3. Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  PART VII from SEPTEMBER 78 B.C. until JUNE 71 B.C.

  Caesar had seen no reason to hurry home after he left the service of Publius Servilius Vatia; rather, his journey was a tour of exploration of those parts of Asia Province and Lycia he had not yet visited. However, he was back in Rome by the end of September in the year Lepidus and Catulus were consuls to find Rome acutely apprehensive about the conduct of Lepidus, who had left the city to recruit in Etruria before doing what he was supposed to do hold the curule elections. Civil war was in the air, everyone talked it. But civil war real or imagined was not high on Caesar's list of priorities. He had personal matters to attend to. His mother seemed not to have aged at all, though there had been a change in her; she was very sad. "Because Sulla is dead!" her son accused, a challenge in his voice that went back to the days when he had thought Sulla was her lover. "Yes." "Why? You owed him nothing!" "I owed him your life, Caesar." "Which he put in jeopardy in the first place!" "I am sorry he is dead," said Aurelia flatly. "I am not." "Then let us change the subject." Sighing, Caesar leaned back in his chair, acknowledging himself defeated. Her chin was up, a sure sign that she would not bend no matter what brilliant arguments he used. "It is time I took my wife into my bed, Mater." Aurelia frowned. "She's barely sixteen." Too young for a girl to marry, I agree. But Cinnilla has been married for nine years, and that makes her situation quite different. When she greeted me I could see in her eyes that she is ready to come to my bed." "Yes, I think you're right, my son. Though your grandfather would have said that the union of two patricians is fraught with peril in childbirth. I would have liked to see her just a little more grown up before she dealt with that." "Cinnilla will be fine, Mater." "Then when?" "Tonight." "But there should be some sort of reinforcement of marriage first, Caesar. A family dinner both your sisters are in Rome." "There will be no family dinner. And no fuss." Nor was there. Having been told no fuss, Aurelia didn't mention the coming change in her status to her daughter in law, who, when she went to go to her own little room, found herself detained by Caesar in a suddenly empty triclinium. "It's this way today, Cinnilla," Caesar said, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the master's sleeping cubicle. She went pale. "Oh! But I'm not ready!" For this, no girl ever is. A good reason to get it over and done with. Then we can settle down together comfortably." It had been a good idea to give her no time to spend in thinking about what was to come, though of course she had thought of little else for four long years. He helped her off with her clothes, and because he was incurably neat folded them carefully, enjoying this evidence of feminine occupation of a room that had known no mistress since Aurelia had moved out after his father died. Cinnilla sat on the edge of the bed and watched him do this, but when he began to divest himself of his own clothes she shut her eyes. Done, he sat beside her and took both her hands in his, resting them upon his bare thigh. "Do you know what will happen, Cinnilla?" "Yes," she said, eyes still closed. "Then look at my face." The big dark eyes opened, fixed themselves painfully on his face, which was smiling and, she fancied, full of love. "How pretty you are, wife, and how nicely made." He touched her breasts, full and high, with nipples almost the color of her tawny skin. Her hands came up to caress his, she sighed. Arms about her now, he kissed her, and this she found just wonderful, so long dreamed of, so much better than the dreams. She opened her lips to him, kissed him back, caressed him, found herself lying alongside him on the bed, her body responding with delicious flinches and shivers to this full length contact with his. His skin, she discovered, was quite as silky as her own, and the pleasure it gave her to feel it warmed her to the quick. Though she had known exactly what would happen, imagination was no substitute for reality. For so many years she had loved him, made him the focus of her life, that to be his wife in flesh as well as at law was glorious. Worth the wait, the wait which had become a part of her state of exaltation. In no hurry, he made sure she was absolutely ready for him, and did nothing to her that belonged to more sophisticated realms than the dreams of virgin girls. He hurt her a little, but not nearly enough to spoil her spiraling excitement; to feel him within her was best of all, and she held him within her until some magical and utterly unexpected spasm invaded every part of her. That, no one had told her about. But that, she understood, was what made women want to remain married. When they rose at dawn to eat bread still hot from the oven and water cold from the stone cistern in the light well garden, they found the dining room filled with roses and a flagon of light sweet wine on the sideboard. Tiny dolls of wool and ears of wheat hung from the lamps. Then came Aurelia to kiss them and wish them well, and the servants one by one, and Lucius Decumius and his sons. "How nice it is to be properly married at last!" said Caesar. "I quite agree," said Cinnilla, who looked as beautiful and fulfilled as any bride ought to look after her wedding night. Gaius Matius, last to arrive, found the little celebratory breakfast enormously touching. None knew better than he how many women Caesar had enjoyed; yet this woman was his wife, and how wonderful it was to see that he was not disappointed. For himself, Gaius Matius doubted that he could have gratified a girl of Cinnilla's age after living with her as a sister for nine long years. But evidently Caesar was made of sterner stuff.

  It was at the first meeting of the Senate Caesar attended that Philippus succeeded in persuading that body to summon Lepidus back to Rome to hold the curule elections. And at the second meeting he heard Lepidus's curt refusal read out, to be followed by the senatorial decree ordering Catulus back to Rome. But between that meeting and the third one Caesar had a visit from his brother in law, Lucius Cornelius Cinna. "There will be civil war," young Cinna said, "and I want you to be on the winning side." "Winning side?" "Lepidus's side." "He won't win, Lucius. He can't win." "With all of Etruria and Umbria behind him he can't lose!" "That's the sort of thing people have been saying since the beginning of the world. I only know one person who can't lose." "And who might that be?" Cinna demanded, annoyed. "Myself." A statement Cinna saw as exquisitely funny; he rolled about with laughter. "You know," he said when he was able, "you really are an odd fish, Caesar!" "Perhaps I'm not a fish at all. I might be a fowl, which would certainly make an odd looking fish. Or I might be a side of mutton on a hook in a butcher's stall." "I never know when you're joking," said Cinna uncertainly. "That's because I rarely joke." "Rubbish! You weren't serious when you said you were the only man who couldn't lose!" "I was absolutely serious." "You won't join Lepidus?" "Not if he were poised at the gates of Rome, Lucius." "Well, you're wrong. I'm joining him." "I don't blame you. Sulla's Rome beggared you." And off went young Cinna to Saturnia, where Lepidus and his legions lay. Issued this time by Catulus on behalf of the Senate, the second summons went to Lepidus, and again Lepidus refused to return to Rome. Before Catulus went back to Campania and his own legions, Caesar asked for an interview. "What do you want?" asked the son of Catulus Caesar coldly; he had never liked this too beautiful, too gifted young man. "I want to join your staff in case there's war." "I won't have you on my staff." Caesar's eyes changed, assumed the deadly look Sulla's used to get. "You don't have to like me, Quintus Lutatius, to use me." "How would I use you? Or to put it better, what use would you be to me? I hear you've already applied to join Lepidus." "That's a lie!" "Not from what I hear. Young Cinna went to see you before he left Rome and the two of you fixed it all up." "Young Cinna came to wish me well, as is the duty of a brother in law after his sister's marriage has been consummated." Catulus turned his back. "You may have convinced Sulla of your loyalty, Caesar, but you'll never convince me that you're anything other than a troublemaker. I won't have you because I won't have any man on my staff whose loyalty is suspect." "When and if! Lepidus marches, cousin, I will fight for Rome. If not as a member of your staff, then in some other capacity. I am a patrician Roman of the same blood family as you, and nobody's client or adherent." Halfway to the door, Caesar paused. "You would do well to file me in your mind as a man who will always abide by Rome's constitution. I will be consul in my year but
not because a loser like Lepidus has made himself Dictator of Rome. Lepidus doesn't have the courage or the steel, Catulus. Nor, I might add, do you." Thus it was that Caesar remained in Rome while events ran at an ever accelerating rate toward rebellion. The senatus consultum de re publica defendenda was passed, Flaccus Princeps Senatus died, the second interrex held elections, and finally Lepidus marched on Rome. Together with several thousand others of station high and low and in between, Caesar presented himself in full armor to Catulus on the Campus Martius; he was sent as a part of a group of several hundred to garrison the Wooden Bridge from Transtiberim into the city. Because Catulus would sanction no kind of command for this winner of the Civic Crown, Caesar did duty as a man in the ranks. He saw no action, and when the battle under the Servian Walls of the Quirinal was over, he betook himself home without bothering to volunteer for the chase after Lepidus up the coast of Etruria. Catulus's arrogance and spite were not forgotten. But Gaius Julius Caesar was a patient hater; Catulus's turn would come when the time was right. Until then, Catulus would wait.

  Much to Caesar's chagrin, when he had arrived in Rome he found the younger Dolabella already in exile and Gaius Verres strutting around oozing virtue and probity. Verres was now the husband of Metellus Caprarius's daughter and very popular with the knight electors, who thought his giving evidence against the younger Dolabella was a great compliment to the disenjuried Ordo Equester here was a senator who was not afraid to indict one of his fellow senators! However, Caesar let it be known through Lucius Decumius and Gaius Matius that he would act as advocate for anyone in the Subura, and busied himself during the months which saw the downfall of Lepidus and Brutus and the rise of Pompey with a series of court cases humble enough, yet highly successful. His legal reputation grew, connoisseurs of advocacy and rhetoric began to attend whichever court it was he pleaded before mostly the urban or foreign praetor's, but occasionally the Murder Court. Contrive to smear him though Catulus did, people listened to Catulus less and less because they liked what Caesar had to say, not to mention how he said it. When some of the cities of Macedonia and central Greece approached him to prosecute the elder Dolabella (back from his extended governorship because Appius Claudius Pulcher had finally arrived in his province), Caesar consented. This was the first really important trial he had undertaken, for it was to be heard in the quaestio de repetundae the Extortion Court and involved a man of highest family and great political clout. He knew little of the circumstances behind this elder Dolabella's governorship, but proceeded to interview possible witnesses and gather evidence with meticulous care. His ethnarch clients found him a delight; scrupulously considerate of their rank, always pleasant and easy to get on with. Most amazing of all did they find his memory what he had heard he never forgot, and would often seize upon some tiny, inadvertent statement which turned out to be far more important than anyone had realized. "However," he said to his clients on the morning that the trial opened, be warned. The jury is composed entirely of senators, and senatorial sympathies are very much on Dolabella's side. He's seen as a good governor because he managed to keep the Scordisci at bay. I don't think we can win." They didn't win. Though the evidence was so strong only a senatorial jury hearing the case of a fellow senator could have ignored it Caesar's oratory was superb the verdict was ABSOLVO. Caesar didn't apologize to his clients, nor were they disappointed in his performance. Both the forensic presentation and Caesar's speeches were hailed as the best in at least a generation, and men flocked to ask him to publish his speeches. They will become textbooks for students of rhetoric and the law," said Marcus Tullius Cicero, asking for copies for himself. "You shouldn't have lost, of course, but I'm very glad I got back from abroad in time to hear you best Hortensius and Gaius Cotta." "I'm very glad too, Cicero. It's one thing to be gushed over by Cethegus, quite another to be asked crisply by an advocate of your standing for copies of my work," said Caesar, who was indeed pleased that Cicero should ask. "You can teach me nothing about oratory," said Cicero, quite unconsciously beginning to demolish his compliment, "but rest assured, Caesar, that I shall study the way you investigated your case and presented your evidence very closely." They strolled up the Forum together, Cicero still talking. "What fascinates me is how you've managed to project your voice. In normal conversation it's so deep! Yet when you speak to a crowd you pitch it high and clear, and it carries splendidly. Who taught you that?'' "No one," said Caesar, looking surprised. "I just noticed that men with deep voices were harder by far to hear than men with higher voices. So since I like to be heard, I turned myself into a tenor." "Apollonius Molon I've been studying with him for the last two years says it all depends on the length of a man's neck what sort of voice he has. The longer the neck, the deeper the voice. And you do have a long, scraggy neck! Luckily," he added complacently, "my neck is exactly the right length." "Short," said Caesar, eyes dancing. "Medium," said Cicero firmly. "You look well, and you've put on some much needed weight." "I am well. And itching to be back in the courts. Though," said Cicero thoughtfully, "I do not think I will match my skills against yours. Some titans should never clash. I fancy the likes of Hortensius and Gaius Cotta too." "I expected better of them," said Caesar. "If the jury hadn't made up its mind before the trial began instead of paying attention to my case, they would have lost, you know. They were sloppy and clumsy." "I agree. Gaius Cotta is your uncle, is he not?" "Yes. Not that it matters. He and I enjoy a clash." They stopped to buy a pasty from a vendor who had been selling his famous savory snacks for years outside the State House of the flamen Dialis. "I believe," said Cicero, wolfing his pasty down (he liked his food), "that there is still considerable legal doubt about your erstwhile flaminate. Aren't you tempted to use it and move into that commodious and very nice house behind Gavius's stall there? I understand you live in an apartment in the Subura. Not the right address for an advocate with your style, Caesar!" Caesar shuddered, threw the remainder of his turnover in the direction of a begging bird. Not if I lived in the meanest hovel on the Esquiline, Cicero, would I be tempted!" he declared. "Well, I must say I'm glad to be on the Palatine these days," Cicero said, starting on his second pasty. "My brother, Quintus, has the old family house on the Carinae," he said grandly, just as if his family had owned it for generations rather than bought it when he had been a boy. He thought of something, and giggled. "Speaking of acquittals and the like, you heard what Quintus Calidius said after a jury of his peers convicted him in the Extortion Court, didn't you?" "I'm afraid I missed it. Do enlighten me." "He said he wasn't surprised he lost, because the going rate to bribe a jury in these days of Sulla's all senatorial courts is three hundred thousand sesterces, and he just couldn't lay his hands on that kind of cash." Caesar saw the funny side too, and laughed. "Then I must remember to stay out of the Extortion Court!" "Especially when Lentulus Sura is foreman of the jury." As Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura had been the foreman of the elder Dolabella's jury, Caesar's brows rose. "That is handy to know, Cicero!" "My dear fellow, there is absolutely nothing I can't tell you about our law courts!" said Cicero, waving one hand in a magnificent gesture. "If you have any questions, just ask me." "I will, be sure of it," said Caesar. He shook hands with Cicero and walked off in the direction of the despised Subura. Quintus Hortensius ducked out from behind a convenient column to join Cicero while he was still watching Caesar's tall form diminishing in the distance. "He was very good," said Hortensius. "Give him a few more years of experience, my dear Cicero, and you and I will have to look to our laurels." "Give him an honest jury, my dear Hortensius, and your laurels would have been off your head this morning." "Unkind!" "It won't last, you know." "What?" "Juries composed entirely of senators." "Nonsense! The Senate is back in control forever." "That is nonsense. There's a swell in the community to have their powers restored to the tribunes of the plebs. And when they have their old powers back, Quintus Hortensius, the juries will be made up of knights again." Hortensius shrugged. "It makes no difference to me, Cicero. Senators or knights, a bribe is
a bribe when necessary." "I do not bribe my juries," said Cicero stiffly. "I know you don't. Nor does he." Hortensius flapped his hand in the direction of the Subura. "But it's an accepted custom, my dear fellow, an accepted custom!" "A custom which can afford an advocate no satisfaction. When I win a case I like to know I won it on my merits, not on how much money my client gave me to dole out in bribes." "Then you're a fool and you won't last." Cicero's good looking but not classically handsome face went stiff. The brown eyes flashed dangerously. "I'll outlast you, Hortensius! Never doubt it!" "I am too strong to move." "That was what Antaeus said before Hercules lifted him off the ground. Ave, Quintus Hortensius."