Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

The proquaestor arrived in Nicomedia to find the governor elated; Juncus had found a cache of gold bullion in a dungeon beneath the palace and appropriated it for himself, unaware that Caesar and Oradaltis had put it there to trap him. "Well, Pompeius, you've worked very hard to incorporate Bithynia into Asia Province," said Juncus magnanimously, "so I shall accede to your request. You may call yourself Bithynicus." As this raised Pompeius (Bithynicus) to a state of exaltation almost equal to the governor's, they reclined to eat dinner in a positive glow of well being. It was Juncus who brought up the subject of Caesar, though not until the last course had been picked over. "He's the most arrogant mentula I've ever encountered," he said, lips peeled back. "Denied me a share of the spoils, then had the temerity to ask for my permission to crucify five hundred hale and hearty men who will at least fetch me some compensation when I sell them in the slave market!" Pompeius stared at him, jaw dropped. "Sell them?" "What's the matter?" "But you ordered the pirates crucified, Marcus Junius!" "I did not!" Pompeius (Bithynicus) shriveled visibly. Cacat!'' "What's the matter?" Juncus repeated, stiffening. "Caesar arrived back in Pergamum seven days after he had gone to see you and told me that you had consented to his crucifying the men. I admit I was a bit surprised, but it never occurred to me that he was lying! Marcus Junius, he crucified the lot of them!" "He wouldn't dare!" "He did dare! With such complete assurance so relaxed! He pushed me around like a bond servant! I even said to him that I was surprised to hear you'd consented, and did he look uncomfortable or guilty? No! Truly, Marcus Junius, I believed every word he said! Nor did you send a message to the contrary," he added craftily. Juncus was beyond anger; he wept. "Those men were worth two million sesterces on the market! Two million, Pompeius ! And he sent a thousand talents to the Treasury in Rome without even reporting to me first, or offering me a share! Now I'm going to have to apply to the Treasury for a share, and you know what a circus that is! I'll be lucky if the decision comes through before my first great grandchild is born! While he the fellator! must have appropriated thousands of talents for himself! Thousands!" "I doubt it," said Pompeius (Bithynicus), trying to look anywhere but at the desolate Juncus. "I had some speech with the senior captain of the Rhodian ships, and it appears that Caesar really did give all the loot to Rhodes, Xanthus and Patara. The haul was rich, but not an Egyptian treasure. The Rhodian believed Caesar took very little for himself, and that seems to be the common belief among all those concerned. One of his own freedmen said Caesar liked money well enough, but was too clever to prize it ahead of his political skin, and informed me with a sly smile that Caesar would never find himself arraigned in the Extortion Court. It also appears that the man had pledged the pirates he would crucify them while he was living at their stronghold waiting to be ransomed. It may be difficult to prove he took a thing from the pirate spoils, Marcus Junius." Juncus dried his eyes, blew his nose. "I can't prove he took anything in Nicomedia or elsewhere in Bithynia, either. But he did! He must have! I've known virtuous men in my time, and I would swear he isn't among them, Pompeius! He's too sure of himself to be virtuous. And far too arrogant. He acts as if he owns the world!" "According to the pirate leader who thought Caesar very strange he acted as if he owned the world while he was held a prisoner. Used to sweep around insulting everybody with high good humor! The ransom was levied at twenty talents, which apparently outraged Caesar! He was worth at least fifty talents, he said and made them set the ransom at fifty talents!" "So that's why he said fifty talents! I noticed it at the time, but I was too angry with him to take him up on it, and then I forgot." Juncus shook his head. "That probably explains him, Pompeius. The man's mad! Fifty talents is a censor's ransom. Yes, I believe the man is mad." "Or perhaps he wanted to frighten Xanthus and Patara into paying up quickly," said Pompeius. "No! He's mad, and the madness comes out in self importance. He's never been any different." A bitter look descended upon Juncus's countenance. "But his motives are irrelevant. All I want is to make him pay for what he's done to me! Oh, I don't believe it! Two million sesterces!"

If Caesar suffered any misgivings about the accumulating enmity his activities were provoking, he concealed them perfectly; when his ship finally docked in Rhodus he paid off the captain with a most generous bonus, hired a comfortable but not pretentious house on the outskirts of the city, and settled to studying with the great Apollonius Molon. Since this big and independent island at the foot of Asia Province was a crossroads for the eastern end of the Middle Sea, it was constantly bombarded with news and gossip, so there was no need for any visiting Roman student to feel cut off from Rome or from developments in any part of the Roman world. Thus Caesar soon learned of Pompey's letter to the Senate and the Senate's reaction including the championship of Lucullus; and he learned that last year's senior consul, Lucius Octavius, had died in Tarsus soon after he had arrived there early in March to govern Cilicia, It was too soon to know what the Senate planned to do about a replacement. The testamentary gift of Bithynia had pleased everyone in Rome from highest to lowest, but, Caesar learned in Rhodes, not everyone had wanted this new land to be a part of Asia Province, and the battle was not over just because Juncus had been ordered to go ahead with incorporation. Both Lucullus and Marcus Cotta, now the consuls, were in favor of making Bithynia a separate province with a separate governor, and Marcus Cotta had his eye on the post in the following year. Of more interest to the Rhodians, however, was more local news; what was happening in Pontus and Cappadocia held an importance for them that Rome and Spain could not. It was said that after King Tigranes had invaded Cappadocia four years ago, not one citizen had been left in Eusebeia Mazaca, so many had the King deported to resettle in Tigranocerta; the Cappadocian king who had not impressed Caesar when he saw him had been living in exile in Alexandria since the invasion, giving as his reason for this peculiar choice of location the fact that Tarsus was too close to Tigranes, and Rome too expensive for his purse. There were plenty of rumors that King Mithridates was busy mobilizing a new and vast army in Pontus, so angry had the King been at the news that Bithynia had fallen to Rome's lot in a will; but no one had any details, and Mithridates was still definitely well within his own borders. Marcus Junius Juncus came in for his share of gossip too. About him it was being said that he had alienated some of the most important Roman citizens in Bithynia particularly those resident in Heracleia on the Euxine and that formal complaints had been sent off to the Senate in Rome alleging that Juncus was plundering the country of its greatest treasures. Then at the beginning of June the whole of Asia Province jolted, shuddered; King Mithridates was on the march, had overrun Paphlagonia and reached Heracleia, just on the Bithynian border. Word had flown to Rome that the King of Pontus intended to take Bithynia for himself. Blood, birth and proximity all dictated that Bithynia belonged to Pontus, not to Rome, and King Mithridates would not lie down while Rome usurped Bithynia! But at Heracleia the vast Pontic horde stopped short, and there remained; as usual, having thrown down the challenge to Rome, Mithridates had balked and now lay still, waiting to see what Rome would do. Marcus Junius Juncus and Quintus Pompeius (Bithynicus) fled back to Pergamum, where they spent more time writing lengthy reports to the Senate than attempting to ready Asia Province for another war against the King of Pontus. With no governor in Cilicia thanks to the death of Lucius Octavius, the two legions stationed in Tarsus made no move to march to the aid of Asia Province, and Juncus did not summon them. The two legions of the Fimbriani stationed in Ephesus and Sardes were recalled to Pergamum, but were moved no closer to Bithynia than Pergamum. Speculation had it that Juncus intended to defend his own skin, not Bithynia. In Rhodus, Caesar listened to the gossip but made no effort to journey to Pergamum, more concerned, it seemed, at the talk that Asia Province wanted no more truck with Mithridates but was not willing to fight him either unless the governor issued firm orders. And the governor made no attempt to issue firm orders about a thing. The harvest would begin in Quinctilis in the southern part of the province and by Sextilis the northern parts would also be reaping. Yet Juncus did nothing, made no move to commandeer grain against the possibility of war. Word came during Sextilis that both the consuls, Lucullus and Marcus Cotta, had been authorized by the Senate to deal with Mithridates; suddenly Bithynia was a separate province and given to Marcus Cotta, while Cilicia went to Lucullus. No one could say what the fate of Asia Province would be, its governor only a praetor and caught between the two consuls of the year. Outranked by Lucullus and Marcus Cotta, Juncus would have to do as he was told. But he was not a Lucullus man; he wasn't efficient nor beyond reproach. Things boded ill for Juncus. Not many days later Caesar received a letter from Lucullus's brother, Varro Lucullus.