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

by Colleen McCullough

  “You’re beginning to annoy me,” said Crassus grumpily as February commenced. “So far you’ve cost me a fortune! Too little cement in some building mix, too few beams in that insula I’m putting up on the Viminal—and it does not encroach on public land, I don’t care what you say! Fifty thousand sesterces in fines just because I tapped into the sewer and put private latrines into my new flats on the Carinae? That’s two talents, Caesar!”

  “Break the law and I’ll get you for it,” said Caesar, not at all contrite. “I need every sestertius I can put into my fine chest, and I’m not about to exempt my friends.”

  “If you continue like this, you won’t have any friends.”

  “What you’re saying, Marcus, is that you’re a fine-weather friend,” said Caesar, a little unfairly.

  “No, I am not! But if you’re after money to fund spectacular games, then borrow it, don’t expect every businessman in Rome to foot the bill for your public extravaganzas!” cried Crassus, goaded. “I’ll lend you the money, and I won’t charge you interest.”

  “Thank you, but no,” said Caesar firmly. “If I did that, I’d be the fine-weather friend. If I have to borrow, I’ll go to a proper moneylender and borrow.”

  “You can’t, you’re in the Senate.”

  “I can, Senate or no. If I get thrown out of the Senate for borrowing from usurers, Crassus, it will go down to fifty members overnight,” said Caesar. His eyes gleamed. “There is something you can do for me.”

  “What?”

  “Put me in touch with some discreet pearl merchant who might want to pick up the finest pearls he’s ever seen for less by far than he’ll sell them for.”

  “Oho! I don’t remember your declaring any pearls when you tabulated the pirate booty!”

  “I didn’t, nor did I declare the five hundred talents I kept. Which means my fate is in your hands, Marcus. All you have to do is lodge my name in the courts and I’m done for.”

  “I won’t do that, Caesar—if you stop fining me,” said Crassus craftily.

  “Then you’d better go down to the praetor urbanus this moment and lodge my name,” said Caesar, laughing, “because you won’t buy me that way!”

  “Is that all you kept, five hundred talents and some pearls?’’

  “That’s all.”

  “I don’t understand you!”

  “That’s all right, nor does anyone else,” said Caesar, and prepared to depart. “But look up that pearl merchant for me, like a good chap. I’d do it myself—if I knew whereabouts to start. You can have a pearl as your commission.”

  “Oh, keep your pearls!” said Crassus, disgusted.

  *

  Caesar did keep one pearl, the huge strawberry-shaped and strawberry-colored one, though why he didn’t quite know, for it would probably have doubled the five hundred talents he got for all the others. Just some instinct, and that was even after the eager buyer had seen it.

  “I’d get six or seven million sesterces for it,” the man said wistfully.

  “No,” said Caesar, tossing it up and down in his hand, “I think I’ll keep it. Fortune says I should.”

  Profligate spender though he was, Caesar was also capable of totting up the bill, and when by the end of February he had totted up the bill, his heart sank. The aedile’s chest would probably yield five hundred talents; Bibulus had indicated that he would contribute one hundred talents toward their first games, the ludi Megalenses in April, and two hundred talents toward the big games, the ludi Romani, in September; and Caesar had close to a thousand talents of his own money—which represented all he had in the world aside from his precious land, and that he would not part with. That kept him in the Senate.

  According to his reckoning, the ludi Megalenses would cost seven hundred talents, and the ludi Romani a thousand talents. Seventeen hundred all told, just about what he had. The trouble was that he intended to do more than give two lots of games; every curule aedile had to give the games, all the distinction a man could earn was in their magnificence. Caesar wanted to stage funeral games for his father in the Forum, and he expected them to cost five hundred talents. He would have to borrow, then offend everyone who voted for him by keeping on, fining for his aedile’s chest. Not prudent! Marcus Crassus tolerated it only because, despite his stinginess and his rooted conviction that a man helped his friends even at the expense of the State, he really did love Caesar.

  “You can have what I got, Pavo,” said Lucius Decumius, who was there to watch Caesar work over his figures.

  Though he looked tired and a little discouraged, out flashed a special smile for this odd old man who was such a huge part of his life. “Go on, dad! What you’ve got wouldn’t hire a single pair of gladiators.”

  “I got close to two hundred talents.”

  Caesar whistled. “I can see I’m in the wrong profession! Is that what you’ve salted away all these years guaranteeing peace and protection for the residents of the outer Via Sacra and the Vicus Fabricii?”

  “It mounts up,” said Lucius Decumius, looking humble.

  “You keep it, dad, don’t give it to me.”

  “Where you going to get the rest from, then?”

  “I’ll borrow it against what I make as propraetor in a good province. I’ve written to Balbus in Gades, and he’s agreed to give me letters of reference to the right people here in Rome.”

  “Can’t you borrow it from him?”

  “No, he’s a friend. I can’t borrow from my friends, dad.”

  “Oh, you are a strange one!” said Lucius Decumius, shaking his grizzled head. “That’s what friends are for.”

  “Not to me, dad. If something happens and I can’t pay the money back, I’d rather owe strangers. I couldn’t bear the thought that my idiocies meant any of my friends were out of purse.”

  “If you can’t pay it back, Pavo, I’d say Rome was done.”

  Some of the care lifted, Caesar drew a breath. “I agree, dad. I’ll pay it back, have no fear. Therefore,” he went on happily, “what am I worrying about? I’ll borrow however much it takes to be the greatest curule aedile Rome has ever seen!”

  This Caesar proceeded to do, though at the end of the year he was a thousand talents in debt rather than the five hundred he had estimated. Crassus helped by whispering in these obliging moneylending ears that Caesar was a good prospect, so ought not to be charged extortionate rates of interest, and Balbus helped by putting him in touch with men who were prepared to be discreet as well as not too greedy. Ten percent simple interest, which was the legal rate. The only difficulty was that he had to begin to pay the loan back within a year—otherwise the interest would go from simple to compound; he would be paying interest on the interest he owed as well as on the capital borrowed.

  *

  The ludi Megalenses were the first games of the year and religiously the most solemn, perhaps because they heralded the arrival of spring (in years when the calendar coincided with the seasons) and emerged out of the terrible second war Rome had fought against Carthage, when Hannibal marched up and down Italy. It was then that the worship of Magna Mater, the Great Asian Earth Mother, was introduced to Rome, and her temple was erected on the Palatine looking directly down on the Vallis Murcia, in which lay the Circus Maximus. In many ways it was an inappropriate cult for conservative Rome; Romans abhorred eunuchs, flagellatory rites, and what was considered religious barbarism. However, the deed was done in the moment the Vestal Virgin Claudia miraculously pulled the barge bearing Magna Mater’s Navel Stone up the Tiber, and now Rome had to suffer the consequences as castrated priests bleeding from self-inflicted wounds screeched and trumpeted their way through the streets on the fourth day of April, towing the Great Mother’s effigy and begging alms from all those who came to watch this introduction to the games.

  The games themselves were more typically Roman, and lasted for six days, from the fourth to the tenth day of April. The first day consisted of the procession, then a ceremony at Magna Mater’s temple, and fina
lly some events in the Circus Maximus. The next four days were devoted to theatrical performances in a number of temporary wooden structures put up for the purpose, while the last day saw the procession of the Gods from the Capitol to the Circus, and many hours of chariot racing in the Circus.

  As senior curule aedile, it was Caesar who officiated at the first day’s events, and Caesar who offered the Great Mother an oddly bloodless sacrifice, considering that Kubaba Cybele was a bloodthirsty lady; the offering was a dish of herbs.

  Some called these games the patrician games, for on the first evening patrician families feasted each other and kept their guest lists absolutely patrician; it was always thought an auspicious omen for the Patriciate when the curule aedile who made the sacrifice was a patrician, as was Caesar. Bibulus of course was plebeian in rank, and felt utterly ostracized on that opening day; Caesar had filled the special seating on the great wide steps of the temple with patricians, doing special honor to the Claudii Pulchri, so intimately connected to the presence of Magna Mater in Rome.

  Though on this first day the celebrating aediles and the official party did not descend into the Circus Maximus, but rather watched from Magna Mater’s temple steps, Caesar had elected to put on a pageant in the Circus instead of trying to entertain the crowd which had followed the Goddess’s bloody procession with the usual fare of boxing matches and foot races. Time did not permit chariot racing. Caesar had tapped into the Tiber and channeled water across the Forum Boarium to create a river inside the Circus, with the spina doing duty as Tiber Island and separating this cunning stream. While the vast crowd oohed and aahed its total enchantment, Caesar depicted the Vestal Claudia’s feat of strength. She towed the barge in from the Forum Boarium end where on the last day the starting gates for the chariots would be installed, took it once entirely around the spina, then brought it to rest at the Capena end of the stadium. The barge glittered with gilt and had billowing purple embroidered sails; all the eunuch priests were assembled on its deck around a glassy black ball representing the Navel Stone, while high on the poop stood Magna Mater’s statue in her chariot drawn by a pair of lions, absolutely lifelike. Nor did Caesar employ a strongman dressed as a Vestal for Claudia; he used a slight and slender, beautiful woman of Claudia’s type, and concealed the men who pushed the barge, shoulders bent to it in waist-deep water, with a gilded false hull.

  The crowd went home ecstatic after this three-hour show. Caesar stood surrounded by delighted patricians, accepting their fulsome compliments for his taste and imagination. Bibulus took the hint and left in a huff because everyone ignored him.

  There were no fewer than ten wooden theaters erected from the Campus Martius to the Capena Gate, the largest of which held ten thousand, the smallest five hundred. And instead of being content to have them look what they were, temporary, Caesar had insisted they be painted, decorated, gilded. Farces and mimes were staged in the bigger theaters, Terence and Plautus and Ennius in the smaller ones, and Sophocles and Aeschylus in the littlest, very Greek-looking auditorium; every thespian taste was catered for. From early in the morning until nearly dusk, all ten theaters played for four whole days, a feast. Literally a feast, as Caesar served free refreshments during the intervals.

  On the last day the procession assembled on the Capitol and wended its way down through the Forum Romanum and the Via Triumphalis to the Circus Maximus, parading gilded statues of some Gods like Mars and Apollo—and Castor and Pollux. Since Caesar had paid for the gilding, it was perhaps not surprising that Pollux was much smaller in size than his twin, Castor. Such a laugh!

  Though the games were supposed to be publicly funded and the chariot races were dearest to every spectator’s heart, in actual fact there was never State money for the entertainments themselves. This hadn’t stopped Caesar, who produced more chariot races on that last day of the ludi Megalenses than Rome had ever seen. It was his duty as senior curule aedile to start the races, each one comprising four chariots—Red, Blue, Green and White. The first race was for cars drawn by four horses poled up abreast, but other races saw two horses poled up abreast, or two or three horses harnessed in tandem one after the other; Caesar even put on races with unyoked horses ridden bareback by postilions.

  The course of each race was five miles long, consisting of seven laps around the central division of the spina, a narrow and tall ridge adorned with many statues and showing at one end seven golden dolphins, at the other seven golden eggs perched in big chalices; as each lap ended one dolphin’s nose was pulled down to bring its tail up, and one golden egg was taken from its chalice. If the twelve hours of day and the twelve hours of night were of equal length, then each race took one quarter of an hour to run, which meant the pace was fast and furious, a wild gallop. Spills when they happened usually occurred rounding the metae, where each driver, reins wound many times about his waist and a dagger tucked into them to free him if he crashed, fought with skill and courage to keep on the inside, a shorter course.

  The crowd adored that day, for instead of long breaks after each race, Caesar kept them coming with hardly an interruption; the bookmakers scrambling through the excited spectators taking bets had to work in a frenzy to keep up. Not a single bleacher was vacant, and wives sat on husbands’ laps to jam more in. No children, slaves or even freedmen were allowed, but women sat with men. At Caesar’s games more than two hundred thousand free Romans jammed into the Circus Maximus, while thousands more watched from every vantage point on Palatine and Aventine.

  “They’re the best games Rome has ever seen,” said Crassus to Caesar at the end of the sixth day. “What a feat of engineering to do that to the Tiber, then remove it all and have dry ground again for the chariot races.”

  “These games are nothing,” replied Caesar with a grin, “nor was it particularly difficult to use a Tiber swollen from the rains. Wait until you see the ludi Romani in September. Lucullus would be devastated if only he’d cross the pomerium to see.”

  But between the ludi Megalenses and the ludi Romani he did something else so unusual and spectacular that Rome talked about it for years. When the city was choked with vacationing rural citizens who had poured into town for the great games early in September, Caesar put on funeral games in memory of his father, and used the entire Forum Romanum. Of course it was hot and cloudless, so he tented the whole area over with purple sailcloth, hitching its edges to the buildings on either side if they were high enough; where there were no buildings to serve as supports, he propped up the massive fabric structure with great poles and guy ropes. An exercise in engineering he relished, both devising and supervising it himself.

  But when all this incredible construction began, a wild rumor went round that Caesar intended to display a thousand pairs of gladiators. Catulus summoned the Senate into session.

  “What are you really planning, Caesar?” demanded Catulus to a packed House. “I’ve always known you intended to undermine the Republic, but a thousand pairs of gladiators when there are no legions to defend our beloved city? This isn’t secretly mining a tunnel, this is using a battering ram!”

  “Well,” drawled Caesar, rising to his feet on the curule dais, “it is true that I do own a mighty battering ram, and also true that I have secretly mined many a tunnel, but always the one with the other.” He pulled the front neckline of his tunic away from his chest and put his head down to address the space thus created, and shouted, “Isn’t that right, O battering ram?” His hand fell, his tunic flattened, and he looked up with his sweetest smile. “He says that’s right.”

  Crassus emitted a sound somewhere between a mew and a howl, but before his laugh could gather force Cicero’s bellow of mirth overtook it; the House dissolved in a gale of hilarity which left Catulus as speechless as his face was purple.

  Whereupon Caesar proceeded to display the number he had always meant to display, three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators gorgeously clad in silver.

  But before the funeral games actually got under way, another sensat
ion outraged Catulus and his colleagues. When the day dawned and the Forum appeared from the houses on the edge of the Germalus to look like Homer’s gently heaving wine-dark sea, those who came early to get the best places discovered something else than a tent had been added to the Forum Romanum. During the night Caesar had restored every statue of Gaius Marius to its pedestal or plinth, and put Gaius Marius’s trophies of war back inside the temple to Honor and Virtue he had built on the Capitol. But what could the arch-conservative senators actually do about it? The answer was, nothing. Rome had never forgotten—nor learned to stop loving—the magnificent Gaius Marius. Out of everything Caesar did during that memorable year when he was curule aedile, the restoration of Gaius Marius was deemed his greatest act.

  Naturally Caesar didn’t waste this opportunity to remind all the electors who and what he was; in every little arena wherein some of his three hundred and twenty pairs of sawdust soldiers clashed—at the bottom of the Comitia well, in the space between the tribunals, near the temple of Vesta, in front of the Porticus Margaritaria, on the Velia—he had his father’s ancestry proclaimed, all the way back to Venus and to Romulus.

  Two days after this, Caesar (and Bibulus) staged the ludi Romani, which at this time ran for twelve days. The parade from the Capitol through the Forum Romanum to the Circus Maximus took three hours to pass. The chief magistrates and the Senate led it off, with bands of beautifully mounted youths following, then all the chariots which were to race and the athletes who were to compete; many hundreds of dancers and mummers and musicians; dwarves tricked out as satyrs and fauns; every prostitute in Rome clad in her flame-colored toga; slaves bearing hundreds of gorgeous silver or gold urns and vases; groups of mock warriors in bronze-belted scarlet tunics wearing fabulous crested helmets on their heads and brandishing swords and spears; the sacrificial animals; and then, in last and most honored place, all twelve major Gods and many other Gods and heroes riding on open litters of gold and purple, realistically painted, clad in exquisite clothes.