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

by Colleen McCullough

  There were nods and murmurs of approval; the House liked where Lucius Cotta was going very much.

  “I am aware that many of you were thinking along these lines, that jury duty ought to be given to a larger body of men than the Senate. I am aware, naturally, that for a short time once before the juries were divided between the two orders. But, as I have said already, none of the solutions which had occurred to us until now went far enough. If there are eighteen hundred minus the membership of the Senate in the eighteen senior Centuries, then the knight pool is reasonably wide, and one knight might perhaps sit on one jury in any year.”

  Lucius Cotta paused, well satisfied with what his eyes saw. He went on more briskly. “A man of the First Class, my fellow senators, is just that. A man of the First Class. A prominent citizen of means, with an income of no less than three hundred thousand sesterces per annum. Yet because Rome is now ancient, some things have not changed, or else have continued in the old way but with extra people or functions tacked on. Like the First Class. At the very beginning we had only the eighteen senior Centuries, but because we doggedly kept those eighteen Centuries to only one hundred men in each, we had to expand the First Class by tacking on more Centuries. When we got to seventy—three extra Centuries tacked on, we decided to expand the First Class in a different way—not by keeping on adding more Centuries, but by increasing the number of men in each Century beyond the old one hundred. So we ended up with what I might call a top—light First Class! Just one thousand eight hundred men in the senior eighteen Centuries, and many thousands of men in the seventy—three other Centuries.

  “So why not, I asked myself, offer public duty to these many, many thousands of men of the First Class who are not senior enough in family or name to belong to the eighteen Centuries of the Public Horse? If these more junior men were to form one third of each and every jury empaneled, the burden of duty for one man would be extremely light, yet a great incentive for the vast body of more junior knights we call the tribuni aerarii. Imagine if you will a jury of, say, fifty-one men: seventeen senators, seventeen knights of the Public Horse, and seventeen tribuni aerarii. The seventeen senators have the clout of experience, legal knowledge and long association with jury duty. The seventeen knights of the Public Horse have the clout of distinguished family and great wealth. And the seventeen tribuni aerarii have the clout of freshness, a new and different experience, membership in the First Class of Roman citizens, and at least considerable wealth.”

  Both the hands went out again; Lucius Cotta dropped the right one and extended the left toward the massive bronze doors of the Curia Hostilia. “That is my solution, Conscript Fathers! A tripartite jury of equal numbers of men from all three orders within the First Class. If you award me a senatus consultum, I will draft my measure in properly legal fashion and present it to the Assembly of the People.”

  Pompey held the fasces for the month of September, and sat upon his curule chair at the front of the dais. Beside him was an empty chair—that of Crassus.

  “How says the senior consul—elect?’’ Pompey asked correctly of Quintus Hortensius.

  “The senior consul—elect commends Lucius Cotta for this splendid piece of work,” said Hortensius. “Speaking as a curule magistrate—elect and as an advocate in the courts, I applaud this eminently sensible solution to a vexed problem.”

  “The junior consul—elect?” asked Pompey.

  “I concur with my senior colleague,” said Metellus Little Goat, who had no reason to oppose the measure now that the case of Gaius Verres was in the past and Verres himself vanished.

  And so it went through the ranks of those asked to speak; no one could find fault. There were some who were tempted to find fault, of course, but every time they thought of how much jury duty finding fault was likely to let them in for, they shuddered and ended in saying nothing.

  *

  “It really is splendid,” said Cicero to Caesar as the exodus from the House drew them together. “We’re both men who like to work with honest juries. How cunning Lucius Cotta was! Two segments of the jury would have to be bribed to secure the right verdict—which is more expensive by far than half!—and what one segment accepted, the other two would be inclined to deny. I predict, my dear Caesar, that while jury bribery may not entirely disappear, there will be considerably less of it. The tribuni aerarii will regard it as a matter of honor to behave decently and justify their incorporation. Yes indeed, Lucius Cotta has been very clever!”

  Caesar took great pleasure in reporting this to his uncle over dinner in his own triclinium. Neither Aurelia nor Cinnilla was present; Cinnilla was into her fourth month of pregnancy and suffering an almost constant sickness of the stomach, and Aurelia was caring for little Julia, who was also ailing in a minor way. So the two men were alone, and not ungrateful for it.

  “I admit that the bribery aspect did occur to me,” said Lucius Cotta, smiling, “but I couldn’t very well be blunt in the House when I wanted the measure approved.”

  “True. Nonetheless it has occurred to most, and as far as Cicero and I are concerned, it’s a terrific bonus. On the other hand, Hortensius may well privately deplore it. Bribery aside, the best part about your solution is that it will preserve Sulla’s standing courts, which I believe are the greatest advance in Roman justice since the establishment of trial and jury.”

  “Oh, very nice praise, Caesar!” Lucius Cotta glowed for a moment, then put his wine cup on the table and frowned. “You’re in Marcus Crassus’s confidence, Caesar, so perhaps you can allay my fears. In many ways this has been a halcyon year—no wars on the horizon we’re not winning comfortably, the Treasury under less stress than it has been in a very long time, a proper census being taken of all the Roman citizens in Italy, a good harvest in Italy and the provinces, and something like a nice balance struck between old and new in government. If one leaves aside the unconstitutionality of Magnus’s consulship, truly this year has been a good one. As I walked here through the Subura, I got a feeling that the ordinary Roman people—the sort who rarely get to exercise a vote and find Crassus’s free grain a genuine help in stretching their income—are happier than they have been in at least a generation. I agree that they’re not the ones who suffer when heads roll and the gutters of the Forum run with blood, but the mood that kind of thing engenders infects them too, even though their own heads are not in jeopardy.”

  Pausing for breath, Lucius Cotta took a mouthful of wine.

  “I think I know what you’re going to say, Uncle, but say it anyway,” said Caesar.

  “It’s been a wonderful summer, especially for the lowly. A host of entertainments, food enough to eat to bursting point and take home sackloads to feed every member of the family to bursting point, lion hunts and performing elephants, chariot races galore, every farce and mime known to the Roman stage—and free wheat! Public Horses on parade. Peaceful elections held on time for once. Even a sensational trial wherein the villain got his just deserts and Hortensius a smack in the eye. Cleaned up swimming holes in the Trigarium. Not nearly as much disease as everyone expected, and no outbreak of the summer paralysis. Crimes and confidence tricks quite depressed!” Lucius Cotta smiled. “Whether they deserve it or not, Caesar, most of the credit—and the praise!—is going to the consuls. People’s feelings about them are as romantic as they are fanciful. You and I, of course, know better. Though one cannot deny that they’ve been excellent consuls—legislated only to save their necks, and for the rest, left well enough alone. And yet—and yet—there are rumors growing, Caesar. Rumors that all is not amicable between Pompeius and Crassus. That they’re not speaking to each other. That when one is obliged to be present somewhere, the other will be absent. And I’m concerned, because I believe that the rumors are true—and because I believe that we of the upper class owe the ordinary people one short little perfect year.”

  “Yes, the rumors are true,” said Caesar soberly.

  “Why?”

  “Chiefly because Marcus Crassu
s stole Pompeius’s thunder and Pompeius cannot bear to be eclipsed. He thought that between the Public Horse farce and his votive games, he’d be everyone’s hero. Then Crassus provided three months of free grain. And demonstrated to Pompeius that he’s not the only man in Rome with an absolutely vast fortune. So Pompeius has retaliated by cutting Crassus out of his life, consular and private. He should, for instance, have notified Crassus that there was a meeting of the Senate today—oh, everyone knows there’s always a meeting on the Kalends of September, but the senior consul calls it, and must notify his juniors.”

  “He notified me,” said Lucius Cotta.

  “He notified everyone except Crassus. And Crassus interpreted that as a direct insult. So he wouldn’t go. I tried to reason with him, but he refused to budge.”

  “Oh, cacat!” cried Lucius Cotta, and flopped back on his couch in disgust. “Between the pair of them, they’ll ruin what would otherwise be a year in a thousand!”

  “No,” said Caesar, “they won’t. I won’t let them. But if I do manage to patch up a peace between them, it won’t last long. So I’ll wait until the end of the year, Uncle, and bring some Cottae into my schemes. At the end of the year we’ll force them to stage some sort of public reconciliation that will bring tears to every eye. That way, it’s exeunt omnes on the last day of the year with everybody singing their lungs out—Plautus would be proud of the production.”

  “You know,” said Lucius Cotta thoughtfully, straightening up, “when you were a boy, Caesar, I had you in my catalogue of men as what Archimedes might have called a prime mover—you know, ‘Give me a place to stand, and I will shift the whole globe!’ That was genuinely how I saw you, and one of the chief reasons why I mourned when you were made flamen Dialis. So when you managed to wriggle out of it, I put you back where I used to have you in my catalogue of men. But it hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would. You move through the most complicated system of gears and cogs! For such a young man, you’re very well known at many levels from the Senate to the Subura. But not as a prime mover. More in the fashion of a lord high chamberlain in an oriental court—content to be the mind behind events, but allowing other men to enjoy the glory.” He shook his head. “I find that so odd in you!”

  Caesar had listened to this with tight mouth and two spots of color burning in his normally ivory cheeks. “You didn’t have me wrongly catalogued, Uncle,” he said. “But I think perhaps my flaminate was the best thing could have happened to me, given that I did manage to wriggle out of it. It taught me to be subtle as well as powerful, it taught me to hide my light when showing it might have snuffed it out, it taught me that time is a more valuable ally than money or mentors, it taught me the patience my mother used to think I would never own—and it taught me that nothing is wasted! I am still learning, Uncle. I hope I never stop! And Lucullus taught me that I could continue to learn by developing ideas and launching them through the agency of other men. I stand back and see what happens. Be at peace, Lucius Cotta. My time to stand forth as the greatest prime mover of them all will come. I will be consul in my year, even. But that will only be my beginning.”

  *

  November was a cruel month, even though its weather was as fair and pleasant as any May when season and calendar coincided. Aunt Julia suddenly began to sicken with some obscure complaint none of the physicians including Lucius Tuccius could diagnose. It was a syndrome of loss—weight, spirit, energy, interest.

  “I think she’s tired, Caesar,” said Aurelia.

  “But not tired of living, surely!” cried Caesar, who couldn’t bear the thought of a world without Aunt Julia.

  “Oh yes,” answered Aurelia. “That most of all.”

  “She has so much to live for!”

  “No. Her husband and her son are dead, so she has nothing to live for. I’ve told you that before.” And, wonder of wonders, the beautiful purple eyes filled with tears. “I half understand. My husband is dead. If you were to die, Caesar, that would be my end. I would have nothing to live for.”

  “It would be a grief, certainly, but not an end, Mater,” he said, unable to believe he meant that much to her. “You have grandchildren, you have two daughters.”

  “That is true. Julia does not, however.” The tears were dashed away. “But a woman’s life is in her men, Caesar, not in the women she has borne or the children they bear. No woman truly esteems her lot, it is thankless and obscure. Men move and control the world, not women. So the intelligent woman lives her life through her men.”

  He sensed a weakening in her, and struck. “Mater, just what did Sulla mean to you?”

  And, weakened, she answered. “He meant excitement and interest. He esteemed me in a way your father never did, though I never longed to be Sulla’s wife. Or his mistress, for that matter. Your father was my true mate. Sulla was my dream. Not because of the greatness in him, but because of the agony. Of friends he had none who were his peers. Just the Greek actor who followed him into retirement, and me, a woman.” The weakness left her, she looked brisk. “But enough of that! You may take me to see Julia.”

  Julia looked and sounded a shadow of her old self, but sparked a little when she saw Caesar, who understood a little better what his mother had told him: the intelligent woman lived through men. Should that be? he wondered. Ought not women have more? But then he envisioned the Forum Romanum and the Curia Hostilia filled half with women, and shuddered. They were for pleasure, private company, service, and usefulness. Too bad if they wanted more!

  “Tell me a Forum story,” said Julia, holding Caesar’s hand.

  Her own hand, he noted, grew more and more to resemble a talon, and his nostrils, so attuned to that exquisite perfume she had always exuded, these days sensed a sourness in it, an underlying odor it could not quite disguise. Not exactly age. The word death occurred to him; he pushed it away and glued a smile to his face.

  “Actually I do have a Forum story to tell you—or rather, a basilica story,” he said lightly.

  “A basilica? Which one?”

  “The first basilica, the Basilica Porcia which Cato the Censor built a hundred years ago. As you know, one end of its ground floor has always been the headquarters of the College of Tribunes of the Plebs. And perhaps because the tribunes of the plebs are once more enjoying their full powers, this year’s lot decided to improve their lot. Right in the middle of their space is a huge column which makes it just about impossible for them to conduct a meeting of more than their ten selves. So Plautius, the head of the college, decided to get rid of the pillar. He called in our most distinguished firm of architects, and asked it if there was any possibility the column could be dispensed with. And after much measuring and calculating, he got his answer: yes, the column could be dispensed with and the building would remain standing comfortably.”

  Julia lay on her couch with her body fitted around Caesar, sitting on its edge; her big grey eyes, sunk these days into bruised-looking orbits, were fixed on his face. She was smiling, genuinely interested. “I cannot imagine where this story is going,” she said, squeezing his hand.

  “Nor could the tribunes of the plebs! The builders brought in their scaffolds and shored the place up securely, the architects probed and tapped, everything was ready to demolish the pillar. When in walked a young man of twenty-three—they tell me he will be twenty-four in December—and announced that he forbade the removal of the pillar!

  ” ‘And who might you be?’ asked Plautius.

  ‘“I am Marcus Porcius Cato, the great—grandson of Cato the Censor, who built this basilica,’ said the young man.

  ” ‘Good for you!’ said Plautius. ‘Now shift yourself out of the way before the pillar comes down on top of you!’

  “But he wouldn’t shift, and nothing they could do or say would make him shift. He set up camp right there beneath the offending obstacle, and harangued them unmercifully while ever there was someone present to harangue. On and on and on, in a voice which, says Plautius—and I agree with him, hav
ing heard it for myself—could shear a bronze statue in half.”

  Aurelia now looked as interested as Julia, and snorted. “What rubbish!” she said. “I hope they vetoed him!”

  “They tried. He refused to accept the veto. He was a full member of the Plebs and his great—grandfather built the place, they would disturb it over his dead body. I give him this—he hung on like a dog to a rat! His reasons were endless, but mostly all revolved around the fact that his great—grandfather had built the Basilica Porcia in a certain way, and that certain way was sacred, hallowed, a part of the mos maiorum.’’

  Julia chuckled. “Who won?” she asked.

  “Young Cato did, of course. The tribunes of the plebs just couldn’t stand that voice anymore.”

  “Didn’t they try force? Couldn’t they throw him off the Tarpeian Rock?” asked Aurelia, looking scandalized.

  “I think they would have loved to, but the trouble was that by the time they might have been driven to use force, word had got around, and so many people had gathered every day to watch the struggle that Plautius felt it would do the tribunes of the plebs more harm in the eyes of the populace to use real force than any good removal of the column might have brought them. Oh, they threw him out of the building a dozen times, but he just came back! And it became clear that he would never give up. So Plautius held a meeting and all ten members of the college agreed to suffer the continued presence of the pillar,” said Caesar.

  “What does this Cato look like?’’ asked Julia.

  Caesar wrinkled his brow. “Difficult to describe. He’s as ugly as he is pretty. Perhaps the closest description is to say that he reminds me of a highly bred horse trying to eat an apple through a latticework trellis.”