After Uxellodunum surrendered, Caesar decided that he would visit all the tribes of Aquitania, the one part of Gaul of the Long-hairs least involved in the war, and therefore the one part of the country still able to field a full complement of warriors. With him he took some of the handless victims of Uxellodunum, as living testimony of Rome’s determination to see an end to opposition.
His progress was peaceful; the various tribes greeted him with feverish welcomes, averted their eyes from the handless, signed whatever treaties he required, and swore mighty oaths to cleave to Rome forever. On the whole, Caesar was prepared to believe them. For an Arvernian, of all people, had turned Lucterius over to him some days after he marched for Burdigala on the first stage of his tour of Aquitania, an indication that no tribe in Gaul was prepared to shelter one of Vercingetorix’s lieutenants. This meant that one of the two defenders of Uxellodunum would walk in Caesar’s triumphal parade; the other, Drappes of the Senones, had refused to eat or drink, and died still resolutely opposed to the presence of Rome in Gaul of the Long-hairs.
Lucius Caesar came to see his cousin in Tolosa toward the end of October, big with news.
“The Senate met at the end of September,” he told Caesar, tight-lipped. “I confess I’m disappointed in the senior consul, who I had thought was a more rational man than his junior.”
“Servius Sulpicius is more rational than Marcus Marcellus, yes, but he’s no less determined to see me fall,” said Caesar. “What went on?”
“The House resolved that on the Kalends of March next year it would discuss your provinces. Marcus Marcellus informed it that the war in Gallia Comata was definitely over, which meant there was absolutely no reason why you should not be stripped of your imperium, your provinces and your army on that date. The new five-year law, he said, had provided a pool of potential governors able to go to replace you immediately. To delay was evidence of senatorial weakness, and quite intolerable. Then he concluded by saying that once and for all, you must be taught that you are the Senate’s servant, not its master. At which statement, I gather, there were loud hear-hears from Cato.”
“They’d have to be loud, since Bibulus is in Syria—or on his way there, at least. Go on, Lucius. I can tell from your face that there’s worse to come.”
“Much worse! The House then decreed that if any tribune of the plebs vetoed discussion on your provinces on the Kalends of next March, said veto would be deemed an act of treason. The guilty tribune of the plebs would be arrested and summarily tried.”
“That’s absolutely unconstitutional!” snapped Caesar. “No one can impede a tribune of the plebs in his duty! Or refuse to honor his veto unless there’s a Senatus Consultum Ultimum in force. Does this mean that’s what the Senate intends to do on the Kalends of next March? Operate under an ultimate decree?”
“Perhaps, though that wasn’t said.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” said Lucius Caesar levelly. “The House passed another decree. That it would reserve for itself the right to decide the date on which your time-expired veterans would be discharged.”
“Oh, I see! I’ve generated a ‘first,’ Lucius, haven’t I? Until this moment, in the history of Rome no one has had the right to decide when time-expired soldiers are to finish their service in the legions except their commander-in-chief. I imagine, then, that on the Kalends of next March the Senate will decree that all my veterans are to be discharged forthwith.”
“It seems that way, Gaius.”
Caesar looked, thought Lucius, oddly unworried; he even gave a genuine smile. “Do they really think to defeat me with these kinds of measures?” he asked. “Horse piss, Lucius!” He got up from his chair and extended a hand to his cousin. “I thank you for the news, I really do. But enough of it. I feel like stretching my legs among the sacred lakes.”
But Lucius Caesar wasn’t prepared to leave the matter there. He followed Gaius obediently, saying, “What are you going to do to counter the boni?”
“Whatever I have to” was all Caesar would say.
*
The winter dispositions had been made. Gaius Trebonius, Publius Vatinius and Mark Antony took four legions to Nemetocenna of the Atrebates to garrison Belgica; two legions went to the Aedui at Bibracte; two were stationed among the Turoni, on the outskirts of the Carnutes to their west; and two went to the lands of the Lemovices, southwest of the Arverni. No part of Gaul was very far from an army. With Lucius Caesar, Caesar completed a tour of the Province, then went to join Trebonius, Vatiraus and Mark Antony in Nemetocenna for the winter.
Halfway through December his army received a welcome and unexpected surprise; he increased the rankers’ pay from four hundred and eighty sesterces a year to nine hundred—the first time in over a century that a Roman army had experienced a pay rise. In conjunction with it he gave every man a cash bonus, and informed the army that its share of the booty would be larger.
“At whose expense?” asked Gaius Trebonius of Publius Vatinius. “The Treasury’s? Surely not!”
“Definitely not,” said Vatinius. “He’s scrupulous about the legalities, always. No, it’s out of his own purse, his own share.” Little crippled Vatinius frowned; he hadn’t been present when Caesar got the Senate’s answer to his request that he be treated as Pompey had been treated. “I know he’s fabulously rich, but he spends prodigiously too. Can he afford this largesse, Trebonius?”
“Oh, I think so. He’s made twenty thousand talents out of the sale of slaves alone.”
“Twenty thousand? Jupiter! Crassus was accounted the richest man in Rome, and all he left was seven thousand talents!”
“Marcus Crassus bragged of his money, but have you ever heard Pompeius Magnus say how much he’s worth?” asked Trebonius. “Why do you think the bankers flock around Caesar these days, anxious to oblige his every whim? Balbus has been his man forever, with Oppius not far behind. They go back to your days, Vatinius. However, men like Atticus are very recent.”
“Rabirius Postumus owes him a fresh start,” said Vatinius.
“Yes, but after Caesar began to flourish in Gaul. The German treasure he found among the Atuatuci was fabulous. His share of it will amount to thousands of talents.” Trebonius grinned. “And if he runs a bit short, Carnutum’s hoards will cease to be sacrosanct. That’s in reserve. He’s nobody’s fool, Caesar. He knows that the next governor of Gallia Comata will seize what’s at Carnutum. It’s my bet that what’s at Carnutum will be gone before the new governor arrives.”
“My letters from Rome say he’s likely to be relieved in—ye Gods, where does time go?—a little over three months. The Kalends of March are galloping toward him! What will he do then? The moment his imperium is stripped from him, he’ll be arraigned in a hundred courts. And he’ll go down, Trebonius.”
“Oh, very likely,” said Trebonius placidly.
Vatinius was nobody’s fool either. “He doesn’t intend to let matters go that far, does he?”
“No, Vatinius, he doesn’t.”
A silence fell; Vatinius studied the mournful face opposite him, chewing his lip. Their eyes met and held.
“Then I’m right,” said Vatinius. “He’s cemented his bond with his army absolutely.”
“Absolutely.”
“And if he has to, he’ll march on Rome.”
“Only if he has to. Caesar’s not a natural outlaw; he loves to do everything in suo anno—no special or extraordinary commands, ten years between consulships, everything legal. If he does have to march on Rome, Vatinius, it will kill something in him. That’s an alternative he knows perfectly well is available, and do you think for one moment that he fears the Senate? Any of them? Including the much-vaunted Pompeius Magnus? No! They’ll go down like targets on a practice field before German lancers. He knows it. But he doesn’t want it to be that way. He wants his due, but he wants it legally. Marching on Rome is the very end of his tether, and he’ll battle the odds right down to the last moment rather than do it. His record is perfect. He wants it to remain so.”
“He always wanted to be perfect,” said Vatinius sadly, and shivered. “Jupiter, Trebonius, what will he do to them if they push him to it?”
“I hate to think.”
“We’d best make offerings that the boni see reason.”
“I’ve been making them for months. And I think perhaps the boni would see reason, save for one factor.”
“Cato,” said Vatinius instantly.
“Cato,” Trebonius echoed.
Another silence fell; Vatinius sighed. “Well, I’m his man through thick and thin,” he said.
“And I.”
“Who else?”
“Decimus. Fabius. Sextius. Antonius. Rebilus. Calenus. Basilus. Plancus. Sulpicius. Lucius Caesar,” said Trebonius..
“Not Labienus?”
Trebonius shook his head emphatically. “No.”
“Labienus’s choice?”
“Caesar’s.”
“Yet he says nothing derogatory about Labienus.”
“Nor will he. Labienus still hopes to be consul with him, though he knows Caesar doesn’t approve of his methods. But nothing is said in the senatorial dispatches, so Labienus hopes. It won’t last beyond the final decision. If Caesar marches on Rome, he’ll give the boni a gift—Titus Labienus.”
“Oh, Trebonius, pray it doesn’t come to civil war!”
*
So too did Caesar pray, even as he marshaled his wits to deal with the boni within the bounds of Rome’s unwritten constitution, the mos maiorum. The consuls for next year were Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus as senior, and Gaius Claudius Marcellus as junior. Gaius Marcellus was first cousin to the present junior consul, Marcus Marcellus, and also to the man predicted to be consul the year after next, another Gaius Marcellus. For this reason he was usually referred to as Gaius Marcellus Major, his cousin as Gaius Marcellus Minor. An adamant foe of Caesar’s, Gaius Marcellus Major could not be hoped for. Paullus was different. Exiled for his part in the rebellion of his father, Lepidus, he had come late to the consul’s curule chair, and achieved it by rebuilding the Basilica Aemilia, by far the most imposing edifice in the Forum Romanum. Then disaster had struck on the day when Publius Clodius’s body had burned in the Senate House; the almost completed Basilica Aemilia burned too. And Paullus found himself without the money to start again.
A man of straw was Paullus. A fact Caesar knew. But bought him anyway. The senior consul was worth having. Paullus received sixteen hundred talents from Caesar during December, and went onto Balbus’s payroll as Caesar’s man. The Basilica Aemilia could be rebuilt in even greater splendor. Of more import was Curio, who had cost a mere five hundred talents; he had done exactly as Caesar suggested, pretended to stand for the tribunate of the plebs at the last moment, and—no difficulty for a Scribonius Curio—been elected at the top of the poll.
Other things could be done too. All the major towns of Italian Gaul received large sums of money to erect public buildings or reconstruct their marketplaces, as did towns and cities in the Province and in Italia itself. But all these towns had one thing in common: they had shown Caesar favor. For a while he thought about donating buildings to the Spains, Asia Province and Greece, then decided the outlay would not bring sufficient support for him if Pompey, a far greater patron in these places, chose not to permit his clients to support Caesar. None of it was done to win favor in the event of civil war; it was done to bring influential local plutocrats into his camp and prompt them to inform the boni that they would not be pleased were Caesar to be maltreated. Civil war was the very last alternative, and Caesar genuinely believed that it was an alternative so abominable, even to the boni, that it would not eventuate. The way to win was to make it impossible for the boni to go against the wishes of most of Rome, Italia, Italian Gaul, Illyricum and the Roman Gallic Province.
He understood most idiocies, but could not, even in his most pessimistic moods, believe that a small group of Roman senators would actually prefer to precipitate civil war rather than face the inevitable and permit Caesar what was, after all, no more than his due. Legally consul for the second time, free of prosecution, the First Man in Rome and the first name in the history books. These things he owed to his family, to his dignitas, to posterity. He would leave no son, but a son wasn’t necessary unless the son had the ability to rise even higher. That didn’t happen; everyone knew it. Great men’s sons were never great. Witness Young Marius and Faustus Sulla…
In the meantime there was the new Roman province of Gallia Comata to think about. To craft, to settle down, to sift through for the best local men. And a few problems to solve of a more prudent nature. Including getting rid of two thousand Gauls who Caesar didn’t think would bow to Rome for longer than his tenure of the new province. A thousand of them were slaves he didn’t dare sell for fear of bloody reprisals, either on their new owners or in armed insurrections reminiscent of Spartacus. The second one thousand were free Gauls, mostly thanes, who had not even been cowed by the production of the handless victims of Uxellodunum.
He ended in having them marched to Massilia and loaded on board transports under heavy guard. The thousand slaves were sent to King Deiotarus of Galatia, a Gaul himself and always in need of good cavalrymen; no doubt when they arrived Deiotarus would free them and press them into service. The thousand free Gauls he sent to King Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia. Both lots of men were gifts. A little offering on the altar of Fortuna. Luck was a sign of favor among the Gods, but it never hurt to make one’s luck for oneself either. A trite judgement, to attribute success to luck. No one knew better than Caesar that behind luck lay oceans of hard work and deep thinking. His troops could boast of his luck; he didn’t mind that in the least. While they thought he had luck, they feared little as long as he was there to throw the mantle of his protection over them. It was luck beat poor Marcus Crassus; his days were numbered from the first moment his troops decided he was unlucky. No man was free from some sort of superstition, but men of low birth and scant education were inordinately superstitious. Caesar played on that deliberately. For if luck came from the Gods and a great man was thought to have it, he acquired a kind of reflected godhead; it did no harm for one’s soldiers to deem the General just slightly below the Gods.
*
Just before the end of the year a letter came from Quintus Cicero, senior legate in the service of his big brother, the governor of Cilicia.
I need not have left you so early, Caesar. That’s one of the penalties of working for a man who moves as swiftly as you do. Somehow I assumed my brother Marcus would hustle himself to Cilicia. But he didn’t. He left Rome early in May, and took almost two months to get as far as Athens. Why does he fawn so over Pompeius Magnus? Something to do with the days when he was seventeen and a cadet in the army of Pompeius Strabo, I know, but I think the debt Marcus fancies he owes Pompeius Magnus for his protection then is grossly exaggerated. You will perceive from this that I had to suffer two days in Magnus’s house at Tarentum en route. I cannot, try though I do, like the man.
In Athens (where we waited for Marcus’s military legate, Gaius Pomptinus, to show up—I could have generaled for Marcus far more competently, you know, but he didn’t trust me) we learned that Marcus Marcellus had flogged a citizen of your colony at Novum Comum—a disgrace, Caesar. My brother was equally incensed, though most of his mind was preoccupied with the Parthian threat. Hence his refusal to leave Athens until Pomptinus arrived.
Another month saw us cross the frontier into Cilicia at Laodiceia. Such a pretty place, with those dazzling crystal terraces tumbling down the cliffs! Among the warm pure pools on the top the local people have built luxurious little marble havens for such as Marcus and me, exhausted from the heat and the dust we encountered from Ephesus all the way to Laodiceia. It was delicious to spend a few days soaking in the waters—they seem to help one’s bones—and frolicking like fish.
But then, journeying on, we discovered what kind of horror Lentulus Spinther and then Appius Claudius had wreaked on poor, devastated Cilicia. My brother called it “a lasting ruin and desolation,” and that is no exaggeration. The province has been plundered, exploited, raped. Everything and everyone has been taxed out of existence. By, among others, the son of your dear friend Servilia. Yes, I am sorry to say it, but Brutus appears to have worked extremely closely with his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, in all sorts of reprehensible ways. Much though he shies away from offending important people, my brother told Atticus in a letter that he considered Appius Claudius’s conduct in his province contemptible. Nor was he pleased that Appius Claudius avoided him.
We stayed in Tarsus only a very few days; Marcus was anxious to utilize the campaigning season, so was Pomptinus. The Parthians had been raiding along the Euphrates, and King Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia was in dire straits. Due largely to an army almost as skeletal as the two legions we found in Cilicia. Why were both armies so skeletal? Lack of money. One gathers that Appius Claudius garnished most of the army’s wages for himself, and didn’t care to increase the strength of either legion as he was paying about half the number of men his books said he was. King Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia didn’t have the money to pay for a decent army, chiefly due to the fact that young Brutus, that pillar of Roman rectitude, had lent him money at an astronomical compound interest. My brother was extremely angry.
Anyway, we spent the next three months campaigning in Cappadocia, a wearying business. Oh, Pomptinus is a fool! It takes him days and days and days to reduce a pathetic fortified village you would have taken in three hours. But of course my brother doesn’t know how war should be waged, so he’s well satisfied.
Bibulus dallied dreadfully getting to Syria, which meant we had to wait until he got himself into order before we could start our joint campaign from both sides of the Amanus ranges. In fact, we are about to commence that business now. I gather he arrived in Antioch in Sextilis, and speeded young Gaius Cassius on his way back to Rome very coldly. Of course he had his own two young sons with him. Marcus Bibulus is in his early twenties, and Gnaeus Bibulus about nineteen. All three Bibuli were most put out to discover that Cassius had dealt with the Parthian menace very deedily, including an ambush down the Orontes which sent Pacorus and his Parthian army home in a hurry.
This martial fervor is not much to Bibulus’s taste, I think. His method of dealing with the Parthians is different from Cassius’s, certainly. Rather than contemplate war, he has hired a Parthian named Ornadapates, and is paying the fellow to whisper in the ear of King Orodes to the effect that Pacorus, the favorite son of Orodes, is aiming at usurping his father’s throne. Clever, but not admirable, is it?
I miss Gallia Comata very much, Caesar. I miss the kind of war we fought, so brisk and practical, so devoid of machinations within the high command. Out here I seem to spend as much time placating Pomptinus as I do at anything more productive. Please write to me. I need cheering up.
Poor Quintus Cicero! It was some time before Caesar could sit to answer this rather sad missive. Typical of Cicero, to prefer a smarming nonentity like Gaius Pomptinus to his own brother. For Quintus Cicero was right. He would have proven a far more capable general than Pomptinus.