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

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A great deal of money came out of hiding when the property of the unpardoned Republicans came up for auction. Bidding through Scaptius, Brutus had no trouble in acquiring Bibulus's house, his big villa in Caieta, his Etrurian latifundium and his Campanian farms, vineyards; the best way to provide Porcia and young Lucius with an income, he had decided, was to buy all that Bibulus had. But he had no luck with Cato's Lucanian estates. Caesar's agent, Gaius Julius Arvernus, bought every last piece of Cato's property. For more by far than it was worth; Brutus's Scaptius didn't dare keep on bidding once the sums became outrageous. Caesar's reasons were two: he wanted the satisfaction of seeing Cato's property fall to him, and he also wanted to use it to dower his three ex-centurions with enough to qualify for membership in the Senate. Decimus Carfulenus and two others had won the corona civica, and Caesar intended to honor Sulla's legislation that promoted all winners of major crowns of valor to the Senate. "The odd thing is that I think my father would approve," said Porcia to Brutus when he came to bid her farewell. "I'm very sure that Caesar wasn't aiming for Cato's approval," said Brutus. "Then he misread my father, who esteems valor quite as much as Caesar." "Given the hideous hatred between them, Porcia, neither man can read the other." Pompey's mansion on the Carinae was knocked down to Mark Antony for thirty million sesterces, but when he casually told the auctioneers that he would defer payment until his finances were more flush, the head of the firm drew him aside. "I am afraid, Marcus Antonius, that you must pay the entire amount immediately. Orders from Caesar." "But it would clean me out!" said Antony indignantly. "Pay now, or forfeit the property and incur a fine." Antony paid, cursing. Whereas Servilia, new owner of Lentulus Crus's latifundium and several lucrative vineyards in Falernian Campania, fared much better at Caesar's hands. "Our instructions are to give you a third off the price," the chief auctioneer said when she presented herself at the booth to make arrangements for payment. She hadn't bothered to use an agent, it was more fun by far to bid in person, especially as she was a women and not supposed to be so publicly forward. "Instructions from whom?" she asked. "Caesar, domina. He said you would understand." Most of Rome understood, including Cicero, who almost fell off his chair laughing. "Oh, well done, Caesar!" he cried to Atticus (another successful bidder), visiting to give him all the news. "A third off! A third! You have to admit that the man's witty!" The joke, of course, lay in the fact that Servilia's third girl, Tertulla, was Caesar's child. The witticism hadn't amused Servilia in the least, but her umbrage was not sufficient to spurn the discount. Ten million was ten million, after all. Gaius Cassius, who bid for nothing, was not amused either. "How dared he draw attention to my wife!" he snarled. "Everyone I meet puns on Tertulla's name!" More than his wife's relationship to Caesar was annoying Cassius; while Brutus, the same age and at exactly the same level on the cursus honorum, was going to govern Italian Gaul as proconsul, he, Gaius Cassius, had been palmed off with an ordinary propraetorian legateship in Asia Province. Though Vatia the governor was his own brother-in-law, he wasn't one of Cassius's favorite people.

V

The Sting in Winning

From JANUARY until QUINCTILIS (JULY) of 46 B.C.

Publius Sittius was a Roman knight from Campanian Nuceria, of considerable wealth and education; among his friends he had numbered Sulla and Cicero. Several unfortunate investments during the years after Pompey the Great and Marcus Crassus had been consuls for the first time had caused him to join Catilina's conspiracy to overthrow Rome's legitimate government; what had attracted him was Catilina's promise that he would bring in a general cancellation of debts. Though Sittius didn't think so at the time, it turned out to be for the best that his financial embarrassments grew too pressing to linger in Italy waiting for Catilina's bid at power. He was forced to flee to Further Spain at the beginning of the Cicero/Hybrida consulship, and when that didn't prove far enough away from Rome, he then migrated to Tingis, the capital of western Mauretania. This most distressing series of events brought out qualities in Publius Sittius that he never knew he owned; the businessman with a tendency to speculate transformed himself into a sweet-talking, immensely capable freebooter who undertook to reorganize King Bocchus's army, and even to provide the ruler of western Mauretania with a nice little navy. Though Bocchus's kingdom was farther from Numidia than his brother, Bogud's, kingdom of eastern Mauretania, Bocchus was terrified of the expansionist ideas churning around in King Juba of Numidia's head. Juba was determined to be another Masinissa, and since the Roman African province lay on Numidia's eastern borders, the only direction to expand was west. Once he had Bocchus's forces up to strength, Sittius did the same for Bogud's forces. His rewards were gratifying; money, his own palace in Tingis, a whole harem of delectable women, and no business worries. Definitely the life of a talented freebooter was preferable to flirting with conspiracies in Italy! When King Juba of Numidia declared for the Republicans after Caesar crossed the Rubicon, it was inevitable that Bocchus and Bogud of Mauretania would declare for Caesar. Publius Sittius stepped up Mauretanian military preparedness and sat back to see what would happen. A great relief when Caesar won at Pharsalus, then a huge shock when the Republican survivors of Pharsalus decided to make Africa Province their next focus of resistance. Too close to home! So Sittius hired a few spies in Utica and Hadrumetum to keep himself informed on Republican doings, and waited for Caesar to invade, as Caesar must.

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But Caesar's invasion began unhappily in several ways. He and his first fleet were forced to land at Leptis Minor because every seaport to the north of it was too strongly fortified by the Republicans to think of trying to get ashore. As there were no port facilities at Leptis Minor the ships had to be brought in very close to a long beach and the troops ordered to jump into shallow water, wade ashore. Caesar went first, of course. But his fabled luck deserted him; he jumped, tripped and fell full length in the knee-deep water. A terrible omen! Every single pair of watching eyes widened, a thousand throats gasped, rumbled. Up he came with the agility of a cat, both hands clenched into fists above his head, sand trickling from them down his arms. "Africa, I have you in my hold!" he shouted, turning the omen into a propitious one. Nor had he neglected the old legend that Rome couldn't win in Africa without a Scipio present. The Republicans had Metellus Scipio in the command tent, but Caesar's purely titular second-in-command was Scipio Salvitto, a disreputable scion of the family Cornelius Scipio whom he had plucked out of a Roman brothel. A complete nonsense, Caesar knew; Gaius Marius had conquered in Africa without a Scipio in sight, though Sulla was a Cornelian. None of which had much significance compared to the fact that his legions were continuing to mutiny. The Ninth and Tenth were joined by the Fourteenth in a mutiny first quelled in Sicily, but which flared up again the moment they were landed in Africa. He paraded them, flogged a few and concentrated upon the five men, including the un-elected tribune of the soldiers Gaius Avienus, who had done most of the damage. The five were put aboard a ship with all their belongings and sent back to Italy, disgraced, discharged and stripped of every entitlement from land to booty. "If I were a Marcus Crassus, I would decimate you!" he cried to the assembled men. "You deserve no mercy! But I cannot execute men who have fought for me bravely!" Naturally the news that Caesar's legions were disaffected reached the Republicans; Labienus began to whoop in delight. "What a situation!" Caesar said to Calvinus, with him as usual. "Of my eight legions, three consist of raw, unblooded recruits, and of my five veteran legions, three are untrustworthy." "They'll fight for you with all their customary verve," Calvinus said comfortably. "You have a genius for handling them that fools like Marcus Crassus never had. Yes, I know you loved him, but a general who decimates is a fool." "I was too weak," Caesar said. "A comfort to know you have weaknesses, Gaius. A comfort to them as well. They don't think the worse of you for clemency." He patted Caesar's arm. "There won't be any more mutinies. Go and drill your raw recruits." Advice that Caesar followed, to discover that his luck was back. Exercising his three legions of raw recruits, he stumbled by chance upon Titus Labienus and a larger force, and evaded defeat by typical Caesarean boldness. Labienus ceased to whoop.