“The resulting order has been rough but relatively stable. There have been challenges—such as the upheaval of the Gracchi, the rebellion of Sertorius, Catilina’s abortive coup—but overall the order of things has been stable. But that order has been upset over the last three generations by a succession of military strongmen: Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and now Caesar have arisen to upset the order of things.
“It is our own fault, of course. We give our generals godlike powers within their theaters of war and their provinces. Then we expect them to come meekly home and behave like Republican statesmen. It is human nature to love power once one has tasted it, and few have tasted of power as deeply as Caesar or Pompey. Men hate to give power back to whoever bestowed it. They want to keep it for life, and they want to pass it on to their sons as if it were any other inheritance.
“Marius was a jumped-up peasant, he died mad and his children amounted to nothing. Sulla produced twin children late in life. He was old and dying and he knew it. He could have no important part in the upbringing of his son so he reluctantly but sensibly retired to private life after years of absolute power.”
“Considering Sulla’s proclivities,” I said, “it’s remarkable he produced any heirs at all.”
Sallustius shrugged off this non sequitur. “Pompey is another man of no family. His father came from nothing, and his sons are of no consequence. He has had a remarkable career, but it’s over, and he has no future did he but know it.
“Caesar is the man of the hour. His family is incredibly ancient—all the way back to Aeneas and the goddess Venus, if you care to believe his propaganda, but still the most ancient of all Roman families by any interpretation. He is a patrician, one of the few left in Roman politics. He is immensely popular with the commons. He is the most astoundingly successful general since Scipio Africanus. He is now rich beyond imagining. How old is Caius Julius?”
The sudden question took me a little aback. “About fifty, I think.”
“Exactly. Julius Caesar is fifty years old, and he has no heir. He has—what?—ten, perhaps fifteen vigorous years left to him? He has attained the years where men begin aging fast. If Calpurnia were to present him with a son tomorrow—a great unlikelihood since she is here in Rome, not pregnant, and he is in Gaul—he might live to see the boy perform his manhood ceremony, perhaps see him off to his first military tribuneship. He will never live long enough to guide a son’s career to the higher realms of imperium.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my wicker-bottomed chair. “What’s all this talk of heirs have to do with anything? Only monarchs need to worry about passing their powers on to heirs.”
Sallustius nodded solemnly. “Exactly. Caesar’s probable heir is at the center of your problems.”
I was beginning to seriously doubt his sanity. “Are you talking about young what’s-his-name? Little Caius Octavius?”
He spread his hands in a gesture of satisfaction. “Who else? He’s about twelve years old and a precocious twelve at that. Already proven himself as a public speaker by delivering his grandmother’s eulogy. You missed that, Decius, but I can tell you that it went down very well with the commons. When Caesar comes home next year or the year after, he’s going to keep that boy close and teach him all he needs to know about being a Caesar. His real father is dead; his stepfather is an old man who will be more than amenable to the adoption.”
“Being Caesar’s heir, even were it to happen, won’t make him or anyone else a prince,” I said.
“You are behind the times, Decius. It will mean exactly that.” Sallustius said this flatly, without flourishes and without his customary insinuation. He said it like an historian adding a fact to a book. “What is a prince, anyway? A prince is a human being with a pedigree, like a champion racehorse. The pedigree of the Julii is the highest to be had. That family is surrounded by a unique aura that separates it even from the other patrician gens.”
I was persuaded but unconvinced. “Ancient is the word for them. How many great Caesars have their been? Not many in recent centuries. Caesar’s father was the first of that family to reach the consulship in ages.”
“But the commons have never lost their reverence for them. It was why they were happy to have Caesar as Pontifex Maximus when he was little more than a boy.”
“He bribed his way into that office!” I protested.
“Of course, but it pleased the people no end. They like knowing that a Julian is arbitrating between them and the gods. And,” Sallustius leaned forward for emphasis, “if they respect the Julian men, they absolutely adore the women. Why this should be I don’t know. It must be some religious impulse every Roman absorbs with his mother’s milk. You weren’t in Rome when Caesar’s daughter died, were you?”
“No, I was still in Gaul.”
“You’ve never seen such a spectacle. She died in childbirth, as so often happens to Julian women—” Realizing the thoughtlessness of his words, he stopped abruptly. Sallustius had forgotten he was talking to someone married to a Julian. “Forgive me, Decius, I did not—”
I waved it off. “Please continue.”
“Very well. When Julia died, Pompey did not have to feign his mourning. He truly loved the girl and was heartbroken. But you cannot imagine how the people reacted. I have never seen anything like it. They dared to bring her body here for cremation.” He pointed through the doorway. “Right in the middle of the Forum, where the kings were cremated in the old days. They put her ashes in a grave on the Campus Martius, among the heroes of Rome. No woman has ever before been so honored. The people were honoring neither Pompey, (her husband) nor Caesar (her father). It was purely for love of Julia. Although they barely knew her, she was the most beloved woman in all Rome.”
He leaned back again. “This boy, this Octavius, comes from that family. His grandmother was a Julia. The day will come when his ancestry will be important.”
“Before he gets my support, he’d better have a lot more to offer than he has now,” I grumbled, wondering where all this was leading.
“But will your support be of any value to him?” Sallustius asked.
“Eh? Explain yourself.”
“I know, Decius, that you are a man without personal vanity, and that your own ambitions are modest, limited to praetorian office.”
This was not quite accurate. I fully intended, someday, to be consul. I just wanted it to be in a year without turmoil, allowing me to busy myself with routine duties such as presiding over the Senate and making speeches nobody would have cause to remember. I certainly did not deceive myself into thinking I was a great leader of legions. In the severely limited range of my ambitions, Sallustius evaluated accurately what my family considered my political laziness.
“Nonetheless,” he went on, “you can hardly imagine a time when your opinion and support will not carry weight because of who you are: a Caecilius Metellus.”
“It goes without saying.” I was not as complacent as I was trying to sound. I had grave fears for the future of my family, but I did not want to give them voice in front of one of Rome’s less discreet persons.
“Your family’s constant trimming and fence-mending have earned it a great many enemies. They married a daughter to a son of Marcus Crassus, they married another to a son of Pompey, they married you to Caesar’s niece, all while opposing these men in the Senate and the assemblies. I realize that they have done all these things in order to avoid making powerful, implacable enemies, but the time is past for such tactics.” Sallustius asked, “You are familiar with the old saw about there being three categories of friends?”
I quoted: “My friend, my friend’s friend, my enemy’s enemy.”
“It is your family’s mistake that in holding to this course they have sought to be none of these things. It has made them everybody’s enemy.” I was about to protest, but he held up a hand. “Bear with me, please. You’ve been away from Rome too much in recent years, and the great men of your family seem to listen only to each other.
“I, on the other hand, listen to everybody. I go everywhere in Rome, from the lowest lupanar and drinking club to the houses of the greatest men. I even attend intellectual salons like those of your new friend Callista. And it may not seem likely to you, but I spend most of my time listening, not talking.”
“That is difficult to picture,” I acknowledged.
“That is because you are too easily swayed by personalities and surface appearances,” said Sallustius. “Unlike your elders, you make friends and enemies far too easily and often for the wrong reasons. For—what? twenty years?—Titus Milo has been one of your closest friends. For about as long, Clodius was your deadliest enemy. Why is that? The pair of them were never more than political gangsters with not an ounce of moral difference between them.”
“But I like Milo,” I explained. “I always have. Whereas I detested Clodius from the moment I laid eyes on him.”
“And that,” he said, with exaggerated patience, “is why you’re such a political imbecile.” Sallustius wasn’t the first to say this, so I took no offense. “Men like Caesar and Curio don’t allow such petty considerations to influence the clarity of their political aims.”
“I suspect that this is why the Senate will never appoint me dictator,” I said.
“Decius, I would hate to lose you. Aside from being a good prospect as a Caesarian, you are certainly one of the more interesting and unusual figures in our public life. But I fear you will not be among us for long if you fail to acknowledge the desperation of your peers. All of them: your family, the Claudians, both Marcelli and Pulchri, the Cornelians and Pompey, and the rest, they are all second- and third-raters. And they have been fighting and plotting and bleeding themselves white against each other! Now in Caesar, they are up against a man of the first class, and they have no idea what to do. They are all so jealous of each other that they will never agree on a policy. They have no man of comparable worth to rally behind. In their blind panic they will bring on a civil war they cannot win.”
“It needn’t come to that,” I said. “I know Caesar well. He is arrogant and ambitious, but he is not reckless. He has little personal respect for the Senate, but he is respectful of its institutions. He did not initiate this series of extraordinary commands. Marius began that more than half a century ago. Sulla, Pompey, and others have taken full advantage of them; Caesar has just been better at it. In following precedent, he’s adhered strictly to the Constitution. I don’t believe that he will take up arms against the Senate. He is no Sulla.” Even as I said it, I had doubts. What did I really know of Caesar? What did anybody know? “I don’t feel like arguing about this. I seem to have this same argument with my wife every day lately.”
“You should listen to her,” Sallustius said. “She’s a Caesar.”
“So she may be descended from a goddess, but she isn’t one herself, anymore than her Uncle Caius Julius is a—Did you say you’ve been everyplace these months I’ve been away?”
“I was wondering how long it would take to work its way into your brain. I was going to let you have one more good rant before repeating it. I knew you would take more satisfaction in working it out for yourself.”
“And did your researches among Rome’s political plotters take you to the house of Marcus Fulvius?”
“Oh, yes. And it was a very inspiring setting for mapping out the glorious future of Rome, with its patriotic wall decorations and, well, you’ve been there I understand.”
“I have. Were you invited or did you just barge in after your inimitable fashion?”
“I was invited to dinner, along with several other senators and equites prominent in the assemblies. Curio was there, by the way. He was still with the optimates at the time, but was perceived to be wavering.”
“I take it that this assemblage was not random.”
“By no means. I noted at once that all the guests formed, you might say, a community of predicament.”
I mulled over what I knew of Marcus Fulvius and Curio so unalike in most ways. “Would indebtedness be the common denominator?”
“Very good! Yes, our host was most commiserative. He lamented that this was how a few wealthy men and bankers had gained such undue influence in Roman political life. Office is so ruinously expensive these days, and the only way a man of modest means can hope to be of service to the Senate and People is to go into debt.”
“Might I hazard the speculation that he had an answer to this vexing problem?”
“But of course. And there was none of that Catilinarian foolishness; no suggestion that you should go out and murder your father or set fire to the Circus. Marcus Fulvius and his patrons had a simple and somewhat drastic solution: cancellation of debts.”
“Stop.” I put out a hand. “Just hold it there for a moment. We have been talking thus far about reactionary aristocrats. A blanket cancellation of debt is radical beyond the most outrageous of radical policies. Even the Gracchi couldn’t manage it when they were trying to save the ruined farmers. Lucullus signed his own political death warrant when he tried to alleviate the tax-debt burden of the Asian cities. How did this nobody from Baiae propose to do what nobody has yet managed?”
“Oh, there would have to be proscriptions, of course. Unlike Sulla’s, though, these would fall most heavily upon the equites, particularly the bankers. The Senate and the bulk of the commons would hardly suffer at all. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds and not all that repugnant. After all, do you know anybody who really likes bankers?”
“Only a dictator can proscribe.” I was beyond astonishment.
“Proscription is nowhere in the Constitution, although it happens when a tyrant seizes power. So there is nothing that says it is a power reserved solely for a dictator. A really powerful cabal could carry it off.”
“Sallustius, surely you could not have believed that this—”
“Did I say I believed him?” He looked truly insulted. “Give me credit for some political good sense. I know a crackpot when I see one. When I hear one, at any rate.”
“And yet he had backing.”
“Certainly.”
“I know already that the house he lived in belonged to Caius Claudius Marcellus.”
“Really? I did not know that, although it’s not much of a surprise. I would have thought one of the other Claudii though. Caius is not the most ardent of them. His brother and cousin are far more forceful.”
“They’re also the most dismal of conservatives. Where did all this radical claptrap come from?”
“A good question. I pondered it at great length, as it occured.” He leaned back in his chair, and I prepared myself to sit through a lecture. Sallustius would have to show off his political acumen. I would just have to let him. His knowledge of Roman political life, both high and low, was comprehensive. And he was no fool.
“First of all, any who took this scheme seriously had to suffer from a political blindness exceeding even that of your family. They think they are still fighting the social struggles of two hundred years ago, patrician against plebeian, nobiles against peasants. Back then the equites formed a tiny class of prosperous farmers who could afford to show up at the yearly muster with a horse.
“But the equites have been quietly growing in wealth and power, and now they are, in fact, the real power brokers of the Republic. If you want to stand for high office, they are the people who can lend you the money to do it. Once you are in office, it is understood that you are in a position to do them favors. Who, for instance, will be collecting the revenues for all those new provinces Caesar has been adding to our Empire?”
“Publicani, of course. The tax farmers.”
“Exactly the people Lucullus alienated to his own political hurt. Caesar will not make that mistake. He knows where the power lies in Rome. He secured his own position through the assemblies not the Senate. The optimates think of themselves as Rome’s rightfully privileged class. They see ranged against them the populares, whom they perceive as a penniless rabble led by
demagogues like Clodius and Caesar. They forget that the populares also include most of Rome’s millionaires. Their well-bred contempt for mere money precludes their giving this bloc serious consideration.”
I thought this over. “So Pompey and his supporters are out. Pompey is far from politically astute, but he understands the power of the equites. He rose from that class himself.”
“Oh, Pompey would never touch anything as foolish as this. And Caesar is not only friendly toward them, he is extraordinarily reluctant to see citizens executed. He’ll kill barbarians in droves, but he is reluctant to see even his mortal enemies killed.”
“So who?”
“Aren’t you interested in knowing what subject was not discussed?” asked Sallustius.
My patience was thinning fast, but he had a point. I was being slow that day. “All right. Did he discuss an attack on the Metelli?”
“Didn’t breathe a word of it. In fact, he hinted heavily that your family would be one of the many great ones who would be solidly behind him. After all, what he proposed was a return of the ever-popular Golden age, when Rome was ruled by the best men, when proper aristocrats drew their modest wealth from the good soil of Italy, when commoners knew their place, and base tradesmen did not flout their ill-grubbed money before their betters.”
“Does anyone really believe there was ever such a time?” I asked. “Well, I suppose Cato does. You don’t suppose—No, even Cato isn’t that loony, and he all but slapped Fulvius in the face when the man confronted me. So what brought about this change?”
“I am guessing that Fulvius changed patrons,” Sallustius said. “None of that crowd who have been howling for your blood were present when I visited his house. They seem to be mostly old Clodians, not at all the sort who would want a restoration of the old aristocracy, much as they might despise bankers and moneylenders.”
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