John Roberts - The Will

"I understand," Julia told him. "And I am sure that my husband can get them for you. Don't mind his gruff manner, it's just his way. He will do whatever needs be to set things right." No question of consulting me about this, you will notice.

"Very well," I said. It had occurred to me that, if I made a nuisance of myself, Antonius might simply do away with the brat. "I'll see what's to be done." I saw them to the door. "I knew your father, you know," I told Octavian. "He once threatened me with execution. One day I was brawling with Clodius and practically cut his throat right in front of your father's court. We'd been rolling through the streets and I finally had him down, had his head jerked back and my dagger applied to his jugular, when I looked up and there was the praetor urbanus Caius Octavius, big as day, seated on his curule chair and a Vestal sitting right beside him. Would've been death for me to kill Clodius right in front of those two, and I never got another chance as good." I chuckled at the memory. Those were the good old days.

The boy turned at the door and said, coldly, "My father was Julius Caesar." And they left.

I went back to the courtyard. "Why did you tell them I'd help them?" I demanded of Julia. "It should be enough that I don't like him. More to the point, if I want to stay alive, I have to walk carefully around Antonius. He has no quarrel with me now, but if he even suspects I'm plotting against him with some rival — "

"Oh, don't be so timid," she said. "You'll just be pursuing a legal matter, just like any senator. And young Octavian is the coming man, did Rome but know it. You'll do well to put him in your debt."

"That child? What makes you think he's ever going to amount to anything?"

"First, because Caesar adopted him. He wouldn't have done that for anyone he didn't consider a worthy heir. Second, what did you think of Marcus Agrippa?"

That took me aback. "Very impressive: soldierly, capable, tough and intelligent. He's the one that looks like consular material, not the boy."

"Yet you can see he all but worships Octavian. He is devoted and loyal. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

She had a point, not that I was willing to concede it. "What of it? Clodius inspired loyalty in better men. Did that make him great?"

"Clodius came of the family of the Claudia Nerones, who are insane. Octavian's heritage is that of Octavius and Atius and, most importantly, Caesar, all fine and sensible families." She had a patrician's grasp of family connections. She also had their blindness to the fact that it is wealth that determines any family's importance, not any splendid qualities they are fancied to have inherited.

"He'll be nothing but trouble. Listen to the way he uses that name, as if he had a right to it!"

"Caesar did adopt him," she said.

"He adopted him in his will," I pointed out. "Such a testamentary adoption has to be ratified by a praetor and a court. That's not likely to happen while Antonius holds the whip."

"Dear," Julia said, "just go find those papers. I will handle relations with young Octavian. He's my cousin, after all." She poured me another cup of Falernian, rather than attempt to curb my intake in her usual fashion. I took this as an ominous sign.

My first call was upon Cicero. He possessed the finest legal mind in Rome, though his political acumen was deserting him. At this time he was engaged in making a series of mistakes which would culminate in his death a few years later. He had taken no part in the conspiracy to murder Caesar, but he had made no secret of his approval of it. This was understandable if he had intended to throw himself wholeheartedly into the cause of Brutus and Cassius, but he tried to hew to a middle course and please everybody, a sure recipe for suicide.

He received me hospitably, as always. "Decius Caecilius! How good of you to call. Come join me." We went into his library and indulged in the usual refreshments and small talk, then I broached the cause of my visit.

"Ah, yes, that remarkable young man. I spoke with him just yesterday, and assured him of my good will and support." This was typical of Cicero in those days. First, approve of the murderers of Caesar, then try to befriend his adopted son.

"I gave him no such assurance," I told him, "but Julia prodded me into helping him."

He laughed dryly. "The things we men do to assure domestic harmony, eh? As a matter of fact, I recommended you to him. You've undertaken many odd projects in the past."

"I wish you hadn't. But it seems I have to try. By what right does Antonius retain the papers?"

He laced his fingers across his small paunch and gazed at his ceiling. "Let me see- how many soldiers does Antonius command?"

"Several legions seem loyal to him," I answered.

"And how many soldiers have you, or Octavian?"

"None."

He spread his hands, his point made.

"And yet," I said, "Antonius has never been, shall we say, one to place a high value on paper, be the contents poetry or a will. Why is he so determined to retain these?"

"Probably because he knows that simple, common men hold written documents in awe. The rabble of the city and the soldiers of the legions are just such men."

"There has to be something else," I objected. "Antonius can charm the populace and the legions alike. It's his specialty."

"It is true that he has few other talents," Cicero sniffed. "He is a fine soldier, but Rome has many such. To hear him speak in public, one would never guess that he has the mind of an ox. Rome has seen many mediocre men in the ascendant, though few have risen as high as Antonius. Mind you, he had to wrap himself in Caesar's bloody toga to do it."

"So there is no legal pretext I can use to pry the papers from him?"

"You have the law on your side," Cicero assured me. "But the law does not apply to a Dictator, and that is what Antonius is, though without constitutional precedent. He is what he is by threat and force of arms."

So, having found no help from that quarter, I went to call on the next man on my list: the great Marcus Antonius himself.

I found him in the mansion he had built for himself on the Palatine. It was a gaudy place, worthy of Lucullus at his most ostentatious. Antonius had been noted for personal extravagance in his youth. Caesar had made him comport himself with greater dignity and simplicity, but now Caesar's constraints were off. I practically had to kick aside the peacocks and other exotic fowl as I crossed his formal gardens, where scores of slaves planted and tended imported trees and shrubs, culled flowers, dug new beds, hauled water and so forth. Artisans installed fountains that showered perfumed water or even wine; others inlaid the walkways with picture-mosaics. Everywhere stood fine Greek statues, stolen from the cities of Asia or seized from his Roman enemies. In short, everything was being done to create a setting worthy of Rome's most splendid man, Marcus Antonius.

The house was full of his sycophants. They paid decent respect to my ancient and illustrious name, if not to me personally. Everyone remembered that my family had taken sides against Caesar, though I had not. A few were his legates and senior commanders; serious military men. Most, however, were merely the sort who always attach themselves to any man whose star seems to be in the ascendant, and who desert him as swiftly when his star sets. I have forgotten almost all of their names.

One of the few I do remember came to greet me. "Decius Caecilius! We haven't seen you in too long!" It was Sallustius Crispus, a man I always despised. "Have you come to pledge your loyalty to Marcus Antonius at last?"

"Why?" I asked him. "Has he been voted king while my back was turned?"

He sidled closer. That was the way Sallustius was: he sidled. "Don't be foolish, Metellus. I advise you for your own good: make peace with Antonius and give him your loyalty."