Steven Saylor - The judgement of Caesar

"His village wasn't destroyed out of simple spite, of course. All that was done in Gaul was done for a greater purpose; so Caesar always told me. He has a grand vision. The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar; but for that to happen, certain things must happen first. Gaul had to be pacified and brought under Rome's sway; and so it was done. When the Senate of Rome turned against Caesar, the senators had to be run out of Rome, and so it was done. When Pompey roused the opposition against Caesar, the opposition had to be destroyed; and so it was done. Now Caesar must decide what is to be done with Egypt, and who should rule it, and how best to bring it under his sway. And the glory of Caesar burns brighter than ever. I should be pleased, having done my part to bring all this about; but I have that dream, almost every night now. The fire burns, and the boy stares at the flames, numb with shock. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter that he was enslaved; Rome shall rule the world, and Caesar shall rule Rome, and to make that happen, that boy's enslavement was one tiny necessity in a great chain of necessities.

"But sometimes… sometimes I wake with a mad thought in my head: What if that boy's life mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's? What if I were offered a choice: to doom that boy to the misery of his fate, or to spare him, and by doing so, to wreck all Caesar's ambitions? I'm haunted by that thought-which is ridiculous! It's self-evident that Caesar matters infinitely more than that Gaulish boy; one stands poised to rule the world, and the other is a miserable slave, if he even still lives. Some men are great, others are insignificant, and it behooves those of us who are in-between to ally ourselves with the greatest and to despise the smallest. To even begin to imagine that the Gaulish boy matters as much as Caesar is to presume that some mystical quality resides in every man and makes his life equal to that of any other, and surely the lesson life teaches us is quite the opposite! In strength and intellect, men are anything but equal, and the gods lavish their attention on some more than on others. And yet…"

Meto bowed his head, and the rush of words came to a stop. I could see that his distress was genuine, and I was astounded at the course of his thoughts.

"Does Caesar ever harbor such doubts?"

Meto laughed bitterly. "Caesar never questions his good fortune. He loves the gods, and the gods love him. Triumph is its own vindication. So long as a man is triumphant, he need never question his methods or his aims. Once upon a time, that philosophy was enough for me, but now…" He shook his head. "Caesar forgets that old Greek word hubris."

It was my turn to laugh. "If Caesar hasn't provoked the gods' wrath before now, then surely-"

"But Caesar never presumed to imagine himself a god, before now."

I looked at him keenly. "What are you saying?"

"Ever since we set sail for Egypt, he's kept bringing it up, jokingly at first. 'These Ptolemies don't merely live like gods,' he'd say, 'they are gods; I must see how they put their divinity into practice.' But it's not a joke, is it? With Pompey gone, the Senate made irrelevant, and all the legions united under him, Caesar will need to think long and hard about what it means to rule like a king, whether he calls himself one or not. The example of Alexander doesn't give much guidance; he died too young. It's the Ptolemies who provide the model for a long and successful dynasty, even if their glory has lately dwindled to the two decadent specimens currently vying to run the country."

"You don't think much of King Ptolemy and his sister?"

"You saw that display by the queen tonight! She and her brother both seem to have the same idea: seduce the man to make an ally of the general."

I frowned. "Are you suggesting that young Ptolemy-" "Is completely smitten by Caesar. It's rather pathetic, actually. You should see the fawning way he behaves when the two of them are together-the way he looks at Caesar, the hero worship in his eyes!"

I nodded, recalling Ptolemy's reaction when I told him that Cleopatra was alone with Caesar. "I suppose Caesar must be immune to that sort of thing, having received the adulation of so many young men over the years." Including a copious dose from you, Meto, I thought.

Meto scowled. "You might think so, but with Ptolemy, it's different somehow. Caesar seems equally fascinated by him. His face lights up when Ptolemy comes into the room. They put their heads together, share private jokes, laugh, and give each other knowing glances. I can't understand it. It's certainly not because the boy's beautiful. He and his sister are both rather plain, if you ask me." He snorted. "Now we shall have both of them buzzing around him, like flies around a honey pot!"

I considered this revelation. If true, It wouldn't be the first time that Caesar had engaged in a royal romance. His erotic exploits as a young man in the court of King Nicomedes of Bithynia had become the stuff of legend, inspiring vicious gossip among his political rivals and ribald marching songs among Caesar's own men. (Their insatiable imperator was "every woman's husband and every man's husband," according to one refrain.) In the case of King Nicomedes, Caesar had been the younger paramour, and presumably the receptive partner (hence the resulting scandal and the soldiers' teasing, since a Roman male is never supposed to submit to another man, only to play the dominant role). With Caesar and Ptolemy, the roles presumably would be reversed, with Caesar the older, more worldly partner and Ptolemy the wide-eyed youth hungry for experience.

When poets sing of lovers, they celebrate Harmodias and Aristogiton, or Theseus and Ariadne. But lovers need not always be so evenly matched in beauty and youth. I thought of my own affair with Cassandra, a much younger woman, and I comprehended the spark of mutual desire that Caesar and the king might have ignited in one another. Despite all his worldly success, Caesar was at that age when even the most robust of men feel acutely the increasing frailty of their once-invincible bodies, and begin to look with envy (and yes, sometimes lust) upon the firm, vigorous bodies of men younger than themselves. Youth itself becomes an aphrodisiac to the man who no longer possesses it; youth coupled with reciprocal desire becomes irresistible.

To an outsider, such love affairs can appear absurd or demeaning-the doddering man of means hankering after some hapless slave boy. But this was a meeting of two extraordinary men. I thought of Ptolemy's combination of boyish enthusiasm and grave sense of purpose, self-assurance and naivete. I thought of Caesar's effortless sophistication and supreme confidence, and of his slightly ridiculous vanity, as betrayed by the way he combed his hair to cover his bald spot. Both were not merely men but rulers of men; and yet, not rulers only, but men as well, with appetites, frailties, uncertainties, needs; and not merely men and rulers, but-so they themselves appeared to believe-descendents and incarnations of divinity. Added to this was the fact that Ptolemy had lost his beloved father, and Caesar had never had a son. I could well imagine that Caesar and the king had something unique to offer one another, in a private realm far removed from the public arena of riches, arms, and diplomacy; that in a moment alone with each other, they might share an understanding inaccessible to the rest of us.

Why was Meto so scornful in conveying his suspicions? Had he been as intimate with Caesar as I had often been led to believe? Had that intimacy lessened, or ended altogether? Were his feelings about Caesar's dalliances with the royal siblings tinged with jealousy-and did that jealousy make his assumptions more reliable, or less?