never was and it never will be!”
“Where’s Cicero?” demanded Metellus Scipio out of the blue. “I haven’t seen him in the Forum since Clodius entered office.”
“Nor will you, I suspect,” said Lucius Caesar. “He’s quite convinced he’ll hear himself interdicted.”
“Which he well may be,” said Pompey.
“Do you condone his interdiction, Pompeius?” asked young Curio.
“I won’t lift my shield to prevent it, be sure of that.”
“Why aren’t you down there cheering, Curio?” asked Appius Claudius. “I thought you were very thick with my little brother.”
Curio sighed. “I think I must be growing up,” he said.
“You’re likely to sprout like a bean very soon,” said Appius Claudius with a sour grin.
A remark which Curio understood at Clodius’s next meeting when Clodius announced that he would modify the conditions under which Rome’s censors functioned—Curio’s father was censor.
No censor, said Clodius, would be able to strike a member of the Senate or a member of the First Class off the rolls without a full and proper hearing and the written consent of both censors. The example Clodius used was ominous for Cicero: he asserted that Mark Antony’s stepfather, Lentulus Sura (who he took considerable trouble to point out had been illegally executed by Marcus Tullius Cicero with the consent of the Senate), had been struck off the senatorial rolls by the censor Lentulus Clodianus for reasons based in personal vengeance. There would be no more senatorial and equestrian purges! cried Clodius.
With four different laws under discussion throughout December, Clodius left his legislative program at that—and left Cicero on the brink of terror, tottering. Would he, or wouldn’t he indict Cicero? Nobody knew, and Clodius wouldn’t say.
*
Not since April had the city of Rome set eyes on the junior consul, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. But on the last day of December as the sun slid toward its little death, he emerged from his house and went to resign the office which had scarcely seen him either.
Caesar watched him and his escort of boni approach, his twelve lictors carrying the fasces for the first time in over eight months. How he had changed! Always a tiny fellow, he seemed to have shrunk and crabbed, walked as if something chewed at his bones. The face, pallid and sharp, bore no expression save a look of cold contempt in the silvery eyes as they rested momentarily on the senior consul, and widened; it was more than eight months since Bibulus had seen Caesar, and what he saw quite obviously dismayed him. He had shrunk. Caesar had grown.
“Everything Gaius Julius Caesar has done this year is null and void!” he cried to the gathering in the Comitia well, only to find its members staring at him in stony disapproval. He shuddered and said nothing more.
After the prayers and sacrifices Caesar stepped forward and swore the oath that he had acquitted himself of his duties as the senior consul to the best of his knowledge and abilities. He then gave his valediction, about which he had thought for days yet not known what to say. So let it be short and let it have nothing to do with this terrible consulship now ending.
“I am a patrician Roman of the gens Iulia, and my forefathers have served Rome since the time of King Numa Pompilius. I in my turn have served Rome: as flamen Dialis, as soldier, as pontifex, as tribune of the soldiers, as quaestor, as curule aedile, as judge, as Pontifex Maximus, as praetor urbanus, as proconsul in Further Spain, and as senior consul. Everything in suo anno. I have sat in the Senate of Rome for just over twenty-four years, and watched its power wane as inevitably as does the life force in an old, old man. For the Senate is an old, old man.
“The harvest comes and goes. Plenty one year, famine the next. So I have seen Rome’s granaries full, and I have seen them empty. I have seen Rome’s first true dictatorship. I have seen the tribunes of the plebs reduced to ciphers, and I have seen them run rampant. I have seen the Forum Romanum under a still cold moon, blanched and silent as the tomb. I have seen the Forum Romanum awash with blood. I have seen the rostra bristling with men’s heads. I have seen the house of Jupiter Optimus Maximus fall in blazing ruins, I have seen it rise again. And I have seen the emergence of a new power, the landless, unendowed and impoverished troops who upon retirement must beseech their country for a pension, and all too often I have seen them denied that pension.
“I have lived in momentous times, for since I was born forty-one years ago Rome has undergone frightful upheavals. The provinces of Cilicia, Cyrenaica, Bithynia-Pontus and Syria have been added to her empire, and the provinces she already owned have been modified beyond recognition. In my time the Middle Sea has become Our Sea. Our Sea from end to end.
“Civil war has stalked up and down Italia, not once, but seven times. In my lifetime a Roman first led his troops against the city of Rome, his homeland, though Lucius Cornelius Sulla was not the last man so to march. Yet in my lifetime no foreign foe has set foot on Italian soil. A mighty king who fought Rome for twenty-five years went down to defeat and death. He cost Rome the lives of over one hundred thousand citizens. Even so, he did not cost Rome as many lives as her civil wars have. In my lifetime.
“I have seen men die bravely, I have seen them die gibbering, I have seen them die decimated, I have seen them die crucified. But ever and always I am most moved by the plight of excellent men and the blight of mediocre men.
“What Rome has been, is, and will be depends upon us who are Romans. Beloved of the Gods, we are the only people in the history of the world to understand that a force extends two ways—forward and backward, up and down, right and left. Thus Romans have enjoyed a kind of equality with their Gods no other people has. Because no other people understands. We must strive then to understand ourselves. To understand what our position in the world demands of us. To understand that internecine strife and faces turned obdurately to the past will bring us down.
“Today I pass from the summit of my life, the year of my consulship, into other things. Different heights, for nothing ever remains the same. I am Roman back to the beginning of Rome, and before I am done the world will know this Roman. I pray to Rome. I pray for Rome. I am a Roman.”
He twitched the edge of his purple-bordered toga over his head. “O almighty Jupiter Optimus Maximus—if you wish to be addressed by this name, otherwise I hail you by whatever name it is you wish to hear—you who are of whichever sex you prefer—you who are the spirit of Rome—I pray that you continue to fill Rome and all Romans with your vital forces, I pray that you and Rome become mightier yet, I pray that we always honor the terms of our contractual agreements with you, and I beg you in all legal ways to honor these same treaties. Long live Rome!”
No one moved. No one spoke. The faces were impassive.
Caesar stepped to the back of the rostra and graciously inclined his head to Bibulus.
“I do swear before Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Jupiter Feretrius, Sol Indiges, Tellus and Janus Clusivius that I, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, did my duty as junior consul of Rome by retiring to my house as the Sacred Books directed and there did watch the skies. I do swear that my colleague in the consulship, Gaius Julius Caesar, is nefas because he violated my edict—”
“Veto! Veto!” cried Clodius. “That is not the oath!”
“Then I will speak my piece unsworn!” Bibulus shouted.
“I veto your piece, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus!” roared Clodius. “I veto you out of office without according you the opportunity to justify a whole year of utter inertia! Go home, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, and watch the skies! The sun has just set on the worst consul in the history of the Republic! And thank your stars that I do not legislate to strike your name from the fasti and replace it with the consulship of Julius and Caesar!”
Shabby, dismal, sour, thought Caesar, sickened, and turned to walk away without waiting for anyone to catch him up. Outside the Domus Publica he paid his lictors with extreme generosity, thanked them for their year of loyal service, then asked Fabius if he and the others would be willing to accompany him to Italian Gaul for his proconsulship. Fabius accepted on behalf of everyone.
Chance threw Pompey and Crassus together not so very far behind the tall figure of Caesar disappearing into the gloom of a low and misty dusk.
“Well, Marcus, we did better together when we were consuls than Caesar and Bibulus have, little though we liked each other,” said Pompey.
“He’s been unlucky, inheriting Bibulus as colleague through every senior magistracy. You’re right, we did do better, despite our differences. At least we ended our year amicably, neither of us altered as men. Whereas this year has changed Caesar greatly. He’s less tolerant. More ruthless. Colder, and I hate to see that.”
“Who can blame him? Some were determined to tear him down.” Pompey strolled in silence for a little distance, then spoke again. “Did you understand his speech, Crassus?”
“I think so. On the surface, at any rate. Underneath, who knows? He layers everything to contain many meanings.”
“I confess I didn’t understand it. It sounded—dark. As if he was warning us. And what was that about showing the world?”
Crassus turned his head and produced an astonishingly large and generous smile. “I have a peculiar feeling, Magnus, that one day you will find out.”
*
On the Ides of March the ladies of the Domus Publica held an afternoon dinner party. The six Vestal Virgins, Aurelia, Servilia, Calpurnia and Julia gathered in the dining room prepared to have a very pleasant time.
Acting as the hostess (Calpurnia would never have dreamed of usurping that role), Aurelia served every kind of delicacy she thought might appeal, including treats sticky with honey and laden with nuts for the children. After the meal was over Quinctilia, Junia and Cornelia Merula were sent outside to play in the peristyle, while the ladies drew their chairs together cozily and relaxed now that there were no avid little ears listening.
“Caesar has been on the Campus Martius now for over two months,” said Fabia, who looked tired and careworn.
“More importantly, Fabia, how is Terentia bearing up?” asked Servilia. “It’s been several days since Cicero fled.”
“Oh well, she’s sensible as always, though I do think she suffers more than she lets on.”
“Cicero was wrong to go,” said Julia. “I know Clodius passed the nonspecific law prohibiting the execution of Roman citizens without a trial, but my li—Magnus says it was a mistake for Cicero to go into exile voluntarily. He thinks that if Cicero had only stayed, Clodius wouldn’t have drummed up the courage to pass a specific law naming Cicero. But with Cicero not there, it was easy. Magnus couldn’t manage to talk Clodius out of it.”
Aurelia looked skeptical, but said nothing; Julia’s opinion of Pompey and her own were rather too different to bear inspection by a besotted young woman.
“Fancy looting and burning his beautiful house!” said Arruntia.
“That’s Clodius, especially with all those peculiar people he seems to have running after him these days,” said Popillia. “He’s so—so crazy!”
Servilia spoke. “I hear Clodius is going to erect a temple in the spot where Cicero’s house used to be.”
“With Clodius as High Priest, no doubt! Pah!” spat Fabia.
“Cicero’s exile can’t last,” said Julia positively. “Magnus is working for his pardon already.”
Stifling a sigh, Servilia let her gaze meet Aurelia’s. They looked at each other in complete understanding, though neither of them was imprudent enough to smile the smile she wore inside.
“Why is Caesar still on the Campus Martius?” asked Popillia, easing—the great tiara of wool off her brow and revealing that its pressure left a red mark on fragile skin.
“He’ll be there for quite some time yet,” Aurelia answered. “He has to make sure his laws stay on the tablets.”
“Tata says Ahenobarbus and Memmius are flattened,” Calpurnia contributed, smoothing Felix’s orange fur as he lay snoozing in her lap. She was remembering how kind Caesar had been, asking her to stay with him on the Campus Martius regularly. Though she was too well brought up and too aware what sort of man her husband was to be jealous, it still pleased her enormously that he had not invited Servilia to the Campus Martius once. All he had given Servilia was a silly pearl. Whereas Felix was alive; Felix could love back.
Perfectly aware what Calpurnia was thinking, Servilia made sure her own face remained enigmatic. I am far older and far wiser, I know the pain in parting. My farewells are said. I won’t see him for years. But that poor little sow will never matter to him the way I do. Oh, Caesar, why? Does dignitas mean so much?
Cardixa marched in unceremoniously. “He’s gone,” she said baldly, huge fists on huge hips.
The room stilled.
“Why?” asked Calpurnia, paling.
“Word from Further Gaul. The Helvetii are emigrating. He’s off to Genava with Burgundus, and traveling like the wind.”
“I didn’t say goodbye!” cried Julia, tears spilling over. “He will be away so long! What if I never see him again? The danger!”
“Caesar,” said Aurelia, poking one misshapen finger into fat Felix’s side, “is like him. A hundred lives.”
Fabia turned her head to where the three little white-clad girls giggled and chased each other outside. “He promised to let them come and say farewell. Oh, they’ll cry so!”
“Why shouldn’t they cry?” asked Servilia. “Like us, they’re Caesar’s women. Doomed to stay behind and wait for our lord and master to come home.”
“Yes, that is the way of things,” said Aurelia steadily, and rose to lift the flagon of sweet wine. “As the senior among Caesar’s women, I propose that tomorrow we all go to dig in Bona Dea’s garden.”
FINIS
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