Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

The rioting in Rome continued unabated. February slipped away, a short month, then came Mercedonius, the twenty-two days intercalated by the College of Pontifices at Pompey's instigation. Each five days a new interrex took office and tried to organize the elections, but without success. Everyone complained; no one got anywhere by complaining. Very occasionally Pompey demonstrated that when he wanted something done, it was done, as with his Law of the Ten Tribunes of the Plebs. Passed halfway through that stormy February, it gave Caesar permission to stand for the consulship four years hence in absentia. Caesar was safe. He would not have to give up his imperium by crossing Rome's sacred boundary to register his candidacy in person, and thereby offer himself up for prosecution. Milo continued to canvass for the consulship, but pressure to have him prosecuted was mounting. Two young Appius Claudiuses agitated constantly in the Forum on behalf of their dead uncle Publius, their chief grievance the fact that Milo had freed his slaves and that these slaves had disappeared into a fog of obscurity. Unfortunately Milo wasn't receiving the support from Caelius he had enjoyed just after the murder; Cicero had gone obediently to Ravenna and succeeded in muzzling Caelius on his return. Not a good omen for Milo, a worried man. Pompey was worried too; opposition in the Senate to his being appointed Dictator was as strong as ever. "You're one of the most prominent boni," Pompey said to Metellus Scipio, "and I know you don't mind my being made Dictator. I don't want the post, mind you! That's not what I'm saying at all. Only that I can't understand why Cato and Bibulus won't have it. Or Lucius Ahenobarbus. Or any of the others. Isn't it better to have stability at any price?" "At almost any price," said Metellus Scipio cautiously; he was a man charged with a mission, and it had taken hours for him to rehearse it with Cato and Bibulus. Not that his intentions were quite as pure as Cato and Bibulus thought. Metellus Scipio was another worried man. "What's almost?" demanded Pompey, scowling. "Well, there is an answer, and I've been deputed to put it to you, Magnus." The magical thing had happened! Metellus Scipio was calling him "Magnus"! Oh, joy! Oh, sweet victory! Pompey visibly expanded, a smile growing. "Then put it to me, Scipio." No more "Metellus." "What if the Senate were to agree to your becoming consul without a colleague?" "You mean sole consul? No other?" "Yes." Frowning in an effort to remember what he had been told to say, Metellus Scipio went on. "What everyone objects to about the presence of a dictator is a dictator's invulnerability, Magnus. He can't be made to answer for anything he enacts while he is Dictator. And after Sulla, no one trusts the post. It isn't merely the boni who object. The knights of the eighteen senior Centuries object far more, believe me. They were the ones who felt Sulla's hand sixteen hundred of them died in Sulla's proscriptions." "But why should I proscribe anyone?" Pompey asked. "I agree, I agree! Unfortunately many don't." "Why? I'm not Sulla!" "Yes, I know that. But there is a kind of man who is convinced that it isn't the person who fills the role, but the role itself at fault. Do you see what I mean?" "Oh, yes. That anyone appointed Dictator would go mad with the power of it." Metellus Scipio leaned back. "Exactly." "I'm not that sort of man, Scipio." "I know, I know! But don't accuse me, Magnus! The knights of the Eighteen won't have another Dictator any more than Bibulus and Cato will. All one has to do is say the word 'proscription' and men turn white." "Whereas," said Pompey thoughtfully, "a sole consul in office is still constrained by the system. He can be hauled into court afterward, made to answer." His instructions were to slip the next comment in as if it were a matter of course, and Metellus Scipio did well. He said, as if it were not important, "Not a difficulty for you, Magnus. You'd have nothing to answer for in a court." "That's true," said Pompey, brightening. "Besides which, the very concept of a consul without a colleague is a first. I mean, there have been times when a consul has served without a colleague for a few months, due to deaths in office and omens forbidding the appointment of more than one suffect consul. Quintus Marcius Rex's year, for example." "And the year of the consulship of Julius and Caesar!" said Pompey, laughing. Since Caesar's colleague had been Bibulus, who refused to govern with Caesar, this was not a comment which impressed Metellus Scipio; however, he swallowed and let it be. "You might say that to be consul without a colleague is the most extraordinary of all the extraordinary commands you've ever been offered." "Do you really think so?" asked Pompey eagerly. "Oh, yes. Undoubtedly." "Then why not?" Pompey extended his right hand. "It's a deal, Scipio, it's a deal!" The two men shook hands, and Metellus Scipio rose to his feet quickly, enormously relieved that he had acquitted himself to what would be the full satisfaction of Bibulus, and determined to remove himself before Pompey asked him some question not on the list he had memorized. "You don't look very happy, Scipio," said Pompey on the way to the door. Now how would he answer this? Was it dangerous ground? A fierce effort at thinking things through decided Metellus Scipio to be frank. "I'm not happy," he said. "Why's that?" "Plancus Bursa is making it generally known that he intends to prosecute me for bribery in the consular campaigning." "Is he?" "I'm afraid so." "Dear, dear!" cried Pompey, sounding cluckily concerned. "We can't have that! Well, if I'm allowed to become consul without a colleague, Scipio, it will be a small matter to fix that up." "Will it?" "No trouble, I assure you! I have quite a bit of dirt on our friend Plancus Bursa. Well, he's no friend of mine really, but you know what I mean." A huge weight lifted off Metellus Scipio. "Magnus, I'd be your friend forever!" "Good," said Pompey contentedly. He opened the front door himself. "By the way, Scipio, would you care to come to dinner tomorrow afternoon?" "I'd be delighted." "Do you think poor little Cornelia Metella would care to accompany you?" "I think she'd like that very much." Pompey closed the door behind his visitor and strolled back to his study. How useful it was to have a tame tribune of the plebs who no one suspected was a tame tribune of the plebs! Plancus Bursa was worth every sestertius he was being paid. An excellent man. Excellent! There loomed before his eyes an image of Cornelia Metella; he stifled a sigh. No Julia she. And she really did look like a camel. Not unhandsome, but insufferably proud! Couldn't talk, though she spoke incessantly. If it wasn't Zeno or Epicurus (she disapproved of both systems of thought), it was Plato or Thucydides. Despised mimes, farces, even Aristophanic comedy. Oh, well... she'd do. Not that he intended to ask for her. Metellus Scipio would have to ask him. What was good enough for a Julius Caesar was certainly good enough for a Metellus Scipio. Caesar. Who didn't have a second daughter or a niece. Oh, that one was riding for a fall! And the consul without a colleague was just the man to do the tripping-up. Caesar had his Law of the Ten Tribunes of the Plebs, but that wasn't to say life was going to be smooth for him. Laws could be repealed. Or made redundant by other, later laws. But for the time being, let Caesar sit back and deem himself safe.

On the eighteenth day of intercalated Mercedonius, Bibulus got up in the House, meeting on the Campus Martius, and proposed that Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus be put up for election as consul, but without a colleague. The Interrex of the moment was that eminent jurist Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who listened to the House's reaction with the proper gravity becoming so famous a judge. "It's absolutely unconstitutional!" cried Caelius from the tribunes' bench, not bothering to stand up. "There is no such man as a consul without a colleague! Why don't you just make Pompeius the Dictator and be done with it?" "Any kind of reasonably legal government is preferable to no government at all, provided it is answerable at law for every one of its actions," said Cato. "I approve of the measure." "I call upon the House to divide," said Servius Rufus. "All those in favor of permitting Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus to stand for election as consul without a colleague, please stand to my right. Those against the motion, please stand to my left." Among the few men who stood to Servius Rufus's left was Brutus, attending his first meeting of the Senate. "I cannot vote for the man who murdered my father," he said loudly, chin up. "Very well," said Servius Rufus, surveying the bulk of the Senate to his right. "I will summon the Centuries for an election." "Why bother?" yelled Milo, who had also stood to the left. "Are we other consular candidates to be allowed to stand? For the same post, as consul without a colleague?" Servius Rufus raised his brows. "Certainly, Titus Annius." "Why not save time, money and a walk out to the Saepta?" Milo went on bitterly. "We all know what the result will be." "I wouldn't accept the commission on the Senate's say-so," said Pompey with immense dignity. "Let there be an election." "There should also be a law overriding the lex Annalis!" shouted Caelius. "It isn't legal for a man to run again for consul until ten years have elapsed since his last consulship. Pompeius was consul for the second time only two years ago." "Quite right," said Servius Rufus. "Conscript Fathers, I will see another division on the motion that the House recommend as a decree to the Popular Assembly a lex Caelia allowing Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus to run for consul." Which turned the tables neatly on Caelius.