Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Early in October came word from Labienus that Caesar had left Italian Gaul to journey with his usual fleetness all the way to the stronghold of Nemetocenna in the lands of the Belgic Atrebates, where Trebonius was quartered with the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Legions. Trebonius had written urgently, said Labienus, to inform Caesar that the Belgae were contemplating another insurrection. Excellent! was Pompey's verdict. While Caesar was a thousand miles from Rome, he himself would use his minions to flood Rome with all kinds of rumors the wilder, the better. Keep the pot bubbling, boil it over! Thus the whisper reached Atticus and others that Caesar was bringing four legions the Fifth, the Ninth, the Tenth and the Eleventh across the Alps to Placentia on the Ides of October, where he intended to station them and intimidate the Senate into leaving his provinces alone when the matter came up for debate again on the Ides of November. For, said Atticus in an urgent letter to Cicero, who had reached Ephesus on his journey home from Cilicia, all of Rome knew that Caesar would absolutely refuse to give up his army. Panicking, Cicero fled across the Aegaean Sea to Athens, which he reached on the fatal Ides of October. And said in his letter to Atticus that it was preferable to be beaten on the field with Pompey than to be victorious with Caesar. Laughing wryly, Atticus stared at Cicero's letter in amazement. What a way to put it! Was that what Cicero thought? Honestly? Did he genuinely think that were civil war to break out, Pompey and all loyal Romans stood no chance in the field against Caesar? An opinion, Atticus was sure, he had inherited from his brother, Quintus Cicero, who had served with Caesar through his most taxing years in Gaul of the Long-hairs. Well, if that was what Quintus Cicero thought, might it not be wise to say and do nothing to make Caesar think that Atticus was an enemy? Thus it was that Atticus spent the next few days reforming his finances and indoctrinating his senior staff; he then left for Campania to see Pompey, back in residence in his Neapolitan villa. Rome still hummed with stories about those four veteran legions stationed in Placentia except that everyone who knew anyone in Placentia kept getting letters which swore that there were no legions anywhere near Placentia. But on the subject of Caesar, Pompey was very vague and would commit himself to no opinion. Sighing, Atticus abandoned the subject (silently vowing that he would proceed as common sense dictated and do nothing to irritate Caesar) and went instead to eulogizing Cicero's governance of Cilicia. In which he did not exaggerate; the couch general and stay-at-home fritterer had done very well indeed, from a fair, just and rational reorganization of Cilicia's finances to a profitable little war. Pompey agreed with all of it, his round, fleshy face bland how would you react if I told you that Cicero thinks it preferable to be beaten on the field with you than to be victorious with Caesar? thought Atticus wickedly. Instead, he spoke aloud of Cicero's entitlement to a triumph for his victories in Cappadocia and the Amanus; Pompey said warmly that he deserved his triumph, and that he would be voting for it in the House. That he did not attend the critical meeting of the Senate on the Ides of November was significant; Pompey did not expect to see the Senate win, and did not wish to be humiliated personally while Curio hammered away at his same old nail whatever Caesar gave up, Pompey should give up at one and the same moment. In which Pompey was right. The Senate got nowhere; the impasse simply continued, with Mark Antony bellowing bullishly when Curio was not yapping doggedly. The People proceeded about their daily routines without a huge interest in all this; long experience had taught them that when these internecine convulsions occurred, all the casualties and the heartaches remained the province of those at the top of the social tree. And most of them, besides, considered that Caesar would be better for Rome than the boni. In the ranks of the knights, particularly those senior enough to belong to the Eighteen, sentiments were very different and very mixed. They stood to lose the most in the event of civil war. Their businesses would crumble, debts would become impossible to collect, loans would cease to materialize, and overseas investments would become unmanageable. The worst aspect was the uncertainty: who was right, who was speaking the truth? Were, there really four legions in Italian Gaul? And if there really were, why couldn't they be located? And why, if there were not four legions there, was this fact not made loudly public? Did the likes of Cato and the Marcelli care about anything other than their determination to teach Caesar a lesson? And what was the lesson all about anyway? What exactly had Caesar done that no one else had done? What would happen to Rome if Caesar was let stand for the consulship in absentia and extricated himself from the treason prosecutions the boni were so determined to levy against him? The answer to that, all men could see, save the boni themselves: nothing! Rome would go on in the same old way. Whereas civil war was the ultimate catastrophe. And this civil war looked as if it would be waged over a principle. Was anything more alien and less important to a businessman than a principle? Go to war over one? Insanity! So the knights began to exert pressure on susceptible senators to be nicer to Caesar. Unfortunately the hardline boni were disinclined to listen to this plutocratic lobbying, even if the rest of the Senate was; it meant nothing to Cato or the Marcelli compared to the staggering loss of prestige and influence they would suffer in all eyes if Caesar was to win his struggle to be treated in the same manner as Pompey. And what of Pompey, still dallying in Campania? Where did he truly stand? Evidence pointed to an alliance with the boni, but there were still many who believed that Pompey could be prised free of them could enough words be spoken in his reluctant ear. At the end of November the new governor of Cilicia, Publius Sestius, departed from Rome with his senior legate, Brutus. Which left a shocking vacuum in the life of his first cousin, Porcia, though not in the life of his wife, Claudia, whom he scarcely ever saw. Servilia was much thicker with her son-in-law, Gaius Cassius, than ever she had been with her son; Cassius appealed to her love of warriors, of doers, of men who would make a military mark. All of which meant that she continued discreetly to pursue her liaison with Lucius Pontius Aquila. "I'm sure I'll see Bibulus as I go east," said Brutus to Porcia when he went to take his leave of her. "He's in Ephesus, and I gather intends to remain there until he sees what happens in Rome Caesar, I mean." Though she knew it was not a right act to weep, Porcia wept bitterly. "Oh, Brutus, how will I survive without you to talk to? No one else is kind to me! Whenever I see Aunt Servilia, she nags about how I dress and how I look, and whenever I see tata he's present only in the flesh his mind is on Caesar, Caesar, Caesar. Aunt Porcia never has time, she's too involved with her children and Lucius Domitius. Whereas you've been so kind, so tender. Oh, I will miss you!" "But Marcia is back with your father, Porcia. Surely that must make a difference. She's not an unkind person." "I know, I know!" cried Porcia, snuffling with nauseating clarity despite making play with Brutus's handkerchief. "But she belongs to tata in every way, just as she did when they were married the first time. I don't exist for her. No one does for Marcia except tata!" She sobbed and moaned. "Brutus, I want to matter to someone's heart! And I don't! I don't!" "There's Lucius," he said, throat constricted. Didn't he know how she felt, he who had never mattered to anyone's heart either? Freaks and uglies were despised, even by those who ought to have loved in spite of every drawback, every deficiency. "Lucius is growing up, he's moving away from me," she said, mopping her eyes. "I understand, Brutus, and I don't disapprove. It's right and proper that his attitude changes. It's months now since he preferred my company to my father's. Politics matter more than childish games." "Well, Bibulus will be home soon." "Will he? Will he, Brutus? Then why do I think I'll never see Bibulus again? I have a feeling about it!" A feeling which Brutus found himself echoing, he had no idea why. Except that Rome was suddenly an intolerable place, because something horrible was going to happen. People were thinking more of their own petty concerns than they were of Rome herself. And that went for Cato too. Bringing Caesar down was everything. So he picked up her hand, kissed it, and left for Cilicia.