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

by Colleen McCullough

  But before Gabinius went into the details of his bill, he called upon Pompey to speak, and none of the senatorial rump from Trebellius to Catulus to Piso tried to stop him; the whole crowd was on his side. It was very well done of its kind. Pompey began by protesting that he had been under arms in Rome’s service since his boyhood, and he was profoundly weary of being called upon to serve Rome yet again with yet another of these special commands. He went on to enumerate his campaigns (more campaigns than he had years, he sighed wistfully), then explained that the jealousy and hatred increased each time he did it again, saved Rome. And oh, he didn’t want yet more jealousy, yet more hatred! Let him be what he most wanted to be—a family man, a country squire, a private gentleman. Find someone else, he beseeched Gabinius and the crowd, both hands outstretched.

  Naturally no one took this seriously, though everyone did approve heartily of Pompey’s modesty and self-deprecation. Lucius Trebellius asked leave of Gabinius, the College president, to speak, and was refused. When he tried anyway, the crowd drowned his words with boos, jeers, catcalls. So as Gabinius proceeded, he produced the one weapon Gabinius could not ignore.

  “I interpose my veto against the lex Gabinia de piratis persequendis!” cried Lucius Trebellius in ringing tones.

  Silence fell.

  “Withdraw your veto, Trebellius,” said Gabinius.

  “I will not. I veto your boss’s law!”

  “Don’t force me to take measures, Trebellius.”

  “What measures can you take short of throwing me from the Tarpeian Rock, Gabinius? And that cannot change my veto. I will be dead, but your law will not be passed,” said Trebellius.

  This was the true test of strength, for the days had gone when meetings could degenerate into violence with impunity for the man convoking the meeting, when an irate Plebs could physically intimidate tribunes into withdrawing their vetoes while the man in charge of the Plebs remained an innocent bystander. Gabinius knew that if a riot broke out during this proper meeting of the Plebs, he would be held accountable at law. Therefore he solved his problem in a constitutional way none could impeach.

  “I can ask this Assembly to legislate you out of your office, Trebellius,” answered Gabinius. “Withdraw your veto!”

  “I refuse to withdraw my veto, Aulus Gabinius.”

  There were thirty-five tribes of Roman citizen men. All the voting procedures in the Assemblies were arrived at through the tribes, which meant that at the end of several thousand men’s voting, only thirty-five actual votes were recorded. In elections all the tribes voted simultaneously, but when passing laws the tribes voted one after the other, and what Gabinius was seeking was a law to depose Lucius Trebellius. Therefore Gabinius called the thirty-five tribes to vote consecutively, and one after the other they voted to depose Trebellius. Eighteen was the majority, so eighteen votes were all Gabinius needed. In solemn quiet and perfect order, the ballot proceeded inexorably: Suburana, Sergia, Palatina, Quirina, Horatia, Aniensis, Menenia, Oufentina, Maecia, Pomptina, Stellatina, Clustumina, Tromentina, Voltinia, Papiria, Fabia... The seventeenth tribe to vote was Cornelia, and the vote was the same. Deposition.

  “Well, Lucius Trebellius?” asked Gabinius, turning to his colleague with a big smile. “Seventeen tribes in succession have voted against you. Do I call upon the men of Camilla to make it eighteen and a majority, or will you withdraw your veto?”

  Trebellius licked his lips, looked desperately at Catulus, Hortensius, Piso, then at the remote and aloof Pontifex Maximus, Metellus Pius, who ought to have honored his membership in the boni, but since his return from Spain four years ago was a changed man—a quiet man—a resigned man. Despite all of which, it was to Metellus Pius that Trebellius addressed his appeal.

  “Pontifex Maximus, what ought I to do?” he cried.

  “The Plebs have shown their wishes in the matter, Lucius Trebellius,” said Metellus Pius in a clear, carrying voice which did not stammer once. “Withdraw your veto. The Plebs have instructed you to withdraw your veto.”

  “I withdraw my veto,” Trebellius said, turned on his heel and retreated to the back of the rostra platform.

  But having outlined his bill, Gabinius now seemed in no hurry to pass it. He asked Catulus to speak, then Hortensius.

  “Clever little fellow, isn’t he?” asked Cicero, a trifle put out that no one was asking him to speak. “Listen to Hortensius! In the Senate the day before yesterday, he said he’d die before any more special commands with unlimited imperium would pass! Today he’s still against special commands with unlimited imperium, but if Rome insists on creating this animal, then Pompeius and no one else should have its leash put into his hand. That certainly tells us which way the Forum wind is blowing, doesn’t it?”

  It certainly did. Pompey concluded the meeting by shedding a few tears and announcing that if Rome insisted, then he supposed he would have to shoulder this new burden, lethal though the exhaustion it produced would be. After which Gabinius dismissed the meeting, the vote as yet untaken. However, the tribune of the plebs Roscius Otho had the last word. Angry, frustrated, longing to kill the whole Plebs, he stepped to the front of the rostra and thrust his clenched right fist upward, then very slowly extended its medicus finger to its full length, and waggled it.

  “Shove it up your arse, Plebs!” laughed Cicero, appreciating this futile gesture enormously.

  “So you’re happy to allow the Plebs a day to consider, eh?” he asked Gabinius when the College came down from the rostra.

  “I’ll do everything exactly as it ought to be done.”

  “How many bills?”

  “One general, then one awarding the command to Gnaeus Pompeius, and a third detailing the terms of his command.”

  Cicero tucked his arm through Gabinius’s and began to walk. “I loved that little bit at the end of Catulus’s speech, didn’t you? You know, when Catulus asked the Plebs what would happen if Magnus was killed, with whom would the Plebs replace him?”

  Gabinius doubled up with laughter. “And they all cried with one voice, ‘You, Catulus! You and no one but you!’ ”

  “Poor Catulus! The veteran of an hour-long rout fought in the shade of the Quirinal.”

  “He got the point,” said Gabinius.

  “He got shafted,” said Cicero. “That’s the trouble with being a rump. You contain the posterior fundamental orifice.”

  *

  In the end Pompey got more than Gabinius had originally asked for: his imperium was maius on sea and for fifty miles inland from every coast, which meant his authority overrode the authority of every provincial governor and those with special commands like Metellus Little Goat in Crete and Lucullus in his war against the two kings. No one could gainsay him without revocation of the act in the Plebeian Assembly. He was to have five hundred ships at Rome’s expense and as many more as he wanted in levies from coastal cities and states; he was to have one hundred and twenty thousand Roman troops and as many more as he considered necessary in levies from the provinces; he was to have five thousand horse troopers; he was to have twenty-four legates with propraetorian status, all of his own choice, and two quaestors; he was to have one hundred and forty-four million sesterces from the Treasury at once, and more when he wanted more. In short, the Plebs awarded him a command the like of which had never been seen.

  But, to do him justice, Pompey wasted no time puffing out his chest and rubbing his victory in to people like Catulus and Piso; he was too eager to begin what he had planned down to the last detail. And, if he needed further evidence of the people’s faith in his ability to do away with piracy on the high seas once and for all, he could look with pride to the fact that on the day the leges Gabiniae were passed, the price of grain in Rome dropped.

  Though some wondered at it, he did not choose his two old lieutenants from Spain among his legates—that is, Afranius and Petreius. Instead, he attempted to soothe the fears of the boni by picking irreproachable men like Sisenna and Varro, two of the Manlii Torquati, L
entulus Marcellinus and the younger of his wife Mucia Tertia’s two half brothers, Metellus Nepos. It was to his tame censors Poplicola and Lentulus Clodianus, however, that he gave the most important commands, Poplicola of the Tuscan Sea and Lentulus Clodianus of the Adriatic Sea. Italy reposed between them, safe and secure.

  He divided the Middle Sea into thirteen regions, each of which he allocated a commander and a second-in-command, fleets, troops, money. And this time there would be no insubordination, no assuming initiative by any of his legates.

  “There can be no Arausio,” he said sternly in his command tent, his legates assembled before the great enterprise began. “If one of you so much as farts in a direction I have not myself in person instructed as the right direction for farting, I will cut out your balls and send you to the eunuch markets in Alexandria,” he said, and meant it. “My imperium is maius, and that means I can do whatever I like. Every last one of you will have written orders so detailed and complete that you don’t have to decide for yourselves what’s for dinner the day after tomorrow. You do as you’re told. If any man among you isn’t prepared to do as he’s told, then speak up now. Otherwise it’s singing soprano at the court of King Ptolemy, is that understood?”

  “He may not be elegant in his phraseology or his metaphors,” said Varro to his fellow literatus, Sisenna, “but he does have a wonderful way of convincing people that he means what he says.”

  “I keep visualizing an almighty aristocrat like Lentulus Marcellinus trilling out his tonsils for the delectation of King Ptolemy the Flautist in Alexandria,” said Sisenna dreamily.

  Which set both of them to laughing.

  Though the campaign was not a laughing matter. It proceeded with stunning speed and absolute efficiency in exactly the way Pompey had planned, and not one of his legates dared do aught else than as his written orders dictated. If Pompey’s campaign in Africa for Sulla had astonished everyone with its speed and efficiency, this campaign cast that one into permanent shade.

  He began at the western end of the Middle Sea, and he used his fleets, his troops, and—above all—his legates to apply a naval and military broom to the waters. Sweeping, sweeping, ever sweeping a confused and helpless heap of pirates ahead of the broom; every time a pirate detachment broke for cover on the African or the Gallic or the Spanish or the Ligurian coast, it found no refuge at all, for a legate was waiting for it. Governor-designate of both the Gauls, the consul Piso issued orders that neither province was to provide Pompey with aid of any kind, which meant that Pompey’s legate in the area, Pomponius, had to struggle to achieve results. But Piso too bit the dust when Gabinius threatened to legislate him out of his provinces if he didn’t desist. His debts mounting with frightening rapidity, Piso needed the Gauls to recoup his losses, so he desisted.

  Pompey himself followed the broom from west to east, timing his visit to Rome in the middle to coincide with Gabinius’s actions against Piso, and looked more gorgeous than ever when he publicly prevailed upon Gabinius not to be such a cad.

  “Oh, what a poseur!” exclaimed Caesar to his mother, but not in any spirit of criticism.

  Aurelia, however, was not interested in Forum doings. “I must talk to you, Caesar,” she said, ensconced in her chair in his tablinum.

  Amusement fled; Caesar stifled a sigh. “What about?”

  “Servilia.”

  “There’s nothing to say, Mater.”

  “Did you make a remark to Crassus about Servilia?” was his mother’s reply.

  Caesar frowned. “To Crassus? No, of course not.”

  “Then why did Tertulla come to see me on a fishing expedition? She did, yesterday.” Aurelia grunted a laugh. “Not one of Rome’s more expert fisherwomen, Tertulla! Comes of her Sabine background, I suppose. The hills are not fishing territory for any save the real experts with a willow rod.”

  “I swear I didn’t, Mater.”

  “Well, Crassus has an inkling, and passed his inkling on to his wife. I take it that you still prefer to keep the union a secret? With a view to resuming it once this child is born?”

  “That is my intention.”

  “Then I suggest you throw a little dust in Crassus’s eyes, Caesar. I don’t mind the man, nor do I mind his Sabine wife, but rumors have to start somewhere, and this is a start.”

  The frown kept gathering. “Oh, bother rumors! I’m not particularly concerned about my own part in this, Mater, but I bear poor Silanus no grudges, and it would be far better if our children remained in ignorance of the situation. Paternity of the child isn’t likely to be called into doubt, as both Silanus and I are very fair, and Servilia very dark. However the child turns out, it will look as likely to be his as mine, if it does not resemble its mother.”

  “True. And I agree with you. Though I do wish, Caesar, that you had chosen some other object than Servilia!”

  “I have, now that she’s too big to be available.”

  “Cato’s wife, you mean?”

  He groaned. “Cato’s wife. A desperate bore.”

  “She’d have to be to survive in that household.”

  Both his hands came to rest on the desk in front of him; he looked suddenly businesslike. “Very well, Mater, do you have any suggestions?”

  “I think you ought to marry again.”

  “I don’t want to marry again.”

  “I know that! But it is the best way to throw a little dust in everyone’s eyes. If a rumor looks likely to spread, create a new rumor which eclipses it.”

  “All right, I’ll marry again.”

  “Have you any particular woman you’d like to marry?”

  “Not a one, Mater. I am as clay in your hands.”

  That pleased her immensely; she huffed contentedly. “Good!”

  “Name her.”

  “Pompeia Sulla.”

  “Ye gods, no!” he cried, appalled. “Any woman but her!”

  “Nonsense. Pompeia Sulla is ideal.”

  “Pompeia Sulla’s head is so empty you could use it as a dice box,” said Caesar between his teeth. “Not to mention that she’s expensive, idle, and monumentally silly.”

  “An ideal wife,” Aurelia contended. “Your dalliances won’t worry her, she’s too stupid to add one and one together, and she has a fortune of her own adequate enough for all her needs. She is besides your own first cousin once removed, being the daughter of Cornelia Sulla and the granddaughter of Sulla, and the Pompeii Rufi are a more respectable branch of that Picentine family than Magnus’s branch. Nor is she in the first flush of youth—I would not give you an inexperienced bride.”

  “Nor would I take one,” said Caesar grimly. “Has she any children?”

  “No, though her marriage to Gaius Servilius Vatia lasted for three years. I don’t think, mind you, that Gaius Vatia was a particularly well man. His father—Vatia Isauricus’s elder brother, in case you need reminding—died too young to enter the Senate, and about all the political good Rome got from the son was to give him a suffect consulship. That he died before he could assume office was typical of his career. But it does mean Pompeia Sulla is a widow, and therefore more respectable than a divorced woman.”

  He was coming around to the idea, she could see that, and sat now without flogging her argument to the death; the notion was planted, and he could tend it for himself. “How old is she now?” he asked slowly.

  “Twenty-two, I believe.”

  “And Mamercus and Cornelia Sulla would approve? Not to mention Quintus Pompeius Rufus, her half brother, and Quintus Pompeius Rufus, her full brother?’’

  “Mamercus and Cornelia Sulla asked me if you’d be interested in marrying her, that’s how the thought occurred to me,” said Aurelia. “As for her brothers, the full one is too young to be consulted seriously, and the half one is only afraid that Mamercus will ship her home to him instead of allowing Cornelia Sulla to shelter her.”

  Caesar laughed, a wry sound. “I see the family is ganging up on me!” He sobered. “However, Mater, I can’t se
e a young fowl as exotic as Pompeia Sulla consenting to live in a ground-floor apartment right in the middle of the Subura. She might prove a sore trial for you. Cinnilla was as much your child as your daughter-in-law, she would never have disputed your right to rule this particular roost had she lived to be a hundred. Whereas a daughter of Cornelia Sulla might have grander visions.”

  “Do not worry about me, Caesar,” said Aurelia, getting to her feet well satisfied; he was going to do it. “Pompeia Sulla will do as she’s told, and suffer both me and this apartment.”

  Thus did Gaius Julius Caesar acquire his second wife, who was the granddaughter of Sulla. The wedding was a quiet one, attended only by the immediate family, and it took place in Mamercus’s domus on the Palatine amid scenes of great rejoicing, particularly on the part of the bride’s half brother, freed from the prospective horror of having to house her.

  Pompeia was very beautiful, all of Rome said it, and Caesar (no ardent bridegroom) decided Rome was right. Her hair was dark red and her eyes bright green, some sort of breeding compromise between the red-gold of Sulla’s family and the carrot-red of the Pompeii Rufi, Caesar supposed; her face was a classic oval and her bones well structured, her figure good, her height considerable. But no light of intelligence shone out of those grass-colored orbs, and the planes of her face were smooth to the point of highly polished marble. Vacant. House to let, thought Caesar as he carried her amid a reveling band of celebrants all the way from the Palatine to his mother’s apartment in the Subura, and making it look far lighter work than it was. Nothing compelled him to carry her, he had to do that only to lift her across the threshold of her new home, but Caesar was ever a creature out to prove he was better than the rest of his world, and that extended to feats of strength his slenderness belied.

  Certainly it impressed Pompeia, who giggled and cooed and threw handfuls of rose petals in front of Caesar’s feet. But the nuptial coupling was less a feat of strength than the nuptial walk had been; Pompeia belonged to that school of women who believed all they had to do was lie on their backs, spread their legs, and let it happen. Oh, there was some pleasure in lovely breasts and a delightful dark-red thatch of pubic hair—quite a novelty!—but she wasn’t juicy. She wasn’t even grateful, and that, thought Caesar, put even poor Atilia ahead of her, though Atilia was a drab flat-chested creature quite quenched by five years of marriage to the ghastly young Cato.