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

by Colleen McCullough

  Thus in February of this year I endowed my sons Marcus and Gnaeus with a propraetorian imperium and sent them to Alexandria to see Queen Cleopatra (her husband, her brother called Ptolemy XIII, is only nine years old) and demand that she give up the legion of Gabiniani forthwith. It would be excellent experience for them, I thought, a trifling mission in one way, yet in another way, an important diplomatic coup. Rome has had no official congress with the new ruler of Egypt; my sons would be the first.

  They journeyed overland to Egypt because neither of them is comfortable upon the sea. They had six lictors each and a squadron of Galatian cavalry whom Cassius had failed to detach from duty in Syria. Antipater met them near Lake Gennesarus and personally escorted them through the Jewish kingdom, then left them to their own devices at Gaza, the border. Shortly after the beginning of March they arrived in Alexandria.

  Queen Cleopatra received them very graciously. I had a letter from Marcus which didn’t reach me until after I learned of his death—what a nightmarish ordeal that is, Cato! To read the words of a beloved child who is dead. He was most impressed with the girl Queen, a little wisp of a creature with a face only youth made attractive, for she has, Marcus said, a nose to rival yours. Not an endowment for a female, though noble on a male. She spoke, he said, perfect Attic Greek, and was clad in the dress of Pharaoh—a huge tall crown in two parts, white inside red; a gown of finely pleated, diaphanous white linen; and a fabulous jeweled collar ten inches wide. She even wore a false beard made of gold and blue enamel like a rounded braid. In one hand she bore a scepter like a little shepherd’s crook, and in the other a fly swish of supple white linen threads with a jeweled handle. The flies in Syria and Egypt are a constant torment.

  Queen Cleopatra agreed at once to free the Gabiniani from garrison duty at Alexandria. The days when it might have been necessary, she said, were long over. So my sons rode out to the Gabiniani camp, which was located beyond the eastern or Canopic Gate of the city. Where they found what was really a little town; the Gabiniani had all married local girls and gone into business as smiths, carpenters and stonemasons. Of military activity there was none.

  When Marcus, who acted as spokesman, informed them that they were being recalled by the governor of Syria to duty in Syria, they refused to go! Refusal, said Marcus, was not an alternative. Sufficient ships had been hired and were waiting in the Eunostus Harbor at Alexandria; under Roman law and with the permission of the Queen of Egypt, they were to pack their belongings at once and embark. The primipilus centurion, a villainous oaf, stepped forward and said they were not going back to service in a Roman army. Aulus Gabinius had discharged them after thirty years under the Eagles, and left them to enjoy their retirement right where they were. They had wives, children and businesses.

  Marcus grew angry. Gnaeus too. He ordered his lictors to arrest the Gabiniani spokesman, whereupon other centurions came forward and stood around the man. No, they said, they were retired, they would not leave. Gnaeus ordered his lictors to join Marcus’s and arrest the lot. But when the lictors attempted to lay hands on the men, they drew their swords. There was a fight, but neither my sons nor their lictors had weapons other than the bound fasces containing the axes, and the Galatian cavalry had been left in Alexandria to enjoy a few days’ leave.

  Thus died my sons and their lictors. Queen Cleopatra acted immediately. She had General Achillas of her own army round up the Gabiniani and cast the centurions in chains. My sons were given a State funeral, and their ashes placed in the most precious little urns I have ever seen. She sent my sons’ ashes and the Gabiniani leaders to me in Antioch together with a letter accepting full responsibility for the tragedy. She would wait, she said, humbly upon my decision as to what to do with Egypt. Whatever I wished would be done, even if that included the arrest of her own person. She ended by saying that the enlisted Gabiniani men were loaded onto the ships and would arrive soon in Antioch.

  I sent the Gabiniani centurions back to her, explaining that she was more disinterested and would therefore judge them impartially, for I could not. And absolved her of any malicious intent. I believe that she executed the primipilus and pilus prior centurions, but that General Achillas stole the rest of them to stiffen the Egyptian army. The rankers, as she had promised, arrived in Antioch, where I have put them back under stern Roman military discipline. Queen Cleopatra had, at her own expense, hired extra ships and sent their wives, children and property too. After thinking about it, I decided that it would be wise to permit the Gabiniani to have their Egyptian families. I am not a sympathetic man, but my sons are dead, and I am no Lucullus.

  As to Rome, Cato, I think that it is futile to go on encouraging Curio in the Senate. The longer the battle there goes on, the greater will his reputation be outside the Senate. Including among the senior knights of the Eighteen, whose support we desperately need. Therefore I think the boni will be wiser to decree a postponement of the discussion about Caesar’s provinces. For long enough to let the fickle memories of the Plebs and People forget how heroic Curio has been. Postpone discussion of Caesar’s provinces until the Ides of November. Curio will resume his obstructive tactics and veto yet again, but a month after that date he goes out of office. And Caesar will never get another tribune of the plebs to equal Gaius Scribonius Curio. He will be stripped of everything in December, and we can send Lucius Ahenobarbus to relieve him immediately. All that Curio will have done for him is to postpone the inevitable. I don’t fear Caesar. He’s a highly constitutional man, not a natural outlaw like Sulla. I know you don’t agree with me there, but I have been Gaius Caesar’s colleague through aedile, praetor and consul, and though he has great courage, he is not comfortable without due process.

  Oh, I am feeling better. To have something to think about is some sort of anodyne for grief. And now I’m writing to you, I see you before my inner eyes, and I am comforted. But I must come home this year, Cato! I shiver in dread at the thought that the Senate might prorogue my command. Syria isn’t lucky for me; nothing good will happen here. My spies say the Parthians are going to return in the summer, but if I get a replacement, I’ll be gone before that. I must be gone!

  Little though I like or esteem him, I sympathize with Cicero, who goes through the same ordeal. Two more reluctant governors than Cicero and me would be hard to find. Though he at least has enjoyed enough of a campaign to earn himself twelve million from the sale of slaves. My side of our joint campaign in the Amanus ranges yielded six goats, ten sheep and a headache so bad I went completely blind. Cicero has let Pomptinus go home, and intends to leave on the last day of Quinctilis whether he has a successor or not, provided that he has received no letter proroguing him. I may well follow his example. For though I do not fear that Caesar aims at a monarchy, I want to be there in the Senate to make sure that he is not permitted to stand for the consulship next year in absentia. I want to be prosecuting him for maiestas, make no mistake about that.

  As Brutus’s uncle and Servilia’s—yes, I know, half!—brother, perhaps you ought to know one of the stories Cicero is busily scribbling home to Atticus, Caelius and the Gods know who else. You must know the ghastly Publius Vedius, a knight as rich as he is vulgar. Well, Cicero encountered him on the road in Cilicia somewhere at the head of a bizarre and trumpery parade which included two chariots, one containing a dog-faced baboon tricked out in woman’s finery, both drawn by wild asses—an absolute disgrace for Rome. Anyway, due to a series of events with which I will not weary you, Vedius’s baggage was searched. And revealed the portraits of five extremely well known young Roman noblewomen, all married to some very haughty fellows. Including the wife of Manius Lepidus, and one of Brutus’s sisters. I presume that Cicero means Junia Prima, Vatia Isauricus’s wife, as Junia Secunda is married to Marcus Lepidus. Unless, of course, Vedius’s taste runs to cuckolding the Aemilii Lepidi. I leave it to you what to do about this story, but I warn you that it will be all over Rome very soon. Perhaps you could speak to Brutus, and he could speak to Servilia?
Best she knows.

  I do feel better. In fact, this is the first time that I have passed some hours without weeping. Will you break the news of my sons to those who must know? Their mother, my first Domitia. It will almost kill her. To both the Porcias, Ahenobarbus’s wife and my wife. To Brutus.

  Look after yourself, Cato. I cannot wait to see your dear face.

  In the midst of reading Bibulus’s letter Cato began to feel a peculiar, crawling dread. The basis of it he couldn’t quite pin down, except that it had to do with Caesar. Caesar, Caesar, always and ever Caesar! A man whose luck was proverbial, who never put a foot wrong. What had Catulus said? Not to him, to someone else he couldn’t for the life of him remember… that Caesar was like Ulysses; that his life strand was so strong it frayed through all those it rubbed against. Knock him down, and up he sprang again like the dragon’s teeth planted in the field of death. Now Bibulus was stripped of his two eldest sons. Syria was, he said, unlucky for him. Could it be? No!

  Cato rolled up the letter, put his misgivings from him, and sent for the hapless Brutus. Who would have to deal with the faithlessness of his sister, the wrath of his mother, and the grief of Cato’s daughter, whom he would not see himself. Let Brutus do it. Brutus liked that sort of duty. He was to be seen at every single funeral; he had a deft touch with a condolence.

  *

  So it was that Brutus plodded from his own house to the house of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, miserably conscious of his role as the bearer of bad tidings. When informed that Junia was being a naughty girl, Servilia simply shrugged and said that she was surely old enough by now to manage her own life on whatever terms she chose. When informed of the identity of the man with whom Junia was dallying, Servilia soared higher than Ararat. A worm like Publius Vedius? Roar! Screech! Drum the heels, grind the teeth, spit worse curses than the lowliest laborer in the Port of Rome! From indifference she passed to an outrage so awful that Brutus fled, leaving Servilia to stride around the corner to Vatia Isauricus’s house and confront her daughter. For the crime to Servilia was not adultery, but loss of dignitas. Young women with Junian fathers and patrician Servilian mothers did not gift lowborn mushrooms with access to their husbands’ property.

  He knocked on the door and was admitted to Bibulus’s house by the steward, a man whose snobbishness exceeded that of his master. When Brutus asked to see the lady Porcia, the steward looked down his long nose and pointed silently in the direction of the peristyle. He then walked away as if to say that he wanted nothing to do with the entire situation.

  Brutus had not seen Porcia since her wedding day two years ago, which was not an unusual state of affairs; on the many occasions when he had visited Bibulus, his wife was nowhere to be seen. Marriage to two Domitias, both of whom Caesar had seduced for no better reason than that he loathed Bibulus, had cured Bibulus of inviting his wife to dinner when he had male guests. Even if the male guest was his wife’s first cousin, and even if his male guest was as blameless of reputation as Brutus.

  As he walked toward the peristyle he could hear her loud, neighing laughter, and the much higher, lighter laughter of a child. They were galloping round the garden, Porcia handicapped by a blindfold. Her ten-year-old stepson frolicked about her, tugging her dress one moment, standing still and absolutely silent the next while she blundered within an inch of him, groping and giggling. Then he would laugh and dash away, and off she would go again in pursuit. Though, noted Brutus, the boy was considerate; he made no move toward the pool, into which Porcia might fall.

  Brutus’s heart twisted. Why hadn’t he been dowered with a big sister like this? Someone to play with, have fun with, laugh with? Or a mother like that? He knew some men who did have mothers like that, who still romped with them when provoked. What a delight it must be for young Lucius Bibulus to have a stepmother like Porcia. Dear, galumphing elephant Porcia.

  “Is anybody home?” he called from the colonnade.

  Both of them stopped, turned. Porcia pulled off her blindfold and whinnied with delight. Young Lucius following, she lolloped over to Brutus and enfolded him in a huge hug which took his feet off the terrazzo floor.

  “Brutus, Brutus!” she cried, putting him down. “Lucius, this is my cousin Brutus. Do you know him?”

  “Yes,” said Lucius, clearly not as enthusiastic at Brutus’s arrival as his stepmother was.

  “Ave, Lucius,” said Brutus, smiling to reveal that he had beautiful teeth and that the smile, were it located in a less off-putting face, possessed a winning, spontaneous charm. “I’m sorry to spoil your fun, but I must talk to Porcia in private.”

  Lucius, the same kind of diminutive, frosty-looking person as his father, shrugged and wandered off, kicking at the grass disconsolately.

  “Isn’t he lovely?” asked Porcia, conducting Brutus to her own rooms. “Isn’t this lovely?” she asked then, gesturing at her sitting room proudly. “I have so much space, Brutus!”

  “They say that every kind of plant and creature abhors emptiness, Porcia, and it is quite true, I see. You’ve managed to overcrowd it magnificently.”

  “Oh, I know, I know! Bibulus is always telling me to try to be tidy, but it isn’t in my nature, I’m afraid.”

  She sat down on one chair, he on another. At least, he reflected, Bibulus kept sufficient staff to make sure his wife’s shambles was dust-free and that the chairs were vacant.

  Her dress sense hadn’t improved, he noticed; she was wearing yet another baby-cack-brown canvas tent which emphasized the width of her shoulders and gave her a slight air of the Amazon warrior. But her mop of fiery hair was considerably longer and thus even more beautiful, and the large grey eyes were as sternly luminous as he had remembered them to be.

  “What a pleasure to see you,” she said, smiling.

  “And to see you, Porcia.”

  “Why haven’t you come to call before? Bibulus has been away now for almost a year.”

  “It isn’t done to call on a man’s wife in his absence.”

  She frowned. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Well, his first two wives were unfaithful to him.”

  “They have nothing to do with me, Brutus. If it were not for Lucius, I’d have been desperately lonely.”

  “But you do have Lucius.”

  “I dismissed his pedagogue—idiotic man! I teach Lucius myself these days, and he’s come ahead so well. You can’t beat learning in with a rod; you have to sustain fascination with it.”

  “I can see he loves you.”

  “And I love him.”

  The reason for his mission gnawed at him, but Brutus found himself wanting to know a lot more about Porcia the married woman, and knew that the moment he broached the subject of death, his chance to discover her thoughts would vanish. So for the moment he pushed it away and said, “How do you like married life?”

  “Very much.”

  “What do you like most about it?”

  “The freedom.” She snorted with laughter. “You’ve no idea how marvelous it is to live in a house without Athenodorus Cordylion and Statyllus! I know tata esteems them highly, but I never could. They were so jealous of him! If it looked as if I might have a few moments alone in his company, they’d rush in and spoil it. All those years, Brutus, living in the same house as Marcus Porcius Cato, knowing myself his daughter, and yet never able to be alone with him, free of his Greek leeches—I loathed them! Spiteful, petty old men. And they encouraged him to drink.”

  A great deal of what she said was true, but not all of it; Brutus thought Cato drank of his own volition, and that it had a great deal to do with his animosity for those he deemed unworthy of the mos maiorum. And Marcia. Which just went to show that Brutus too hadn’t divined Cato’s most fiercely guarded secret: the loneliness of life without his brother Caepio, his terror of loving other people so much that living without them was agony.

  “And did you like being married to Bibulus?”

  “Yes,” she said tersely.

  “Was it ver
y difficult?”

  Not having been raised by women, she interpreted this as a man would, and answered frankly. “The sexual act, you mean.”

  He blushed, but blushes didn’t stand out on his dark, stubbly face; he answered with equal frankness. “Yes.”

  Sighing, she leaned forward with her linked hands between her widely separated knees; Bibulus clearly had not broken her of her mannish habits. “Well, Brutus, one accepts its necessity. The Gods do it too, if one believes the Greeks. Nor have I ever found any evidence in the writings of any philosopher that women are supposed to enjoy it. It is a reward for men, and if men did not seek it actively, it would not exist. I cannot say worse of it than that I suffered it, nor better of it than that it did not revolt me.” She shrugged. “It is a brief business, after all, and once the pain becomes bearable, nothing truly difficult.”

  “But you’re not supposed to feel pain after the first time, Porcia,” said Brutus blankly.

  “Really?” she asked indifferently. “That has not been so for me.” Then she said, apparently unwounded, “Bibulus says I am juiceless.”

  Brutus’s blush deepened, but his heart was wrung too. “Oh, Porcia! Maybe when Bibulus comes back it will be different. Do you miss him?”

  “One must miss one’s husband,” she said.

  “You didn’t learn to love him.”

  “I love my father. I love little Lucius. I love you too, Brutus. But Bibulus I respect.”

  “Did you know that your father wanted me to marry you?”

  Her eyes widened. “No.”

  “He did. But I wouldn’t.”

  That blighted her. She said gruffly, “Why not?”

  “Nothing to do with you, Porcia. Only that I gave my love to someone who didn’t love me.”

  “Julia.”

  “Yes, Julia.” His face twisted. “And when she died, I just wanted a wife who meant nothing to me. So I married Claudia.”