Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

Off went Caesar to raise a fleet, but not with enthusiasm; it would be more than a year before he saw action, and his assessment of Vatia's character was that when war did come, Vatia would lack the speed and initiative the campaign called for. In spite of the fact that Caesar bore no love for Lucullus, there was no doubt in his mind that this second general he was serving under was no match in mind or ability for Lucullus. It was, however, an opportunity to do more traveling, and that was some compensation. The naval power without rival at this eastern end of the Middle Sea was Rhodes, so to Rhodes did Caesar betake himself in May. Always loyal to Rome (it had successfully defied King Mithridates nine years before), Rhodes could be relied upon to contribute vessels, commanders and crews to Vatia's coming campaign, though not marine troops; the Rhodians did not board enemy ships and turn a naval engagement into a land style fight. Luckily Gaius Verres had not had time to visit Rhodes, so Caesar found himself welcomed and the island's war leaders willing to talk. Most of the dickering revolved around whether Rome was to pay Rhodes for its participation, which was unfortunate. Vatia felt none of the allied cities, islands and communities called upon to provide ships was entitled to any sort of payment in moneys; his argument was that every contributor would directly benefit from removal of the pirates, so ought to donate its services free of charge. Therefore Caesar was obliged to negotiate within his superior's parameters. "Look at it this way," he said persuasively. "Success means enormous spoils as well as relief from raids. Rome isn't in a position to pay you, but you will share in the division of the spoils, and these will pay for your participation and give you something over as profit. Rhodes is Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Why jeopardize that status? There are really only two alternatives participation or nonparticipation. And you must decide now which it is going to be." Rhodes yielded. Caesar got his ships, promised for the summer of the following year. From Rhodes he went to Cyprus, unaware that the ship he passed sailing into the harbor of Rhodus bore a precious Roman cargo; none other than Marcus Tullius Cicero, worn down by a year of marriage to Terentia and the delicate negotiations he had brought to a successful conclusion in Athens when his younger brother, Quintus, married the sister of Titus Pomponius Atticus. Cicero's own union had just produced a daughter, Tullia, so he had been able to depart from Rome secure in the knowledge that his wife was fully occupied in mothering her babe. On Rhodes lived the world's most famous teacher of rhetoric, Apollonius Molon, and to his school was Cicero going. He needed a holiday from Rome, from the courts, from Terentia and from his life as it was. His voice had gone, and Apollonius Molon was known to preach that an orator's vocal and physical apparatus had to equal his mental skills. Though he loathed travel and feared that any absence from Rome would undermine his forensic career, Cicero was looking forward very much to this self imposed exile far from his friends and family. Time for a rest. For Caesar there was to be no rest not that one of Caesar's temperament needed a rest. He disembarked in Paphos, which was the seat of Cyprus's ruler, Ptolemy the Cyprian, younger brother of the new King of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes. More a wastrel than a nonentity, the regent Ptolemy's long residence at the courts of Mithridates and Tigranes showed glaringly during Caesar's first interview with him. Not merely did he understand nothing; he wasn't interested in understanding anything. His education seemed to have been entirely overlooked and his latent sexual preferences had asserted themselves the moment he left the custody of the kings, so that his palace was not unlike the palace of old King Nicomedes. Except that Ptolemy the Cyprian was not a likable man. The Alexandrians, however, had accurately judged him when he had first arrived in Alexandria with his elder brother and their wives; though the Alexandrians had not opposed his appointment as regent of Cyprus, they had sent a dozen efficient bureaucrats to Cyprus with him. It was these men, as Caesar discovered, who really ruled Cyprus on behalf of the island's owner, Egypt. Having artfully evaded the advances of Ptolemy the Cyprian, Caesar devoted his energies to the Alexandrian bureaucrats. Not easy men to deal with and no lovers of Rome they could see nothing for Cyprus in Vatia's coming campaign, and clearly had taken umbrage because Vatia had sent a junior legate twenty one years old as his petitioner. "My youth," said Caesar haughtily to these gentlemen, "is beside the point. I am a decorated war hero, a senator at an age when routine admission to the Senate is not permitted, and Publius Servilius Vatia's chief military assistant. You ought to think yourselves lucky I deigned to drop in!" This statement was duly taken note of, but bureaucratic attitudes did not markedly change for the better. Argue like a politician though he did, Caesar could get nowhere with them. "Cyprus is affected by piracy too. Why can't you see that the pirate menace will be eliminated only if all the lands which suffer from their depredations club together to eliminate them? Publius Servilius Vatia's fleet has to be large enough to act like a net, sweeping the pirates before it into some place from which there is no way out. There will be enormous spoils, and Cyprus will be able to rejoin the trading markets of the Middle Sea. As you well know, at present the Cilician and Pamphylian pirates cut Cyprus off." Cyprus does not need to join the trading markets of the Middle Sea," said the Alexandrian leader. "Everything Cyprus produces belongs to Egypt, and goes there. We tolerate no pirates on the seas between Cyprus and Egypt." Back to the regent Ptolemy for a second interview. This time, however, Caesar's luck asserted itself; the regent was in the company of his wife, Mithridatidis Nyssa. Had Caesar known what was the physical style of the Mithridatidae he would have seen that this young lady was a typical member of her house large in frame, yellow of hair, eyes a greenish gold. Her charms were of coloring and voluptuousness rather than in any claim to true beauty, but Caesar instantly appreciated her charms. So, she made it obvious, did she appreciate Caesar's charms. And when the silly interview with Ptolemy the Cyprian was over, she strolled out with her husband's guest on her arm to show him the spot where the goddess Aphrodite had risen from the foam of the sea to embark upon her divine course of earthly havoc. "She was my thirty nine times great grandmother," said Caesar, leaning on the white marble balustrade which fenced the official site of the goddess's birth off from the rest of the shore. "Who? Not Aphrodite, surely!" "Surely. I am descended from her through her son, Aeneas." "Really?" The slightly protuberant eyes studied his face as if searching for some sign of this staggeringly august lineage. "Very much really, Princess." "Then you belong to Love," purred the daughter of Mithridates, and put out one long, spatulate finger to stroke Caesar's sun browned right arm. The touch affected him, though he did not show it. "I've never heard it put that way before, Princess, but it makes sense," he said, smiling, looking out to the jewel of the horizon where the sapphire of the sea met the aquamarine of the sky. Of course you belong to Love, owning such an ancestress!" He turned his head to gaze at her, eyes almost at the same level as hers, so tall was she. "It is remarkable," he said in a soft voice, that the sea produces so much foam at this place yet at no other, though I can see nothing to account for it." He pointed first to the north and then to the south. "See? Beyond the limits of the fence there is no foam!" "It is said she left it to be here always." "Then the bubbles are her essence." He shrugged off his toga and bent to unbuckle his senatorial shoes. I must bathe in her essence, Princess." If you were not her thirty nine times great grandson, I would tell you to beware," said the Princess, watching him. "Is it religiously forbidden to swim here?" "Not forbidden. Only unwise. Your thirty nine times great grandmother has been known to smite bathers dead." He returned unsmitten from his dip to find she had made a sheet out of her robe to cover the spiky shore grasses, and lay waiting for him upon it. One bubble was left, clinging to the back of his hand; he leaned over to press it gently against her virginally smooth nipple, laughed when it burst and she jumped, shivered uncontrollably. "Burned by Venus," he said as he lay down with her, wet and exhilarated from the caress of that mysterious sea foam. For he had just been anointed by Venus, who had even arranged for this superb woman to be on hand for his pleasure, child of a great king and (as he discovered when he entered her) his alone. Love and power combined, the ultimate consummation. "Burned by Venus," she said, stretching like a huge golden cat, so great was the goddess's gift. "You know the Roman name of Aphrodite," said the goddess's descendant, perfectly poised on a bubble of happiness. "Rome has a long reach." The bubble vanished, but not because of what she said; the moment was over, was all. Caesar got to his feet, never enamored of lingering once the lovemaking was done. "So, Mithridatidis Nyssa, will you use your influence to help me get my fleet?'' he asked, though he did not tell her why this request caused him to chuckle. "How very handsome you are," she said, lying on her elbow, head propped on her hand. "Hairless, like a god." "So are you, I note." "All court women are plucked, Caesar." "But not court men?" "No! It hurts." He laughed. Tunic on, he dealt with his shoes, then began the difficult business of arranging his toga without assistance. "Up with you, woman!" he said cheerfully. "There's a fleet to be obtained, and a hairy husband to convince that all we've been doing is looking at the sea foam." "Oh, him!" She started to dress. "He won't care what we've been doing. Surely you noticed that I was a virgin!" "Impossible not to." Her green gold eyes gleamed. "I do believe," she said, that if I were not in a position to help you raise your fleet, you would have spared me hardly a glance." "I have to deny what you say," he stated, but tranquilly. I was once accused of doing exactly that to raise a fleet, and what I said then is still true I would rather put my sword through my belly than employ women's tricks to achieve my ends. But you, dear and lovely Princess, were a gift from the goddess. And that is a very different thing." "I have not angered you?" "Not in the least, though you're a sensible girl to have assumed it. Do you get your good sense from your father?" "Perhaps. He's a clever man. But he's a fool too." "In what way?" "His inability to listen to advice from others." She turned to walk with him toward the palace. "I'm very glad you came to Paphos, Caesar. I was tired of being a virgin." But you were a virgin. Why then with me?'' "You are the descendant of Aphrodite, therefore you are more than a mere man. I am the child of a king! I can't give myself to a mere man, only to one of royal and divine blood." "I am honored."