Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

When Lucius Flavius took Pompey's land bill back to the Plebs any chance of its passing died. Celer was there in the Comitia to torment and harangue; so bitter was the confrontation with poor Flavius that he ended in invoking his right to conduct business unobstructed, and hied Celer off to the Lautumiae. From his cell Celer convoked a meeting of the Senate; then when Flavius barred its door with his own body, Celer ordered the wall pulled down and personally supervised its demolition. Nothing prevented his leaving the cell, the Lautumiae being what it was, but the senior consul preferred to show Lucius Flavius up by ostentatiously conducting his consular and senatorial business from that cell. Frustrated and very angry, Pompey had no choice other than to call his tribune of the plebs to order. With the result that Flavius authorized Celer's release, and went no more to meetings of the Plebeian Assembly. The land bill was impossible to promulgate. In the meantime canvassing for the curule elections proceeded at a hectic pace, public interest stimulated enormously by the return of Caesar. Somehow when Caesar wasn't in Rome everything tended to be boring, whereas the presence of Caesar guaranteed that fur would fly. Young Curio was up on the rostra or Castor's platform every time one or the other became vacant, and seemed to have decided to replace Metellus Nepos as Caesar's most personal critic (Nepos had departed for Further Spain). The tale of King Nicomedes was retold with many witty embellishments though, said Cicero to Pompey in complete exasperation, "It's young Curio I'd call effeminate. He was certainly Catilina's cub, if not something more to Catilina than that." "I thought he belonged to Publius Clodius?" asked Pompey, who always found it difficult to keep track of the intricacies involved in political and social alliances. Cicero could not suppress a shiver at mention of that name. "He belongs to himself first," he said. "Are you doing your best to help Lucceius's candidacy?" "Naturally!" Cicero said haughtily. As indeed he was, though not without constant awkward chance encounters during escort duty in the Forum. Thanks to Terentia, Publius Clodius had become a very bitter and dangerous enemy. Why was it that women made life so hard? If she had only left him alone, Cicero might have avoided testifying against Clodius when his trial for sacrilege finally came on a twelvemonth ago. For Clodius announced that at the time of the Bona Dea he had been in Interamna, and produced some respectable witnesses to confirm this. But Terentia knew better. "He came around to see you on the day of the Bona Dea," she said sternly, "to tell you that he was going to western Sicily as quaestor, and wanted to do well. It was the day of Bona Dea, I know it was! You told me he'd come to ask for a few tips." "My dear, you're mistaken!" Cicero had managed to gasp. "The provinces weren't even assigned until three months after that!" "Rubbish, Cicero! You know as well as I do that the lots are fixed. Clodius knew where he was going! It's that trollop Clodia, isn't it? You won't testify because of her." "I won't testify because I have an instinct that this is one sleeping beast I ought not to arouse, Terentia. Clodius has never cared overmuch for me since I helped to defend Fabia thirteen years ago! I disliked him then. I now find him detestable. But he's old enough to be in the Senate, and he's a patrician Claudius. His senior brother Appius is a great friend of mine and Nigidius Figulus's. Amicitia must be preserved." "You're having an affair with his sister Clodia, and that's why you refuse to do your duty," said Terentia, looking mulish. "I am not having an affair with Clodia! She's disgracing herself with that poet fellow, Catullus." "Women," said Terentia with awful logic, "are not like men, husband. They don't have just so many arrows in their quivers to shoot. They can lie on their backs and accept an arsenal." Cicero gave in and testified, thereby breaking Clodius's alibi. And though Fulvia's money bought the jury (which acquitted him by thirty one to twenty five votes), Clodius had neither forgiven nor forgotten. Added to which, when Clodius immediately afterward assumed his seat in the Senate and tried to be witty at Cicero's expense, Cicero's unruly tongue had covered him in glory and Clodius in ridicule yet one more grudge Clodius harbored. At the beginning of this year the tribune of the plebs Gaius Herennius a Picentine, so was he acting on Pompey's orders? had begun to make moves to have Clodius's status changed from patrician to plebeian through the medium of a special act in the Plebeian Assembly. Clodia's husband, Metellus Celer, had looked on in some amusement, and done nothing to countermand it. Now Clodius was heard everywhere saying that the moment Celer opened the booth for elections in the Plebs, he would be applying to stand as a tribune of the plebs. And that once he was in office he would see Cicero prosecuted for executing Roman citizens without a trial. Cicero was terrified, and not ashamed to say so to Atticus, whom he begged to use his influence with Clodia and have her call her little brother off. Atticus had refused, saying simply that no one could control Publius Clodius when he was in the mood for one of his revenges. Cicero was his choice of the moment. Despite all of which, those chance encounters happened. If a consular candidate was not allowed to give gladiatorial games in his own name and with his own money, there was nothing to stop someone else's giving a grand show in the Forum in honor of the candidate's tata or avus, provided that tata or avus was also an ancestor or relation of the games giver. Therefore none other than Metellus Celer the senior consul was giving gladiatorial games in honor of a mutual ancestor of his and Bibulus's. Clodius and Cicero were both escorting Lucceius as he moved through the lower Forum canvassing mightily, and found themselves thrown together by movements among those immediately surrounding Caesar, canvassing nearby. And since there was nothing else for it than to put on a good face and behave nicely to each other, Cicero and Clodius proceeded to do so. "I hear you gave gladiatorial games after you returned from Sicily," said Clodius to Cicero, his rather bewitching dark face transformed by a big smile, "is that right, Marcus Tullius?" "Yes, as a matter of fact I did," Cicero said brightly. "And did you reserve places on the special seating for your Sicilian clients?" "Er no," said Cicero, flushing; how to explain that they had been extremely modest games and the seating not adequate for his Roman clients? "Well, I intend to seat my Sicilian clients. The only trouble is that my brother in law Celer isn't co operating." "Then why not apply to your sister Clodia? She must have plenty of seats at her disposal, surely. She's the consul's wife." "Clodia?" Her brother reared up, his voice becoming loud enough to attract the attention of those in the vicinity who were not already listening to these two avowed enemies being terribly nice to each other. "Clodia? She wouldn't give me an inch!" Cicero giggled. "Well, why should she give you an inch when I hear that you give her six of your inches regularly?'' Oh, he'd done it this time! Why was his tongue such a traitor? The whole lower Forum suddenly lay down on the ground in helpless paroxysms of laughter, Caesar leading, while Clodius stood turned to stone and Cicero succumbed to the deliciousness of his own wit even in the midst of a bowel watering panic. "You'll pay for that!" Clodius whispered, gathered what he could of dignity about him and stalked off with Fulvia on his arm, her face a study in rage. "Yes!" she shrieked. "You'll pay for that, Cicero! I'll make a rattle out of your tongue one day!" An unbearable humiliation for Clodius, who was to find that June was not his lucky month. When his brother in law Celer threw open his booth to plebeian candidates and Clodius lodged his name as a candidate for the tribunate of the plebs, Celer refused him. "You're a patrician, Publius Clodius." "I am not a patrician!" said Clodius, hands clenched into fists. "Gaius Herennius procured a special enactment in the Plebs removing my patrician status." "Gaius Herennius wouldn't know the law if he fell over it," Celer said coolly. "How can the Plebs strip you of patrician status? It isn't the prerogative of the Plebs to say anything about the Patriciate. Now go away, Clodius, you're wasting my time. If you want to be a plebeian, do it the proper way get yourself adopted by a plebeian." Off went Clodius, fuming. Oh, that list was growing! Now Celer had earned a prominent place on it. But revenge could wait. First he had to find a plebeian willing to adopt him, if that was the only way to do it. He asked Mark Antony to be his father, but all Antony did was roar with laughter. "I don't need the million I'd have to charge you, Clodius, not now I'm married to Fadia and her tata has an Antonian grandchild on the way." Curio looked offended. "Rubbish, Clodius! If you think I'm going to go around calling you my son, you've got another think coming! I'd look sillier than I'm making Caesar look." "Why are you making Caesar look silly?" Clodius asked, curiosity aroused. "I'd much rather the Clodius Club supported him to the last member." "I'm bored," Curio said curtly, "and I'd really like to see him lose his temper they say it's awesome." Nor was Decimus Brutus about to oblige. "My mother would kill me if my father didn't," he said. "Sorry, Clodius." And even Poplicola baulked. "Have you calling me tata! No, Clodius, no!" Which of course was why Clodius had preferred to pay Herennius some of Fulvia's limitless supply of money to procure that act. He hadn't fancied being adopted; it was too ridiculous. Then Fulvia became inspired. "Stop looking among your peers for help," she said. "Memories in the Forum are long, and they all know it. They won't do something that might see them laughed at later on. So find a fool." Well, there were any number of those available! Clodius sat down to think, and found the ideal face swimming in front of his gaze. Publius Fonteius! Dying to get into the Clodius Club but constantly rebuffed. Rich, yes; deserving, no. Nineteen years old, no paterfamilias to hamper him, and clever as a bit of wood. "Oh, Publius Clodius, what an honor!" breathed Fonteius when approached. "Yes, please!" "Of course you understand that I can't acknowledge you as my paterfamilias, which means that as soon as the adoption is over you'll have to release me from your authority. It's very important to me that I keep my own name, you see." "Of course, of course! I'll do whatever you want." Off went Clodius to see Caesar Pontifex Maximus. "I've found someone willing to adopt me into the Plebs," he announced without preamble, "so I need the permission of the priests and augurs to procure a lex Curiata. Can you get it for me?" The handsome face considerably above Clodius's own did not change its mildly enquiring expression, nor was there a shadow of doubt or disapproval in the pale, dark ringed, piercing eyes. The humorous mouth didn't twitch. Yet for a long moment Caesar said nothing. Finally, "Yes, Publius Clodius, I can get it for you, but not in time for this year's elections, I'm afraid." Clodius went white. "Why not? It's simple enough!" "Have you forgotten that your brother in law Celer is an augur? He did refuse your application to stand for the tribunate." "Oh." "Be of good cheer, it will happen eventually. The matter can wait until he goes to his province." "But I wanted to be tribune of the plebs this year!" "I appreciate that. However, it isn't possible." Caesar paused. "There is a fee, Clodius," he added gently. "What?" Clodius asked warily. "Persuade young Curio to stop prating about me." Clodius stuck his hand out immediately. "Done!" he said. "Excellent!" "Are you sure there's nothing else you want, Caesar?" "Only gratitude, Clodius. I think you'll make a splendid tribune of the plebs because you're enough of a villain to be aware of the power in Law." And Caesar turned away with a smile. Naturally Fulvia was waiting nearby. "Not until Celer goes to his province," Clodius said to her. She put her arms about his waist and kissed him lasciviously, scandalizing several bystanders. "He's right," she said. "I do like Caesar, Publius Clodius! He always reminds me of a wild beast pretending to be tamed. What a demagogue he'd make!" Clodius experienced a twinge of jealousy. "Forget Caesar, woman!" he snarled. "Remember me, the man you're married to? I am the one who'll be the great demagogue!"