The Horse Changer

by Craig Smith

  Once my progeny had settled with my old friend Petro and his family, I left them to their gaudy pleasures in the city and made my way by hired carriage to the estate Maecenas had bought for Horace.

  I was glad I had made the long journey when I saw Horace. He had gone for years always looking the same: sleek, short, fat, and happy. Quite suddenly he had turned grey and old and looked somehow sunken in. Horace was my age, of course, which is to say aging but not yet ancient, but something had hooked into him. A worm or the black rot that gets so many of us. Bribe any god you like, throw a living wild boar on the altar of Artemis if you can; it is all for nothing. Once a hard illness takes hold, Death is coming and there is no escape.

  When I asked about his health, as old friends do, Horace sighed. ‘Tired lately. Always tired it seems.’

  I had my secretary unpack some of my Spanish wine and promised Horace his weariness would soon vanish. And it did for the course of an hour or two.

  ‘Maecenas is dead. I suppose you heard?’ Horace announced this not long after our first cup. I had only learned of his death when I arrived in Rome and admitted as much. ‘Caesar had a great celebration for him, full honours at public expense,’ Horace told me. ‘I thought that by now everyone in the world would have heard about it.’

  ‘I know that Livia’s second son perished in the north last year,’ I answered, ‘but I had heard nothing about Maecenas until a few days ago.’

  ‘Poor Drusus. There is a tragedy for one to contemplate. A prince of the empire cut down in the prime of life. You know, they say Livia has not left her house since his funeral. That is almost a year. Most believe the loss will kill her.’

  ‘She loved the boy dearly. I know that.’ Then, rather desperate to change the subject of my son’s demise, I added, ‘I came to visit you because of that awful poem you dedicated to me.’

  ‘You didn’t like it?’ Horace smiled, but I could see he was hurt or at least disappointed.

  ‘We are too old to be melancholy about death, Horace. I hoped you would write about my two gladii flashing in the bright sunlight of my youth. Or a paean to our race through the marsh at Philippi that we might burn a few of Antony’s tents.’

  ‘As I have grown older, Dellius, I have tried to write about what matters.’

  ‘You think death is what matters?’

  ‘The prospect of our death ought to teach us the difference between what is true and what is only vanity.’

  ‘Death is a wolf slinking about in the shadows, my friend. There is nothing to learn from such a beast.’

  ‘The prospect of death is what gives life its urgency.’

  ‘You should write a poem about our Caesar Augustus, who used to die a little before every battle.’

  ‘I enjoy life too much to risk what remains of it so foolishly.’

  ‘An ode to Caesar’s battle terrors and how his fear gave his life a sense of urgency. That would work for me!’

  ‘I could write a more dangerous poem than that if I wanted.’

  ‘You know some secret the rest of us don’t?’

  ‘Let us say what I know I ought never to mention.’

  ‘Horace, Caesar murdered his friends that he might have their money. As a boy, he ran from every battle he ever faced. The man is a thief and a coward of the first order. You are not going to tell me he was Maecenas’s girl, as well, are you? I’m afraid that secret is already out and fairly well confirmed.’

  ‘It is nothing like that, but it involves Maecenas.’

  ‘You have me curious.’

  ‘I don’t dare say it, Dellius. It is the sort of secret to get a man killed if he speaks it.’

  ‘Tell it to me, or I will never forgive you.’

  ‘You mustn’t repeat it to anyone.’

  ‘Not even to my dogs.’

  ‘I am serious, Dellius. It is too dangerous even to joke about.’

  ‘I will keep silent for as long as you live.’

  ‘Better be silent for as long as you live.’

  ‘I will not make that promise. I’m thinking about writing my autobiography one of these days. I only lack the ambition at the moment. But I will say nothing about this matter until you are safely beyond the reach of all that is mortal.’

  ‘That will have to do, I suppose. It is your skin after all. You know, I expect, that Maecenas always had a great talent for forgery?’

  ‘Maecenas had many talents,’ I answered. ‘I wasn’t aware forgery was among them.’

  ‘Oh, he was a prodigy. I saw him do it several times with different friends. He would show them some letter in their own handwriting that they had sent to a friend. In it would be some terrible remark about Maecenas, insulting his dinner parties, his poetry, his lack of manliness. And showing it to them, Maecenas would ask them why they hated him. Of course they were terrified and denied writing it and claimed some terrible conspiracy to ruin a perfectly wonderful friendship. At that point Maecenas would laugh and take credit for the forgery himself. It always seemed to be a parlour trick and nothing more, but I often wondered if he had ever used his talent for some more sinister purpose.’

  ‘Letters of credit?’

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of promoting a friend’s career.’

  ‘You’re talking about his friend Caesar?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I had frankly always wondered if Maecenas had forged Julius Caesar’s will.’

  I laughed at this. ‘That’s mad! Had he even the opportunity?’

  ‘He did. And with Octavian’s help he could have done it.’

  ‘But if you’re right…’

  I stopped as I realised quite suddenly the full implications of such a crime. With Julius Caesar’s will written by Maecenas and Octavian, those two boys had stolen more than Caesar’s name and fortune. They had taken fire from heaven! Without that document Octavian would have enjoyed no following, no claim for justice and no reason to be elected a consul while he was yet a boy. This was more than a purloined fortune and a pretty name; this was the theft of an empire.

  I cast a glance back across the room. My secretary was reading one of the books from Horace’s library. I did not think he could hear us, we were actually whispering, but I did not care to trust him to listen to such treasonous talk and sent him from the house on some errand. When we were alone I asked Horace in a softer whisper still, ‘Had they really the opportunity to do such a thing?’

  ‘Did you know that the summer before Caesar’s assassination, after his campaign in Andalusia, Caesar entertained Octavian and Maecenas at his house outside of Rome?’

  ‘No. I was recuperating in Spain.’

  ‘It’s well documented. There were others at the house, coming and going, but Octavian and Maecenas were there for several weeks. Enough time to get comfortable with the routines of the servants and to learn Caesar’s habits. And it was just at that time Caesar rewrote his will for the last time.’

  ‘But you have no proof!’

  ‘As I say, I had always known it was possible – even likely, knowing those two. But that’s all it was until one evening, when we were drunk – this must have been two or three years ago. I asked Maecenas outright if he had forged Caesar’s will.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He seemed startled at first. Then he smiled and said it would have been a neat trick if he had.’

  ‘He didn’t deny it?’

  ‘I think he wanted me to know he was the one who changed our world, Dellius.’

  ‘But what if they had been caught?’

  ‘That was the beauty of it. They had handwriting samples of the secretary available to study; they may even have listened to Caesar dictating his will. They knew his style of composition, and they could create the document in secret, then exchange theirs for the real one when the opportunity presented itself.’

  ‘But the seal?’

  ‘A simple matter of distracting Caesar’s secretary. You know how clever boys can be when it comes to that kind of
thing.’

  ‘But when the will was read, the secretary would know the truth.’

  ‘Of course he knew the truth. He knew as well to keep quiet.’

  ‘They would have been mad to attempt such a thing!’

  ‘They were boys. It probably seemed nothing more than a clever prank when they did it.’

  ‘A prank on all of us. What if Caesar had lived and discovered their crime some years afterwards?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it. Once Caesar put his seal in the wax, his will would not be opened until after his death. When he finally entered Rome later that summer, he intended to deposit it in the house of the Vestal Virgins. Should he ever want to revise his will, he would submit a new will and the caretakers would destroy the old one, unopened and unread. By law the crime simply could not be discovered.’

  ‘And Maecenas didn’t even attempt to deny it?’

  ‘Maecenas forged Caesar’s will, Dellius. I could see it in his eyes.’

  ‘So we add to the long list of our Caesar’s iniquities the charge of imposter and fraud. Why am I not more surprised?’

  ‘Not a word, Dellius. If he hears of it, Caesar will know where the rumour began.’

  ‘Not a word, I promise.’ And to myself I added, Until you are gone, my friend.

  A day or two after that first drunken afternoon, Horace called me to his room and admitted that he could not leave his bed. I made some joke about a hangover, but he would not pretend any longer. ‘I am dying,’ he whispered. ‘Why don’t you leave while I am still conscious and can give you a proper farewell? These things are never pretty.’

  Bachelor that he was, Horace had friends by the thousand in the city and of course several faithful servants in his house. But that is not family, and so I told him I had come prepared for this. Hoping otherwise but ready for the worst if my premonitions proved true. ‘I mean to fight all the gods in heaven to keep you in the light, Horace! Summon the heartless bastards, and I will take them on in turn or all at once! Whatever way they like it!’

  Horace shook his head. ‘I see an old man before me, Dellius, but I still hear the young tribune who thought we ought to burn Antony’s camp just because he had burned ours.’

  ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’

  He shook his head in mock sadness. ‘Youth is a beautiful country.’

  ‘Youth is a country, is it?’

  ‘A land without shadows, where everything is clear and unambiguous, and we will live forever. And what we want to be the truth is the only truth we know.’

  ‘If youth is a country, Horace, you and I are exiles.’

  ‘I think not. You with your swords, I with my poetry – we have not changed. Not really. We are slower in our movements and never miss the chance to complain, but when I write I am still the young god who never grows old, and I expect it is no different with you. Touch a sword and you are immortal, or at least imagine it. We may travel away from it, but I tell you this: we always return to the country of endless sunlight. It is why, in the end, we are all such fools.’

  My friend did not die in his next breath, not for many days more. I stayed to the end, and we talked about the old days, mostly about Antony as it happened, for we both had long and complex relationships with him, and because, despite all the complaints against him in recent years, Antony really defined the age far better than the boy who stole Caesar’s name.

  When Horace had faded and there was no more talk, he lasted another few days in perfect silence, and then he was gone. I travelled with his corpse to Rome and stood with a great many old friends. In fact, I stood not far from Caesar and his adopted son, Tiberius, that same Tiberius who owed his life to me, though he could not remember it.

  We had all become old men, even Tiberius. And so we burned the remains of Horace without a tear shed, then consecrated his ashes to gods that do not exist; I don’t think any of us in that circle believed in the Olympians, though I was the only one ever to admit it openly and certainly the only one with the courage to taunt the empty skies.

  At any rate, we gave up the ashes of our friend to something, and looking at the men I had fought with and against through all our long years, looking at Caesar even, I wondered if Horace was right.

  I have never believed we remain one being inside our aging bodies; it is a principle of my faith that I am something more than flesh; my mind and my spirit wax large even as my body fails. But I must say Horace had given me pause. Perhaps, as we stumble along toward what will ultimately be our grave, nothing at all really changes, not the essentials, anyway; perhaps we are all still the young fools we were at the very beginning.

  There is something beautiful in that, I suppose, something immortal even. And though it ought not to be, perhaps it is even true.

  HORACE’S ODE TO DELLIUS

  In travail

  remain steadfast;

  in joy temper your pride.

  You will die, Dellius.

  Whether you waste your days in sorrow

  or recline on the grass drinking

  Falernian wine at every festival:

  it is the same.

  Why do the tall pine

  and white poplar

  offer shade?

  Why does the river run?

  While the fates let the black thread of your life

  spin out uncut,

  enjoy the wine, walk serenely

  in your garden, bathe with sweet oils.

  Your house and fields

  and all your wealth

  your heirs will come to own

  once you leave.

  Born of a king

  or the lowest field slave

  it doesn’t matter:

  your last road is always the same.

  And you will follow it until,

  almost by chance, you come upon

  a certain ferryman who will take you

  into the eternal exile.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  With few exceptions I have substituted modern place names for the ancient ones. With respect to proper names, I have employed the Roman name and spelling unless the individual is better known by the anglicised version. With Octavian, I have broken with a long tradition of calling him Octavian in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination. My choice fits with the historical facts, he was emphatically called Caesar, but I made the decision so that the reader might more perfectly appreciate the power of the name.

  In the ancient histories Quintus Dellius shows up in the oddest places and often for no very clear reason. There is no evidence he was ever elected to public office, nor is his military rank ever mentioned. The only safe bet is that he was an eques, which is to say his father was a Roman citizen in possession of at least 100,000 denarii. We know Dellius served Dolabella and that he was probably with Dolabella in Spain for Julius Caesar’s last military campaign. Circumstances suggest that he might also have been present for the murder of Gaius Trebonius. Dellius is not mentioned as leading an army into Judaea. Nor is there any record of his imprisonment in Samaria. A Roman army of four legions did arrive in Judaea commanded by Aulus Allienus, but that is all we know. Josephus credits Malichus with the assassination of Antipater.

  It is possible Dellius met Horace at Philippi. We know Brutus recruited Horace in Athens, where Horace was studying. Horace himself confesses to being an incompetent officer. Dellius and Antony may or may not have known each other before Philippi. What is clear is that Antony very quickly promoted Dellius to a position of prominence in his court. Dellius famously led a delegation to the royal court of Egypt only a year after joining Antony. Dellius essentially vanishes from history after he leaves Antony’s service and joins Caesar’s staff at Actium in 31 BC. In fact, all that we know about him after this final change of patrons is that his new circle of acquaintances dubbed him ‘The Horse Changer’. This sobriquet compares Dellius’s adroit shifts from one patron to the next with a rider who comes galloping into a post station and changes to a fresh mount.

>   Virtually every public scene in this novel occurred as I have described it; some details are at variance with the historical accounts, but I usually made adjustments because the histories either left inviting gaps or they were not entirely credible. Where there are private exchanges beyond the scope of the historical record, I have asserted my rights as a storyteller. Everyone named in this novel existed, except for Livia’s horse, Artemis. There actually was a tall red horse originally owned by an eques named Seius. Dolabella possessed this horse in Syria, Cassius took ownership of it after Dolabella’s death, and finally Antony won the horse with the death of Cassius; nobody ever recorded the ultimate fate of the animal or bothered to mention its name. Judah, the secretary, entered history in the same year that Dellius completed his autobiography. More about that I hope to present at a later date.

  Livia and Nero were chased by bounty hunters and nearly burned to death in a forest fire close to Sparta, but there is no record of anyone assisting them. Likewise, Herod escaped with his entire family from Jerusalem and then left them at Masada for nearly sixteen months. Whether or not his Roman allies included a cohort of Spartans led by Q. Dellius, we cannot say, but elsewhere Dellius is mentioned by Josephus as helping Herod storm the walls of Jerusalem in Herod’s decisive battle against prince Antigonus.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For their close reading of an early draft of this novel I owe a debt of gratitude to Donald Jennermann, Frederick Williams, Harriet McNeal, Burdette Palmberg, Tim Murgatroyd, Ben Haymond, and my mother, Shirley Underwood.

  As always, a sincere thanks to my agent, Jeffrey Simmons, and my editor, Ed Handyside.

  The continued encouragement from my brother Doug and his wife Maria keeps me going in ways they cannot begin to imagine. Most of all I am indebted to my wife, Martha Ineichen-Smith, for her support, encouragement, and love.