“Sulla is going,” said Pompey deliberately, “and when he goes I’ll sink back into obscurity. Especially if men like Catulus and the Dolabellae have anything to do with it. I’m not a member of the Senate. Nor do I intend to be.”
“Curious, that,” said Philippus thoughtfully. “You had the opportunity. Sulla put your name at the top of his first list. But you spurned it.”
“I have my reasons.”
“I imagine you do!”
Pompey got up from his chair and strolled across to the open window at the back of Philippus’s study, which, because of the peculiar layout of Philippus’s house (perched as it was near the bend in the Clivus Victoriae) looked not onto a peristyle garden but out across the lower Forum Romanum to the cliff of the Capitol. And there above the pillared arcade in which dwelt the magnificent effigies of the Twelve Gods, Pompey could see the beginnings of a huge building project; Sulla’s Tabularium, a gigantic records house in which would repose all of Rome’s accounts and law tablets. Other men, thought Pompey contemptuously, might build a basilica or a temple or a porticus, but Sulla builds a monument to Rome’s bureaucracy! He has no wings on his imagination. That is his weakness, his patrician practicality.
“I would be grateful if you could find a Chrysogonus for me, Magnus,” said Philippus to break the long silence. “The only trouble is that I am not a Sulla! Therefore I very much doubt that I would succeed in controlling such a man.”
“You’re not soft in anything except appearance, Philip—pus,” said the Master of Tact. “If I find you just the right man, you will control him. You just can’t pick staff, that’s all.”
“And why should you do this for me, Magnus?”
“Oh, that’s not all I intend to do for you!” said Pompey, turning from the window with a smile all over his face.
“Really?”
“I take it that your chief problem is maintaining a decent cash flow. You have a great deal of property, as well as several schools for gladiators. But nothing is managed efficiently, and therefore you do not enjoy the income you ought. A Chrysogonus will go far toward fixing that! However, it’s very likely that—as you’re a man of famously expensive habits—even an expanded income from all your estates and schools will not always prove adequate for your needs.”
“Admirably stated!” said Philippus, who was enjoying this interview, he now discovered, enormously.
“I’d be willing to augment your income with the gift of a million sesterces a year,” said Pompey coolly.
Philippus couldn’t help it. He gasped. “A million?”
“Provided you earn it, yes.”
“And what would I have to do to earn it?’’
“Establish a Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus faction within the Senate of sufficient power to get me whatever I want whenever I want it.” Pompey, who never suffered from bashfulness or guilt or any kind of self-deprecation, had no difficulty in meeting Philippus’s gaze when he said this.
“Why not join the Senate and do it for yourself? Cheaper!”
“I refuse to belong to the Senate, so that’s not possible. Besides which, I’d still have to do it. Much better then to do it behind the scenes. I won’t be sitting there to remind the senators that I might have any interest in what’s going on beyond the interest of a genuine Roman patriot—knight.”
“Oh, you’re deep!” Philippus exclaimed appreciatively. “I wonder does Sulla know all the sides to you?”
“Well, I’m why, I believe, he incorporated the special commission into his laws about commands and governorships.”
“You believe he invented the special commission because you refused to belong to the Senate?”
“I do.”
“And that is why you want to pay me fatly to establish a faction for you within the Senate. Which is all very well. But to build a faction will cost you far more money than what you pay me, Magnus. For I do not intend to disburse sums to other men out of my own money—and what you pay me is my own money.”
“Fair enough,” said Pompey equably.
“There are plenty of needy senators among the pedarii. They won’t cost you much, since all you need them for is a vote. But it will be necessary to buy some of the silver—tongues on the front benches too, not to mention a few more in the middle.” Philippus looked thoughtful. “Gaius Scribonius Curio is relatively poor. So is the adopted Cornelius Lentulus—Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus. They both itch for the consulship, but neither has the income to attain it. There are a number of Lentuli, but Lentulus Clodianus is the senior of the branch. He controls the votes of those backbenchers in the Lentulus clientele. Curio is a power within himself—an interesting man. But to buy them will take a considerable amount of money. Probably a million each. If Curio will sell himself. I believe he will for enough, but not blindly, and not completely. Lucius Gellius Poplicola would sell his wife, his parents and his children for a million, however.”
“I’d rather,” said Pompey, “pay them an annual income, as I will you. A million now might buy them, yes, but I think they would be happier if they knew that there was a regular quarter million coming in every year. In four years, that’s the million. But I am going to need them for longer than four years.”
“You’re generous, Magnus. Some might say foolishly so.”
“I am never foolish!” snapped Pompey. “I will expect to see a return for my money in keeping with the amount of it!”
For some time they discussed the logistics of payments and the amounts necessary to people the back benches with willing—nay, eager!—Pompeian voters. But then Philippus sat back with a frown, and fell silent.
“What is it?” asked Pompey a little anxiously.
“There’s one man you can’t do without. The trouble is he’s already got more money than he knows what to do with. So he can’t be bought and he makes great capital out of that fact.”
“You mean Cethegus.”
“I do indeed.”
“How can I get him?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Pompey rose, looking brisk. “Then I’d better see him.”
“No!” cried Philippus, alarmed. “Cethegus is a patrician Cornelian, and such a smooth and syrupy sort of man that you’d make an enemy out of him—he can’t deal with the direct approach. Leave him to me. I’ll sound him out, find what he wants.”
Two days later, Pompey received a note from Philippus. It contained only one sentence: “Get him Praecia, and he’s yours.”
Pompey held the note within the flame of a lamp until it kindled, shaking with anger. Yes, that was Cethegus! His payment was his future patron’s humiliation! He required that Pompey should become his pimp.
*
Pompey’s approach to Mucia Tertia was very different from his tactics in dealing with Aemilia Scaura—or Antistia, for that matter. This third wife was infinitely above numbers one and two. First of all, she had a mind. Secondly, she was enigmatic; he could never work out what she was thinking. Thirdly, she was quite wonderful in bed—what a surprise! Luckily he hadn’t made a fool of himself at the outset by calling her his wee pudding or his delectable honeypot; such terms had actually teetered on the tip of his tongue, but something in her face had killed them before he articulated them. Little though he had liked Young Marius, she had been Young Marius’s wife, and that had to count for much. And she was Scaevola’s daughter, Crassus Orator’s niece. Six years of living with Julia had to count for something too. So all Pompey’s instincts said Mucia Tertia must be treated more like an equal, and not at all like a chattel.
Therefore when he sought Mucia Tertia out, he did as he always did; gave her a lingering tongue—seeking kiss accompanied by a light and appreciative fondling of one nipple. Then—going away to sit where he could see her face, a smile of enslaved love and devotion. And after that—straight to the subject.
“Did you know I used to have a mistress in Rome?” he asked.
“Which one?” was her answer, solemn and ma
tter—of—fact; she rarely smiled, Mucia Tertia.
“So you know of them all,” he said comfortably.
“Only of the two most notorious. Flora and Praecia.”
Clearly Pompey had forgotten Flora ever existed; he looked perfectly blank for several moments, then laughed and held his hands out. “Flora? Oh, she was forever ago!”
“Praecia,” said Mucia Tertia in a level voice, “was my first husband’s mistress too.”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“Before or after you approached her?”
“Before.”
“You didn’t mind?”
He could be quick, as he was now: “If I haven’t minded his widow, why should I mind his ex-mistress?”
“True.” She drew several skeins of finest woolen thread further into the light, and inspected them carefully. Her work, a piece of embroidery, lay in her swelling lap. Finally she chose the palest of the various purplish shades, broke off a length, and after sucking it to moisten it and rolling it between her fingers, held it up to ease it through the large eye of a needle. Only when the chore was done did she return her attention to Pompey. “What is it you have to say about Praecia?”
“I’m establishing a faction in the Senate.”
“Wise.” The needle was poked through the coarse fabric on which a complicated pattern of colored wools was growing, from wrong side to right side, then back again; the junction, when it was finished, would be impossible to detect. “Who have you begun with, Magnus? Philippus?”
“Absolutely correct! You really are wonderful, Mucia!”
“Just experienced,” she said. “I grew up surrounded by talk of politics.”
“Philippus has undertaken to give me that faction,” Pompey went on, “but there’s one person he couldn’t buy.”
“Cethegus,” she said, beginning now to fill in the body of a curlique already outlined with deeper purple.
“Correct again. Cethegus.”
“He’s necessary.”
“So Philippus assures me.”
“And what is Cethegus’s price?”
“Praecia.”
“Oh, I see.” The curlique was filling in at a great rate. “So Philippus has given you the job of acquiring Praecia for the King of the Backbenchers?”
“It seems so.” Pompey shrugged. “She must speak well of me, otherwise I imagine he’d have given the job to someone else.”
“Better of you than of Gaius Marius Junior.”
“Really?” Pompey’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s good!”
Down went work and needle; the deep green eyes, so far apart and doelike, regarded their lord and master inscrutably. “Do you still visit her, Magnus?”
“No, of course not!” said Pompey indignantly. His small spurt of temper died, he looked at her uncertainly. “Would you have minded if I had said yes?”
“No, of course not.” The needle went to work again.
His face reddened. “You mean you wouldn’t be jealous?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then you don’t love me!” he cried, jumping to his feet and walking hastily about the room.
“Sit down, Magnus, do.”
“You don’t love me!” he cried a second time.
She sighed, abandoned her embroidery. “Sit down, Gnaeus Pompeius, do! Of course I love you.”
“If you did you’d be jealous!” he snapped, and flung himself back into his chair.
“I am not a jealous person. Either one is, or one is not. And why should you want me to be jealous?’’
“It would tell me that you loved me.”
“No, it would only tell you that I am a jealous person,” she said with magnificent logic. “You must remember that I grew up in a very troubled household. My father loved my mother madly, and she loved him too. But he was always jealous of her. She resented it. Eventually his moods drove her into the arms of Metellus Nepos, who is not a jealous person. So she’s happy.”
“Are you warning me not to become jealous of you?”
“Not at all,” she said placidly. “I am not my mother.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Did you love Young Marius?’’
“No, never.” The pale purple thread was all used up; a new one was broken off. “Gaius Marius Junior was not uxorious. You are, delightfully so. Uxoriousness is a quality worthy of love.”
That pleased him enough to return to the original subject. “The thing is, Mucia, how do I go about something like this? I am a procurer—oh, why dress it up in a fancy name? I am a pimp!”
She chuckled. Wonder of wonders, she chuckled! “I quite see how difficult a position it puts you in, Magnus.”
“What ought I to do?”
“As is your nature. Take hold of it and do it. You only lose control of events when you stop to think or worry how you’ll look. So don’t stop to think—and stop worrying about how you’ll look. Otherwise you’ll make a mess of it.”
“Just go and see her and ask her.”
“Exactly.” The needle was threaded again, her eyes lifted to his with another ghost of a smile in them. “However, there is a price for this advice, my dear Magnus.”
“Is there?”
“Certainly. I want a full account of how your meeting with Praecia goes.”
*
The timing of this negotiation, it turned out, was exactly right. No longer possessed of either Young Marius or Pompey, Praecia had fallen into a doldrums wherein both stimulus and interest were utterly lacking. Comfortably off and determined to retain her independence, she was now far too old to be a creature of driving physical passions. As was true of so many of her less well-known confederates in the art of love, Praecia had become an expert in sham. She was also an astute judge of character and highly intelligent. Thus she went into every sexual encounter from a superior position of power, sure of her capacity to please, and sure of her quarry. What she loved was the meddling in the affairs of men that normally had little or nothing to do with women. And what she loved most was political meddling. It was balm to intellect and disposition.
When Pompey’s arrival was announced to her, she didn’t make the mistake of automatically assuming he had come to renew his liaison with her, though of course it crossed her mind because she had heard that his wife was pregnant.
“My dear, dear Magnus!” she said with immense affability when he entered her study, and held out her hands to him.
He bestowed a light kiss on each before retreating to a chair some feet away from where she reclined on a couch, heaving a sigh of pleasure so artificial that Praecia smiled.
“Well, Magnus?” she asked.
“Well, Praecia!” he said. “Everything as perfect as ever, I see—has anyone ever found you and your surroundings less than perfect? Even if the call is unexpected?’’
Praecia’s tablinum —she gave it the same name a man would have—was a ravishing production in eggshell blue, cream, and precisely the right amount of gilt. As for herself—she rose every day of her life to a toilet as thorough as it was protracted, and she emerged from it a finished work of art.
Today she wore a quantity of tissue—fine draperies in a soft sage—green, and had done up her pale gold hair like Diana the Huntress, in disciplined piles with straying tendrils which looked absolutely natural rather than the result of much tweaking with the aid of a mirror. The beautiful cool planes of her face were not obviously painted; Praecia was far too clever to be crude when Fortune had been so kind, even though she was now forty.
“How have you been keeping?” Pompey asked.
“In good health, if not in good temper.”
“Why not good temper?”
She shrugged, pouted. “What is there to mollify it? You don’t come anymore! Nor does anyone else interesting.”
“I’m married again.”
“To a very strange woman.”
“Mucia, strange? Yes, I suppose she is. But I like her.”
“You would.”
He searched for a way into saying what he had to say, but could find no trigger and thus sat in silence, with Praecia gazing at him mockingly from her half—sitting, half—lying pose. Her eyes—which were held to be her best feature, being very large and rather blindly blue—positively danced with this derision.
“I’m tired of this!” Pompey said suddenly. “I’m an emissary, Praecia. Not here on my own behalf, but on someone else’s.”
“How intriguing!”
“You have an admirer.”
“I have many admirers.”
“Not like this one.”
“And what makes him so different? Not to mention how he managed to send you to procure my services!’’
Pompey reddened. “I’m caught in the middle, and I hate it! But I need him and he doesn’t need me. So I’m here on his behalf.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“Take the barb out of your tongue, woman! I’m suffering enough. He’s Cethegus.”
“Cethegus! Well, well!” said Praecia purringly.
“He’s very rich, very spoiled, and very nasty,” said
Pompey. “He could have done his own dirty work, but it amuses him to make me do it for him.”
“It’s his price,” she said, “to make you act as his pimp.”
“It is indeed.”
“You must want him very badly.”
“Just give me an answer! Yes or no?”
“Are you done with me, Magnus?”
“Yes.”
“Then my answer to Cethegus is yes.”
Pompey rose to his feet. “I thought you’d say no.”
“In other circumstances I would have loved to say no, but the truth is that I’m bored, Magnus. Cethegus is a power in the Senate, and I enjoy being associated with men of power. Besides, I see a new kind of power in it for me. I shall arrange it so that those who seek favors from Cethegus will have to do so through cultivating me. Very nice!”
“Grr!” said Pompey, and departed.
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