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

by Colleen McCullough

  *

  By now the winter was ending; Gaul lay quiet. Caesar went back to Bibracte, sending thanks and donatives of cash and women to all the legions, who found themselves, by legionary terms, very rich. A letter awaited him, from Gaius Scribonius Curio.

  A brilliant idea, Caesar, to issue a collected edition of your Commentaries on the war in Gaul and make it available to all and sundry. All and sundry are devouring it, and the boni—not to mention the Senate—are livid. It is not the place, roared Cato, of a proconsul conducting a war he says was forced upon him to puff his exalted name and exaggerated deeds throughout the city. No one takes any notice. Copies go so fast there is a waiting list. Little wonder. Your Commentaries are as thrilling as Homer’s Iliad, with the advantage of being actual, of happening in our own time.

  You know, naturally, that Marcus Marcellus the junior consul is being thoroughly odious. Almost everyone applauded when your tribunes of the plebs vetoed his discussing your provinces in the House on the Kalends of March. You have some good men on the tribunician bench this year.

  It appalled me when Marcellus went a lot further in announcing that the people of the colony you set up at Novum Comum are not Roman citizens. He maintained you have no power in law to do so— yet Pompeius Magnus has! Talk about one law for this man and another law for that man—Marcellus has perfected the art. But for the House to decree that the people living on the far side of the Padus in Italian Gaul are not citizens and never will be citizens—that’s suicide. Despite the tribunician veto, Marcellus went ahead and had the decree inscribed on bronze. Then hung it publicly on the rostra.

  What you probably do not know is that the result of all this is a huge shiver of fear from the Alps at the top of Italian Gaul to the toe and heel of Italia. People are very apprehensive, Caesar. In every town in Italian Gaul it’s being said that they, who have given Rome so many thousands of her best soldiers, are being informed by the Senate that they are not good enough. Those living south of the Padus fear their citizenship will be stripped from them, and those living north of the Padus fear they will never, never, never be awarded the citizenship. The feeling is everywhere, Caesar. In Campania I’ve heard hundreds of people saying that they need Caesar back in Italia—that Caesar is the most indefatigable champion of the common people Italia has ever known—that Caesar wouldn’t stand for these senatorial insults and gross injustices. It’s spreading, this apprehension, but can I or anyone else get it through those blockheads in the camp of the boni that they’re playing with fire? No.

  Meantime that complacent idiot Pompeius sits like a toad in a cesspool, ignoring it all. He’s happy. The frozen-faced harpy Cornelia Metella has her talons so deeply embedded in his insensitive hide that he nods, twitches, heaves and wallows every time she gives him a nudge. And by nudge I do not mean anything naughty. I doubt they’ve ever slept in the same bed. Or had one up against the atrium wall.

  So why am I writing to you when I’ve never really been your friend? Several reasons, and I’ll be honest about them all. First is that I’m sick to death of the boni. I used to think that any group of men with the interests of the mos maiorum so much at heart had to have right on their side, even when they made appalling political errors. But of late years I’ve seen through them, I suppose. They prate of things they know nothing about, and that is the truth. It’s a mere disguise for their own negativity, for their own utter lack of gumption. If Rome began to crumble around them physically, they’d simply stand there and call it a part of the mos maiorum to be squashed flat by a pillar.

  Second is that I abominate Cato and Bibulus. Two more hypocritical couch generals I’ve never encountered. They dissect your Commentaries in the most expert way, though neither of them could general a bun fight in a whorehouse. You could have done this better, and that more expeditiously, and whatever more diplomatically. Nor do I understand the blindness of their hatred for you. What did you ever do to them? As far as I can see, merely made them look as small as they really are.

  Third is that you were good to Publius Clodius when you were consul. His destruction was his own doing. I daresay that Claudian streak of unorthodoxy in Clodius became a form of insanity. He had no idea when to stop. It’s well over a year since he died, but I still miss him. Even though we’d fallen out a bit at the end.

  Fourth is very personal, though it’s all tied in with the first three reasons. I’m shockingly in debt, and I can’t extricate myself. When my father died last year, I thought everything would right itself. But he left me nothing. I don’t know where the money went, but it certainly wasn’t there after he finished suffering. The house is all I inherited, and it’s mortgaged heavily. The moneylenders are dunning me unmercifully, and the estimable house of finance which holds the house mortgage is threatening to foreclose.

  Added to which, I want to marry Fulvia. Well, there you are! I hear you say. Publius Clodius’s widow is one of the wealthiest women in Rome, and when her mother dies—it can’t be long now— she’ll be a lot richer. But I can’t do that, Caesar. I can’t love a woman the way I’ve loved her for years and years, and marry her, up to my eyebrows in debt. The thing is, I never thought she’d look at me, yet the other day she threw me a hint so broad it flattened me. I’m dying to marry Fulvia, but I can’t marry Fulvia. Not until I’ve paid my way and can look her in the eye.

  So here’s my proposal. The way things are going in Rome, you’re going to need the most capable and brilliant tribune of the plebs Rome has ever produced. Because they’re slavering at the very thought of the Kalends of March next year, when your provinces come up for discussion in the House. Rumor has it that the boni will move to strip you of them immediately, and, thanks to the five-year law, they’ll send Ahenobarbus to replace you. He never took a province after his consulship because he was too rich and too lazy to bother. But he’d walk upside down to Placentia for the chance to replace you.

  If you pay my debts, Caesar, I give you my solemn word as a Scribonius Curio that I will be the most capable and brilliant tribune of the plebs Rome has ever produced. And always act in your interests. I’ll undertake to keep the boni at bay until I go out of office, and that’s not a hollow promise. I need at least five million.

  For a long while after reading Curio’s letter Caesar sat without moving. His luck was with him, and what marvelous luck. Curio as his tribune of the plebs, bought and paid for. A man of great honor, though that wasn’t really a consideration. One of the most stringent rules of Roman political behavior was the code governing those who accepted bribes. Once a man was bought, he stayed bought. For the disgrace was not in being bought, but in not staying bought. A man who accepted a bribe, then reneged on the bargain, was a social outcast from that day forward. The luck lay in being offered a tribune of the plebs of Curio’s caliber. Whether he would prove quite as good as he thought was beside the point; if he was half as good as he thought, he’d still be a pearl beyond price.

  Caesar turned in his chair to sit straight at his desk, picked up his pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and wrote.

  My dear Curio, I am overcome. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be permitted to assist you out of your financial predicament. Please believe me when I say that I do not require any services from you in return for the privilege of helping you in this matter. The decision is absolutely yours.

  However, if you would like the opportunity to shine as Rome’s most capable and brilliant tribune of the plebs, then I would be honored to think you exerted yourself in my interests. As you say, I wear the boni around my neck like Medusa’s snakes. Nor do I have any idea why they have fixed on me as their target for almost as many years as I have been in the Senate. The why is not important. What matters is the fact that I am indeed their target.

  However, if we are to succeed in blocking the boni when the Kalends of next March arrive, I think our little pact must remain our secret. Nor should you announce that you will stand for the tribunate of the plebs. Why don’t you find some need
y fellow—not in the Senate—who would be willing to announce himself as a candidate, but be prepared to step down at the very last moment? For a nice fat fee, of course. I leave that to you. Just apply to Balbus for the wherewithal. When the needy fellow steps down just as the elections are about to begin, stroll forward and offer yourself as his replacement candidate. As if the impulse came upon you. This renders you innocent of any suspicion that you might be acting in someone’s interests.

  Even when you enter office as a tribune of the plebs, Curio, you will appear to be acting for yourself. If you want a list of useful laws, I would be happy to furnish it, though I imagine you’ll have no trouble thinking of a few laws to pass without my guidance. When you introduce your veto on the Kalends of March to block discussion of my provinces, it will fall on the boni like a scorpion bolt.

  I leave it to you to devise a strategy. There’s nothing worse than a man who doesn’t give his colleagues sufficient rope. If you need to talk a strategy over, I am your servant. Just rest assured that I do not expect it.

  Though be warned that the boni are not yet come to the end of their ammunition. Before you step into office, I predict that they will have thought of several more ways to make your task more difficult. And possibly more perilous. One of the marks of the truly great tribune of the plebs is martyrdom. I like you, Curio, and don’t want to see the Forum knives flash in your direction. Or see you pitched off the end of the Tarpeian Rock.

  Would ten million make you a completely free man? If it would, then you shall have ten million. I’ll be writing to Balbus in the same bag, so you may talk to him at any time after you receive this. Despite what is seen as a tendency to gossip, he is the soul of discretion; what Balbus chooses to disseminate has been very carefully worked out beforehand.

  I congratulate you on your choice of a wife. Fulvia is an interesting woman, and interesting women are rare. She believes with a true passion, and will cleave to you and your aspirations absolutely. But you know that better than I. Please give her my best regards, and tell her I look forward to seeing her when I return to Rome.

  There. Ten million well spent. But when was he going to be able to return to Italian Gaul? It was June, and the prospect of being able to leave Further Gaul grew, if anything, more remote. The Belgae were probably now completely finished, but Ambiorix and Commius were still at liberty. Therefore the Belgae would have to be drubbed once more. The tribes of central Gaul were definitely finished; the Arverni and the Aedui, let off lightly, would not be listening to any Vercingetorix or Litaviccus again. As the name Litaviccus popped into his mind, Caesar shuddered; a hundred years of exposure to Rome hadn’t killed the Gaul in Litaviccus. Was that equally true of every Gaul? Wisdom said that continued rule by fear and terror would benefit neither Rome nor Gaul. But how to get the Gauls to the point whereat they could see for themselves where their destiny lay? Fear and terror now, so that when it lightened they were grateful? Fear and terror now, so that they always had it to remember, even when it no longer existed? War was a passionate business to peoples other than the Roman people; those others went into war boiling with righteous anger, thirsting to kill their enemies. But that kind of emotion was difficult to sustain at the necessary fever pitch. When all was said and done, any people wanted to live at peace, pursue an ordinary and pleasant life, watch their children grow, eat plenty, be warm in winter. Only Rome had turned war into a business. That was why Rome always won in the end. Because, though Roman soldiers learned to hate their enemies healthily, they approached war with cool business heads. Thoroughly trained, absolutely pragmatic, fully confident. They understood the difference between losing a battle and losing a war. They also understood that battles were won before the first pilum was thrown; battles were won on the drill field and in the training camp. Discipline, restraint, thought, valor. Pride in professional excellence. No other people owned that attitude to war. And no other Roman army owned that attitude more professionally than Caesar’s.

  *

  At the beginning of Quinctilis came very disturbing news from Rome. Caesar was still in Bibracte with Antony and the Twelfth, though he had already issued orders to Labienus to reduce the Treveri. He himself was about to depart for Ambiorix’s lands in Belgica; the Eburones, Atrebates and Bellovaci had to be shown for once and for all that resistance was useless.

  Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the junior consul, had publicly flogged a citizen of Caesar’s colony at Novum Comum. Not with his own white hands, of course; the deed was done at his order. And the damage was irreparable. No Roman citizen could be flogged. He might be chastised by being beaten with the rods which made up a lictor’s fasces, but his back was inviolate, legally protected from the touch of a knouted lash. Now Marcus Marcellus was saying to the whole of Italian Gaul and Italia that many people who deemed themselves citizens were not citizens. They could and would be flogged.

  “I won’t have it!” said Caesar to Antony, Decimus Brutus and Trebonius, white with anger. “The people of Novum Comum are Roman citizens! They are my clients, and I owe them my protection.”

  “It’s going to happen more and more,” said Decimus Brutus, looking grim. “All the Claudii Marcelli are cast from the same mold, and there are three of them of an age to be consul. Rumor says each of them will be consul—Marcus this year, his first cousin Gaius next year, and his brother Gaius the year after that. The boni are running rampant; they’re dominating the elections so completely that one can’t foresee two Popularis consuls getting into office until you’re consul, Caesar. And even then, will you be saddled with another Bibulus? Or—ye Gods!—Bibulus himself?”

  Still so angry that he couldn’t laugh, Caesar thinned his lips to a straight line and glared. “I will not suffer Bibulus as my colleague, and that’s that! I’ll have a man I want, and I’ll get a man I want, no matter what they try to do to prevent it. But that doesn’t alter what’s happening right now in Italian Gaul—my province, Decimus! How dare Marcus Marcellus invade my jurisdiction to flog my people?”

  “You don’t have a full imperium maius,” said Trebonius.

  “Oh well, they only give that kind of imperium to Pompeius!” snapped Caesar.

  “What can you do?” asked Antony.

  “Quite a lot,” said Caesar. “I’ve sent to Labienus and asked to detach the Fifteenth and Publius Vatinius. Labienus can have the Sixth instead.”

  Trebonius sat up. “The Fifteenth is well blooded by now,” he said, “but its men have only been in the field for a year. And, as I remember, all of them come from across the Padus. Many of them come from Novum Comum.”

  “Exactly,” said Caesar.

  “And Publius Vatinius,” said Decimus Brutus thoughtfully, “is your loyalest adherent.”

  From somewhere Caesar found a smile. “I hope no loyaler than you or Trebonius, Decimus.”

  “What about me?” demanded Antony indignantly.

  “You’re family, so pipe down,” said Trebonius, grinning.

  “You’re going to send the Fifteenth and Publius Vatinius to garrison Italian Gaul,” said Decimus Brutus.

  “I am.”

  “I know there’s nothing legal to stop you, Caesar,” said Trebonius, “but won’t Marcus Marcellus and the Senate take that as a declaration of war? I don’t mean genuine war, I mean the kind of war which takes place between minds.”

  “I have a valid excuse,” said Caesar, some of his usual calm returning. “Last year the Iapudes raided into Tergeste and threatened coastal Illyricum. The local militia put them down; it wasn’t serious. I will send Publius Vatinius and the Fifteenth to Italian Gaul to, and I quote, ‘protect the Roman citizen colonies across the Padus River from barbarian invasion.’ ”

  “The only barbarian in sight being Marcus Marcellus,” said Antony, delighted.

  “I think he’ll interpret the wording correctly, Antonius.”

  “What orders will you issue Vatinius?” asked Trebonius.

  “To act in my name throughout Italian Gaul a
nd Illyricum. To prevent Roman citizens’ being flogged. To conduct the assizes. To govern Italian Gaul for me in the way I would myself were I there,” said Caesar.

  “And where will you put the Fifteenth?” asked Decimus Brutus. “Close to Illyricum? In Aquileia, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no,” said Caesar. “In Placentia.”

  “A stone’s throw from Novum Comum.”

  “Quite.”

  “What I want to know,” said Antony, “is what does Pompeius think of the flogging? After all, he established citizen colonies across the Padus in Italian Gaul too. Marcus Marcellus imperils his citizens as much as he does yours.”

  Caesar lifted his lip. “Pompeius said and did absolutely nothing. He’s in Tarentum. Private business, I understand. But he’s promised to attend a meeting of the Senate outside the pomerium later in the month, when he drifts through. The pretext of the meeting is to discuss army pay.”

  “That’s a joke!” said Decimus Brutus. “The army hasn’t had a pay rise in a hundred years, literally.”

  “True. I’ve been thinking about that,” said Caesar.

  *

  Attrition continued; the Belgae were invaded yet again, their homes burned, their sprouting crops raked out of the ground or ploughed under, their animals killed, their women and children rendered homeless. Tribes like the Nervii, who had been able to field fifty thousand men in the early years of Caesar’s campaign in Gaul, were now hard put to field one thousand. The best of the women and children had been sold into slavery; Belgica had become a land of old people, Druids, cripples and mental defectives. At the end of it Caesar could be sure that no one was left to tempt Ambiorix or Commius, and that their own tribes, such as they were, were too afraid of Rome to want anything to do with their former kings. Ambiorix, elusive as ever, was never found or captured. And Commius had gone east to help the Treveri against Labienus, quite as thorough in his campaign as Caesar was.