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

by Colleen McCullough

  “No, I don’t qualify for a triumph. The Senate prefers to call the war against Spartacus a slave war, so all I qualify for is an ovation.” Crassus cleared his throat, looked a little cast down. “However, I have applied for an ovation. To be held as soon as possible. I want to lay down my imperium in time to stand for the consular elections.”

  “That’s right, you were praetor two years ago, so there’s no impediment, is there?” Pompey looked cheerful. “I doubt you’ll have trouble getting in, after your resounding victory. Ovation one day, consul the next, I daresay.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Crassus, who hadn’t smiled yet. “I have to persuade the Senate to grant me land for at least half of my troops, so being consul will be a help.”

  “That it will,” said Pompey cordially, and got up. “Well, I must go. I like to get in a decent walk, keeps me from seizing up—getting to be an old man, as you say!”

  And off he went, leaving Crassus and Caesar looking at each other blankly.

  “What was all that about?” asked Crassus.

  “I have a funny feeling,” said Caesar thoughtfully, “that we are going to find out.”

  *

  As a messenger had delivered the scribe—copied, neat and tidy version of Pompey’s letter early in the afternoon, Philippus did not expect any further word from Pompey until after he had read the letter out in the Senate. But he had only just risen from the dinner couch late that same afternoon when another messenger arrived from Pompey to summon him back to the Campus Martius. For a wild moment Philippus contemplated sending a curt refusal; then he thought of the wonderful annual lump sum Pompey still paid him, sighed, and ordered a litter. No more walking!

  ‘‘If you’ve changed your mind about my reading out your letter tomorrow, Magnus, all you had to do was notify me! Why am I here for the second time in one day?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the letter!” said Pompey impatiently. “Just read the thing out and let them have their laugh. They’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces soon enough. No, it’s not for that I wanted to see you. I have a job for you that’s far more important, and I want you to get started on it at once.”

  Philippus frowned. “What job?” he asked.

  “I’m going to drive Crassus onto my side,” said Pompey.

  “Oho! And how do you plan to do that?”

  “I won’t be doing it. You and the rest of my lobby will. I want you to swing the Senate away from granting land to Crassus for his troops. But you have to do it now, before he’s allowed his ovation, and well before the curule elections. You have to maneuver Crassus into a position which will prevent his offering the use of his army to the Senate if the Senate decides it must squash me with force. I didn’t know how to go about it until I went to see Crassus a short time ago. And he let it drop that he’s running for consul because he believes as consul he’ll be in a better position to demand land for his veterans. You know Crassus! There’s not a chance in the world that he’d pay for land himself, but he can’t discharge his soldiers without some sort of settlement. He probably won’t ask for much—after all, it was a short campaign. And that’s the tack you’re going to adopt—that a six months’ campaign isn’t worth giving away the ager publicus for, especially as the enemy was servile. If the booty was worth his army’s while, then it might be content with that. But I know Crassus! Most of the booty won’t be entered on the list for the Treasury. He can’t help himself—he has to try to keep the lot. And get compensation for his men out of the State.”

  “As a matter of fact I heard the booty wasn’t great,” said Philippus, smiling. “Crassus declared that Spartacus paid out almost everything he had to the pirates when he tried to hire them to take his men to Sicily. But from other sources I’ve heard this wasn’t so, that the sum he paid was half what he had in cash.”

  “That’s Crassus!” said Pompey with a reminiscent grin. “I tell you, he can’t help himself. How many legions has he got? Eight? Twenty percent to the Treasury, twenty percent to Crassus, twenty percent to his legates and tribunes, ten percent to the cavalry and centurions, and thirty percent to the foot soldiers. That would mean each foot soldier would get about a hundred and eighty—five sesterces. Wouldn’t pay the rent for long, would it?”

  “I didn’t realize you were so good at arithmetic, Magnus!”

  “Always better at that than reading and writing.”

  “How much will your men get from booty?’’

  “About the same. But the tally’s honest, and they know it is. I always have a few representatives from the ranks present when I tot up booty. Makes them feel better, not so much to know their general’s honest as because they think themselves honored. Those of mine who don’t already have land will get land. From the State, I hope. But if not from the State, I’ll give them some of my land.”

  “That’s remarkably generous of you, Magnus.”

  “No, Philippus, it’s just forethought. I’m going to need these men—and their sons!—in the future, so I don’t mind being generous now. But when I’m an old man and I’ve fought my last campaign, I can assure you I won’t be willing to stand the damage myself.” Pompey looked determined. “My last campaign is going to bring in more money than Rome has seen in a hundred years. I don’t know what campaign it’s going to be, except that I’ll pick a rich one. Parthia’s what I’m thinking of. And when I bring the wealth of Parthia back to Rome, I expect Rome to give my veterans land. My career so far has put me badly out of purse—well, you know how much I pay out each and every year to you and the rest of my lobby in the Senate!”

  Philippus hunched himself defensively in his chair. “You’ll get your money’s worth!”

  “You’re not wrong about that, my friend. And you can start tomorrow,” said Pompey cheerfully. “The Senate must refuse to give Crassus land for his troops. I also want the curule elections delayed. And I want my application to be allowed to run for the consulship tabled in the House and kept tabled. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly.” The hireling got up. “There’s only one real difficulty, Magnus. Crassus has a great many senators in debt to him, and I doubt we can turn them onto our side.”

  “We can—if we give those men who don’t owe Crassus much the money to pay him back. See how many owe him forty thousand sesterces or less. If they’re our creatures or might be willing to be our creatures, instruct them to pay Crassus back immediately. If nothing else tells him how serious his situation is, that will,” said Pompey.

  “Even so, I wish you’d let me postpone your letter!”

  “You will read my letter out tomorrow, Philippus. I don’t want anyone deluded about my motives. I want the Senate and Rome to know here and now that I am going to be consul next year.”

  Rome and the Senate knew by the following noon, for at that hour Varro erupted into Pompey’s tent, breathless and disheveled.

  “You’re not serious!” Varro gasped, throwing himself into a chair and flapping a hand in front of his flushed face.

  “I am.”

  “Water, I need water.” With a huge effort Varro pulled himself out of the chair and went to the table where Pompey kept his liquid refreshments. He downed a goodly draft, refilled his beaker and went back to his chair. “Magnus, they’ll swat you like a moth!”

  Pompey dismissed this with a contemptuous gesture, staring at Varro eagerly. “How did they take it, Varro? I want to hear every last detail!”

  “Well, Philippus lodged an application to speak with the consul Orestes—who has the fasces for June—before the meeting, and as it was he who had requested the meeting be convened in the first place, he spoke as soon as the auguries were over. He got up and read out your letter.”

  “Did they laugh?”

  Startled, Varro lifted his head from his water. “Laugh? Ye gods, no! Everyone sat there absolutely stunned. Then the House began to buzz, softly at first, then louder and louder until the place was in an uproar. The consul Orestes finally managed t
o establish order, and Catulus asked to speak. I imagine you know pretty much what he had to say.”

  “Out of the question. Unconstitutional. An affront to every legal and ethical precept in the history of Rome.”

  “All that, and a great deal more. By the time he finished he was literally foaming at the mouth.”

  “What happened after he finished?’’

  “Philippus gave a really magnificent speech—one of the best I’ve ever heard him give, and he’s a great orator. He said you’d earned the consulship, that it was ridiculous to ask a man who had been propraetor twice and proconsul once to crawl into the House under a vow of silence. He said you’d saved Rome from Sertorius, you’d turned Nearer Spain into a model province, you’d even opened up a new pass across the Alps, and that all of those things—plus a lot more—proved that you had always been Rome’s loyalest servant. I can’t go into all his flights of fancy—ask him for a copy of his speech, he read it out—but he made a profound impression, I can tell you that.

  “And then,” Varro went on, looking puzzled, “he changed horses! It was very odd! One moment he was talking about letting you run for consul, the next moment he was talking about the habit we had got into of doling out little pieces of Rome’s precious ager publicus to appease the greed of common soldiers, who thanks to Gaius Marius now expected as a matter of course to be rewarded with public land after the smallest and meanest campaign. How this land was being given to these soldiers not in Rome’s name, but in the general’s name! The practice would have to stop, he said. The practice was creating private armies at the expense of Senate and People, because it gave soldiers the idea that they belonged to their general first, with Rome coming in a bad second.”

  “Oh, good!” purred Pompey. “Did he stop there?”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Varro sipping his water. He licked his lips, a nervous reaction; the idea was beginning to occur to him that Pompey was behind all of it. “He went on to refer specifically to the campaign against Spartacus, and to Crassus’s report to the House. Mincemeat, Magnus! Philippus made mincemeat out of Crassus! How dared Crassus apply for land for the veterans of a six months’ campaign! How dared Crassus apply for land to reward soldiers who had had to be decimated before they found the courage to fight! How dared Crassus apply for land to give to men who had only done what any loyal Roman was expected to do—put down an enemy threatening the homeland! A war against a foreign power was one thing, he said, but a war against a felon leading an army of slaves conducted on Italian soil was quite another. No man was entitled to ask for rewards when he had literally been defending his home. And Philippus ended by begging the House not to tolerate Crassus’s impudence, nor encourage Crassus to think he could buy personal loyalty from his soldiers at the expense of Rome.”

  “Splendid Philippus!” beamed Pompey, leaning forward. “So what happened after that?”

  “Catulus got up again, but this time he spoke in support of Philippus. How right Philippus was to demand that this practice started by Gaius Marius of giving away State land to soldiers should stop. It must stop, said Catulus! The ager publicus of Rome had to stay in the public domain, it could not be used to bribe common soldiers to be loyal to their commanders.”

  “And did the debate end there?”

  “No. Cethegus was given leave to speak, and he backed both Philippus and Catulus without reservation, he said. After him, so did Curio, Gellius, Clodianus, and a dozen others. After which the House worked itself into such a state that Orestes decided to terminate the meeting,” Varro ended.

  “Wonderful!” cried Pompey.

  “This is your doing, Magnus, isn’t it?”

  The wide blue eyes opened even wider. “My doing? Whatever can you mean, Varro?”

  “You know what I mean,” said Varro, tight—lipped. “I confess I’ve only just seen it, but I have seen it! You’re using all your senatorial employees to drive a wedge between Crassus and the House! And if you succeed, you will have succeeded in removing Crassus’s army from the Senate’s command. And if the Senate has no army to command, Rome cannot teach you the lesson you so richly deserve, Gnaeus Pompeius!”

  Genuinely hurt, Pompey gazed beseechingly at his friend. “Varro, Varro! I deserve to be consul!”

  “You deserve to be crucified!”

  Opposition always hardened Pompey; Varro could see the ice forming. And, as always, it unmanned him. So he said, trying to retrieve his lost ground, “I’m sorry, Magnus, I spoke in anger. I retract that. But surely you can see what a terrible thing you are doing! If the Republic is to survive, every man of influence in it must avoid undermining the constitution. What you have asked the Senate to allow you to do goes against every principle in the mos maiorum. Even Scipio Aemilianus didn’t go so far—and he was directly descended from Africanus and Paullus!”

  But that only made matters worse. Pompey got up, stiff with outrage. “Oh, go away, Varro! I see what you’re saying! If a prince of the blood didn’t go so far, how dare a mere mortal from Picenum? I will be consul!”

  *

  The effect the doings of that meeting of the Senate had on Marcus Terentius Varro was as nothing compared to the effect it had on Marcus Licinius Crassus. His report came from Caesar, who had restrained Quintus Arrius and the other senatorial legates after the meeting concluded, though Lucius Quinctius took some persuading.

  “Let me tell him,” Caesar begged. “You’re all too hot, and you’ll make him hot. He has to remain calm.”

  “We never even got a chance to speak our piece!” cried Quinctius, smacking his fist into the palm of his other hand. “That verpa Orestes let everyone talk who was in favor, then closed the meeting before a single one of us could answer!”

  “I know that,” said Caesar patiently, “and rest assured, we’ll all get our chance at the next meeting. Orestes did the sensible thing. Everyone was in a rage. And we’ll have the floor first next time. Nothing was decided! So let me tell Marcus Crassus, please.”

  And so, albeit reluctantly, the legates had gone to their own homes, leaving Caesar to stride out briskly for the Campus Martius and Crassus’s camp. Word of the meeting had flown about like a wind; as he slipped neatly through the crowds of men in the lower Forum Romanum on his way to the Clivus Argentarius, Caesar heard snatches of talk which all revolved around the prospect of yet another civil war. Pompey wanted to be consul—the Senate wouldn’t have it—Crassus wasn’t going to get his land—it was high time Rome taught these presumptuous generals a much-needed lesson—what a terrific fellow Pompey was—and so on.

  “... And there you have it,” Caesar concluded.

  Crassus had listened expressionless to the crisp and succinct summary of events Caesar presented to him, and now that the tale was over he maintained that expressionless mask. Nor did he say anything for some time, just gazed out of the open aperture in his tent wall at the quiet beauty of the Campus Martius. Finally he gestured toward the scene outside and said without turning to face Caesar, “Lovely, isn’t it? You’d never think a cesspool like Rome was less than a mile down the Via Lata, would you?”

  “Yes, it is lovely,” said Caesar sincerely.

  “And what do you think about the not so lovely events in the Senate this morning?”

  “I think,” said Caesar quietly, “that Pompeius has got you by the balls.”

  That provoked a smile, followed by a silent laugh. “You are absolutely correct, Caesar.” Crassus pointed in the direction of his desk, where piles of filled moneybags lay all over its surface. “Do you know what those are?”

  “Money, certainly. I can’t guess what else.”

  “They represent every small debt a senator owed me,” said Crassus. “Fifty repayments altogether.”

  “And fifty fewer votes in the House.”

  “Exactly.” Crassus heaved his chair around effortlessly and put his feet up among the bags atop his desk, leaned back with a sigh. “As you say, Caesar, Pompeius has got me by the balls.”
r />   “I’m glad you’re taking it calmly.”

  “What’s the point in ranting and raving? That wouldn’t help. Couldn’t change a thing. More importantly, is there anything that will change the situation?”

  “Not from a testicular aspect, for sure. But you can still work within the parameters Pompeius has set—it’s possible to move about, even with someone’s hairy paw wrapped around your poor old balls,” said Caesar with a grin.

  Crassus answered it. “Quite so. Who would have thought Pompeius had that kind of brilliance?’’

  “Oh, he’s brilliant. In an untutored way. But it was not a politic ploy, Crassus. He hit you with the stunning hammer first and then stated his terms. If he owned any political sense, he would have come to you first and told you what he intended to do. Then it might have been arranged in peace and quiet, without all of Rome stirred into a fever pitch at the prospect of another civil war. The trouble with Pompeius is that he has no idea how other people think, or how they’re going to react. Unless, that is, their thoughts and reactions are the same as his own.”

  “You are probably right, but I think it has more to do with Pompeius’s self-doubt. If he absolutely believed he could force the Senate to let him be consul, he would have come to me before he moved. But I’m less important to him than the Senate, Caesar. It’s the Senate he has to sway. I’m just his tool. So what can it matter to him if he stuns me first? He’s got me by the balls. If I want land for my veterans, I have to inform the Senate that it can’t rely on me or my soldiers to oppose Pompeius.” Crassus shifted his booted feet; the bags of money chinked.

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “I intend,” said Crassus, swinging his feet off the desk and standing up, “sending you to see Pompeius right now. I don’t need to tell you what to say. Negotiate, Caesar.”

  Off went Caesar to negotiate.

  One of the few certainties, he thought wryly, was that he would find each general at home; until triumph or ovation was held, no general could cross the pomerium into the city, for to do so was to shed imperium automatically, thereby preventing triumph or ovation. So while legates and tribunes and soldiers could come and go as they pleased, the general himself was obliged to remain on the Campus Martius.