Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

Oblivious to this massive amount of ill will the boni were directing at his person, Caesar went home to a dinner party. Licinia had given up her vows, and Fabia was now the Chief Vestal. The changeover had been marked by ceremonies and an official banquet for all the priestly colleges, but on this New Year's Day the Pontifex Maximus was giving a much smaller dinner: just the five Vestals; Aurelia; Julia; and Fabia's half sister, Cicero's wife, Terentia. Cicero had been invited, but declined. So too did Pompeia Sulla decline; like Cicero, she pleaded a prior commitment. The Clodius Club was celebrating. However, Caesar had good reason to know that she could not imperil her good name. Polyxena and Cardixa were stuck to her more firmly than burrs to an ox. My little harem, thought Caesar in some amusement, though his mind quailed when his eyes rested on the sour, forbidding Terentia. Impossible to think of Terentia in that context, whimsy or no! Enough time had gone by for the Vestals to have lost their shyness. This was especially true of the two children, Quinctilia and Junia, who obviously worshiped him. He teased them, laughed and joked with them, was never on his dignity with them, and seemed to understand a great deal of what went on in their girlish minds. Even the two dour ones, Popillia and Arruntia, now had good cause to know that with Gaius Caesar in the other half of the Domus Publica, there would be no lawsuits alleging unchastity. Astonishing, thought Terentia as the meal progressed merrily, that a man with such a shocking reputation for philandering could handle this clutch of extremely vulnerable women so deftly. On the one hand he was approachable, even affectionate; on the other hand he gave them absolutely no hope. They would all spend the rest of their lives in love with him, no doubt, but not in a tortured sense. He gave them absolutely no hope. And interesting that not even Bibulus had produced a canard about Caesar and his clutch of Vestal women. Not in more than a century had there been a Pontifex Maximus so punctilious, so devoted to the job; he had enjoyed the position for less than a year so far, but already his reputation in it was unassailable. Including his reputation anent Rome's most precious possession, her consecrated virgins. Naturally Terentia's chief loyalty was to Cicero, and no one had suffered for him more through the Catilina business than his wife. Since the night of the fifth day of December she had woken to listen to his mumbling nightmares, heard him repeat Caesar's name over and over, and never without anger or pain. It was Caesar and no one else who had ruined Cicero's triumph; it was Caesar who had fanned the smoldering resentment of the People. Metellus Nepos was a gnat grown fangs because of Caesar. And yet from Fabia came another view of Caesar, and Terentia was too cool a woman not to appreciate its justice, its authenticity. Cicero was a far nicer man, a more worthy man. Ardent and sincere, he brought boundless enthusiasm and energy into everything he did, and no one could impugn his honesty. However, Terentia decided with a sigh, not even a mind as huge as Cicero's could outthink a mind like Caesar's. Why was it that these incredibly old families could still throw up a Sulla or a Caesar? They ought to have been worn out centuries ago. Terentia came out of her reverie when Caesar ordered the two little girls to bed. "It's up with the sparrows in the morning, no more holidays." He nodded to the hovering Eutychus. "See the ladies safely home, and make sure the servants are awake to take charge of them at the Atrium Vestae door." Off they went, lissome Junia several feet in front of the waddling Quinctilia. Aurelia watched them go with a mental sigh: that child ought to be put on a diet! But when she had issued instructions to this effect some months earlier, Caesar had grown angry and forbidden it. "Let her be, Mater. You are not Quinctilia, and Quinctilia is not you. If the poor little puppy is happy eating, then she shall eat. For she is happy! There are no husbands waiting in the wings, and I would have her continue to like being a Vestal." "She'll die of overeating!" "Then so be it. I will only approve when Quinctilia herself elects to starve." What could one do with a man like that? Aurelia had shut her mouth tightly and desisted. "No doubt," she said now with a touch of acid in her voice, you are going to choose Minucia from among the candidates to fill Licinia's place." The fair brows rose. What leads you to that conclusion?" "You seem to have a soft spot for fat children." Which didn't have the desired effect; Caesar laughed. I have a soft spot for children, Mater. Tall, short, thin, fat it makes little difference. However, since you've brought the subject up, I'm pleased to say that the Vestal slough is over. So far I've had five offers of very suitable children, all of the right blood, and all furnished with excellent dowries." "Five?" Aurelia blinked. "I had thought there were three." "Are we permitted to know their names?" asked Fabia. "I don't see why not. The choice is mine, but I don't move in a feminine world, and I certainly don't pretend to know everything about the domestic situations within families. Two of them, however, don't matter; I'm not seriously considering them. And one of them is Minucia, as it happens," said Caesar, quizzing his mother wickedly. "Then who are you considering?" "An Octavia of the branch using Gnaeus as a praenomen." "That would be the grandchild of the consul who died in the Janiculan fortress when Marius and Cinna besieged Rome." "Yes. Does anyone have any information to offer?" No one did. Caesar produced the next name, a Postumia. Aurelia frowned; so did Fabia and Terentia. "Ah! What's wrong with Postumia?" "It's a patrician family," said Terentia, "but am I correct in assuming this girl is of the Albinus branch, last consul over forty years ago?'' "Yes." "And she is turned eight?" "Yes." "Then don't take her. It's a household much addicted to the wine flagon, and all the children far too many of them! I really can't think what the mother was about! are allowed to lap unwatered wine from the time they're weaned. This girl has already drunk herself senseless on several occasions." "Dear me!" "So who's left, tata?" asked Julia, smiling. "Cornelia Merula, the great granddaughter of the flamen Dialis Lucius Cornelius Merula," said Caesar solemnly. Every pair of eyes looked at him accusingly, but it was Julia who answered. "You've been teasing us!" she chuckled. "I thought you were!" "Oh?" asked Caesar, lips twitching. "Why would you look any further, tata?" "Excellent, excellent!" said Aurelia, beaming. "The great grandmother still rules that family, and every generation has been brought up in the most religious way. Cornelia Merula will come willingly, and adorn the College." "So I think, Mater," said Caesar. Whereupon Julia rose. "I thank you for your hospitality, Pontifex Maximus," she said gravely, "but I ask your leave to go." Brutus coming round?'' She blushed. "Not at this hour, tata!" "Julia," said Aurelia when she had gone, "will be fourteen in five days' time." "Pearls," said Caesar promptly. "At fourteen she can wear pearls, Mater, is that right?" "Provided they're small." He looked wry. "Small is all they can be." Sighing, he got up. "Ladies, thank you for your company. There's no need to go, but I must. I have work to do." "Well! A Cornelia Merula for the College!" Terentia was saying as Caesar shut the door. Outside in the corridor he leaned against the wall and for several moments laughed silently. What a tiny world they lived in! Was that good or bad? At least they were a pleasant group, even if Mater was growing a little curmudgeonly, and Terentia always had been. But thank the Gods he didn't have to do that often! More fun by far to engineer Metellus Nepos's move to get himself banished than to make small talk with women.

Though when Caesar convened the Popular Assembly early in the morning of the fourth day of January, he had no idea that Bibulus and Cato intended to use the meeting to bring about a worse fall from grace than Metellus Nepos's: his own fall. Even when he and his lictors arrived in the lower Forum very early, it was evident that the Well of the Comitia was not going to hold the crowd; Caesar turned immediately in the direction of the temple of Castor and Pollux and issued orders to the small group of public slaves who waited nearby in case they were needed. Many thought Castor's the most imposing temple in the Forum, for it had been rebuilt less than sixty years ago by Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus, and he had built in the grand style. Large enough inside for the full Senate to hold a meeting there very comfortably, the floor of its single chamber stood twenty five feet above the ground, and within its podium lay a warren of rooms. A stone tribunal had once stood in front of the original temple, but when Metellus Dalmaticus tore it down and started again he incorporated this structure into the whole, thus creating a platform almost as large as the rostra some ten feet off the ground. Instead of bringing the wonderful flight of shallow marble steps all the way from the entrance to the temple itself to the level of the Forum, he had stopped them at the platform. Access from the Forum to the platform was via two narrow sets of steps, one on either side. This allowed the platform to serve as a rostrum, and Castor's to serve as a voting place; the assembled People or Plebs stood below in the Forum and looked up. The temple itself was completely surrounded by fluted stone columns painted red, each surmounted by an Ionic capital painted in shades of rich blue with gilded edges to the volutes. Nor had Metellus Dalmaticus enclosed the chamber by walls within the columns; one could look straight through Castor's, it soared airy and free as the two young Gods to whom it was dedicated. As Caesar stood watching the public slaves deposit the big, heavy tribunician bench on the platform, someone touched his arm. "A word to the wise," said Publius Clodius, dark eyes very bright. "There's going to be trouble." Caesar's own eyes had already absorbed the fact that there were many in the idling crowd whose faces were not familiar save in one way: they belonged to Rome's multitude of bully boys, the ex gladiators who upon being liberated drifted from places like Capua to find seedy employment in Rome as bouncers, bailiffs, bodyguards. "They're not my men," said Clodius. "Whose, then?" "I'm not sure because they're too cagey to say. But they all have suspicious bulges beneath their togas cudgels, most likely. If I were you, Caesar, I'd have someone call out the militia in a hurry. Don't hold your meeting until it's guarded." "Many thanks, Publius Clodius," said Caesar, and turned away to speak to his chief lictor. Not long afterward the new consuls appeared. Silanus's lictors bore the fasces, whereas Murena's dozen walked with left shoulders unburdened. Neither man was happy, for this meeting, the second of the year, was also the second one called into being by a mere praetor; Caesar had got in before the consuls, a great insult, and Silanus had not yet had an opportunity to address the People in his laudatory contio. Even Cicero had fared better! Thus both waited stony faced as far from Caesar as they could, while their servants placed their slender ivory chairs to one side of the platform's center, occupied by the curule chair belonging to Caesar and ominous presence! the tribunician bench. One by one the other magistrates trickled in and found a spot to sit. Metellus Nepos when he came perched on the very end of the tribunician bench adjacent to Caesar's chair, winking at Caesar and nourishing the scroll containing his bill to summon Pompey home. Eyes everywhere, the urban praetor told off the clotting groups in the crowd, now three or four thousand strong. Though the very front area was reserved for senators, those just behind and to either side were ex gladiators. Elsewhere were groups he thought belonged to Clodius, including the three Antonii and the rest of the young blades who belonged to the Clodius Club. Also Fulvia. His chief lictor approached and bent down to Caesar's chair. "The militia are beginning to arrive, Caesar. As you directed, I've put them out of sight behind the temple." "Good. Use your own initiative, don't wait for my command." "It's all right, Caesar!" said Metellus Nepos cheerfully. "I heard that the crowd was full of strange tough faces, so I've got a few tough faces of my own out there." "I don't think, Nepos," said Caesar, sighing, "that's a very clever idea. The last thing I want is another war in the Forum." "Isn't it high time?" asked Nepos, unimpressed. "We haven't had a good brawl in more years than I've been out of diapers." "You're just determined to go out of office with a roar." "That I am! Though I would love to wallop Cato before I go!" Last to arrive, Cato and Thermus ascended the steps on the side where Pollux sat his painted marble horse, picked their way between the praetors with a grin for Bibulus, and attained the bench. Before Metellus Nepos knew what had happened, the two newcomers had each lifted him beneath an elbow and whisked him to the middle of the bench. They then sat down between him and Caesar, with Cato next to Caesar and Thermus next to Nepos. When Bestia tried to flank Nepos on his other side, Lucius Marius shoved his way between them. Metellus Nepos thus sat alone amid his enemies, as did Caesar when Bibulus suddenly shifted his ivory seat to Caesar's side of a startled Philippus. Alarm was spreading; the two consuls were looking uneasy, and the uninvolved praetors were clearly wishing the platform stood three times farther off the ground than it did. But the meeting got under way at last with the prayers and auguries. All was in order. Caesar spoke briefly to the effect that the tribune of the plebs Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos wished to present a bill for discussion by the People. Metellus Nepos rose, pulling the ends of his scroll apart. "Quirites, it is the fourth day of January in the year of the consulship of Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena! To the north of Rome lies the great district of Etruria, where the outlaw Catilina struts with an army of rebels! In the field against him is Gaius Antonius Hybrida, commander in chief of a force at least twice the size of Catilina's! But nothing happens! It is now almost two months since Hybrida left Rome to deal with this pathetic collection of veteran soldiers so old their knees creak, but nothing has happened! Rome continues to exist under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum while the ex consul in charge of her legions bandages his toe!" The scroll came into play, but seriously; Nepos was not foolish enough to think that this assemblage would appreciate a clown. He cleared his throat and launched immediately into the details. I hereby propose that the People of Rome relieve Gaius Antonius Hybrida of his imperium and his command! I hereby ask the People of Rome to install Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in his place as commander in chief of the armies! I hereby direct that the People of Rome endow Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus with an imperium maius effective within all Italia except the city of Rome herself! I further direct that Gnaeus Pompeius be given whatever moneys, troops, equipment and legates he requires, and that his special command together with his imperium maius not be terminated until he thinks the time right to lay them down!" Cato and Thermus were on their feet as the last word left Nepos's mouth. "Veto! Veto! I interpose my veto!" cried both men in unison. A rain of stones came out of nowhere, whizzing viciously at the assembled magistrates, and the bully boys charged through the ranks of the senators in the direction of both sets of steps. Curule chairs overturned as consuls, praetors and aediles fled up the broad marble stairs into the temple, with all the tribunes of the plebs except for Cato and Metellus Nepos after them. Clubs and cudgels were out; Caesar wrapped his toga about his right arm and retreated between his lictors, dragging Nepos with him. But Cato hung on longer, it seemed miraculously preserved, still shouting that he vetoed with every higher step he took until Murena dashed out from among the columns and pulled him forcibly inside. The militia waded into the fray with shields round and staves thudding, and gradually those louts who had attained the platform were driven down again. Senators now scurried up the two flights of steps, making for the shelter of the temple. And. below in the Forum a full scale riot broke out as a whooping Mark Antony and his boon companion Curio fell together on some twenty opponents, their friends piling in after them. "Well, this is a good start to the year!" said Caesar as he walked into the center of the light filled temple, carefully redraping his toga. "It is a disgraceful start to the year!" snapped Silanus, his blood coursing fast enough through his veins to banish belly pain. "Lictor, I command you to quell the riot!" "Oh, rubbish!" said Caesar wearily. "I have the militia here, I marshaled them when I saw some of the faces in the crowd. The trouble won't amount to much now we're off the rostra." "This is your doing, Caesar!" snarled Bibulus. "To hear you talk, Flea, it's always my doing." "Will you please come to order?" Silanus shouted. I have summoned the Senate into session, and I will have order!" "Hadn't you better invoke the Senatus Consultum Ultimum, Silanus?" asked Nepos, looking down to find that he still held his scroll. "Better still, as soon as the fuss dies down outside, let me finish my proper business before the People." "Silence!" Silanus tried to roar; it came out more like a bleat. The Senatus Consultum Ultimum empowers me as the consul with the fasces to take all the measures I deem necessary to protect the Res Publica of Rome!" He gulped, suddenly needing his chair. But it lay on the platform below, he had to send a servant to fetch it. When someone unfolded it and set it down for him, he collapsed into it, grey and sweating. Conscript Fathers, I will see an end to this appalling affair at once!" he said then. "Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, you have the floor. Kindly explain the remark you made to Gaius Julius Caesar." "I don't have to explain it, Decimus Silanus, it's manifest," said Bibulus, pointing to a darkening swelling on his left cheek. "I accuse Gaius Caesar and Quintus Metellus Nepos of public violence! Who else stands to gain from rioting in the Forum? Who else would want to see chaos? Whose ends does it serve except theirs?" "Bibulus is right!" yelled Cato, so elated by the brief crisis that for once he forgot the protocol of names. Who else stood to gain? Who else needs a Forum running with blood? It's back to the good old days of Gaius Gracchus, Livius Drusus, that filthy demagogue Saturninus! You're both Pompeius's minions!" Growls and rumbles came from all sides, for there were none among the hundred odd senators inside the temple who had voted with Caesar during that fateful division on the fifth day of December when five men were condemned to death without trial. Neither the tribune of the plebs Nepos nor I as urban praetor had anything to gain from violence," said Caesar, "nor were those who threw the stones known to us." He looked derisively at Marcus Bibulus. "Had the meeting I convoked progressed peacefully, Flea, the outcome would have been a resounding victory for Nepos. Do you genuinely think the serious voters who came today would want a dolt like Hybrida in charge of their legions if they were offered Pompeius Magnus? The violence began when Cato and Thermus vetoed, not before. To use the power of the tribunician veto to prevent the People from discussing laws in contio or registering their votes is in absolute violation of everything Rome stands for! I don't blame the People for starting to shell us! It's months since they've been acknowledged to have any rights at all!" "Speaking of rights, every tribune of the plebs has the right to exercise his veto at his discretion!" bellowed Cato. "What a fool you are, Cato!" cried Caesar. "Why do you think Sulla took the veto off the likes of you? Because the veto was never intended to serve the interests of a few men who control the Senate! Every time you yap another veto, you insult the intelligence of all those thousands out there in the Forum cheated by you of their right to listen calmly! to laws presented to them calmly! then to vote calmly! one way or the other!" "Calm? Calm? It wasn't my veto disturbed the calm, Caesar, it was your bully boys!" "I wouldn't soil my hands on such rabble!" "You didn't have to! All you had to do was issue orders." "Cato, the People are sovereign," said Caesar, striving to be more patient, "not the Senate's rump and its few tribunician mouthpieces. You don't serve the interests of the People, you serve the interests of a handful of senators who think they own and rule an empire of millions! You strip the People of their rights and this city of her dignitas! You shame me, Cato! You shame Rome! You shame the People! You even shame your boni masters, who use your navet and sneer at your ancestry behind your back! You call me a minion of Pompeius Magnus? I am not! But you, Cato, are no more and no less than a minion of the boni!" "Caesar," said Cato, striding to stand with his face only inches from Caesar's, "you are a cancer in the body of Roman men! You are everything I abominate!" He turned to the stunned group of senators and held out his hands to them, the healing stripes on his face giving him in that filtered light the savagery of a fierce cat. Conscript Fathers, this Caesar will ruin us all! He will destroy the Republic, I know it in my bones! Don't listen to him prate of the People and the People's rights! Instead, listen to me! Drive him and his catamite Nepos out of Rome, forbid them fire and water within the bounds of Italia! I will see Caesar and Nepos charged with violent crime, I will see them outlawed!" "Listening to you, Cato," said Metellus Nepos, only reminds me that any violence in the Forum is better than letting you run rampant vetoing every single meeting, every single proposal, every single word!" And for the second time in a month someone took Cato off guard to do things to his face. Metellus Nepos simply walked up to him, threw every ounce of himself into his hand, and slapped Cato so hard that Servilia's scratches burst and bled anew. "I don't care what you do to me with your precious piddling Senatus Consultum Ultimum!" Nepos yelled at Silanus. "It's worth dying in the Tullianum to know I've walloped Cato!" "Get out of Rome, go to your master Pompeius!" panted Silanus, helpless to control the meeting, his own feelings, or the pain. "Oh, I intend to!" said Nepos scornfully, turned on his heel and walked out. "You'll see me again!" he called as he clattered down the steps. "I'll be back with brother in law Pompeius at my side! Who knows? It might be Catilina ruling Rome by then, and you'll all be deservedly dead, you shit arsed sheep!" Even Cato was silenced, another of his scant supply of togas rapidly bloodying beyond redemption. "Do you need me further, senior consul?" asked Caesar of Silanus in conversational tones. 'The sounds of strife appear to be dying away outside, and there's nothing more to be said here, is there?" He smiled coldly. "Too much has been said already." You are under suspicion of inciting public violence, Caesar," said Silanus faintly. "While ever the Senatus Consultum Ultimum remains in effect, you are disbarred from all meetings and all magisterial business." He looked at Bibulus. "I suggest, Marcus Bibulus, that you start preparing your case to prosecute this man de vi today." Which set Caesar laughing. "Silanus, Silanus, get your facts correct! How can this flea prosecute me in his own court? He'll have to get Cato to do his dirty work for him. And do you know something, Cato?" asked Caesar softly of the furious grey eyes glaring at him between folds of toga. "You don't stand a chance. I have more intelligence in my battering ram than you do in your citadel!" He pulled his tunic away from his chest and bent his head to address the space created. "Isn't that right, O battering ram?" A sweet smile for the assembled refugees, then: "He says that's right. Conscript Fathers, good day."