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

by Colleen McCullough

  The room was utterly still; no one moved, even cleared his throat. Whatever was coming was going to matter.

  “How can we calm this bull? How can we persuade it to be still, to let us apply the ointments and heal it?”

  The tone of his voice changed, became more somber. “None of you, including the most junior centurion, is unaware of the terrible difficulties I face in Rome. The Senate is after my blood, my bones, my spirit… and my dignitas, my personal share of public worth and standing. Which is also your dignitas, because you are my people. The sinews of my beloved army. When I fall, you fall. When I am disgraced, you are disgraced. That is an omnipresent threat, but it is not why I am speaking. A by-product, no more. I mention it to reinforce what I am about to say.”

  He drew a breath. “I will not see my command extended. On the Kalends of March in the year after next, it will end. It may be that on the Kalends of March next year, it will end, though I will exert every ounce of myself to prevent that. I need next year to do the administrative work necessary to transform Gallia Comata into a proper Roman province. Therefore this year must see this futile, pointless, wasteful war finished for good. It gives me no pleasure to witness the battlefields after the battles are over, for there are Roman bodies lying on them too. And so many, many Gauls, Belgae and Celtae both. Dead for no good reason beyond a dream they have neither the education nor the foresight to make come true. As Vercingetorix would have found out had he been the one to win.”

  He got to his feet and stood with hands clasped behind his back, frowning. “I want to see the war ended this year. Not a merely temporary cessation of hostilities, but a genuine peace. A peace which will last for longer than any man in this room will live, or his children after him, or their children after them. If that doesn’t happen, the Germani will conquer, and the history of Gaul will be different history. As will the history of our beloved Italia, for the Germani will not rest with the conquest of Gaul. The last time they came, Rome threw up Gaius Marius. I believe Rome has thrown up me at this time and in this place to make sure the Germani never come again. Gallia Comata is the natural frontier, not the Alps. We must keep the Germani on the far side of the Rhenus if our world, including the world of Gaul, is to prosper.”

  He paced a little, came to stand in the center of his space again, and looked at them from beneath his fair brows. A long, measured, immensely serious stare.

  “Most of you have served with me for a very long time. All of you have served with me long enough to know what sort of man I am. Not a naturally cruel man. It gives me no pleasure to see pain inflicted, or have to order it inflicted. But I have come to the conclusion that Gaul of the Long-hairs needs a lesson so awful, so severe, so appalling that the memory of it will linger through the generations and serve to discourage future uprisings. For that reason I have called you here today. To give you my solution. Not to ask your permission. I am the commander-in-chief and the decision is mine alone to take. I have taken it. The matter is out of your hands. The Greeks believe that only the man who does the deed is guilty of the crime, if the deed be a crime. Therefore the guilt rests entirely upon my shoulders. None of you has a share in it. None of you will suffer because of it. I bear the burden. You have often heard me say that the memory of cruelty is poor comfort for old age, but there are reasons why I do not fear that fate as I did until I spoke with Cathbad of the Druids.”

  He returned to his curule chair, and seated himself in the formal position.

  “Tomorrow I will see the men who defended Uxellodunum. I believe there are about four thousand of them. Yes, there are more, but four thousand will do. Those who scowl the most, eye us with the most hatred. I will amputate both their hands.”

  He said it calmly; a faint sigh echoed around the room. How good, that neither Decimus Brutus nor Gaius Trebonius was there! But Hirtius was staring at him with eyes full of tears, and Caesar found that difficult. He had to swallow, he hoped not too visibly. Then he went on.

  “I will not ask any Roman to do the business. Some among the citizens of Uxellodunum can do it. Volunteers. Eighty men, each to sever the hands of fifty men. I will offer to spare the hands of any men who volunteer. It will produce enough. The artificers are working now on a special tool I have devised, a little like a sharp chisel six inches wide across the blade. It will be positioned across the back of the hand just below the wrist bones, and struck once with a hammer. Flow of blood to the member will be occluded by a thong around the forearm. The moment the amputation is done, the wrist will be dipped in pitch. Some may bleed to death. Most won’t.”

  He was speaking fluently now, easily, for he was out of the realm of ideas and into the practicalities.

  “These four thousand handless men will then be banished to wander and beg all over this vast country. And whoever should see a man with no hands will think of the lesson learned after the siege of Uxellodunum. When the legions disperse, as they will very shortly, each legion will take some of the handless men with it to wherever it goes into winter cantonments. Thus making sure that the handless are well scattered. For the lesson is wasted unless the evidence of it is seen everywhere.

  “I will conclude by giving you some information compiled by my gallant but unsung clerical heroes. The eight years of war in Gallia Comata have cost the Gauls a million dead warriors. A million people have been sold into slavery. Four hundred thousand Gallic women and children are dead, and a quarter of a million Gallic families have been rendered homeless. That is the entire population of Italia. An awful indication of the bull’s blindness and anger. It has to stop! It has to stop now. It has to stop here at Uxellodunum. When I give up my command in the Gauls, Gallia Comata will be at peace.”

  He nodded a dismissal; all the men filed out silently, none looking at Caesar. Save for Hirtius, who stayed.

  “Don’t say a word!” Caesar snapped.

  “I don’t intend to,” said Hirtius.

  2

  After Uxellodunum surrendered, Caesar decided that he would visit all the tribes of Aquitania, the one part of Gaul of the Long-hairs least involved in the war, and therefore the one part of the country still able to field a full complement of warriors. With him he took some of the handless victims of Uxellodunum, as living testimony of Rome’s determination to see an end to opposition.

  His progress was peaceful; the various tribes greeted him with feverish welcomes, averted their eyes from the handless, signed whatever treaties he required, and swore mighty oaths to cleave to Rome forever. On the whole, Caesar was prepared to believe them. For an Arvernian, of all people, had turned Lucterius over to him some days after he marched for Burdigala on the first stage of his tour of Aquitania, an indication that no tribe in Gaul was prepared to shelter one of Vercingetorix’s lieutenants. This meant that one of the two defenders of Uxellodunum would walk in Caesar’s triumphal parade; the other, Drappes of the Senones, had refused to eat or drink, and died still resolutely opposed to the presence of Rome in Gaul of the Long-hairs.

  Lucius Caesar came to see his cousin in Tolosa toward the end of October, big with news.

  “The Senate met at the end of September,” he told Caesar, tight-lipped. “I confess I’m disappointed in the senior consul, who I had thought was a more rational man than his junior.”

  “Servius Sulpicius is more rational than Marcus Marcellus, yes, but he’s no less determined to see me fall,” said Caesar. “What went on?”

  “The House resolved that on the Kalends of March next year it would discuss your provinces. Marcus Marcellus informed it that the war in Gallia Comata was definitely over, which meant there was absolutely no reason why you should not be stripped of your imperium, your provinces and your army on that date. The new five-year law, he said, had provided a pool of potential governors able to go to replace you immediately. To delay was evidence of senatorial weakness, and quite intolerable. Then he concluded by saying that once and for all, you must be taught that you are the Senate’s servant, not its master. At whic
h statement, I gather, there were loud hear-hears from Cato.”

  “They’d have to be loud, since Bibulus is in Syria—or on his way there, at least. Go on, Lucius. I can tell from your face that there’s worse to come.”

  “Much worse! The House then decreed that if any tribune of the plebs vetoed discussion on your provinces on the Kalends of next March, said veto would be deemed an act of treason. The guilty tribune of the plebs would be arrested and summarily tried.”

  “That’s absolutely unconstitutional!” snapped Caesar. “No one can impede a tribune of the plebs in his duty! Or refuse to honor his veto unless there’s a Senatus Consultum Ultimum in force. Does this mean that’s what the Senate intends to do on the Kalends of next March? Operate under an ultimate decree?”

  “Perhaps, though that wasn’t said.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No,” said Lucius Caesar levelly. “The House passed another decree. That it would reserve for itself the right to decide the date on which your time-expired veterans would be discharged.”

  “Oh, I see! I’ve generated a ‘first,’ Lucius, haven’t I? Until this moment, in the history of Rome no one has had the right to decide when time-expired soldiers are to finish their service in the legions except their commander-in-chief. I imagine, then, that on the Kalends of next March the Senate will decree that all my veterans are to be discharged forthwith.”

  “It seems that way, Gaius.”

  Caesar looked, thought Lucius, oddly unworried; he even gave a genuine smile. “Do they really think to defeat me with these kinds of measures?” he asked. “Horse piss, Lucius!” He got up from his chair and extended a hand to his cousin. “I thank you for the news, I really do. But enough of it. I feel like stretching my legs among the sacred lakes.”

  But Lucius Caesar wasn’t prepared to leave the matter there. He followed Gaius obediently, saying, “What are you going to do to counter the boni?”

  “Whatever I have to” was all Caesar would say.

  *

  The winter dispositions had been made. Gaius Trebonius, Publius Vatinius and Mark Antony took four legions to Nemetocenna of the Atrebates to garrison Belgica; two legions went to the Aedui at Bibracte; two were stationed among the Turoni, on the outskirts of the Carnutes to their west; and two went to the lands of the Lemovices, southwest of the Arverni. No part of Gaul was very far from an army. With Lucius Caesar, Caesar completed a tour of the Province, then went to join Trebonius, Vatiraus and Mark Antony in Nemetocenna for the winter.

  Halfway through December his army received a welcome and unexpected surprise; he increased the rankers’ pay from four hundred and eighty sesterces a year to nine hundred—the first time in over a century that a Roman army had experienced a pay rise. In conjunction with it he gave every man a cash bonus, and informed the army that its share of the booty would be larger.

  “At whose expense?” asked Gaius Trebonius of Publius Vatinius. “The Treasury’s? Surely not!”

  “Definitely not,” said Vatinius. “He’s scrupulous about the legalities, always. No, it’s out of his own purse, his own share.” Little crippled Vatinius frowned; he hadn’t been present when Caesar got the Senate’s answer to his request that he be treated as Pompey had been treated. “I know he’s fabulously rich, but he spends prodigiously too. Can he afford this largesse, Trebonius?”

  “Oh, I think so. He’s made twenty thousand talents out of the sale of slaves alone.”

  “Twenty thousand? Jupiter! Crassus was accounted the richest man in Rome, and all he left was seven thousand talents!”

  “Marcus Crassus bragged of his money, but have you ever heard Pompeius Magnus say how much he’s worth?” asked Trebonius. “Why do you think the bankers flock around Caesar these days, anxious to oblige his every whim? Balbus has been his man forever, with Oppius not far behind. They go back to your days, Vatinius. However, men like Atticus are very recent.”

  “Rabirius Postumus owes him a fresh start,” said Vatinius.

  “Yes, but after Caesar began to flourish in Gaul. The German treasure he found among the Atuatuci was fabulous. His share of it will amount to thousands of talents.” Trebonius grinned. “And if he runs a bit short, Carnutum’s hoards will cease to be sacrosanct. That’s in reserve. He’s nobody’s fool, Caesar. He knows that the next governor of Gallia Comata will seize what’s at Carnutum. It’s my bet that what’s at Carnutum will be gone before the new governor arrives.”

  “My letters from Rome say he’s likely to be relieved in—ye Gods, where does time go?—a little over three months. The Kalends of March are galloping toward him! What will he do then? The moment his imperium is stripped from him, he’ll be arraigned in a hundred courts. And he’ll go down, Trebonius.”

  “Oh, very likely,” said Trebonius placidly.

  Vatinius was nobody’s fool either. “He doesn’t intend to let matters go that far, does he?”

  “No, Vatinius, he doesn’t.”

  A silence fell; Vatinius studied the mournful face opposite him, chewing his lip. Their eyes met and held.

  “Then I’m right,” said Vatinius. “He’s cemented his bond with his army absolutely.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And if he has to, he’ll march on Rome.”

  “Only if he has to. Caesar’s not a natural outlaw; he loves to do everything in suo anno—no special or extraordinary commands, ten years between consulships, everything legal. If he does have to march on Rome, Vatinius, it will kill something in him. That’s an alternative he knows perfectly well is available, and do you think for one moment that he fears the Senate? Any of them? Including the much-vaunted Pompeius Magnus? No! They’ll go down like targets on a practice field before German lancers. He knows it. But he doesn’t want it to be that way. He wants his due, but he wants it legally. Marching on Rome is the very end of his tether, and he’ll battle the odds right down to the last moment rather than do it. His record is perfect. He wants it to remain so.”

  “He always wanted to be perfect,” said Vatinius sadly, and shivered. “Jupiter, Trebonius, what will he do to them if they push him to it?”

  “I hate to think.”

  “We’d best make offerings that the boni see reason.”

  “I’ve been making them for months. And I think perhaps the boni would see reason, save for one factor.”

  “Cato,” said Vatinius instantly.

  “Cato,” Trebonius echoed.

  Another silence fell; Vatinius sighed. “Well, I’m his man through thick and thin,” he said.

  “And I.”

  “Who else?”

  “Decimus. Fabius. Sextius. Antonius. Rebilus. Calenus. Basilus. Plancus. Sulpicius. Lucius Caesar,” said Trebonius..

  “Not Labienus?”

  Trebonius shook his head emphatically. “No.”

  “Labienus’s choice?”

  “Caesar’s.”

  “Yet he says nothing derogatory about Labienus.”

  “Nor will he. Labienus still hopes to be consul with him, though he knows Caesar doesn’t approve of his methods. But nothing is said in the senatorial dispatches, so Labienus hopes. It won’t last beyond the final decision. If Caesar marches on Rome, he’ll give the boni a gift—Titus Labienus.”

  “Oh, Trebonius, pray it doesn’t come to civil war!”

  *

  So too did Caesar pray, even as he marshaled his wits to deal with the boni within the bounds of Rome’s unwritten constitution, the mos maiorum. The consuls for next year were Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus as senior, and Gaius Claudius Marcellus as junior. Gaius Marcellus was first cousin to the present junior consul, Marcus Marcellus, and also to the man predicted to be consul the year after next, another Gaius Marcellus. For this reason he was usually referred to as Gaius Marcellus Major, his cousin as Gaius Marcellus Minor. An adamant foe of Caesar’s, Gaius Marcellus Major could not be hoped for. Paullus was different. Exiled for his part in the rebellion of his father, Lepidus, he had come late to the cons
ul’s curule chair, and achieved it by rebuilding the Basilica Aemilia, by far the most imposing edifice in the Forum Romanum. Then disaster had struck on the day when Publius Clodius’s body had burned in the Senate House; the almost completed Basilica Aemilia burned too. And Paullus found himself without the money to start again.

  A man of straw was Paullus. A fact Caesar knew. But bought him anyway. The senior consul was worth having. Paullus received sixteen hundred talents from Caesar during December, and went onto Balbus’s payroll as Caesar’s man. The Basilica Aemilia could be rebuilt in even greater splendor. Of more import was Curio, who had cost a mere five hundred talents; he had done exactly as Caesar suggested, pretended to stand for the tribunate of the plebs at the last moment, and—no difficulty for a Scribonius Curio—been elected at the top of the poll.

  Other things could be done too. All the major towns of Italian Gaul received large sums of money to erect public buildings or reconstruct their marketplaces, as did towns and cities in the Province and in Italia itself. But all these towns had one thing in common: they had shown Caesar favor. For a while he thought about donating buildings to the Spains, Asia Province and Greece, then decided the outlay would not bring sufficient support for him if Pompey, a far greater patron in these places, chose not to permit his clients to support Caesar. None of it was done to win favor in the event of civil war; it was done to bring influential local plutocrats into his camp and prompt them to inform the boni that they would not be pleased were Caesar to be maltreated. Civil war was the very last alternative, and Caesar genuinely believed that it was an alternative so abominable, even to the boni, that it would not eventuate. The way to win was to make it impossible for the boni to go against the wishes of most of Rome, Italia, Italian Gaul, Illyricum and the Roman Gallic Province.