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

by Colleen McCullough

  Do please consider coming home. Not for my sake. Nor will anyone apostrophize you as my partisan. Do it for Rome.

  But Cicero wouldn’t do it for Rome; did he do it, he would be acting to oblige Caesar. And that, he vowed, he would never do!

  But by the time that January ended and February arrived, Cicero was very torn. Nothing he heard inspired any confidence. One moment he was assured that Pompey was marching for Picenum to finish Caesar before he got started; the next moment he was being told that Pompey was in Larinum and planning to march for Brundisium and a voyage across the Adriatic to Epirus or western Macedonia. Caesar’s letter had tickled an itch, with the result that Cicero fretted about Pompey’s indifference to Rome the city. Why wasn’t he defending her? Why?

  By this time the whole of the north was open to Caesar, from the Via Aurelia on the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic coast. He held every great road or knew they contained no troops to oppose him; Hirrus had vacated Camerinum, Lentulus Spinther had fled from Asculum Picentum, and Caesar held all of Picenum. While, apparently, Pompey sat in Larinum. His prefect of engineers, Vibullius Rufus, had encountered Lentulus Spinther in disarray on the road after quitting Asculum Picentum, and stood up to the haughty consular sturdily. With the result that he took over command of Lentulus Spinther’s troops and hied them, plus the dejected Lentulus Spinther, to Corfinium, where Ahenobarbus had established himself.

  Of all the legates the Senate had dispatched to defend Italia back in those far-off days before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, only Ahenobarbus had fared well. In Alba Fucentia beside the Fucine Lake he had marshaled two legions of Marsi, a warlike and ardent people in his clientele. He had then proceeded with them to the fortress city of Corfinium on the river Aternus, resolved to hold Corfinium and its sister city, Sulmo, in Caesar’s teeth. Thanks to Vibullius, he received Lentulus Spinther’s ten cohorts— and five more cohorts Vibullius poached from Hirrus, retreating from Camerinum. Thus, or so it seemed to Cicero, Ahenobarbus looked like the only serious foe Caesar was likely to meet. For Pompey, it was clear, didn’t want to meet him.

  The stories about what Caesar intended to do once he owned Italia and Rome were legion and horrifying: he was going to cancel all debts; proscribe the entire knight class; hand the Senate and the Assemblies over to the rabble, the Head Count who owned nothing and could give the State nothing save children. It was perhaps something of a comfort to know that Atticus stoutly maintained Caesar would do none of these things.

  “Don’t dismiss Caesar as a Saturninus or a Catilina,” said Atticus to Cicero in a letter. “He’s a very able and clever man with a mine of common sense. Far from believing that he would do anything as foolish as cancel debts, I think him absolutely committed to protecting and ensuring the well-being of Rome’s commercial sphere. Truly, Cicero, Caesar is no radical!”

  Oh, how much Cicero wanted to believe that! The trouble was that he couldn’t, chiefly because he listened to everyone and deemed everyone right at the time. Save those, like Atticus, who kept blowing Caesar’s trumpet, no matter in how restrained and reasonable a way. For he couldn’t like Caesar, couldn’t trust Caesar. Not since that dreadful year when he had been consul, when Catilina had plotted to overthrow the State, and Caesar had accused him of executing Roman citizens without a trial. Inexcusable. Unforgivable. Out of Caesar’s stand came Clodius’s persecution and eighteen months in exile.

  “You’re an outright, downright fool!” snarled Quintus Cicero.

  “I beg your pardon!” gasped Cicero.

  “You heard me, big brother! You’re a fool! Why won’t you see that Caesar is a decent man, a highly conservative politician, and the most brilliant military man Rome has ever produced?” Quintus Cicero emitted a series of derisive raspberries. “He’ll wallop the lot of them, Marcus! They do not stand a chance, no matter how much they prate about your precious Republic!”

  “I will repeat,” said Cicero with great dignity, “what I have already said several times. It’s infinitely preferable to be beaten with Pompeius than victorious with Caesar!”

  “Well,” said Quintus, “don’t expect me to feel the same way. I served with Caesar. I like him. And, by all the Gods, I admire him! So don’t ask me to fight against him, because I won’t.”

  “I am the head of the Tullii Cicerones!” cried big brother. “You will do what I say!”

  “I’ll cleave to the family in this much, Marcus—I won’t enlist to fight for Caesar. But nor will I take up a sword or a command against him.”

  And from that stand little brother Quintus would not be budged.

  Which led to more and fiercer quarrels when Cicero’s wife and daughter, Terentia and Tullia, joined them at Formiae. As did Quintus’s wife, Pomponia, the sister of Atticus and a worse termagant than Terentia. Terentia sided with Cicero (not always the case), but Pomponia and Tullia sided with Quintus Cicero. Added to which, Quintus Cicero’s son wanted to enlist in Caesar’s legions, and Cicero’s son wanted to enlist in Pompey’s legions.

  “Tata,” said Tullia, big and pretty brown eyes pleading, “I do wish you’d see reason! My Dolabella says Caesar is everything a great Roman aristocrat ought to be.”

  “As I know him to be,” said Quintus Cicero warmly.

  “I agree, Pater,” said young Quintus Cicero with equal warmth.

  “My brother Atticus thinks him an excellent sort of man,” said Pomponia, chin out pugnaciously.

  “You’re all mentally deficient!” snapped Terentia.

  “Not to mention getting ready to suck up to the man you think will win!” yelled young Marcus Cicero, glaring at his cousin.

  “Tacete, tacete, tacete!” roared the head of the Tullii Cicerones. “Shut up, the lot of you! Go away! Leave me in peace! Isn’t it enough that I can’t persuade anybody to enlist? Isn’t it enough to be plagued by twelve lictors? Isn’t it enough that the consuls in Capua have got no further than boarding out Caesar’s five thousand gladiators among loyal Republican families? Where they’re eating their hosts out of house and home? Isn’t it enough that Cato can’t make up his mind whether to stay in Capua or go to govern Sicily? Isn’t it enough that Balbus writes twice a day, begging me to heal the breach between Caesar and Pompeius? Isn’t it enough that I hear Pompeius is already transferring cohorts to Brundisium to ship across the Adriatic? Tacete, tacete, tacete!”

  LARINUM TO BRUNDISIUM

  It was much nicer existing without the senatorial watchdogs, Pompey had discovered. From Titus Labienus he received nothing except sound military sense delivered minus homilies, rhetoric or political analysis; Pompey began to think that he might be able to salvage something out of this hideous shipwreck. All his instincts told him that it was futile to try to halt Caesar in Italia, that his best and cleverest course was to retreat across the Adriatic and take Rome’s government with him. If there was no government left in Italia, Caesar wouldn’t have the opportunity to shore up his position by bluffing, bullying or bludgeoning the government into officially sanctioning his actions. He would look what he was, a treasonous conqueror who had driven the government into exile. Nor was retreating across the Adriatic a true retreat; it was the breathing space Pompey desperately needed to get his army into shape, to see his own legions shipped to him from Spain, to levy client kings in the East for additional troops and the masses of cavalry he lacked.

  “Don’t count on your Spanish legions,” warned Labienus.

  “Why ever not?”

  “If you leave Italia for Macedonia or Greece, Magnus, don’t expect Caesar to follow you. He’ll march for Spain to destroy your base and your army there.”

  “Surely I’m his top priority!”

  “No. Neutering Spain is. That’s one reason why he won’t bring all his legions to this side of the Alps. He knows he’ll need them in the West. By now, I imagine, Trebonius will have at least three legions in Narbo. Where old Lucius Caesar has everything in perfect order as well as thousands of local troops. And they’ll be waiting for Afranius
and Petreius to attempt the land route to Rome.” Labienus frowned, shot Pompey a look. “They haven’t marched yet, have they?”

  “No, they haven’t. I’m still waiting to see how best to deal with Caesar himself. Whether I should go north to Picenum, or east across the Adriatic.”

  “You’ve left your run too late for Picenum, Magnus. That ceased to be an alternative a nundinum ago.”

  “Then,” said Pompey with decision, “I’ll send Quintus Fabius to Ahenobarbus in Corfinium today with orders that Ahenobarbus is to abandon the place and transfer himself and his troops to me.”

  “Good thinking. If he stays in Corfinium, he’ll fall. It’s Caesar will inherit his men, and we need them. Ahenobarbus has two properly formed legions and another fifteen-odd cohorts.” He thought of something else. “How are the Sixth and the Fifteenth?”

  “Surprisingly tractable. Largely due to you, I suspect. Since they learned you’re on our side, they’ve been more prone to think ours is the side in the right.”

  “Then I’ve accomplished something.”

  Labienus got up and paced across to an unshuttered window, through which blew a cold, ominously wintry blast from the north. The camp was located on the outskirts of Larinum, which had never recovered from the treatment Gaius Verres and Publius Cethegus had doled out to it in Sulla’s wake. Nor had the Apulian countryside. Verres had torn out every single tree; without windbreaks or roots to hold down the topsoil, what had been a reasonably verdant and fertile land had gone to dust and locusts.

  “You’re hiring seaworthy transports in Brundisium?” asked Labienus from the window, gazing out, indifferent to the cold.

  “Yes, of course. Though shortly I’ll have to ask the consuls for money. Some of the captains refuse to sail until they’ve been paid—the difference between a legitimate war and a civil one, I presume. Normally they’re content to run an account.”

  “Then the Treasury is in Capua.”

  “Yes, I imagine so,” Pompey answered absently. A fraction of a moment later he was sitting in his chair rigid with shock. “Jupiter!”

  Labienus swung around immediately. “What?”

  “Labienus, I can’t be sure that the Treasury isn’t still in Rome! Jupiter! Oh, Hercules! Minerva! Juno! Mars! I don’t remember seeing any Treasury wagons on the road to Campania!” He writhed, glued his fingers to his temples, closed his eyes. “Ye Gods, I don’t believe it! But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that those prize cunni Marcellus and Crus skipped from Rome without emptying the vaults! They’re the consuls—it’s their duty to deal with the money!”

  Face a pasty grey, Labienus swallowed. “Do you mean we’ve embarked on this enterprise without a war chest?”

  “It’s not my fault!” wailed Pompey, hands clenched in his thick, gone-to-silver hair. “Do I have to think of everything? Can those mentulae in Capua think of nothing! They’ve hemmed me in for months, squawking and clucking, yammering in my ears until I can hardly hear my own thoughts—picking, carping, criticizing, arguing—oh, Titus, how they argue! On and on and on! It’s not a right act to do this, it’s a wrong act to do that; the Senate says this, the Senate says that—it’s a wonder I’ve got as far into this campaign as Larinum!”

  “Then,” said Labienus, understanding that now was not the moment to castigate Pompey, “we’d better send a man at the gallop for Capua with instructions for the consuls to hustle themselves back to Rome and empty the Treasury. Otherwise it’s Caesar who will pay for his war out of the public purse.”

  “Yes, yes!” gasped Pompey, stumbling to his feet. “I’ll do it this instant—I know, I’ll send Gaius Cassius! A tribune of the plebs who distinguished himself in Syria ought to be able to make them understand, eh?”

  Off he reeled, leaving Labienus to stand by the window and stare at the bleak landscape with leaden heart. He’s not the same man, Pompeius. He’s a doll that’s lost half its stuffing. Well, he’s getting old. Must be pushing fifty-seven. And he’s right about that clutch of political theorists—Cato, the Marcelli, Lentulus Crus, Metellus Scipio. So militarily inept they couldn’t tell their arses from their swords. I’ve chosen the wrong side, unless I can keep closer to Magnus than the senatorial leeches. If it’s left to them, Caesar will eat us. Picenum has fallen. And the Twelfth has joined the Thirteenth—Caesar possesses two veteran legions. Plus every one of our recruits he’s managed to get his hands on. They know. I’ll see Quintus Fabius myself; I must reinforce the message he’s got to get through to that pigheaded verpa in Corfinium, Ahenobarbus—abandon the place and join us! Money. Money... There’s bound to be some around here somewhere, even after Verres and Cethegus. They were thirty years ago. A few temple hoards, old Rabirius’s house… And I’ll see Gaius Cassius myself too. Tell him to start borrowing from the Campanian temples and towns. We need every sestertius we can find.

  A wise decision on Labienus’s part, one which would enable Pompey to sail. By the time Lentulus Crus answered Pompey’s curt order (the senior consul, Marcellus Minor, was sick—as usual), the army had quit Larinum and was at Luceria, well south; the delighted Metellus Scipio had bundled himself off importantly with six cohorts to Brundisium under instructions to hold it, and secure in the knowledge that Caesar was a long way from Brundisium.

  While Labienus watched, Pompey deciphered Lentulus Crus’s letter. “I don’t believe it!” he gasped, chalk-white, eyes swimming with tears of sheer rage. “Our esteemed junior consul will get up off his pampered podex and proceed back to Rome to empty the Treasury if I advance into Picenum and prevent Caesar any access to Rome! Otherwise, he says, he’s staying right where he is in Capua. Safe! He goes on to accuse Gaius Cassius of impertinence and as punishment has sent him to Neapolis— one of my legates!—to gather a few ships in case the consuls and the rest of the government have to evacuate Campania in a hurry. He ends, Labienus, by informing me that he still considers it a mistake on my part to refuse to let him make a legion out of Caesar’s gladiators. He’s convinced they’d fight brilliantly for us and he doesn’t think us military men appreciate the prowess of gladiators. Therefore he is mighty miffed that I ordered them disbanded.”

  Pushed beyond rage, Labienus giggled. “Oh, it’s a gigantic farce! What we ought to do, Magnus, is put the whole show on the road and play every pig-shit town and village in Apulia. The yokels would deem it the funniest troupe of traveling mimers they’ve ever seen. Especially if we trick Lentulus Crus out as a raddled old whore with a pair of melons for tits.”

  But at least, thought Labienus privately, young Gaius Cassius will be raiding every temple from Antium to Surrentum. I doubt an order from the likes of Lentulus Crus to save the Senate’s bacon at the expense of the army will impress that particular Cassius!

  *

  Quintus Fabius came back from Corfinium to inform Pompey that Ahenobarbus would march to join the army in Luceria four days before the Ides of February, and that he had accumulated even more troops; refugees from the debacles in Picenum kept drifting in. One of the most cheering aspects of this was Ahenobarbus’s news that he had six million sesterces with him. He had intended to pay his men, but Pompey’s needs were greater, so he hadn’t.

  But on the eleventh day of February, two days before the Ides, Vibullius sent a dispatch telling Pompey that Ahenobarbus had now decided to remain in Corfinium. His scouts had reported that Caesar had left Picenum behind and was in Castrum Truentum. He had to be stopped! said Ahenobarbus. Therefore Ahenobarbus would stop him.

  Pompey sent an urgent directive back to Corfinium instructing Ahenobarbus to leave before Caesar arrived to blockade him; his own scouts believed that a third of Caesar’s veteran legions was now approaching, and the scouts knew for a fact that Antonius and Curio were back in Caesar’s fold with their cohorts. With three of his old legions and a wealth of experience in blockade, Caesar would take Corfinium and Sulmo easily. Get out, get out! said Pompey’s note.

  Ahenobarbus ignored it and remained.

>   Unaware of this, on the Ides of February Pompey sent his legate Decimus Laelius to Capua with orders he insisted be obeyed. One of the two consuls was to proceed to Sicily to secure the grain harvest, just beginning to come in; Ahenobarbus and twelve cohorts of his troops would also sail for Sicily as soon as possible. The men not needed to secure Sicily were to go to Brundisium at once, cross the Adriatic to Epirus, and wait in Dyrrachium. They were to include the government. Laelius inherited the job of finding a fleet to sail for Sicily; Cassius, hinted Labienus, was very busy emptying temples and towns of their money.

  News of what was happening at Corfinium filtered in very, very slowly. Though the distance between Corfinium and Luceria was only a matter of a hundred miles, dispatches took between two and four days to reach Pompey. Which meant that by the time he got the news, it was already too old to act upon. Even the awesome and frightening Labienus could not manage to improve the situation; the couriers dawdled all the way, popped in to say hello to an aged aunt, visited a tavern, lingered to dally with a woman.

  “Morale,” said Pompey wearily, “doesn’t exist. Hardly anyone believes in this war! Those who do, refuse to take it seriously. I’m hamstrung, Labienus.”

  “Hang on until we get across the Adriatic” was the answer.

  Though Caesar arrived at Corfinium the day after the Ides, three more days elapsed before Pompey knew; by that time Caesar had the Eighth, the Twelfth and all the Thirteenth with him. Sulmo surrendered and Corfinium had been rendered helpless by blockade. Lips tight, Pompey sent word back to Ahenobarbus that it was far too late to send help, that the situation was of Ahenobarbus’s own making, and that he would have to get himself out of it.

  But when Pompey’s unsympathetic response reached Ahenobarbus six days after he had sent for assistance, the commander of Corfinium decided to flee secretly in the night, leaving his troops and his legates behind. Unfortunately his strange behavior gave him away; he was promptly taken into custody by Lentulus Spinther, who sent to Caesar for terms. With the result that on the twenty-first day of February, Ahenobarbus, his cronies and fifty other senators were handed over to Caesar, together with thirty-one cohorts of soldiers. And six million sesterces. For Caesar, a welcome bonus. He proceeded to require an oath of allegiance to himself from Ahenobarbus’s men; he also paid them well into the future. They would be most useful, he had decided, to send to secure Sicily.