Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

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Fortune certainly continued to favor Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, reflected Caesar early in December, smiling to himself. The Great Man had indicated a wish to eradicate the pirate menace, and Fortune obediently connived to gratify him when the Sicilian grain harvest arrived in Ostia, Rome's port facility at the mouth of the Tiber River. Here the deep drafted freighters unloaded their precious cargo into barges for the final leg of the grain journey up the Tiber to the silo facilities of the Port of Rome itself. Here was absolute security, home at last. Several hundred ships converged on Ostia to discover no barges waiting; the quaestor for Ostia had mistimed things so badly that he had allowed the barges an extra trip upstream to Tuder and Ocriculum, where the Tiber Valley harvest was demanding transportation downstream to Rome. So while captains and grain tycoons fulminated and the hapless quaestor ran in ever decreasing circles, an irate Senate directed the sole consul, Quintus Marcius Rex, to rectify matters forthwith. It had been a miserable year for Marcius Rex, whose consular colleague had died soon after entering office. The Senate had immediately appointed a suffect consul to take his place, but he too died, and too quickly even to insert his posterior into his curule chair. A hurried consultation of the Sacred Books indicated that no further measures ought to be taken, which left Marcius Rex to govern alone. This had utterly ruined his plan to proceed during his consulship to his province, Cilicia, bestowed on him when hordes of lobbying knight businessmen had succeeded in having it taken off Lucullus. Now, just when Marcius Rex was hoping to leave for Cilicia at last, came the grain shambles in Ostia. Red with temper, he detached two praetors from their law courts in Rome and sent them posthaste to Ostia to sort things out. Each preceded by six lictors in red tunics bearing the axes in their fasces, Lucius Bellienus and Marcus Sextilius bore down on Ostia from the direction of Rome. And at precisely the same moment, a pirate fleet numbering over one hundred sleek war galleys bore down on Ostia from the Tuscan Sea. The two praetors arrived to find half the town burning, and pirates busily forcing the crews of laden grain ships to row their vessels back onto the sea lanes. The audacity of this raid whoever could have dreamed that pirates would invade a place scant miles from mighty Rome? had taken everyone by surprise. No troops were closer than Capua, Ostia's militia was too concerned with putting out fires on shore to think of marshaling resistance, and no one had even had the sense to send an urgent message for help to Rome. Neither praetor was a man of decision, so both stood stunned and disorientated amid the turmoil on the docks. There a group of pirates discovered them, took them and their lictors prisoner, loaded them on board a galley, and sailed merrily off in the wake of the disappearing grain fleet. The capture of two praetors one no less than the uncle of the great patrician nobleman Catilina together with their lictors and fasces would mean at least two hundred talents in ransom! The effect of the raid inside Rome was as predictable as it was inevitable: grain prices soared immediately; crowds of furious merchants, millers, bakers and consumers descended upon the lower Forum to demonstrate against governmental incompetence; and the Senate went into a huddle with the Curia doors shut so that no one outside would hear how dismal the debate within was bound to be. And dismal it was. No one even wanted to open it. When Quintus Marcius Rex had called several times to no avail for speakers, there finally rose it seemed with enormous reluctance the tribune of the plebs elect Aulus Gabinius, who looked, thought Caesar, even more the Gaul in that dim, filtered light. That was the trouble with all the men from Picenum the Gaul in them showed more than the Roman. Including Pompey. It wasn't so much the red or gold hair many of them sported, nor the blue or green eyes; plenty of impeccably Roman Romans were very fair. Including Caesar. The fault lay in Picentine bone structure. Full round faces, dented chins, short noses (Pompey's was even snubbed), thinnish lips. Gaul, not Roman. It put them at a disadvantage, proclaimed to the whole of their world that they might protest all they liked that they were descended from Sabine migrants, but the truth was that they were descended from Gauls who had settled in Picenum over three hundred years ago. The reaction among the majority of the senators who sat on their folding stools was palpable when Gabinius the Gaul rose to his feet: distaste, disapproval, dismay. Under normal circumstances his turn to speak would have been very far down the hierarchy. At this time of year he was outranked by fourteen incumbent magistrates, fourteen magistrates elect, and some twenty consulars if, of course, everyone was present. Everyone was not. Everyone never was. Nonetheless, to have a tribunician magistrate open the debate was almost unprecedented. "It hasn't been a good year, has it?" Aulus Gabinius asked the House after completing the formalities of addressing those above and below him in the pecking order. "During the past six years we have attempted to wage war against the pirates of Crete alone, though the pirates who have just sacked Ostia and captured the grain fleet not to mention kidnapped two praetors and their insignia of office don't hail from anywhere half as far away as Crete, do they? No, they patrol the middle of Our Sea from bases in Sicily, Liguria, Sardinia and Corsica. Led no doubt by Megadates and Pharnaces, who for some years have enjoyed a really delightful little pact with various governors of Sicily like the exiled Gaius Verres, whereby they can go wherever they please in Sicilian waters and harbors. I imagine they rounded up their allies and shadowed this grain fleet all the way from Lilybaeum. Perhaps their original intention was to raid it at sea. Then some enterprising person in their pay at Ostia sent them word that there were no barges at Ostia, nor likely to be for eight or nine days. Well, why settle for capturing a part only of the grain fleet by attempting to raid it at sea? Better to do the job while it lay intact and fully laden in Ostia harbor! I mean, the whole world knows Rome keeps no legions in her home territory of Latium! What was to stop them at Ostia? What did stop them at Ostia? The answer is very short and simple nothing!" This last word was bellowed; everyone jumped, but no one replied. Gabinius gazed about and wished Pompey was present to hear him. A pity, a great pity. Still, Pompey would love the letter Gabinius intended to send him this night! "Something has got to be done," Gabinius went on, "and by that I do not mean the usual debacle so exquisitely personified by the campaign our chief Little Goat is still waging in Crete. First he barely manages to defeat some Cretan rabble in a land battle, then he lays siege to Cydonia, which eventually capitulates but he lets the great pirate admiral Panares go free! So a couple more towns fall, then he lays siege to Cnossus, within whose walls the great pirate admiral Lasthenes is skulking. When the fall of Cnossus looks inevitable, Lasthenes destroys what treasures he can't carry away with him, and escapes. An efficient siege operation, eh? But which disaster causes our chief Little Goat more sorrow? The flight of Lasthenes or the loss of the treasure trove? Why, the loss of the treasure trove, of course! Lasthenes is only a pirate, and pirates don't ransom each other. Pirates expect to be crucified like the slaves they once were!" Gabinius the Gaul from Picenum paused, grinning savagely in the way a Gaul could. He drew a deep breath, then said, "Something has got to be done!" And sat down. No one spoke. No one moved. Quintus Marcius Rex sighed. "Has no one anything to say?" His eyes roamed from one tier to another on both sides of the House, and rested nowhere until they encountered a derisive look on Caesar's face. Now why did Caesar stare like that? Gaius Julius Caesar, you were once captured by pirates, and you managed to get the better of them. Have you nothing to say?" asked Marcius Rex. Caesar rose from his seat on the second tier. "Just one thing, Quintus Marcius. Something has got to be done." And sat down. The sole consul of the year lifted both hands in the air as a gesture of defeat, and dismissed the meeting. "When do you intend to strike?" asked Caesar of Gabinius as they left the Curia Hostilia together. "Not quite yet," said Gabinius cheerfully. "1 have a few other things to do first, so does Gaius Cornelius. I know it's customary to start one's year as a tribune of the plebs with the biggest things first, but I consider those bad tactics. Let our esteemed consuls elect Gaius Piso and Manius Acilius Glabrio warm their arses on their curule chairs first. I want to let them think Cornelius and I have exhausted our repertoire before I so much as attempt to reopen today's subject." "January or February, then." "Certainly not before January," said Gabinius. "So Magnus is fully prepared to take on the pirates." Down to the last bolt, nail and skin of water. I can tell you, Caesar, that Rome will never have seen anything like it." "Then roll on, January." Caesar paused, turned his head to look at Gabinius quizzically. Magnus will never succeed in getting Gaius Piso on his side, he's too glued to Catulus and the boni, but Glabrio is more promising. He's never forgotten what Sulla did to him." "When Sulla forced him to divorce Aemilia Scaura?'' "Precisely. He's the junior consul next year, but it's handy to have at least one consul in thrall." Gabinius chuckled. "Pompeius has something in mind for our dear Glabrio." "Good. If you can divide the consuls of the year, Gabinius, you can go a lot further, a lot faster."