Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

Attendance in the temple of Jupiter Stator was thin; yet one more thing to do, plump out the Senate, thought Caesar. When he entered behind his twenty-four lictors, his eyes searched in vain for Cicero, who was in Rome and had been notified that there was an urgent meeting of the Senate. No, he couldn't attend Caesar's Senate! That would be seen as giving in. The Dictator's ivory curule chair was positioned between the ivory curule chairs of the consuls on a makeshift dais. Since the people had burned the Curia Hostilia down with Clodius's body inside it, Rome's oligarchic senior governing institution was obliged to meet in temporary premises. The place had to be an inaugurated temple, and most were too small for comfort, though Jupiter Stator was adequate for the mere sixty men gathered there. Mark Antony was present in a purple-bordered toga that looked the worse for wear crumpled, marred by stains. Can Antonius not even control his own servants? Caesar asked himself, irritated. As soon as Caesar entered, Antony came bustling up. "Where does the Master of the Horse sit?" he asked. "You sound like Pompeius Magnus when he was consul for the first time," Caesar said acidly. "Have someone write you a book on the subject. You've been in the Senate for six years." ''Yes, but hardly ever in it physically except when I was a tribune of the plebs, and that was only for three nundinae." "Put your stool in the front row where I can see you and you can see me, Antonius." "Why on earth did you bother electing consuls?" "You're about to find out." The prayers were said, the auspices taken. Caesar waited then until everyone had seated himself. "Two days ago the consuls Quintus Fufius Calenus and Publius Vatinius entered office," Caesar said. "It is a great relief to see Rome in the care of her proper senior magistrates, the two consuls and eight praetors. The courts will be able to function, the comitia to meet in the prescribed manner." His tone changed, became even calmer and more matter-of-fact. "I've summoned this session to inform you, conscript fathers, that two mutinous legions, the Tenth and the Twelfth, are at this moment marching to Rome in according to my Master of the Horse a mood for murder." No one stirred, no one murmured, though the shock was so palpable that the air seemed to vibrate. "A mood for murder. My murder, apparently. In light of this, I wish to diminish my importance to Rome. Were the Dictator to be slain by his own troops, our country might well despair. Our beloved Rome might once again fill up with ex-gladiators and other ruffians. Business might slump drastically. Public works, so necessary for full employment and building contractors, might come to a halt, particularly those that I am personally paying for. Rome's games and festivals might not occur. Jupiter Optimus Maximus might show his displeasure by sending a thunderbolt to demolish his temple. Vulcan might visit Rome with an earthquake. Juno Sospita might vent her wrath on Rome's unborn babies. The Treasury might empty overnight. Father Tiber might flood and backwash the sewage onto the streets. For the murder of the Dictator is a cataclysmic event. Cat-a-clys-mic." They were all sitting with their mouths open. "However," he went on blandly, "the murder of a privatus is of little public moment. Therefore, conscript fathers of Rome's old and hallowed Senate, I hereby lay down my imperium maius and the dictatorship. Rome has two duly elected consuls who have been sworn in with the prescribed rituals, and no priest or augur found any flaws. Very gladly I hand Rome to them." He turned to his lictors, standing against the closed doors, and bowed. "Fabius, Cornelius, all you others, I thank you most sincerely for your care of the Dictator's person, and assure you that if and when I am once more elected to public office, I will call upon your services." He walked between the senators and handed Fabius a clinking bag. 'A small donative, Fabius, to be divided among yourselves in the customary proportions. Now go back to the College of Lictors." Fabius nodded and opened the door, his face impassive. The twenty-four lictors filed out. The silence was so profound that the sudden fluttering of a bird in the rafters made everyone jump. "On my way here," Caesar said, "I procured a lex curiata confirming the fact that I have laid down my dictatorial powers." Antony had listened in disbelief, not understanding exactly what Caesar was doing, let alone why he was doing it. For a while, in fact he had fancied that Caesar was playing a joke. "What do you mean, you've laid down your dictatorship?" he asked, voice cracking. "You can't do that with two mutinous legions on their way to Rome! You're needed!" "No, Marcus Antonius, I am not needed. Rome has consuls and praetors in office. They are now responsible for Rome's welfare." "That's rubbish! This is an emergency!" Neither Calenus nor Vatinius had said a word; they exchanged a glance that mutually agreed on continued silence. Something more was going on than a simple abdication of power, and both men knew Caesar very well, as friend, fellow politician, and military commander. This had to do with Marcus Antonius: no one was deaf or blind, everyone knew Antonius had been a naughty boy with the legions. Therefore let Caesar play the act to its end. A decision men like Lucius Caesar, Philippus and Lucius Piso had also reached. "Naturally," Caesar said, addressing the House, not Antony, "I don't expect the consuls to do my dirty work. I shall meet the two mutinous legions on the Campus Martius and discover why they are bent not only on my destruction, but on their own. But I will meet them as a privatus. As no more important than they." His voice rose. "Let all of it rest upon what happens there!" "You can't resign!" Antony gasped. "I have already resigned, lex curiata and all." Whole body numb, having difficulty breathing, Antony lurched toward Caesar. "You've gone mad!" he managed to say. "Raving mad! In which case, the answer's obvious in the absence of the Dictator's sanity, as his Master of the Horse, I declare myself the Dictator!" "You can't declare yourself anything, Antonius," said Lucius Caesar from his stool. "The Dictator has resigned. The moment that happens, the office of Master of the Horse ceases to exist. You're a privatus too." "No! No, no, no!" Antony roared, fists clenched. "As Master of the Horse, and in the absence of the Dictator's sanity, I am now the Dictator!" "Sit down, Antonius," said Fufius Calenus. "You're out of order. You're not the Master of the Horse, you're a privatus." What had happened? Where had it all gone? Clutching the last vestige of his composure, Antony finally looked into Caesar's eyes, and saw contempt, derision, a certain enjoyment. "Remove yourself, Antonius," Caesar whispered, took Antony's right arm and escorted him to the open doors, the babble of sixty voices behind them. Once outside he dropped Antony's arm as if to touch it was an offense. "Did you think you fooled me, cousin?" he asked. "You don't have the intelligence. I know enough now to understand that you're utterly untrustworthy, that you cannot be relied on, that you are indeed what your uncle always calls you, a wolfshead. Our political and professional relationship is ended, and our blood kinship has become a mortification. An embarrassment. Get out of my sight, Antonius, and stay out of it! You're a mere privatus, and a privatus you'll remain." Antony turned on his heel, laughing, trying to pretend he was in control again. "One day you'll need me, Cousin Gaius!" "If I do, Antonius, I will use you. But always in the sure knowledge that you're not to be trusted an inch. So don't get too puffed up again. You're not a thinking man's anus."

A single lictor, dressed in a plain white toga and without the axe in his fasces, directed the Tenth and Twelfth around the city outside its walls to the Campus Martius; they had come up from the south, the Campus Martius lay north. Caesar met them absolutely alone, mounted on his famous war horse with the toes, clad in his habitual plain steel armor and the scarlet paludamentum of the General. He wore the oak-leaf crown on his head to remind them that he was a decorated war hero, a front-line soldier of rare bravery. The very sight of him was enough to turn their knees to jelly. They had sobered up on the long march from Campania, for the taverns along the Via Latina had bolted their doors, they had no money and Marcus Antonius's pledge wasn't good for a drink in this part of the country. Word that Caesar wasn't the dictator anymore and that Marcus Antonius had therefore lost his job came when they were still well short of Rome, a dampener. And somehow, as the miles passed by under their hobnailed caligae, their grievances seemed to dwindle, their memories of Caesar their friend and fellow soldier to blossom. So when they set eyes on him sitting Toes without a vestige of fear, all they could think was how they loved him. Always had, always would. "What are you doing here, Quirites?" he asked coldly. A huge gasp went up, spreading ever wider as his words were passed back. Quirites? Caesar was calling them ordinary civilian citizens? But they weren't ordinary civilians, they were his boys! He always called them his boys! They were his soldiers! "You're not soldiers," he said scornfully, reproached by a hundred voices. "Even Pharnaces would hesitate to call you that! You're drunks I and incompetents, pathetic fools! You've rioted! Looted! Burned! Wrecked! Stoned Publius Sulla, one of your commanders at Pharsalus! Stoned three senators, two of them to death! If my mouth wasn't dry as ashes, Quirites, I'd spit on you! Spit on the lot of you!" They were beginning to moan, some of them to weep. "No!" screamed a man from the ranks. "No, it's a mistake! A misunderstanding! Caesar, we thought you'd forgotten us!" "Better to forget you than have to remember mutiny! Better you were all dead than present here as declared mutineers!" The biting voice went on to inform them that Caesar had all of Rome to care for, that he had trusted them to wait for him because he had thought they knew him. "But we love you!" someone cried. "You love us!" "Love? Love? Love?" Caesar roared. "Caesar can't love mutineers! You're the professional soldiers of the Senate and People of Rome, their servants, their only defense against their enemies! And you've just proved that you're not professionals! You're rabble! Not fit to clean vomit off the streets! You've mutinied, and you know what that means! You've forfeited your share of the booty to be distributed after I celebrate my triumphs, you've forfeited your land upon discharge, you've forfeited any additional bonuses! You're Head Count Quirites!" They wept, pleaded, beseeched, begged to be forgiven. No, not Quirites, not ordinary civilian citizens! Never Quirites! They belonged to Romulus and Mars, not to Quirinus! The business took several hours, watched by half of Rome standing atop the Servian Walls and sitting on the roofs of the Capitol houses; the Senate, including the consuls, clustered a respectable distance from the privatus quelling a mutiny. "Oh, he's a wonder!" sighed Vatinius to Calenus. "How did Antonius manage to delude himself that Caesar's soldiers would touch a hair of his head, scarce though they are?" Calenus grinned. "I think Antonius was sure he'd replaced Caesar their affections. You know what Antonius was like in Gaul, Pollio, he said to that individual. "Always prating that he'd inherit Caesar's legions when the old boy was past it. And for a year he's been buying them drinks and letting them loaf, which he equates with bliss. Forgetting that these men have willingly marched through six feet of snow for days on end just to please Caesar, not to mention never let him down on a field of battle, no matter how hard the fight." Pollio shrugged. "Antonius thought his moment had arrived," he said, "but Caesar diddled him. I wondered why the old boy was so determined to hold rump of the year elections, and why he wouldn't visit Campania to calm the men down. It was Antonius he was after, and he knew how far he'd have to go to get him. I feel sorry for Caesar, it's a bitter affair whichever way you look at it. Though I hope he's learned the real lesson in this." "What real lesson?" Vatinius asked. "That even a Caesar can't leave veteran troops idle for so long. Oh, yes, Antonius stirred them, but so did others. There are always malcontents and natural troublemakers in any army. Idleness gives them fertile soil to till," said Pollio.