Bibulus looked at Cato. “You have a special job, Cato. On every possible occasion I want you to make yourself so obnoxious that Caesar loses his temper and orders you off to the Lautumiae. For some reason, he loses it more easily if it’s you or Cicero doing the agitating. One must assume both of you have the ability to get under his saddle like burrs. Whenever possible we’ll prearrange things so that we can have the Forum packed with people ready to support you and condemn the opposition. Pompeius is the weak link. Whatever we do has to be designed to make him feel vulnerable.”
“When do you intend to retire to your house?” Ahenobarbus asked.
“The second day before the Ides, the only day between the Megalesia and the Ceriala, when Rome will be full of people and the Forum full of sightseers. There’s no point in doing it without the biggest possible audience.”
“And do you think that all public business will cease when you retire to your house?” asked Metellus Scipio.
Bibulus raised his brows. “I sincerely hope not! The whole object of the ploy is to force Caesar and Vatinius to legislate in contraindication of the omens. It means that as soon as they’re out of office we can invalidate their laws. Not to mention have them prosecuted for maiestas. Doesn’t a conviction for treason sound wonderful?”
“What if Clodius becomes a tribune of the plebs?”
“I can’t see how that can change anything. Clodius has—why I don’t know!—conceived a dislike for Pompeius Magnus. He’ll be our ally next year if he’s elected, not our enemy.”
“He’s after Cicero too.”
“Again, what is that to us? Cicero isn’t boni, he’s an ulcer. Ye gods, I’d vote for any law which could shut him up when he begins to prate about how he saved his country! Anyone would think Catilina worse than a combination of Hannibal and Mithridates.”
“But if Clodius goes after Cicero he’ll also go after you, Cato,” said Gaius Piso.
“How can he?” Cato asked. “I merely gave my opinion in the House. I certainly wasn’t the senior consul, I hadn’t even gone into office as a tribune of the plebs. Free speech is becoming more perilous, but there’s no law on the tablets yet forbidding a man to say what he thinks during a meeting of the Senate.”
It was Ahenobarbus who thought of the major difficulty. “I see how we can invalidate any laws Caesar or Vatinius pass between now and the end of the year,” he said, “but first we have to get the numbers in the House. That means it will have to be our men sitting in the curule chairs next year. But whom can we succeed in getting elected as consuls, not to mention praetor urbanus! I understand Metellus Nepos intends to leave Rome to heal his grief, so he’s out. I’ll be praetor, and so will Gaius Memmius, who hates Uncle Pompeius Magnus terrifically. But who for consul? Philippus sits in Caesar’s lap. So does Gaius Octavius, married to Caesar’s niece. Lentulus Niger wouldn’t get in. Nor would Cicero’s little brother Quintus. And anyone who was praetor earlier than that lot can’t succeed either.”
“You’re right, Lucius, we have to get our own consuls in,” said Bibulus, frowning. “Aulus Gabinius will run, so will Lucius Piso. Both with a foot in the Popularist camp, and both with much electoral clout. We’ll just have to persuade Nepos to stay in Rome, run for augur and then for consul. And our other candidate had better be Messala Rufus. If we don’t have sympathetic curule magistrates next year, we won’t invalidate Caesar’s laws.”
“What about Arrius, who’s very annoyed with Caesar, I hear, because Caesar won’t back him as a consular candidate?” from Cato.
“Too old and not enough clout” was the scornful reply.
“I heard something else,” said Ahenobarbus, not pleased; no one had mentioned his name in connection with the augural vacancy.
“What?” asked Gaius Piso.
“That Caesar and Magnus are thinking of asking Cicero to take Cosconius’s place on the Committee of Five. Convenient that he dropped dead! Cicero would suit them better.”
“Cicero’s too big a fool to accept,” said Bibulus, sniffing.
“Not even if his darling Pompeius implores?”
“At the moment I hear Pompeius isn’t his darling,” said Gaius Piso, laughing. “He’s heard who auspicated at the adoption of Publius Clodius!”
“You’d think that would tell Cicero something about his actual importance in the scheme of things,” sneered Ahenobarbus.
“Well, there’s a rumor emanating from Atticus that Cicero says Rome is sick of him!”
“He isn’t wrong,” said Bibulus, sighing theatrically.
The meeting broke up with great hilarity; the boni were happy.
*
Though Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus made his speech announcing that he was retiring to his house to watch the skies publicly from the rostra, and to a large crowd of people mostly gathered in Rome for the spring Games, Caesar chose not to reply publicly. He called the Senate into session and conducted the meeting with doors firmly closed.
“Marcus Bibulus has most correctly sent his fasces to the temple of Venus Libitina, and there they will reside until the Kalends of May, when I will assume them as is my right. However, this cannot be allowed to descend into one of those years wherein all public business founders. It is my duty to Rome’s electors to fulfill the mandate they gave me—and Marcus Bibulus!—to govern. Therefore I intend to govern. The prophecy Marcus Bibulus quoted from the rostra is one I know, and I have two arguments as to Marcus Bibulus’s interpretation of it: the first, that the actual year is unclear; and the second, that it can be interpreted in at least four ways. So while the quindecimviri sacris faciundis examine the situation and conduct the proper enquiries, I must assume that Marcus Bibulus’s action is invalid. Once again he has taken it upon himself to interpret Rome’s religious mos maiorum to suit his own political ends. Like the Jews, we conduct our religion as a part of the State, and believe that the State cannot prosper if religious laws and customs are profaned. However, we are unique in having legal contracts with our Gods, with whom we retain bargaining power and dicker for concessions. What is important is that we keep divine forces properly channeled, and the best way to do that is to keep to our end of the bargain by doing what lies in our power to maintain Rome’s prosperity and well-being. Marcus Bibulus’s action accomplishes the opposite, and the Gods will not thank him. He will die away from Rome and in cold comfort.”
Oh, if only Pompey looked more at ease! After a career as long and glorious as his, you’d think he would know things don’t always go smoothly! Yet there’s still a lot of the spoiled baby in him. He wants everything to be perfect. He expects to get what he wants and have approval too.
“It is up to this House to decide what course I now adopt,” the senior consul went on. “I will call for a vote. Those who feel that all business must cease forthwith because the junior consul has retired to his house to watch the skies, please form on my left. Those who feel that, at least until the verdict of the Fifteen is in, government should continue as normal, please form on my right. I make no further plea for good sense and love of Rome. Conscript Fathers, divide the House.”
It was a calculated gamble which instinct told Caesar he ought not to postpone; the longer the senatorial sheep pondered Bibulus’s action, the more likely they were to become afraid of defying it. Strike now, and there was a chance.
But the results surprised everyone; almost the entire Senate passed to Caesar’s right, an indication of the anger men felt at Bibulus’s wanton determination to defeat Caesar, even at the cost of ruining Rome. The few boni on the left stood there stunned.
“I lodge a strong protest, Gaius Caesar!” Cato shouted as the senators returned to their places.
Pompey, mood soaring at this resounding victory for good sense and love of Rome, turned on Cato with claws out. “Sit down and shut up, you sanctimonious prig!” he roared. “Who do you think you are, to set yourself up as judge and jury? You’re nothing but an ex-tribune of the plebs who’ll never even make praetor!”
The House just couldn’t help itself. It erupted into cheers, screeches, whistles, cries of joy; feet pounded the floor until the rafters shook, hands crashed together like drums. Only Caesar knew how hard he had to work to sit impassive, hands down at his sides and feet primly together. Oh, what a glorious diatribe! Oh, masterly! Oh, to have lived to hear it was a privilege!
Then he saw Pompey, and his heart sank. Ye gods, the foolish man was taking the hysterical applause personally! Didn’t he yet understand? No one there would have cared who the target was, or what the subject of the tirade was. It was just the best piece of extemporaneous invective in years! The Senate of Rome would applaud a Tingitanian ape excoriating a donkey if it did it half that well! But there sat Pompey looking more crushed than he must have looked after Quintus Sertorius ran rings round him in Spain. Defeated! Conquered by a tongue of brass. Not until that moment did Caesar realize the extent of the insecurity and hunger to be approved of inside Pompey the Great.
Time to act. After he dismissed the meeting he stood on the curule dais as the ecstatic senators rushed away talking together excitedly, most of them clustered about Cato patting him on the back, pouring praise on his head. The worst of it was that Pompey sitting on his chair with his head down meant he, Caesar, couldn’t do what he knew was the proper thing to do—congratulate Cato as warmly as if he had been a loyal political ally. Instead he had to look indifferent in case Pompey saw him.
“Did you see Crassus?” Pompey demanded when they were alone. “Did you see him?” His voice had risen to a squeak. “Lauding Cato to the skies! Which side is the man on?”
“Our side, Pompeius. You’re too thin-skinned, my friend, if you take the House’s reaction to Cato as a personal criticism. The applause was for a terrific little speech, nothing else. He is usually such a crashing bore, filibustering eternally. But that was so good of its kind.”
“It was aimed at me! Me!”
“I wish it had been aimed at me,” said Caesar, holding on to his temper. “Your mistake was not to join in the cheering. Then you could have come out of it looking a thoroughly good sport. Never show a weakness in politics, Magnus, no matter how you feel inside. He got beneath your armor, and you let everyone know it.”
“You’re on their team too!”
“No, Magnus, I’m not, any more than Crassus is. Let’s just say that while you were out winning victories for Rome, Crassus and I were serving our apprenticeships in the political arena.” He bent, put a hand beneath Pompey’s elbow, and hauled him to his feet with a strength Pompey had not expected from such a slender fellow. “Come, they’ll have gone.”
“I can’t show my face in the House ever again!”
“Rubbish. You’ll be there at the next meeting looking your usual sunny self, and you’ll go up to Cato and shake him by the hand and congratulate him. Just as I will.”
“No, no, I can’t do it!”
“Well, I won’t convene the Senate for several days. By the time you need to, you’ll be prepared. Come home with me now and share my dinner. Otherwise you’re going to go back to that huge empty house on the Carinae with no better company than three or four philosophers. You really ought to marry again, Magnus.”
“I’d quite like to, but I haven’t seen anyone I fancy. It’s not so urgent once a man has a brace of sons and a girl to round the family off. Besides, you’re a fine one to talk! No wife in the Domus Publica either, and you don’t even have a son.”
“A son would be nice, but not necessary. I’m lucky in my one chick, my daughter. I wouldn’t exchange her for Minerva and Venus rolled in one, and I do not mean that sacrilegiously.”
“Engaged to young Caepio Brutus, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
When they entered the Domus Publica his host saw Pompey put into the best chair in the study with wine at his fingertips, and excused himself to find his mother.
“We have a guest for dinner,” Caesar said, poking his head round Aurelia’s door. “Pompeius. Can you and Julia join us in the dining room?’’
Not a flicker of emotion crossed Aurelia’s face. She nodded and got up from her desk. “Certainly, Caesar.”
“Will you let us know when dinner’s ready?”
“Of course,” she said, and pattered away toward the stairs.
Julia was reading, and didn’t hear her grandmother enter; on principle Aurelia never knocked, as she belonged to that school of parent who considered young persons ought to have some training in continuing to do the proper thing even when they thought themselves alone. It taught self-discipline and caution. The world could be a cruel place; a child was best off when prepared for it.
“No Brutus today?”
Julia looked up, smiled, sighed. “No, avia, not today. He has some sort of meeting with his business managers, and I believe the three of them are to dine at Servilia’s afterward. She likes to know what’s going on, even now she’s allowed Brutus to take over his own affairs.”
“Well, that will please your father.”
“Oh? Why? I thought he liked Brutus.”
“He likes Brutus very well, but he has his own guest to eat with us today, and they may want to converse privately. We are banished as soon as the food is taken out, but they couldn’t do that to Brutus, now could they?”
“Who is it?” Julia asked, not really interested.
“I don’t really know, he didn’t say.” Hmm, this is difficult! thought Aurelia. How do I get her into her most flattering robe without giving the plot away? She cleared her throat. “Julia, has tata seen you in your new birthday dress?”
“No, I don’t think he has.”
“Then why not put it on now? And his silver jewelry? How clever he was to get you silver rather than gold! I have no idea who’s with him, but it’s someone important, so he’ll be pleased if we look our best.”
Apparently all of that didn’t sound too forced; Julia simply smiled and nodded. “How long before dinner?”
“Half an hour.”
*
“What exactly does Bibulus’s retiring to his house to watch the skies mean to us, Caesar?” Pompey asked. “For instance, could our laws be invalidated next year?’’
“Not the ones which were ratified before today, Magnus, so you and Crassus are safe enough. It’s my province will be at greatest peril, since I’ll have to use Vatinius and the Plebs—though the Plebs are not religiously constrained, so I very much doubt that Bibulus’s watching the skies can make plebiscites and the activities of tribunes of the plebs look sacrilegious. However, we’d have to fight it in court, and depend upon the urban praetor.”
The wine, Caesar’s very best (and strongest), was beginning to restore Pompey’s equilibrium, even if his spirits were still low. The Domus Publica suited Caesar, he reflected, all rich dark colors and sumptuous gilt. We fair men look best against such backgrounds.
&n
bsp; “You know of course that we’ll have to legislate another land bill,” Pompey said abruptly. “I’m in and out of Rome constantly, so I’ve seen for myself what it’s like for the commissioners. We need the Ager Campanus.”
“And the Capuan public lands. Yes, I know.”
“But Bibulus makes it invalid.”
“Perhaps not, Magnus,” Caesar said tranquilly. “If I draft it as a supplementary bill attached to the original act, it’s less vulnerable. The commissioners and committeemen wouldn’t change, but that’s not a problem. It will mean that twenty thousand of your veterans can be accommodated there well within the year, plus five thousand Roman Head Count to leaven the new settler bread. We should be able to put twenty thousand more veterans on other lands almost as quickly. Which leaves us with sufficient time to prise places like Arretium free of their lands, and puts far less pressure on the Treasury to buy private land. That’s our argument for taking the Campanian ager publicus, the fact that it’s already in State ownership.”
“But the rents will cease,” said Pompey.
“True. Though you and I both know that the rents are not as lucrative as they ought to be. Senators are reluctant to pay up.”
“So are senators’ wives with fortunes of their own,” Pompey said with a grin.
“Oh?”
“Terentia. Won’t pay a sestertius in rent, though she leases whole forests, oak for pigs. Very profitable. Hard as marble, that woman! Ye gods, I feel sorry for Cicero!”
“How does she get away with it?”
“Reckons there’s a sacred grove in it somewhere.”
“Clever fowl!” laughed Caesar.
“That’s all right, the Treasury isn’t being nice to brother Quintus now he’s returning from Asia Province.”
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