Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Pompey, however, didn't consider the veto well done at all. When the debate resumed in the House on the second day of January and resulted in another tribunician veto, he lost his temper. The strain was telling on him more than on anyone else in that whole anguished, terrified city; Pompey had the most to lose. "We're getting nowhere!" he snarled to Metellus Scipio. "I want to see this business finished! It's ridiculous! Day after day, month after month if we're not careful, the anniversary of the Kalends of March last year will roll around and we'll still have come no closer to putting Caesar in his place! I have the feeling that Caesar is running rings around me, and I don't like that feeling one little bit! It's time the comedy was ended! It's time the Senate acted once and for all! If they can't secure a law in the Popular Assembly to strip Caesar of everything, then they'll have to pass the Senatus Consultum Ultimum and leave the matter to me!" He clapped three times, the signal for his steward. "I want a message sent immediately to every senator in Rome," he told his steward curtly. "They are to report to me here two hours from now." Metellus Scipio looked worried. "Pompeius, is that wise?" he ventured. "I mean, summon censors and consulars?" "Yes, summon! I'm fed up, Scipio! I want this business with Caesar settled!" Like most men of action, Pompey found it extremely difficult to coexist with indecision. And, like most men of action, Pompey wanted to be in absolute command. Not pushed and pulled by a parcel of incompetent, shilly-shallying senators who he knew were not his equals in anything. The situation was totally exasperating! Why hadn't Caesar given in? And, since he hadn't given in, why was he still sitting in Ravenna with only one legion? Why wasn't he doing something? No, clearly he didn't intend to march on Rome but if he didn't, what did he think he was going to do? Give in, Caesar! Give up, give way! But he didn't. He wouldn't. What tricks did he have up his sleeve? How could he extricate himself from this predicament if he didn't intend to give in, nor intend to march? What was going on in his mind? Did he think to prolong this senatorial impasse until the Nones of Quinctilis and the consular elections? But he would never get permission to stand in absentia, even if he managed to hang onto his imperium. Was it in his mind to send a few thousand of his loyalest soldiers to Rome on an innocent furlough at the time of the elections? He'd done that already, to secure the consulship for Pompeius and Crassus six years ago. But nothing got round the in absentia, so why? Why? Did he think to terrorize the Senate into yielding permission to stand in absentia? By sending thousands of his loyalest soldiers on furlough? Up and down, up and down; Pompey paced the floor in torment until his steward came, very timidly, to inform him that there were many senators waiting in the atrium. "I've had enough!" he shouted, striding into the room. "I have had enough!" Perhaps one hundred and fifty men stood gaping at him in astonishment, from Appius Claudius Pulcher Censor to the humble urban quaestor Gaius Nerius. A pair of angry blue eyes raked the ranks and noted the omissions: Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censor, both the consuls, many of the consulars, every senator known to be a partisan of Caesar's and several who were known not to favor Caesar but didn't favor being summoned by a man with no legal right to summon either. Still, there were sufficient to make a good beginning. "I have had enough!" he said again, climbing onto a bench of priceless pink marble. "You cowards! You fools! You vacillating milksops! I am the First Man in Rome, and I am ashamed to call myself the First Man in Rome! Look at you! For ten months this farce has been going on over the provinces and the army of Gaius Julius Caesar, and you've gotten nowhere! Absolutely nowhere!" He bowed to Cato, Favonius, Ahenobarbus, Metellus Scipio and two of the three Marcelli. "Honored colleagues, I do not include you in these bitter words, but I wanted you here to bear witness. The Gods know you've fought long and hard to terminate the illegal career of Gaius Caesar. But you get no real support, and this evening I intend to remedy that." Back to the rest, some of them, like Appius Claudius Pulcher Censor, none too pleased. "I repeat! You fools! You cowards! You weak, whining, puny collection of has-beens and nowheres! I am fed up!" He drew a long, sucking breath. "I have tried. I have been patient. I have held back. I have suffered all of you. I have wiped your arses and held your heads while you puked. And don't stand there looking mortally offended, Varro! If the shoe fits, wear it! The Senate of Rome is supposed to set the tone and serve as the example to every other body politic and body public from one end of Rome's empire to the other. And the Senate of Rome is a disgrace! Every last one of you is a disgrace! Here you are, faced by one man one man! yet for ten months you've let him shit all over you! You've wavered and shivered, argued and sniveled, voted and voted and voted and voted and gotten nowhere! Ye Gods, how Gaius Caesar must be laughing!" By this everyone was stunned far beyond indignation; few of the men present had served in the field with Pompey in a situation which revealed his ugly side, but many of them were now grasping why Pompey got things done. Their affable, sweet-tempered, self-deprecating Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was a martinet. Many of them had seen Caesar lose his temper, and still shivered in their boots at the memory of it. Now they saw Pompey lose his temper, and shivered in their boots. And they began to wonder: which of the two, Caesar or Pompey, would prove the harder master? "You need me!" roared Pompey from the superior height of his bench. "You need me, and never forget it! You need me! I'm all that stands between you and Caesar. I'm your only refuge because I'm the only one among the lot of you who can beat Caesar on a field of battle. So you'd better start being nice to me. You'd better start bending over backward to please me. You'd better smarten up your act. You'd better resolve this mess. You'd better pass a decree and procure a law in the Assembly to strip Caesar of army, provinces and imperium! I can't do it for you because I'm only one man with one vote, and you haven't got the guts to institute martial law and put me in charge!" He bared his teeth. "I tell you straight, Conscript Fathers, that I don't like you! If I were ever in a position to proscribe the lot of you, I would! I'd throw so many of you off the Tarpeian Rock that you'd end in falling on a senatorial mattress! I have had enough. Gaius Caesar is defying you and defying Rome. That has to stop. Deal with him! And don't expect mercy from me if I see any one of you tending to favor Caesar! The man's an outcast, an outlaw, though you don't have the guts to declare him one legally! I warn you, from this day on I will regard any man who favors Caesar as an outcast, as an outlaw!" He waved his hand. "Go home! Think about it! And then, by Jupiter, do something! Rid me of this Caesar!" They turned and left without a word. Pompey jumped down, beaming. "Oh, that feels better!" he said to the little group of boni who remained. "You certainly rammed a red-hot poker up their arses," said Cato, voice for once devoid of expression. sol_ "Pah! They needed it, Cato. Our way one day, Caesar's way the next. I'm fed up. I want an end to the business." "So we gathered," said Marcellus Major dryly. "It wasn't politic, Pompeius. You can't order the Senate of Rome around like raw recruits on a drill ground." "Someone's got to!" snapped Pompey. "I've never seen you like this," said Marcus Favonius. "You'd better hope you never see me like this again," said Pompey grimly. "Where are the consuls? Neither of them came." "They couldn't come, Pompeius," said Marcus Marcellus. "They are the consuls; their imperium outranks yours. To have come would have been tantamount to acknowledging you their master." "Servius Sulpicius wasn't here either." "I don't think," said Gaius Marcellus Major, walking toward the door, "that Servius Sulpicius answers summonses." A moment later only Metellus Scipio was left. He gazed at his son-in-law reproachfully. "What's wrong with you?" demanded Pompey aggressively. "Nothing, nothing! Except perhaps that I think this wasn't wise, Magnus." He sighed dolefully. "Not wise at all." An opinion echoed the next day, which happened to be Cicero's fifty-seventh birthday, and the day upon which he arrived outside Rome to take up residence in a villa on the Pincian Hill; granted a triumph, he could not cross the pomerium. Atticus came out of the city to welcome him, and was quick to apprise him of the extraordinary scene of the evening before. "Who told you?" asked Cicero, horrified at the details. "Your friend the senator Rabirius Postumus, not the banker Rabirius Postumus," said Atticus. "Old Rabirius Postumus? Surely you mean the son." "I mean old Rabirius Postumus. He's got a new lease on life now that Perperna is failing, wants the cachet of being the oldest." "What did Magnus do?" asked Cicero anxiously. "Intimidated most of the Senate still in Rome. Not many of them had seen Pompeius like that so angry, so scathing. No elegant language, just a traditional diatribe but delivered with real venom. He said he wanted an end to the senatorial dithering about Caesar. What he really wants he didn't say, but everyone was able to guess." Atticus frowned. "He threatened to proscribe, which may give you an idea of how upset he was. He followed that by threatening to throw every senator from the Tarpeian Rock until the last fell on a mattress of the first, was how he put it. They're terrified!" "But the Senate has tried and tried hard!" protested Cicero, reliving those hours at the trial of Milo. "What does Magnus think it can do? The tribunician veto is inalienable!" "He wants the Senate to enact a Senatus Consultum Ultimum and institute martial law with himself in command. Nothing less will satisfy him," Atticus declared strongly. "Pompeius is wearing down under the strain. He wishes it were over, and for most of his life his wishes have come true. He is an atrociously spoiled man, used to having things all his own way. For which the Senate is at least partially responsible, Cicero! Its members have given in to him for decades. They've dowered him with one special command after another and let him get away with things they won't condone in, for instance, Caesar. A man with the birthright is now demanding that the Senate treat him as it has treated Pompeius. Who do you think is really at the back of opposition to that?" "Cato. Bibulus when he's here. The Marcelli. Ahenobarbus. Metellus Scipio. A few other diehards," said Cicero. "Yes, but they're all political creatures, which Pompeius is not," said Atticus patiently. "Without Pompeius, they couldn't have marshaled the resistance they have. Pompeius wants no rivals, and Caesar is a formidable rival." "Oh, if only Julia hadn't died!" said Cicero miserably. "That's a non sequitur, Marcus. In the days when Julia was alive, Caesar was no threat. Or so Pompeius saw it. He's not a subtle creature, nor gifted with foresight. If Julia were alive today, Pompeius would be behaving no differently." "Then I must see Magnus today," said Cicero with decision. "With what intention?" "To try to persuade him to come to an agreement with Caesar. Or, if he refuses, to quit Rome, retire to Spain and his army, and wait the matter out. My feeling is that, despite Cato and the rabid boni, the Senate will come to some sort of compromise with Caesar if they believe they haven't got Magnus to fall back on. They see Magnus as their soldier, the one capable of beating Caesar." "And I note," said Atticus, "that you don't think he can." "My brother doesn't think he can, and Quintus would know." "Where is Quintus?" "He's here, but of course he's not exiled from the city, so he's gone home to see if your sister has improved in temper." Atticus laughed until the tears came. "Pomponia? Improve in temper? Pompeius will find harmony with Caesar before that can ever happen!" "Why is it that neither of us Cicerones can manage to exist in domestic peace? Why are our wives such incorrigible shrews?" Said Atticus, pragmatist supreme, "Because, my dear Marcus, both you and Quintus had to marry for money, and neither of you has the birth to find moneyed wives other men fancied."