John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

“All right,” Hermes said at length, “what’s this mean? I can guess part of it but there must be more.”

“What have you guessed?” I asked him.

“That he’s going to marry Cleopatra. She’ll be a legal wife, not just a concubine. I don’t know the Egyptian custom, but with the legions to back him, that will make him pharaoh as far as we’re concerned.”

“Yes, and how did the pharaohs keep it in the family, so to speak?”

“They married their sisters so as not to sully the royal bloodline, but Caesar has no living sisters and his only daughter is dead.”

“So who does that leave?” I prodded.

He thought. “Atia?”

“Yes, his niece. Then her brat, Octavius, becomes young Caesar, heir not only to his fortune but to his power. He will have our empire in his hands on Caesar’s death.”

“Then Servilia and all the others are out.”

“Under this law he can marry her if he feels like it, but Servilia will not be a cowife. Not to Cleopatra or anybody else.”

“Will people put up with this?” Hermes wondered. “The purple robe, the red boots, even the crown are just baubles, but overturning the custom of centuries and the power structure founded by the first Brutus, that’s different.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The commons love him, and part of that is seeing how he’s humbled the aristocracy. I’m not sure many of them see much difference between being ruled by a king and being ruled by a Senate composed of the likes of Lucius Cinna and Brutus and Cassius, aristocrats who have always treated them with contempt. It’s not as if their votes really count for much. Caesar has given them splendor and foreign conquest and public banquets and the grain dole. They might just back him in this.”

Hermes was quiet for a while. Then said, “Do you think Caesar has gone insane?”

“If so, he wouldn’t be the first to rise to absolute power and lose his grip on reality as a result.” I got up. “Then again maybe this Helvius Cinna, poet, is lying. We can always hope so.”

I dismissed Hermes to go snoop in the messengers’ tavern, little hoping that he would return sober. For a while I sat and watched the river. It was a familiar, soothing sight, as the Forum had been. Citizens crossed the busy bridges or leaned on their balustrades, brooding on the water just like me. Ducks paddled about while men with poles and lines fished for dinner. More serious fishermen were out in boats with nets and barges plied the water. Pleasure craft sailed about, carefully staying upstream of the sewer outlets.

While I watched the river I thought about Egypt. The land of the Nile, Cleopatra’s kingdom, was incredibly rich yet the Ptolemies, the Macedonian usurpers to the ancient land, were often penniless. This was partly due to their own fecklessness but also because Egypt’s vast wealth, product of its incredibly fertile land, went into the coffers of its priests and temples. Even the greatest pharaohs and their Macedonian successors had been unable to break the stranglehold of the priesthoods of the many beast-headed gods of that superstitious, benighted land. I have always been grateful that Romans would never submit to the rule of priests.

In truth, Cleopatra, last descendant of that degenerate line, was ruler only of Alexandria and much of the Delta. Those alone made her richer than all other monarchs save a Great King of Persia, but she would have been ten times richer had the produce of the interior been hers.

Did Caesar truly aspire to be the first pharaoh in more than five hundred years? If so, he would have all that wealth because unlike any Egyptian or Greek he would not hesitate to make those priests pay up. We Romans respect other peoples’ gods, but that has never stopped us from looting their temples, even those of gods to whom we pay the highest honors. Sulla and Pompey had plundered temples all over Greece and the East, their excuse being that they were collecting from rebellious or resisting cities, not from the gods themselves. They left the images and insignia of the gods alone but took everything else of value. No Roman had even that much respect for the ridiculous deities of Egypt.

How much ambition was it possible for one man to have? To surpass Alexander in conquest, even to surpass Romulus in prestige and honor, these were ambitious enough. Romulus had been deified. Did Caesar aim that high? Did he think to place himself among the immortal gods? The thought sent a shudder through me. This is what the Greeks call “hubris” and its consequences are famously terrible, not just for the offender but for the whole community. This is why a triumphing general has a slave standing behind him in his chariot to whisper from time to time, “Remember that you are mortal.” I am not superstitious, but there is such a thing as tempting the gods too far.

From the river I made my way back to the Forum. It was as good a place as any to be, since I had run out of leads to investigate. The political gossip being bandied about from end to end of the Forum was no less lively for the overbearing presence of a dictator. There were plenty of lesser offices that were still desirable because they were too small for such a man’s attention, others that were coveted for their prestige.

Consul was one of these. Though the dictatorship usurped the consular powers, Caesar kept the office alive. Each year, he was always one of the consuls, with some chosen politician acting as his colleague. At that date his colleague as co-consul was Antonius. There was much talk of who would take Caesar’s place as suffect consul when he left for Syria.

It seemed, if I was collecting the right gossip, that Caesar had chosen Publius Cornelius Dolabella, and according to report (unattributable, naturally) Antonius was furious about it. I remembered the man slightly. Three years previously he had been a tribune of the people and had proposed legislation canceling debts and remitting house rents, always a winner with the commons. His proposals had gone nowhere of course, but he had gained much popularity thereby.

It was entirely possible that his choice of causes was not lacking in self-interest. Dolabella was a notorious wastrel and many of the debts cancelled would be his own. Like many another such reprobate, Caesar, upon his return from Alexandria, had taken him under his wing, covered the worst of his debts, and hauled him off to Spain for some personal training and education. He was now firmly in the pro-Caesar camp. In just such a fashion had Caesar attached Scribonius Curio to his cause. Curio made him another useful tribune.

I couldn’t see that the choice could make much difference. Antonius’s prefecture of the City was where the real power lay and Caesar would undoubtedly leave Dolabella a minutely detailed list of every action he expected the second consul to take and a very long list of things he forbade him to do. Antonius would get his own list, which he would ignore, but Dolabella would never dare.

I crossed the broad pavement and pushed past some oxen hauling a wagonload of marble to the new basilica. There was a great crowd of people standing about before the huge building, and many of them were foreigners. Some were truly exotic specimens and I knew these were not the usual travelers come to see the sights of the famous city. The lictors on guard pushed them back if they got too close. I walked up to one of the fasces-bearing men I recognized.

“Hello, Otacilius. I’ve come to see the dictator. I take it from your presence that he’s here?”

“Certainly, Senator. Your name is on the list of those allowed in.” He stepped aside for me.

I suppose I should have felt uniquely privileged to have my name on that list. Perhaps I should have preened. It was certain that many other senators preened to be thus singled out. At that time I could only reflect that there had been a time when any citizen could walk into a basilica any time it struck his fancy to, even if the thing was under construction.