Their presence meant, Caesar concluded, that Decimus Brutus and young Poplicola also frequented the vicinity of Pompeia. Of Decimus Brutus perhaps no more was to be said than that he was young, bored, high-spirited and up to the usual mischief, from too much wine and too many women to the dice box and the gaming table. But young Poplicola had seduced his stepmother and tried to murder his father the censor, and had been formally relegated to penury and obscurity. He would never be permitted to enter the Senate, but since Publius Clodius’s marriage to Fulvia and Clodius’s subsequent access to almost unlimited money, young Poplicola was starting to be seen again in high circles.
It was Clodia who noticed Caesar first. She sat up much straighter on her couch, thrust out her breasts and gave him an alluring smile.
“Caesar, how absolutely divine to see you!” she purred.
“I return the compliment, of course.”
“Do come in!” said Clodia, patting her couch.
“I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’m on my way out.”
And that, Caesar decided as he let himself out the front door, was a room full of trouble.
*
Labienus beckoned, but first he would have to see Servilia, who had probably been waiting in his apartment down the road for some time, he realized. Women! Today was a day of women, and mostly women with nuisance value. Except for Aurelia, of course. Now there was a woman! A pity, thought Caesar, bounding up the stairs to his apartment, that none other measures up to her.
Servilia was waiting, though she was far too sensible to reproach Caesar for his tardiness, and far too pragmatic to expect an apology. If the world belonged to men—and it did—then undoubtedly it was Caesar’s oyster.
No word was exchanged between them for some time. First came several luxurious and languorous kisses, then a sighing subsidence into each other’s arms on the bed, freed from clothing and care. She was so delicious, so intelligent and untrammeled in her ministrations, so inventive. And he was so perfect, so receptive and powerful in his attentions, so unerring. Thus, absolutely content with each other and fascinated by the fact that familiarity had bred not contempt but additional pleasure, Caesar and Servilia forgot their worlds until the level of water in the chronometer had dripped away quite a lot of time.
Of Labienus he would not speak; of Pompeia he would, so he said as they lay entwined, “My wife is keeping odd company.”
The memory of those frenzied months of wasted jealousy had not yet faded from Servilia’s mind, so she loved to hear any word from Caesar that indicated dissatisfaction. Oh, it was only scant moments after they were reconciled following the birth of Junia Tertia that Servilia understood Caesar’s marriage was a sham. Still and all, the minx was delectable, and proximity was her ally; no woman of Servilia’s age could rest in perfect surety when her rival was almost twenty years her junior.
“Odd company?” she asked, stroking voluptuously.
“The Clodias and Fulvia.”
“That’s to be expected, considering the circles Brother Pompeius moves in.”
“Ah, but today there were additions to the menagerie!”
“Who?”
“Sempronia Tuditani and Palla.”
“Oh!” Servilia sat up, the delight of Caesar’s skin evaporating. She frowned, thought, then said, “Actually that shouldn’t have surprised me.”
“Nor me, considering who Publius Clodius’s friends are.”
“No, I didn’t mean through that connection, Caesar. You know of course that my younger sister, Servililla, has been divorced by Drusus Nero for infidelity.”
“I had heard.”
“What you don’t know is that she’s going to marry Lucullus.”
Caesar sat up too. “That’s to exchange a dunderhead for an imbecile in the making! He conducts all manner of experiments with substances which distort reality, has done for years. I believe one of his freedmen has no duty other than to procure every kind of soporific and ecstatic for him—syrup of poppies, mushrooms, brews concocted from leaves, berries, roots.”
“Servililla says he likes the effect of wine, but dislikes its aftereffects intensely. Those other substances apparently don’t produce the same painful aftereffects.” Servilia shrugged. “Anyway, it seems Servililla isn’t complaining. She thinks she’ll get to enjoy all that money and taste without a watchful husband to cramp her style.”
“He divorced Clodilla for adultery—and incest.”
“That was Clodius’s doing.”
“Well, I wish your sister the best of luck,” said Caesar. “Lucullus is still stuck on the Campus Martius demanding the triumph the Senate keeps refusing him, so she won’t see much of Rome from the inside of the walls.”
“He’ll get his triumph soon,” said Servilia confidently. “My spies tell me that Pompeius Magnus doesn’t want to have to share the Campus Martius with his old enemy when he comes home from the East positively covered in glory.” She snorted. “Oh, what a poseur! Anyone with any sense can see that Lucullus did all the hard work! Magnus just had to harvest the results of that hard work.”
“I agree, little though I care for Lucullus.” Caesar cupped a hand around one breast. “It is not like you to digress, my love. What has this to do with Pompeia’s friends?’’
“They call it the Clodius Club,” said Servilia, stretching. “Servililla told me all about it. Publius Clodius, of course, is its president. The chief—indeed, I suppose one would have to call it the only—aim of the Clodius Club is to shock our world. That’s how the members entertain themselves. They’re all bored, idle, averse to work, and possessed of far too much money. Drinking and wenching and gambling are tame. Shocks and scandals are the Club’s sole purpose. Hence raffish women like Sempronia Tuditani and Palla, allegations of incest, and the cultivation of such peerless specimens as young Poplicola. The male members of the Club include some very young men who ought to know better—like Curio Junior and your cousin Marcus Antonius. I hear one of their favorite pastimes is to pretend they’re lovers.”
It was Caesar’s turn to snort. “I’d believe almost anything of Marcus Antonius, but not that! How old is he now, nineteen or twenty? Yet he’s got more bastards littered through every stratum of Roman society than anyone else I know.”
“Conceded. But littering Rome with bastards isn’t nearly shocking enough. A homosexual affair—particularly between the sons of such pillars of the conservative establishment!—adds a certain luster.”
“So this is the institution to which my wife belongs!” Caesar sighed. “How am I to wean her away, I wonder?’’
That was not an idea which appealed to Servilia, who got out of bed in a hurry. “I fail to see how you can, Caesar, without provoking exactly the kind of scandal the Clodius Club adores. Unless you divorce yourself by divorcing her.”
But this suggestion offended his sense of fair play; he shook his head emphatically. “No, I’ll not do that without more cause than idle friendships she can’t turn into anything worse because my mother keeps too sharp an eye on her. I pity the poor girl. She hasn’t a scrap of intelligence or sense.”
The bath beckoned (Caesar had given in and installed a small furnace to provide hot water); Servilia decided to hold her peace on the subject of Pompeia.
*
Titus Labienus had to wait until the morrow, when he saw Caesar in Caesar’s apartment.
“Two items,” said Caesar, leaning back in his chair.
Labienus looked alert.
“The first is bound to win you considerable approval in knight circles, and will sit very well with Magnus.”
“It is?”
“To legislate the return of selection of priests and augurs to the tribes in the Comitia.”
“Including, no doubt,” said Labienus smoothly, “election of the Pontifex Maximus.”
“Edepol, you’re quick!”
“I heard Metellus Pius is likely to qualify for a State funeral any time.”
“Quite so. And it is true
that I have a fancy to become Pontifex Maximus. However, I do not think my fellow priests want to see me at the head of their College. The electors, on the other hand, may not agree with them. Therefore, why not give the electors the chance to decide who the next Pontifex Maximus will be?”
“Why not, indeed?” Labienus watched Caesar closely. There was much about the man appealed to him strongly, yet that streak of levity which could rise to his surface on scant provocation was, in Labienus’s opinion, a flaw. One never really knew just how serious Caesar was. Oh, the ambition was boundless, but like Cicero he could sometimes give off strong signals that his sense of the ridiculous might intervene. However, at the moment Caesar’s face seemed serious enough, and Labienus knew as well as most that Caesar’s debts were appalling. To be elected Pontifex Maximus would enhance his credit with the usurers. Labienus said, “I imagine you want a lex Labiena de sacerdotiis enacted as soon as possible.”
“I do. If Metellus Pius should die before the law is changed, the People might decide not to change it. We’ll have to be quick, Labienus.”
‘‘Ampius will be glad to be of assistance. So will the rest of the tribunician College, I predict. It’s a law in absolute accord with the mos maiorum, a great advantage.” The dark eyes flashed. “What else do you have in mind?”
A frown came. “Nothing earthshaking, unfortunately. If Magnus came home it would be easy. The only thing I can think of sure to create a stir within the Senate is to propose a bill restoring the rights of the sons and grandsons of Sulla’s proscribed. You won’t get it through, but the debates will be noisy and well attended.”
This idea obviously appealed; Labienus was grinning broadly as he rose to his feet. “I like it, Caesar. It’s a chance to pull Cicero’s jauntily waving tail!”
“It isn’t the tail matters in Cicero’s anatomy,” said Caesar. “The tongue is the appendage needs amputation. Be warned, he’ll make mincemeat of you. But if you introduce the two bills together, you’ll divert attention from the one you really want to get through. And if you prepare yourself with great care, you might even be able to make some political capital out of Cicero’s tongue.”
2
The Piglet was dead. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Pontifex Maximus, loyal son to Metellus Piggle-wiggle and loyal friend to Sulla the Dictator, died peacefully in his sleep of a wasting disorder which defied diagnosis. The acknowledged leading light of Roman medicine, Sulla’s doctor Lucius Tuccius, asked the Piglet’s adopted son for permission to do an autopsy.
But the adopted son was neither as intelligent nor as reasonable as his father; the blood son of Scipio Nasica and the elder of Crassus Orator’s two Licinias (the younger was his adoptive mother, wife of the Piglet), Metellus Scipio was chiefly famous for his hauteur and sense of aristocratic fitness.
“No one will tamper with my father’s body!” he said through his tears, and clutching his wife’s hand convulsively. “He will go to the flames unmutilated!”
The funeral was, of course, conducted at State expense, and was as distinguished as its object. The eulogy was given from the rostra by Quintus Hortensius after Mamercus, father of Metellus Scipio’s wife, Aemilia Lepida, declined that honor. Everyone was there, from Catulus to Caesar, from Caepio Brutus to Cato; it was not, however, a funeral which attracted a huge crowd.
And on the day after the Piglet was committed to the flames, Metellus Scipio held a meeting with Catulus, Hortensius, Vatia Isauricus, Cato, Caepio Brutus and the senior consul, Cicero.
“I heard a rumor,” said the bereaved son, red-eyed but now tearless, “that Caesar intends to put himself up as a candidate for Pontifex Maximus.”
“Well, that surely can’t come as a surprise,” said Cicero. “We all know who pulls Labienus’s strings in Magnus’s absence, though at this moment I’m uncertain as to whether Magnus even has any interest in who pulls Labienus’s strings. Popular election to choose all priests and augurs can’t benefit Magnus, whereas it gives Caesar a chance he could never have had when the College of Pontifices chose its own Pontifex Maximus.”
“It never did choose its own Pontifex Maximus,” said Cato to Metellus Scipio. “The only unelected Pontifex Maximus in history—your father—was personally chosen by Sulla, not the College.”
Catulus had a different objection to make against what Cicero said. “How blind you can be about our dear heroic friend Pompeius Magnus!” he threw at Cicero. “No advantage to Magnus? Come, now! Magnus hankers to be a priest or augur himself. He’d get what he hankers after from a Popular election, but never from co-optation within either College.”
“My brother-in-law is right, Cicero,” said Hortensius. “The lex Labiena de sacerdotiis suits Pompeius Magnus very well.”
“Rot the lex Labiena!” cried Metellus Scipio.
“Don’t waste your emotions, Quintus Scipio,” said Cato in his harsh and toneless voice. “We’re here to decide how to prevent Caesar’s declaring his candidacy.”
Brutus sat with his eyes traveling from one angry face to another, bewildered as to why he had been invited to such a senior gathering. He had assumed it was part of Uncle Cato’s relentless war against Servilia for control of her son, a war which frightened yet attracted him, the more so as he got older. Of course it did occur to him to wonder if perhaps, thanks to his engagement to Caesar’s daughter, they thought to have him there to quiz him about Caesar; but as the discussion proceeded and no one applied to him for information, he was forced eventually to conclude that his presence was indeed simply to annoy Servilia.
“We can ensure your election to the College as an ordinary pontifex easily,” said Catulus to Metellus Scipio, “by persuading anyone tempted to stand against you not to stand.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” said Metellus Scipio.
“Who intends to stand against Caesar?” asked Cicero, another member of this group who didn’t quite know why he had been invited. He presumed it was at Hortensius’s instigation, and that his function might be to find a loophole which would prevent Caesar’s candidacy. The trouble was he knew there was no loophole. The lex Labiena de sacerdotiis had not been drafted by Labienus, so much was certain. It bore all the stamps of Caesar’s drafting skill. It was watertight.
“I’m standing,” said Catulus.
“So am I,” said Vatia Isauricus, quiet until now.
“Then, as only seventeen of the thirty-five tribes vote in religious elections,” said Cicero, “we will have to rig the lots to ensure both of your tribes are chosen, but that Caesar’s tribe is not. That increases your chances.”
“I disapprove of bribery,” said Cato, “but I think this is one time we have to bribe.” He turned to his nephew. “Quintus Servilius, you’re by far the richest man here. Would you be willing to put up money in such a good cause?”
Brutus broke out in a cold sweat. So this was why!
He wet his lips, looked hunted. “Uncle, I would love to help you,” he said, voice trembling, “but I dare not! My mother controls my purse strings, not I.”
Cato’s splendid nose thinned, its nostrils turned to blisters? “At twenty years of age, Quintus Servilius?” he blared.
All eyes were upon him, amazed; Brutus shrank down in his chair. “Uncle, please try to understand!” he whimpered.
“Oh, I understand,” said Cato contemptuously, and deliberately turned his back. “It seems then,” he said to the rest, “that we will have to find the money to bribe from out of our own purses.” He shrugged. “As you know, mine is not plump. However, I will donate twenty talents.”
“I can’t really afford anything,” said Catulus, looking miserable, “because Jupiter Optimus Maximus takes every spare sestertius I have. But from somewhere I will find fifty talents.”
“Fifty from me,” said Vatia Isauricus curtly.
“Fifty from me,” said Metellus Scipio.
“And fifty from me,” said Hortensius.
Cicero now understood perfectly why he was there, and
said, voice beautifully modulated, “The penurious state of my finances is too well known for me to think you expect anything more from me than an onslaught of speeches to the electors. A service I am extremely happy to provide.”
“Then there only remains,” said Hortensius, his voice quite as melodious as Cicero’s, “to decide which of the two of you will finally stand against Caesar.”
But here the meeting ran into an unexpected snag; neither Catulus nor Vatia Isauricus was willing to stand down in favor of the other, for each believed absolutely that he must be the next Pontifex Maximus.
“Utter stupidity!” barked Cato, furious. “You’ll end in splitting the vote, and that means Caesar’s chances improve. If one of you stands, it’s a straight battle. Two of you, and it becomes a three-way battle.”
“I’m standing,” said Catulus, looking mulish.
“And so am I,” said Vatia Isauricus, looking pugnacious.
On which unhappy note the congress broke up. Bruised and humiliated, Brutus wended his way from the sumptuous dwelling of Metellus Scipio to his betrothed’s unpretentious apartment in the Subura. There was really nowhere else he wanted to go, as Uncle Cato had rushed off without so much as acknowledging his nephew’s existence, and the thought of going home to his mother and poor Silanus held no appeal whatsoever. Servilia would prise all the details out of him as to where he had been and what he had done and who was there and what Uncle Cato was up to; and his stepfather would simply sit like a battered doll minus half its stuffing.
His love for Julia only increased with the passage of the years. He never ceased to marvel at her beauty, her tender consideration for his feelings, her kindness, her liveliness. And her understanding. Oh, how grateful he was for the last!
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