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

by Colleen McCullough

  At the meeting of the Senate which included the drawing of the lots Piso Frugi, holding the fasces again, asked Caesar if he would give a deposition to the House concerning the events on the night of Bona Dea’s first festival.

  “I would be happy to oblige you, senior consul, if I had anything to tell. I do not,” Caesar said firmly.

  “Oh, come, Gaius Caesar!” Messala Niger snapped. “You’re being asked very properly for a deposition because you’ll be in your province by the time Publius Clodius is tried. If any man here knows what went on, you do.”

  “My dear junior consul, you just uttered the significant word—man! I wasn’t at the Bona Dea. A deposition is a solemn statement made under oath. It must therefore contain the truth. And the truth is that I know absolutely nothing.”

  “If you know nothing, why did you divorce your wife?”

  This time the whole House answered Messala Niger: ” ‘Caesar’s wife, like all Caesar’s family, must be above suspicion!’ ”

  *

  The day after the lots were drawn the thirty lictors of the Curiae met in their archaic assembly and passed the leges Curiae which endowed each of the new governors with imperium.

  And on the same day during the afternoon dinner hour a small group of important-looking men appeared before the tribunal of the praetor urbanus, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, just in time to prevent his leaving for an overdue meal. With them were a larger number of far seedier individuals who fanned out around the tribunal and politely but firmly ushered the curious out of listening range. Thus ensured privacy, the spokesman of the group demanded that the five million sesterces granted to Gaius Julius Caesar be attached on their behalf as part payment of his debts.

  This particular Calpurnius Piso was not cut from the same cloth as his cousin Gaius Piso; the grandson and son of two men who had made colossal fortunes out of armaments for Rome’s legions, Lucius Piso was also a close relative of Caesar’s. His mother and his wife were both Rutilias, and Caesar’s mother’s mother had been a Rutilia of the same family. Until now Lucius Piso’s path had not crossed Caesar’s very often, but they usually voted the same way in the House, and they liked each other very well.

  So Lucius Piso, now urban praetor, frowned direfully at the little group of creditors and postponed a decision until he had looked carefully through every one of the huge bundle of papers presented to him. A Lucius Piso direful frown was not easy to cope with, for he was one of the tallest and swarthiest men in noble Roman circles, with enormous and bristling black brows; and when he followed that direful frown with a grimace displaying his teeth—some black, some dirty yellow—a witness’s instinctive reaction was to back away in terror, as the urban praetor looked for all the world like a ferocious man-eating something.

  Naturally the usuring creditors had expected a decision to garnish on the spot, but those among them whose mouths had opened to protest, even to insist that the urban praetor hustle himself because he was dealing with pretty influential men, now decided to say nothing and come back in two days’ time, as directed.

  Lucius Piso was also clever, so he didn’t close his tribunal the moment the aggrieved plaintiffs went away; dinner would have to wait. He went on conducting business until the sun had set and his little staff was yawning. By this time there were hardly any people left in the lower Forum, but there were several rather suspicious characters lurking in the Comitia well with their noses poking above the top tier. Moneylenders’ bailiffs? Definitely.

  After a short conversation with his six lictors, off went Lucius Piso up the Via Sacra in the direction of the Velia, his ushers moving with unusual speed; when he passed the Domus Publica he spared it not a glance. Opposite the entrance to the Porticus Margaritaria he paused, bent down to do something to his shoe, and all six lictors clustered around him, apparently to help. Then he got to his feet and proceeded on his way, still well ahead of those suspicious characters, who had stopped when he did.

  What they couldn’t see from so far behind was that the tall figure in the purple-bordered toga was now preceded by five lictors only; Lucius Piso had changed togas with his loftiest lictor and nipped within the Porticus Margaritaria. There he located an exit in its Domus Publica side and emerged into the vacant ground which the shopkeepers used as a rubbish dump. The lictor’s plain white toga he rolled up and tucked into an empty box; scaling the wall of Caesar’s peristyle garden was not work suited to a toga.

  “I hope,” he said, strolling into Caesar’s study clad only in a tunic, “that you keep some decent wine in that terrifically elegant flagon.”

  Few people ever saw an amazed Caesar, but Lucius Piso did.

  “How did you get in?” Caesar asked, pouring wine.

  “The same way rumor says Publius Clodius got out.”

  “Dodging irate husbands at your age, Piso? Shame on you!”

  “No, moneylenders’ bailiffs,” said Piso, drinking thirstily.

  “Ah!” Caesar sat down. “Help yourself, Piso, you’ve earned the entire contents of my cellar. What’s happened?’’

  “Four hours ago I had some of your creditors—the less salubrious ones, I’d say—at my tribunal demanding to garnish your governor’s stipend, and very furtive they were about it too. Their henchmen shooed everyone else away, and they proceeded to state their case in complete privacy. From which I deduced that they didn’t want what they were doing to leak back to you—odd, to say the least.” Piso got up and poured another goblet of wine. “I was watched for the rest of the day, even followed home. So I changed places with my tallest lictor and got in through the shops next door. The Domus Publica is under supervision, I saw that lot as I passed by up the hill.”

  “Then I go out the way you came in. I’ll cross the pomerium tonight and assume my imperium. Once I have my imperium no one can touch me.”

  “Give me an authorization to withdraw your stipend first thing in the morning, and I’ll bring it to you on the Campus Martius. It would be better to invest it here, but who knows what the boni might think of next? They really are out to get you, Caesar.”

  “I’m well aware of it.”

  “I don’t suppose,” said Piso, that direful frown back, “that you could manage to pay the wretches something on account?”

  “I’ll see Marcus Crassus on the way out tonight.”

  “Do you mean to say,” asked Lucius Piso incredulously, “you can go to Marcus Crassus? If you can, why haven’t you done so months ago—years ago?”

  “He’s a friend, I couldn’t ask.”

  “Yes, I can see that, though I wouldn’t be so stiff-necked myself. But then again, I’m not a Julian. Conies very hard for a Julian to be beholden, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does. However, he offered, which makes it easier.”

  “Write out that authorization, Caesar. You can’t send for food, and I’m famished. So it’s home for me. Besides, Rutilia will be worried.”

  “If you’re hungry, Piso, I can feed you,” said Caesar, already writing. “My own staff are completely trustworthy.”

  “No, you’ve a lot to do.”

  The letter was finished, furled, joined with hot melted wax and sealed with Caesar’s ring. “There’s no need to go out over a wall if you’d rather a more dignified exit. The Vestals will be in their own quarters, you can go out through their side door.”

  “I can’t,” said Piso. “I left my lictor’s toga next door. You can give me a leg up.”

  “I’m in your debt, Lucius,” said Caesar as they entered the garden. “Rest assured I won’t forget this.”

  Piso chuckled softly. “Isn’t it just as well people like moneylenders don’t know the ins and outs of Roman nobility? We may fight like cocks between ourselves, but let an outsider try to pluck our feathers, and the ranks close up. As if I’d ever let a slimy lot like that get their hands on my cousin!”

  *

  Julia had gone to bed, so that was one fewer painful farewell Caesar had to make. His mother was difficult enoug
h.

  “We must be grateful to Lucius Piso,” she said. “My uncle Publius Rutilius would approve, were he alive to tell.”

  “That he would, dear old man.”

  “You’ll have to work terribly hard in Spain to clear yourself of debt, Caesar.”

  “I know how to do it, Mater, so don’t worry. And in the meantime, you’ll be safe in case abominations like Bibulus try to pass some law or other permitting creditors to collect from a man’s relatives. I’m going to see Marcus Crassus tonight.”

  She stared. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

  “He offered.”

  Oh, Bona Dea, Bona Dea, thank you! Your snakes will have eggs and milk all year round! But aloud all she said was “Then he is a true friend.”

  “Mamercus will be acting Pontifex Maximus. Keep an eye on Fabia, and make sure the little blackbird doesn’t turn into Cato. Burgundus knows what to pack for me. I’ll be at Pompeius’s hired villa, he won’t mind a little company now he’s eating grass.”

  “So it wasn’t you got at Mucia Tertia?”

  “Mater! How many times have I been to Picenum? Look for a Picentine and you’ll be nearer the mark.”

  “Titus Labienus? Ye gods!”

  “You’re quick!” He took her face between his hands and kissed her mouth. “Look after yourself, please.”

  He made lighter work of the wall than either Lucius Piso or Publius Clodius; Aurelia stood for quite a long time looking at it, then turned and went inside. It was cold.

  Cold it was, but Marcus Licinius Crassus was exactly where Caesar thought he’d be: in his offices behind the Macellum Cuppedenis, toiling diligently away by the light of as few lamps as his fifty-four-year-old eyes would tolerate, a scarf round his neck and a shawl draped across his shoulders.

  “You deserve every sestertius you make,” said Caesar, coming into the vast room so soundlessly that Crassus jumped when he spoke.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Exactly the same question I asked Lucius Piso earlier this evening. He climbed over my peristyle wall. I picked the lock.”

  “Lucius Piso climbed your peristyle wall?”

  “To avoid the bailiffs all around my house. That portion of my creditors who were not recommended either by you or by my Gadetanian friend Balbus went to Piso’s tribunal and petitioned to attach my gubernatorial stipend.”

  Crassus leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “Your luck really is phenomenal, Gaius. You get the province you wanted, and your more dubious creditors petition your cousin. How much do you want?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “You must know!”

  “It was the one question I forgot to ask Piso.”

  “If that isn’t typical! Were you anyone else, I’d toss you in the Tiber as the worst bet in the world. But somehow I know in my bones that you’re going to be richer than Pompeius. No matter how far you fall, you land on your feet every time.”

  “It must be more than five million, because they asked for the whole sum.”

  “Twenty million,” said Crassus instantly.

  “Explain.”

  “A quarter of twenty million would see them make a worthwhile profit, since you’ve been on compound interest for at least three years. You probably borrowed three million all up.”

  “You and I, Marcus, are in the wrong profession!” said Caesar, laughing. “We have to sail or march halfway round the globe, wave our eagles and swords at savage barbarians, squeeze the local plutocrats harder than a child a puppy, make ourselves thoroughly obnoxious to people who ought to be prospering under us, and then answer to People, Senate and Treasury the moment we get home. When all the time we could be making more right here in Rome.”

  “I make plenty right here in Rome,” said Crassus.

  “But you don’t lend money for interest.”

  “I’m a Licinius Crassus!”

  “Precisely.”

  “You’re dressed for the road. Does that mean you’re off?”

  “As far as the Campus Martius. Once I assume my imperium there’s not a thing my creditors can do. Piso will collect my stipend tomorrow morning and get it to me.”

  “When is he seeing your creditors again?”

  “The day after tomorrow, at noon.”

  “Good. I’ll be at his tribunal when the moneylenders arrive. And don’t flog yourself too hard, Caesar. Very little of my money will go their way, if any at all. I’ll go guarantor for whatever sum Piso arrives at. With Crassus behind you, they’ll have to wait.”

  “Then I’ll leave you in peace. I’m very grateful.”

  “Think nothing of it. I may need you just as badly one day.” Crassus got up and escorted Caesar all the way down to the door, holding a lamp. “How did you see to get up here?” he asked.

  “There’s always light, even in the darkest stairwell.”

  “That only makes it more difficult.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you see,” said the imperturbable one imperturbably, “I thought that the day you become consul for the second time I’d erect a statue to you in a very public place. I was going to have the sculptor make a beast with the parts of a lion, a wolf, an eel, a weasel and a phoenix. But between landing on your feet, seeing in the dark and tomcatting around Rome, I’ll have to have the whole thing painted in tabby stripes.”

  *

  Since no one inside the Servian Walls kept a stable, Caesar walked out of Rome, though not by any route an enterprising usurer might have thought to watch. He ascended the Vicus Patricii to the Vicus ad Malum Punicum, turned onto the Vicus Longus and left the city through the Colline Gate. From there he struck off across the Pincian summit where a collection of wild animals amused the children in fine weather, and so came down to Pompey’s temporary dwelling place from above. It of course had stables beneath its lofty loggia; rather than wake the sleeping soldier, he made a nest for himself in some clean straw and lay wide awake until the sun came up.

  His departures for provinces never seemed to be orthodox, he reflected with a slight smile. Further Spain the last time had been a mist of grief for Aunt Julia and Cinnilla, and Further Spain this time was as fugitive. A fugitive with a proconsular imperium, no less. He had it worked out in his mind already—Publius Vatinius had proven an assiduous scout for information, and Lucius Cornelius Balbus Major was waiting in Gades.

  Balbus was bored, he had written to Caesar. Unlike Crassus, he did not find the making of money fulfilling in itself; Balbus hungered for some new challenge now that he and his nephew were the two wealthiest men in Spain. Let Balbus Minor mind the shop! Balbus Major was keen to study military logistics. So Caesar had nominated Balbus as his praefectus fabrum, a choice which surprised some in the Senate, though not those who knew Balbus Major. This appointee was, at least in Caesar’s eyes, far more important than a senior legate (he had asked for none), as the praefectus fabrum was a military commander’s most trusted assistant, responsible for the equipping and supplying of the army.

  There were two legions in the further province, both of Roman veterans who had preferred not to come home when the war against Sertorius finally ended. They’d be in their thirties now, and very eager for a good campaign. However, two legions would not be quite enough; the first thing Caesar intended to do when he reached his domain was to enlist a full legion of auxiliaries—Spanish troops who had fought with Sertorius. Once they had his measure they’d fight for him just as happily as they had for Sertorius. And then it would be off into unexplored territory. After all, it was ridiculous to think that Rome claimed all of the Iberian Peninsula, yet hadn’t subdued a good third of it. But Caesar would.

  When Caesar appeared at the top of the steps leading from the stables he found Pompey the Great sitting on his loggia admiring the view across the Tiber toward the Vatican Hill and the Janiculum.

  “Well, well!” Pompey cried, leaping to his feet and seizing the unexpected visitor’s hand. “Riding?”

  “N
o. I walked out too late to bother waking you, so it was a straw bed for me. It’s possible that I’ll have to borrow one or two horses from you when I leave, but only to take me to Ostia. Can you put me up for a few days, Magnus?”

  “Delighted to, Caesar.”

  “So you don’t believe I seduced Mucia?”

  “I know who did that job,” Pompey said grimly. “Labienus, the ingrate! He can whistle!” Caesar was waved to a comfortable chair. “Is that why you haven’t been to see me? Or said no more than ave in the Circus Flaminius?’’

  “Magnus, I’m a mere ex-praetor! You’re the hero of the age, one can’t get any closer than consulars four deep.”

  “Yes, but at least I can talk to you, Caesar. You’re a real soldier, not a couch commander. When the time comes you’ll know how to die, face covered and thighs covered. Death will find nothing to expose in you that isn’t beautiful.”

  “Homer. How well said, Magnus!”

  “Did a lot of reading in the East, got to like it very much. Mind you, I had Theophanes of Mitylene with me.”

  “A great scholar.”

  “Yes, that was more important to me than the fact that he’s richer than Croesus. I took him to Lesbos with me, made him a Roman citizen in the agora at Mitylene in front of all the people. Then I freed Mitylene from tribute to Rome in his name. Went down very well with the locals.”

  “As it ought. I believe Theophanes is a close relative of Lucius Balbus of Gades.”

  “Their mothers were sisters. Know Balbus, do you?”

  “Very well. We met while I was quaestor in Further Spain.”

  “He served as my scout when I was fighting Sertorius. I gave him the citizenship—his nephew too—but there were so many I split them up between my legates so the Senate wouldn’t think I was personally enfranchising half of the Spains. Balbus Major and Balbus Minor got a Cornelius—Lentulus, I think, though not the one they’re calling Spinther these days.” He laughed joyously. “I do love clever nicknames! Fancy being called after an actor famous for playing second leads! Says what the world feels about a man, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does. I’ve made Balbus Major my praefectus fabrum.”