Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Ariminum was in no mood to fight; when Caesar and the Thirteenth reached that prosperous town at the top of the Via Flaminia, its populace turned out armed with autumn garlands, adorned the troops and cheered Caesar deafeningly. It came, Caesar had to admit, as something of a surprise, for Ariminum lay at the top of Pompey's dominions and could well have chosen Pompey and the Senate. In which case, wondered Caesar, how much fighting might there be? He learned that Thermus was in Iguvium, Lucilius Hirrus in Camerinum, Lentulus Spinther in Ancona, and Varus in Auximum. Lentulus Spinther had succeeded in raising the most troops, about ten cohorts; the others had five cohorts each. Not very fearsome odds for the Thirteenth. Especially if the ordinary folk of Italia were on Caesar's side. Suddenly that seemed likely, a great comfort. Blood wasn't what Caesar was after; the less of it he had to spill, the better. Antony, Quintus Cassius, Curio and Caelius reached the camp outside Ariminum early on that eleventh day of January. A sorry sight in torn and bloodied togas, faces bruised and cut, the two tribunes of the plebs were perfect for Caesar's purpose. He called the Thirteenth into assembly and presented Antony and Quintus Cassius to them in all their glory. "This is why we're here!" said Caesar. "This is what we have marched into Italia to prevent! No body of Roman men, no matter how ancient or august, has the right to violate the sacred persons of the tribunes of the plebs, who came into being to protect the lot of the ordinary people, the vast numbers of the Plebs from the Head Count through Rome's soldiers to her business people and civil servants! For we cannot call the plebeians of the Senate anything other than would-be patricians! In treating two tribunes of the plebs the way the Senate's plebeians have treated Marcus Antonius and Quintus Cassius, they have abrogated their plebeian status and heritage! "The person of a tribune of the plebs is inviolable, and his right to veto inalienable. Inalienable! All Antonius and Cassius did was to veto a scurrilous decree aimed at them and, through them, aimed at me. I have offended them, those would-be patricians of the Senate, by raising Rome's image in the eyes of the rest of the world and adding vast riches to Rome's purse. For I am not one of them. I have never been one of them. A senator, yes. A magistrate, yes. Consul, yes. But never one of that petty, small-minded, vindictive little group who call themselves the Good Men, the boni! Who have embarked upon a program designed to destroy the right of the People to a say in government, who have embarked upon a program to ensure that the only governing body left in Rome is the Senate. Their Senate, boys, not my Senate! My Senate is your servant. Their Senate wants to be your master. It wants to decide how much you are paid, when your service with generals like me is to be terminated, whether or not you are to receive a little parcel of land to settle on when you retire. It wants to regulate the size of your bonuses, your percentage of the booty, how many of you will walk in a triumphal parade. It even wants to decide whether or not you're entitled to the citizenship, whether or not your backs, which have bowed down serving Rome, are to be jellied by the barbed lash. It wants you, Rome's soldiers, to acknowledge it your master. It wants you cowed and sniveling like the meanest beggar in a Syrian street!" Hirtius huffed contentedly. "He's away," he said to Curio. "It's going to be one of his best speeches." "He can't lose," said Curio. Caesar swept on. "This little group of men and the Senate they manipulate have impugned my dignitas, my right and entitlement to public honor through personal endeavor. All that I have done they want to destroy, calling what I have done treasonous! And in wanting to destroy my dignitas, in calling me treasonous, they are destroying your dignitas, calling what you have done treasonous! "Think of them, boys! All those weary miles those nundinae of empty bellies those sword cuts, arrow punctures, spear rents those deaths in the front line, so noble, so brave! think of them! Think of where we've been think of what we've done think of the work, the sweat, the privation, the loneliness! Think of the colossal glory we've amassed for Rome! And to what avail? So that our tribunes of the plebs can be punched and kicked, so that our achievements can be sneered at, dismissed, shit upon by a precious little clique of would-be patricians! Poor soldiers and worse generals, every last one of them! Who ever heard of Cato the general? Ahenobarbus the conqueror?" Caesar paused, grinned, shrugged. "But who among you even knows the name Cato? Ahenobarbus, maybe his great-grandfather wasn't a bad soldier! So, boys, I'll give you a name you do know Gnaeus Pompeius who awarded himself the cognomen of Magnus! Yes, Gnaeus Pompeius, who ought to be fighting for me, fighting for you! But who, in his fat and torpid old age, has elected to hold a sponge on a stick to clean the arses of his boni friends! Who has turned his back on the concept of the army! Who has supported this campaign against me and my boys from its very beginning! Why? Why did he do that? Because he's outfought, outgeneraled, outclassed and outraged! Because he's not 'Great' enough to admit that someone else's army is better than any army he ever commanded! Who is there to equal my boys? No one! No one! You're the best soldiers who ever picked up a sword and a shield in Rome's name! So here I am, and here you are, on the wrong side of a river and on our way to avenge our mangled, our despised dignitas! "I would not go to war for any reason less. I would not oppose those senatorial idiots for any reason less. My dignitas is the center of my life; it is everything I have ever done! I will not let it be taken from me! Nor see your dignitas taken from you. Whatever I am, you are! We've marched together to cut off all three of Cerberus's heads! We've suffered through snow and ice, hail and rain! We've crossed an ocean, climbed mountains, swum mighty rivers! We've beaten the bravest peoples in the world to their knees! We've made them submit to Rome! And what can poor old has-been Gnaeus Pompeius say in answer to that? Nothing, boys, nothing! So what has he chosen to do? Try to strip it all from us, boys the honor, the fame, the glory, the miracle! Everything we lump together and call dignitas!" He stopped, held out his arms as if to embrace them. "But I am your servant, boys. I exist because of you. It's you who must make the final decision. Do we march on into Italia to avenge our tribunes of the plebs and recover our dignitas? Or do we about-face and return to Ravenna? Which is it to be? On or back?" No one had moved. No one had coughed, sneezed, whispered a comment. And for a long moment after the General ceased speaking, that immense silence continued. Then the primipilus centurion opened his mouth. "On!" he roared. "On, on!" The soldiers took it up. "On! On! On! On!" Caesar stepped down from his dais and walked into the ranks, smiling, holding out his hand to shake every hand proffered to him, until he was swallowed up in a mail-clad mass. "What a man!" said Pollio to Orca.

But that afternoon over dinner, the four fugitives from Rome bathed and clad in leather armor, Caesar held a council of war. "Hirtius, was my speech recorded verbatim?" he asked. "It's being copied now, Caesar." "I want it distributed to all my legates and read out to every one of my legions." "Are they with us?" asked Caelius. "Your legates, I mean." "All save Titus Labienus." "That doesn't surprise me," said Curio. "Why?" pressed Caelius, the least informed and therefore the most prone to ask obvious questions. Caesar shrugged. "I didn't want Labienus." "How did your legates know?" "I visited Gallia Comata and my legates last October." "So you knew about this as far back as then." "My dear Caelius," said Caesar patiently, "the Rubicon has always been a possibility. Just one I would have preferred not to use. And, as you well know, have exerted every ounce of myself to avoid using. But it's a foolish man who doesn't thoroughly explore every possibility. Let us simply say that by last October I considered the Rubicon more a probability than a possibility." Caelius opened his mouth again, but shut it when Curio dug him sharply in the ribs. "Where to now?" asked Quintus Cassius. "It's evident that the opposition isn't well organized also that the common people prefer me to Pompeius and the boni," said Caesar, popping a piece of bread soaked in oil between his lips. He chewed, swallowed, spoke again. "I'm going to split the Thirteenth. Antonius, you'll take the five junior cohorts and march at once for Arretium to hold the Via Cassia. It's more important that I keep my avenues to Italian Gaul open at this moment than try to hold the Via Flaminia. Curio, you'll stay in Ariminum with three cohorts until I send you word to march for Iguvium, from which town you'll eject Thermus. Once that's done I'll have the Via Flaminia as well as the Via Cassia. As for myself, I'm taking the two senior cohorts and continuing south into Picenum." "That's only a thousand men, Caesar," said Pollio, frowning. "They should be enough, but the possibility that I may need more is why Curio stays in Ariminum for the time being." "You're right, Caesar," said Hirtius soberly. "What matters isn't the quantity of the troops, but the quality of the men leading them. Perhaps Attius Varus will offer resistance, but Thermus, Hirrus and Lentulus Spinther? They couldn't lead a tethered ewe." "Which reminds me, I don't honestly know why," said Caesar, "that I must write to Aulus Gabinius. Time that doughty warrior was recalled from exile." "What about recalling Milo?" asked Caelius, Milo's friend. "No, not Milo," said Caesar curtly, and terminated the meal. "Did you notice," said Caelius later in private to Pollio, "that Caesar spoke as if it were in his power to recall exiles? Is he really so confident?" "He's not confident," said Pollio. "He knows." "But it's on the laps of the Gods, Pollio!" "And who," asked Pollio, smiling, "is the darling of the Gods? Pompeius? Cato? Rubbish! Never forget, Caelius, that a great man makes his luck. Luck is there for everyone to seize. Most of us miss our chances; we're blind to our luck. He never misses a chance because he's never blind to the opportunity of the moment. Which is why he's the darling of the Gods. They like brilliant men."