Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

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Was it good to be home? Over fifteen months away. Not the first time nor the longest time, but this time had been official, and that made a difference. Because Governor Antistius Vetus had not taken a legate to Further Spain with him, Caesar had been the second most important Roman in the province assizes, finances, administration. A lonely life, galloping from one end of Further Spain to the other at his usual headlong pace; no time to form real friendships with other Romans. Typical perhaps that the one man he had warmed to was not a Roman; typical too that Antistius Vetus the governor had not warmed to his second in command, though they got on well enough together and shared an occasional, rather business filled conversation over dinner whenever they happened to be in the same city. If there was one difficulty about being a patrician of the Julii Caesares, it was that all his seniors to date were only too aware how much greater and more august his ancestry was than theirs. To a Roman of any kind, illustrious ancestors mattered more than anything else. And he always reminded his seniors of Sulla. The lineage, the obvious brilliance and efficiency, the striking physical appearance, the icy eyes ... So was it good to be home? Caesar stared at the beautiful tidiness of his study, every surface dusted, every scroll in its bucket or pigeonhole, the pattern of elaborate leaves and flowers in the marquetry of his desk top on full display, only a ram's horn inkstand and a clay cup of pens to obscure it. At least the initial entry into his home had been more bearable than he had anticipated. When Eutychus had opened the door upon a scene of chattering women, his first impulse had been to run, but then he realized this was an excellent beginning; the emptiness of a home without his darling Cinnilla there would remain internal, need not be spoken. Sooner or later little Julia would bring it up, but not in those first moments, not until his eyes had grown accustomed to Cinnilla's absence, and would not fill with tears. He hardly remembered this apartment without her, who had lived as his sister before she was old enough to be wife, a part of his childhood as well as his manhood. Dear lady she had been, who now was ashes in a cold dark tomb. His mother walked in, composed and aloof as always. "Who's been spreading rumors about my visit to Italian Gaul?" he asked, drawing up a chair for her close to his own. "Bibulus." "I see." He sat down, sighing. "Well, that was only to be expected, I suppose. One can't insult a flea like Bibulus the way I insulted him and not become his enemy for the rest of one's days. How I disliked him!" "How he continues to dislike you." There are twenty quaestors, and I had luck. The lots gave me a post far from Bibulus. But he's almost exactly two years older than me, which means we'll always be in office together as we rise up the cursus honorum." "So you intend to take advantage of Sulla's dispensation for patricians, and stand for curule office two years earlier than plebeians like Bibulus," said Aurelia, making it a statement. "I'd be a fool not to, and a fool I am not, Mater," said her son. "If I run for election as a praetor in my thirty seventh year, I will have been in the Senate for sixteen of those years without counting the flamen Dialis years. That is quite long enough for any man to wait." "But still six years off. In the meantime, what?" He twisted restlessly. "Oh, I can feel the walls of Rome hemming me in already, though I passed through them only hours ago! Give me a life abroad any day." "There are bound to be plenty of court cases. You're a famous advocate, quite up there with Cicero and Hortensius. You'll be offered some juicy ones." "But inside Rome, always inside Rome. Spain," said Caesar, leaning forward eagerly, "was a revelation to me. Antistius Vetus proved a lethargic governor who was happy to give me as much work as I was willing to take on, despite my lowly status. So I did all the assizes throughout the province, as well as managed the governor's funds." "Now the latter duty," said his mother dryly, "must have been a trial to you. Money doesn't fascinate you." "Oddly enough, I found it did when it was Rome's money. I took some lessons in accounting from the most remarkable fellow a Gadetanian banker of Punic origin named Lucius Cornelius Balbus Major. He has a nephew almost as old as he is, Balbus Minor, who is his partner. They did a lot of work for Pompeius Magnus when he was in Spain, and now they seem to own most of Gades. What the elder Balbus doesn't know about banking and other things fiscal doesn't matter. It goes without saying that the public purse was a shambles. But thanks to Balbus Major, I tidied it up splendidly. I liked him, Mater." Caesar shrugged, looked wry. "In fact, he was the only true friend I made out there." "Friendship," said Aurelia, "goes both ways. You know more individuals than the rest of noble Rome put together, but you let no Roman of your own class draw too close to you. That's why the few true friends you make are always foreigners or Romans of the lower classes." Caesar grinned. "Rubbish! I get on better with foreigners because I grew up in your apartment block surrounded by Jews, Syrians, Gauls, Greeks, and the Gods know what else." "Blame it on me," she said flatly. He chose to ignore this. "Marcus Crassus is my friend, and you can't call him anything but a Roman as noble as I am myself." She riposted with "Did you make any money at all in Spain?" "A little here and there, thanks to Balbus. Unfortunately the province was peaceful for a change, so there were no nice little border wars to fight with the Lusitani. Had there been, I suspect Antistius Vetus would have fought them himself anyway. But rest easy, Mater. My piratical nest egg is undisturbed, I have enough laid by to stand for the senior magistracies." Including curule aedile?'' she asked, tone foreboding. "Since I'm a patrician and therefore can't make a reputation as a tribune of the plebs, I don't have much choice," he said, and took one of the pens from its cup to place it straight on the desk; he never fiddled, but sometimes it was necessary to have something other than his mother's eyes to look at. Odd. He had forgotten how unnerving she could be. Even with your piratical nest egg in reserve, Caesar, curule aedile is ruinously expensive. I know you! You won't be content to give moderately good games. You'll insist on giving the best games anyone can remember." "Probably. I'll worry about that when I come to it in three or four years," he said tranquilly. "In the meantime, I intend to stand at next month's elections for the post of curator of the Via Appia. No Claudius wants the job." "Another ruinously expensive enterprise! The Treasury will grant you one sestertius per hundred miles, and you'll spend a hundred denarii on every mile." He was tired of the conversation; she was, as she always had been whenever they exchanged more than a few sentences, beginning to harp on money and his disregard for it. "You know," he said, picking up the pen and putting it back in the cup, "nothing ever alters. I had forgotten that. While I was away I had started to think of you as every man dreams his mother must be. Now here is the reality. A perpetual sermon on my tendency to extravagance. Give it up, Mater! What matters to you does not matter to me." Her lips thinned, but she stayed silent for a few moments; then as she rose to her feet she said, "Servilia wishes to have a private interview with you as soon as possible." "What on earth for?" he asked. "No doubt she'll tell you when you see her." "Do you know?" "I ask no questions of anyone save you, Caesar. That way, I am told no lies." "You acquit me of lying, then." "Naturally." He had begun to get up, but sank back into his chair and plucked another pen from the cup, frowning. "She's interesting, that one." His head went to one side. "Her assessment of the Bibulus rumor was astonishingly accurate." "If you remember, several years ago I told you she was the most politically astute woman of my acquaintance. But you weren't impressed enough by what I said to want to meet her." "Well, now I have met her. And I'm impressed though not by her arrogance. She actually presumed to patronize me." Something in his voice arrested Aurelia's progress to the door; she swung round to stare at Caesar intently. "Silanus is not your enemy," she said stiffly. That provoked a laugh, but it died quickly. "I do sometimes fancy a woman who is not the wife of an enemy, Mater! And I think I fancy her just a little. Certainly I must find out what she wants. Who knows? Maybe it's me." "With Servilia, impossible to tell. She's enigmatic." "I was reminded a trifle of Cinnilla." "Do not be misled by romantic sentiment, Caesar. There is no likeness whatsoever between Servilia and your late wife." Her eyes misted. "Cinnilla was the sweetest girl. At thirty six, Servilia is no girl, and she's far from sweet. In fact, I'd call her as cold and hard as a slab of marble." "You don't like her?" "I like her very well. But for what she is." This time Aurelia reached the door before turning. "Dinner will be ready shortly. Are you eating here?" His face softened. "How could I disappoint Julia by going anywhere today?" He thought of something else, and said, "An odd boy, Brutus. Like oil on the surface, but I suspect that somewhere inside is a very peculiar sort of iron. Julia seemed rather proprietary about him. I wouldn't have thought he'd appeal to her." "I doubt he does. But they're old friends." This time it was her face softened. "Your daughter is extraordinarily kind. In which respect she takes after her mother. There's no one else from whom she could have inherited that characteristic."