Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  Vergilius then brought his proposition to the Senate, and was firmly told that the Conscript Fathers would not debate the issue now any more than they had done in January. Vergilius shrugged and sat down on the tribunician bench alongside Sertorius and the others. He had done what Cinna had required of him; find out how the House felt. The rest was up to Cinna.

  “All right,” said Cinna to his confederates, “we go to work. We promise the whole world that if our laws to remake the constitution in its old form and deal with the new citizens are passed in the Centuriate Assembly, we will legislate for a general cancellation of debts. Sulpicius’s promises were suspect because he legislated in favor of creditors in the matter of the Senate, but we have no such handicap. We’ll be believed.”

  The activity which followed was not secret, though it was not aired in the hearing of those bound to be against a general cancellation of debts. And so desperate was the position of the majority—even in the First Class—that opinion and support suddenly veered very much Cinna’s way; for every knight and senator who didn’t owe money or was involved in the lending of it, there were six or seven knights and senators who were in debt, many deeply.

  “We’re in trouble,” said the senior consul Gnaeus Octavius Ruso to his colleagues Antonius Orator and the Brothers Caesar. “Waving a bait like a general cancellation of debts under so many greedy or needy noses will get Cinna what he wants, even from the First Class and the Centuries.’’

  “Give him his due, he’s clever enough not to try to convene the Plebs or the Whole People and force his measures through there,” said Lucius Caesar fretfully. “If he passes his laws in the Centuries, they’re legal under Lucius Cornelius’s present constitution. And with the fiscus the way it is and private money in even worse case, the Centuries from their top to as far down as is necessary will vote to please Lucius Cinna.”

  “And the Head Count will run riot,” said Antonius Orator.

  But Octavius shook his head; he was by far the acutest business man among them. “No, not the capite censi, Marcus Antonius!” he said impatiently, as he was an impatient man. “The lowly are never in debt—they just don’t have any money. It’s those in the middle and upper Classes who borrow. Mostly they have to borrow in order to keep moving upward—or quite often to stay where they presently are. No moneylender obliges those with no real collateral. So the higher up you go, the better your chances of finding men who have borrowed.”

  “I take it you are convinced that the Centuries will vote to pass all this unacceptable rubbish, then?” asked Catulus Caesar.

  “Aren’t you, Quintus Lutatius?”

  “Yes, I very much fear that I am.”

  “Then what can we do?” asked Lucius Caesar.

  “Oh, I know what to do,” said Octavius, scowling. “However, I shall do it without telling anyone, including you.”

  “What do you think he intends to do?” asked Antonius Orator after Octavius had gone off toward the Argiletum.

  Catulus Caesar shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He frowned. “Oh, I wish he had one-tenth the brains and ability of Lucius Sulla! But he doesn’t. He’s a Pompey Strabo man.”

  Brother Lucius Caesar shivered suddenly. “I have a nasty feeling,” he said. “Whatever he means to do won’t be what ought to be done. Oh, dear!”

  Antonius Orator looked brisk. “I think I shall spend the next ten days out of Rome,” he said.

  In the end they all decided this was the wisest thing to do.

  *

  Sure of himself, Cinna now eagerly set the date for his contio in the Centuriate Assembly; the sixth day before the Ides of September, which was two days after the ludi Romani commenced. How prevalent was debt, how eager the debtors were to be relieved of their burdens was patent at dawn on that day, when some twenty thousand men turned up on the Campus Martius to hear Cinna’s contio. Every one of them wished he could vote that day, which Cinna had explained firmly was impossible—that would mean his first law would have had to set aside the lex Caedlia Didia prima (as Sulla had done) to hustle the measures through.

  No, said Cinna, adamant, the customary waiting period of three nundinae would have to be observed. However, he did promise that he would introduce more laws at other contiones well before the voting time for this first law came round. That statement calmed everyone down, gave everyone a strong feeling that the general cancellation of debts would go through long before Cinna stepped down from his office.

  There were actually two laws Cinna intended to discuss on this first day; the distribution of the new citizens across the tribes, and the pardon and recall of the nineteen fugitives. All of them, from Gaius Marius to the humblest of the knights, retained their property; Sulla had made no move to confiscate it during the last days of his consulship, and the new tribunes of the plebs—who could still exercise their vetos within the Senate—made it clear that anyone who tried to move for confiscation would be vetoed.

  So when the twenty thousand members of the Classes gathered on the open grassy space of the Campus Martius, they looked forward to hearing about one law they could approve of, the recall of the fugitives; no one looked forward to distributing the new citizens across the tribes because it would dilute his own power in the tribal assemblies, and everyone knew this law was but a prelude to giving legislative powers back to the tribal assemblies. Cinna and his tribunes of the plebs were there before the crowds, moving among the growing throng answering questions and placating those who still had very grave doubts about the Italians. Most soothing of all, of course, was the promise of a general cancellation of debts.

  So busy was the vast assembly talking among itself, yawning, listlessly getting ready to listen to Cinna because he and his tame tribunes of the plebs had ascended the speaker’s platform, that no one found anything odd about a sudden large influx of new arrivals. They were togate, they were quiet, they looked like members of the Third and Fourth Classes.

  Gnaeus Octavius Ruso had not served as a senior legate to Pompey Strabo for nothing; his remedy for the ills assailing the State was superbly organized and properly instructed. The thousand army veterans he had hired (with money provided by Pompey Strabo and Antonius Orator) had surrounded the crowd and actually had dropped their togas to stand in full armor before a single man in that huge number noticed anything amiss. A shrill whistling began, then the hirelings waded into the mass of men from all sides, swinging their swords. Hundreds and then thousands were cut down, but many more fell under the trampling feet of panicked electors. Driven in on themselves by the encircling wall of assailants, it was some time before any man in the crowd collected himself enough to attempt to run the gauntlet of swords and flee the field.

  Cinna and his six tribunes of the plebs were not trapped as was the gathering; they came down off the speaker’s platform and ran for their lives. Only some two thirds of those below were so fortunate. When Octavius came to view his handiwork, several thousand members of the upper Classes of the Centuriate Assembly lay dead on the Field of Mars. Octavius was angry, as he had wanted Cinna and his tribunes of the plebs killed first; but even men who hired themselves out to murder defenseless victims had a code, and deemed it too perilous to assassinate magistrates in office.

  *

  Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar and his brother Lucius Julius Caesar were staying together at Lanuvium. They heard of the massacre all Rome was calling Octavius’s Day scant hours after it happened, and came hurrying back to Rome to confront Octavius.

  “How could you?” asked Lucius Caesar, weeping.

  “Appalling! Disgusting!” said Catulus Caesar.

  “Don’t give me that sanctimonious claptrap! You knew what I was going to do,” said Gnaeus Octavius scornfully. “You even agreed it was necessary. And—provided you didn’t have to be an actual part of it!—you gave your tacit consent. So don’t come whining to me! I procured you what you wanted—tame Centuries. The survivors won’t vote for Cinna’s laws now, no matter what ind
ucements he tries to hold out to them.”

  Shaken to the core, Catulus Caesar glared at Octavius. “Never in my life have I condoned violence as a political technique, Gnaeus Octavius! Nor do I admit I gave any kind of consent for this, tacit or otherwise! If you construed consent out of anything my brother or I said, you were mistaken. Violence is bad enough—but this! A massacre! Absolute anathema!”

  “My brother is right,” said Lucius Caesar, wiping away his tears. “We are branded, Gnaeus Octavius. The most conservative of men are now no better than Saturninus or Sulpicius.”

  Seeing that nothing he could say would convince this disciple of Pompey Strabo that he had acted wrongly, Catulus Caesar drew himself together with what dignity he could muster. “I hear the Campus Martius has been a field of horror for two days, senior consul. Relatives trying to identify bodies and take them for last rites, your minions scooping bodies up before any relatives have had a chance to see them, throwing them into a vast lime pit between the leeks and lettuces of the Via Recta—tchah! You have turned us into a breed of men worse than mere barbarians, for we know better than barbarians! I find myself becoming more and more unwilling to live.”

  Octavius sneered. “Then I suggest you go and open your veins, Quintus Lutatius! This isn’t the Rome of your august ancestors, you know. It’s the Rome of the Brothers Gracchi, Gaius Marius, Saturninus, Sulpicius, Lucius Sulla and Lucius Cinna! We’ve got ourselves into such a chaotic mess that nothing works anymore—if it did, there would be no need for massacres like Octavius’s Day.”

  Stunned, the Brothers Caesar understood that Gnaeus Octavius Ruso was actually proud of that name.

  “Who gave you the money to hire your assassins, Gnaeus Octavius? Was it Marcus Antonius?” Lucius Caesar asked.

  “He contributed heavily, yes. He has no regrets.”

  “He wouldn’t! He’s an Antonius when all is said and done!” snapped Catulus Caesar. He got to his feet, slapping his hands against his thighs. “Well, it’s over, and we’ll never live it down. But I want no part of it, Gnaeus Octavius. I feel too much like Pandora after she opened her box.”

  Lucius Caesar asked a question. “What’s happened to Lucius Cinna and the tribunes of the plebs?”

  “Gone,” said Octavius laconically. “They’ll be proscribed, of course. Hopefully very soon.”

  Catulus Caesar stopped at the door of Octavius’s study to look back sternly. “You cannot deprive a consul in office of his consular imperium, Gnaeus Octavius. This whole thing started in the first place because the opposition tried to remove Lucius Sulla’s consular right to command Rome’s armies from him. That cannot be done! But no one tried to deprive him of his office as consul. It can’t be done. There is nothing in Roman law, constitution, or precedent that can give any magistrate—or governing body—or comitia—the authority to prosecute or discharge a curule magistrate ahead of the end of his term. You can sack a tribune of the plebs if you go about it in the right way, you can sack a quaestor if he’s delinquent in his duty, you can expel them from the Senate or deprive them of their census. But you cannot sack a consul or any other curule magistrate during his term of office, Gnaeus Octavius.”

  Gnaeus Octavius looked smug. “Now I’ve found the secret of success, Quintus Lutatius, I can do anything I want.” As Lucius Caesar followed his brother to the door, Octavius called after them, “There’s a meeting of the Senate tomorrow. I suggest you be there.”

  *

  No Jerusalem or Antioch, Rome had little patience or truck with prophets and soothsayers; the augurs conducted the rites of auspication in the true Roman spirit, knowing full well that they possessed no insight for the future course of events—strictly according to the books and charts.

  There was, however, one genuinely Roman specimen of the prophet, a patrician of the gens Cornelia, and named Publius Cornelius Culleolus. Quite how he had earned his unfortunate nickname nobody remembered, as Culleolus was an ancient who had always seemed an ancient. He lived precariously on a small income derived from his Scipionic family, and was commonly to be seen in the Forum sitting on top of the two steps which led up into the tiny round temple of Venus Cloacina, older than the Basilica Aemilia, and incorporated into it when it was built. Neither a Cassandra nor a religious zealot, Culleolus confined his forecasts to the outcome of important political and State events; he never predicted the end of the world, nor the coming of some new and infinitely more powerful god. But he had predicted the war against Jugurtha, the coming of the Germans, Saturninus, the Italian war, and the war in the East against Mithridates—which last, he asserted, would go on for a full generation. Because of these successes, he now enjoyed a reputation which was almost great enough to offset the ridiculousness of his cognomen; Culleolus meant Little Ball-sack.

  At dawn on the morning after the Brothers Caesar returned to Rome, the Senate met for the first time since the massacre of Octavius’s Day, its members dreading this session more than any in living memory. Until now, the worst outrages perpetrated in the name of Rome had been the work of individuals or the Forum crowd; but the massacre of Octavius’s Day came uncomfortably close to being labeled as the work of the Senate.

  Sitting on the top step of the temple of Venus Cloacina, Publius Cornelius Culleolus was such a fixture that none of the Conscript Fathers hurrying by noticed him—though he noticed them, and rubbed his hands gleefully together. If he did what Gnaeus Octavius Ruso had paid him lavishly to do—and did it successfully—he would never have to sit on those hard steps again, he could retire at last from the prophesying business.

  The senators lingered in the Curia Hostilia portico, a collection of small groups all talking about Octavius’s Day and audibly wondering how it could possibly be dealt with in debate. A shrill screech brought all heads around; all eyes became riveted upon Culleolus, who had risen onto his toes, spine arched, arms outstretched, fingers knotted, foam bubbling from between his contorted lips. As Culleolus did not prophesy in a frenzy, everyone assumed he was having a fit. Some of the senators and most of the Forum frequenters continued to watch, fascinated, while a few went to the seer’s aid and tried to lower him to the ground. He fought them blindly with teeth and nails, mouth opening ever wider, and then he cried out a second time. Not a noise. Words.

  “China! Cinna! Cinna! Cinna! Cinna!” he howled.

  Suddenly Culleolus had a very intent audience.

  “Unless Cinna and his six tribunes of the plebs are sent into exile, Rome will fall!” he shrieked, twisting and tottering, then shrieked it again, and again, and again, until he collapsed to the ground and was carried away, inanimate.

  The startled senators then discovered that the consul Octavius had been trying for some time to convene his meeting, and hurried into the Curia Hostilia.

  However the senior consul might have been going to explain the hideous events on the Campus Martius would never now be known; Gnaeus Octavius Ruso chose instead to focus his attention (and the attention of the House) upon the extraordinary possession of Culleolus—and upon what Culleolus had cried out for all the Forum to hear.

  “Unless the junior consul and six of the tribunes of the plebs are banished, Rome will fall,” said Octavius thoughtfully. “Pontifex Maximus, flamen Dialis, what do you have to say about this amazing business of Culleolus?”

  Scaevola Pontifex Maximus shook his head. “I think that I must decline to comment, Gnaeus Octavius.”

  Mouth open to insist, Octavius saw something in Scaevola’s eyes that caused him to change his mind; this was a man whose innate conservatism led him to condone much, but also a man not easily intimidated or hoodwinked. On more than one occasion in the House he had roundly condemned the conviction of Gaius Marius, Publius Sulpicius and the rest, and asked for their pardon and recall. No, best not antagonize the Pontifex Maximus; Octavius knew he had a far more gullible witness in the flamen Dialis, and had besides provided that innocent worthy with a fearful omen.

  “Flamen Dialis?” asked Octavius s
olemnly.

  Looking extremely perturbed, Lucius Cornelius Merula the flamen Dialis rose to his feet. “Lucius Valerius Flaccus Princeps Senatus, Gnaeus Octavius, curule magistrates, consulars, Conscript Fathers. Before I comment upon the words of the seer Culleolus, I must first tell you of a happening in the temple of the Great God yesterday. I was ritually cleansing his cella when I found a tiny pool of blood upon the floor behind the plinth of the Great God’s statue. Beside it was the head of a bird—a merula, a blackbird! My own namesake! And I, who am forbidden under our most ancient and reverenced laws to be in the presence of death, was looking upon—I don’t know! My own death? The Great God’s death? I did not know how to interpret the omen, so I consulted the Pontifex Maximus. He did not know either. We therefore summoned the decemviri sacris faciundis and asked them to consult the Sibylline Books, which had nothing to say of any help.”

  Wrapped as he was in the double-layered circular cape of his calling, it was perhaps not illogical that Merula should visibly be sweating, except that he did not normally do so; his round smooth face beneath the spiked ivory helmet he wore shone with sweat. He swallowed, went on. “But I have got ahead of myself. When I first found the head of the blackbird I looked for the rest of its body, and discovered that the creature had made a nest for itself in a crevice beneath the golden robe of the Great God’s statue. And there in the nest were six baby blackbirds, all dead. As far as I can tell, a cat must have got in, caught the mother bird and eaten it—all save the head, that is. But the cat could not reach the baby birds, which died of starvation.”

  The flamen Dialis shivered. “I am polluted. After this session of the House I must continue the ceremonies which will resanctify my own person and the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. That I am here is as a result of my cogitations upon the omen—not so much the death of the merula as the entire phenomenon. It was not, however, until I heard Publius Cornelius Culleolus say what he said in the midst of his truly extraordinary prophetic frenzy that I understood the proper meaning.”