“What is to stop Servilia from giving her bad advice?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t dare in front of all those women of their circle. Someone would be sure to tattle to Atia. That would put the tattler in a good position should Octavius prove to be the heir.” These women had a system of politics as complicated and cutthroat as that of the Senate.
“So there were two women at the gathering, each hoping to be in possession of Caesar’s heir.”
“Three,” she corrected. “Don’t forget Fulvia.”
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” Marcus Antonius was yet another with eyes on the glorious inheritance. In Gaul, he had been Caesar’s right-hand man, supplanting the formidable Titus Labienus, who had turned against Caesar in the civil war. When Caesar was made dictator he named Antonius his Master of Horse, second in command and enforcer. In Roman public life of the day, Antonius was a character out of Plautus: a soldier-buffoon who had himself carried about in a lavish litter while slaves carried his golden drinking vessels before him on purple pillows like holy cult objects. Caesar had forced him to give up his foolishness for a while, but he kept lapsing. Despite his many faults it was almost impossible to dislike Antonius. He was the eternal boy-man. We loved the boy and feared the man.
“I heard Antonius and Caesar have fallen out lately,” I said. “Caesar won’t be taking him to Parthia.”
“They’ve fallen out before, but they always patch it up,” Julia observed, having finally finished the bowl of cherries. “I don’t know why Caesar keeps him around. The Antonii are a family of hereditary criminals.”
“That describes most of the senatorial class,” I reminded her. “The Claudii, for instance.”
“Yes, but the Antonii are truly egregious. They’ve done everything but loot the treasury and rape all the Vestals.”
“I don’t have much hope for the treasury once Caesar leaves Rome,” I told her. “I’ve heard Antonius is to be prefect of the city.”
She rolled her eyes upward in a dramatic gesture. “We should move all our goods out of Rome. Once he’s run through the treasury he’ll start looting the best houses. The lifestyle he and Fulvia favor requires vast wealth.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always got on well with Antonius. I’ve helped him out of a few scrapes from time to time.”
“I have a feeling any loyalty of which he is capable will fade as his money dwindles. He’ll suddenly remember he has an old grudge against you.”
“Well, he’s done nothing yet and Caesar probably won’t leave the city until next year. A lot can happen between now and then. They may have a more serious disagreement and Caesar could exile Antonius. Or Antonius may die, or Caesar may die, or some German king we’ve never heard of could forge a grand alliance of the tribes and invade Italy. That’s for the future. My problem exists in the present. So what sort of advice, good or bad, did Servilia give Fulvia?”
“You know, it might not be such a bad idea to get your horoscope done, dear. You have a future, and it always pays to be prepared.”
“Eh?” I said brightly.
“Well, Servilia said that now that Polasser of Kish is dead, the one to consult is a woman called Ashthuva.”
“I never heard such a name. Where is she from?”
“Nobody is certain, but it’s someplace far to the east.”
“Naturally. You never look westward for one of these stargazers. She’s probably some Greek freedwoman who’s adopted an exotic persona, just like Polasser. I still don’t see why—” I am not totally dense, and it came to me. “You invited yourself along, didn’t you? You’re going to accompany Atia to see this Artooshvula person.”
“It’s Ashthuva. And yes, I am going. So is Servilia. She is to make the introductions.”
“I don’t like it, but you may learn something. Anyone else going with you? Fulvia, perchance?”
“I would never go anywhere with Fulvia,” she said. “She’s scandalous. Servilia is merely ruthless and Atia is as respectable as you could wish.”
“Why should I wish her to be respectable? Respectable women are boring, for the most part.”
“Anyway, I think I’ll take Callista along. She’s quite respectable, for a foreigner.”
I considered this. “Not a bad idea at all. She should be able to read this fraudulent Ashtabulus—”
“Ashthuva. You can pronounce it perfectly well. You’re just trying to be annoying and are succeeding.”
“Anyway, Callista is an excellent choice as a companion. Have you gone to see her yet?”
“I plan to call on her tomorrow morning. We are supposed to go see Ashthuva tomorrow evening, after the sacrifice at the Temple of Vesta.”
“Take some of the men,” I advised. “I don’t like the idea of you wandering around the city at night. It’s far from safe, despite what our dictator would like us to think.”
“I’ll take a couple of torch boys,” she said. “Servilia has a veritable private army and Atia always has some of Caesar’s veterans as a bodyguard.”
“There was a time when Romans didn’t go around in fear of their fellow citizens,” I grumbled.
Julia smiled at me fondly. “There was a time when the gods came down from Olympus to sort out people’s problems, too.”
5
Caesar was getting impatient. There was a meeting of the Senate that morning, as there was almost every morning since he had assumed power. As dictator he could even set aside days that were nefasti, when official business was forbidden. Before his time, meetings had been irregular, usually called by a sitting consul or some other very prominent senator or one of the highest priests. However, Caesar had much to accomplish and he wanted his senators to attend upon him like a court before an oriental king, another of his regal habits that so many found so annoying.
On that morning, after assigning duties to a number of senators he surprised us by announcing the reception of an envoy. “Conscript Fathers,” he said, stealing one of Cicero’s favorite turns of phrase, “today we receive Archelaus, the envoy of King Phraates of Parthia.”
“But, Caesar,” said a very old senator, “by ancient custom we receive envoys in a temple, not in the Curia.”
“This is Pompey’s theater,” Caesar pointed out. “I can’t think of a better place to receive a representative of a country like Parthia or a king like Phraates. If any of you are too traditional for that, remember that up at the top of the auditorium is the Temple of Venus. That’s close enough. Call him in.”
A lictor went out and returned a minute later with Archelaus, accompanied by a few colleagues. All of them, like Archelaus himself, appeared to be Greeks. I saw not a single one who looked like a Parthian. They stopped before Caesar’s curule chair and bowed low in the eastern fashion.
“Parthia salutes great Caesar,” Archelaus intoned.
“Would that Parthia had come personally,” Caesar said, fiddling with a ring and gazing off at a carving somewhere on the ceiling. It was behavior very unlike Caesar and I wondered what it might signify. “Your king presumes much, sending ambassadors when it is clear that a state of war exists between our nations, as it must until the stain of Carrhae is blotted from history, the death of my friend Marcus Crassus and that of his son avenged, the Roman captives freed, and the Roman dead given the proper rites, which shall be performed by me, their pontifex maximus.”
He spoke this in a very quick, clipped, and rather agitated voice. I looked around and saw many faces that looked bemused, puzzled, or dismayed. The mobile, expressive face of Cicero in particular was a mask of alarm. Brutus looked concerned. Marcus Antonius seemed amused and mildly bored, but then he often looked that way at Senate meetings.
“Great Caesar,” Archelaus began, “there is no cause for such enmity between Rome and Parthia. No cause for war ever existed between our nations. The campaign of Marcus Crassus was the military adventure of a lone man. The Senate of Rome never condoned it. The people of Rome, through their tribunes, expressed their an
ger at the temerity of Crassus.” This was all quite true, but Caesar was unmoved.
“Marcus Crassus was my friend,” he reiterated. “A Roman army was massacred at Carrhae. Eagles were captured. Those eagles are the tutelary gods of our legions, sacred to every Roman soldier. Until those standards are returned to the Temple of Saturn,” here he pointed in the direction of that temple, “then the hand of every true Roman is raised against every Parthian, sword drawn.”
“Caesar,” Archelaus said, this time omitting the “great” part, “the return of your eagles is a point for negotiation. It need not involve a resumption of hostilities.”
“Rome does not bargain like some merchant for possession of her gods. What was taken from us at sword’s point we will recover with sword in hand. Inform your king of this.”
Now the Senate looked truly appalled. This was high-handed behavior even for a dictator. Ordinarily, war was debated at great length in the Senate and the Assemblies. When it came to war, the Senate usually had the upper hand of all our plethora of public bodies, although the comitia tributa and consilium plebis apportioned the commands. For Caesar to address a foreign ambassador in this way, without even the pretense of consulting the Senate, was more than the act of a tyrant. It was a deep, personal insult to the Senate as a body. Had he simply briefed us on his plans, motives, and goals, we would have stood behind him to a man, even his enemies. We always do that in time of war. He was dictator, but there are limits. I wondered if Caesar was becoming unhinged.
“Mighty Caesar,” now Archelaus’s tone was somewhat less than respectful, “it pains me to remind you that you speak these vaunting words to a king whose army, although smaller than that of Crassus, smashed those legions as utterly as Hannibal ever did.” There was a collective gasp from all around. To speak that name in such a fashion, to the very Senate of Rome, was unprecedented. Then he went on, in a more moderate tone. “But it ill behooves statesmen to harangue one another like schoolboys. We have deliberative bodies,” here he turned and gave the Senate a slight bow, “and exchange ambassadors between nations, so that we may behave as mature men.”
“I do not speak as a statesman,” Caesar said, his hand working on the ivory baton that he usually carried when presiding over the Senate. “I speak as the commander in chief of all Rome’s armies, the dictator, with total imperium.” As if anyone needed reminding of this, Caesar was seated as usual with a golden wreath, dressed in his triumphator’s purple robe and scarlet boots, his twenty-four lictors arrayed before him.
“Caesar, I am my king’s ambassador, but even I—”
“You are no ambassador,” Caesar interrupted rudely. “You are some sort of diplomatic mercenary in the pay of a sovereign who is not your own. Go and report my words to him. Now get out of my sight.”
This was a rare spectacle even for the Senate of Rome. Archelaus and his entourage left with flaming faces, at which no one could be surprised. I noticed a number of senators giving them looks and gestures of sympathy. I had only the slightest acquaintance with Archelaus, but I felt his humiliation keenly.
Caesar rose from his curule chair and I saw a slight lurch, the faintest loss of balance, when he did so. I had always known him as a man of superb physical address. This slight lapse was as disturbing to me as anything that had happened that day. “Senators!” he said. “I now call a recess of this meeting. Go refresh yourselves. I shall wish to see some of you in one hour.” He called off several names and mine was among them. Then he went out by way of the door to the rear of the dais, just behind the statue of Pompey the Great.
The meeting broke up in confusion, as might be suspected. Little knots of senators formed to talk over the extraordinary events that had just transpired. The pro-Caesar and anti-Caesar factions were well represented, naturally. I went outside and found the group I wanted to join, standing in the shade of the portico. They were gathered around Cicero. Brutus was among them, along with Cassius Longinus, Calpurnius Piso, and other distinguished men. Cicero smiled when he saw me approach. He took my hands courteously. “Well, Decius Caecilius, what do you make of all this?” I was no longer of any great political importance since the destruction of my family, but Cicero acted as if my name still meant something.
“It’s the most remarkable performance I’ve ever seen him put on,” I said. “I saw him receive deputations of German barbarians in Gaul with greater respect.”
“But,” sputtered a conservative old senator, “did you hear how that man threw the name of Hannibal right into our faces?” There were mutters of agreement.
“Personally, I don’t blame the man,” said Brutus, surprising everyone. “He was provoked beyond endurance. So what if he is a Greek professional? Such persons have been employed for centuries when feelings between two nations are too intense for rational discourse. They are always to be accorded the courtesies due to ambassadors just as if they were fellow nationals of the powers that employ them.”
“That is very correct, Marcus Junius,” Cicero said. “What we just saw in there was something unprecedented. As dictator, Caesar has the constitutional right to act according to his own judgment, without having to consult the Senate or anyone else. But we have always chosen dictators who are men of sound principles, dedicated to the welfare of Rome.”
“That was when dictators were chosen by the Senate,” Cassius said. “Let us make no mistake about it, this dictatorship is unconstitutional, just like the dictatorship of Sulla. It is no more than a military coup. At least Sulla had the decency to step down from office once he had the constitution reordered to his liking. I do not foresee Caesar doing any such thing.”
“Not likely,” Cicero agreed, shaking his head sadly. “He has publicly declared Sulla’s abdication of office the act of a political moron.”
“What shall we do about this?” said a senator I now recognized as Cornelius Cinna, formerly Caesar’s brother-in-law.
“Do?” I said. “What can anyone do about a dictator? They are above the law and their powers override the constitution. Nobody has ever unseated a dictator.”
“But this situation cannot continue,” Cassius said. “I was at Carrhae and I want those eagles back as much as any man, but it must be done by a Roman army under constitutional command. We’ve had enough of one-man adventures in that part of the world.”
“I cannot accept even a dictator setting foreign policy that will last far beyond his own dictatorship,” Cicero said. “This has never been our way.”
With a sour feeling I saw in them the futility of the Senate, and the very reason Caesar had made himself dictator. The Senate, once the most remarkable body of men in the world, had degenerated into a pack of greedy, self-seeking politicians who had put their own narrow, selfish interests ahead of the common good of Rome. Even the ones like this lot, who were better than most, could only look back to some sort of idealized past with a vague notion of restoring the good old days.
Caesar was a man with a different vision. He saw the Senate as a futile body, so he ignored it or made use of it as he saw fit. He saw that the day of the old Republic was over and he replaced it with one-man rule. Since he was well aware that he was the best man in Rome, he saw no reason why he should not be that ruler.
“Here’s Antonius,” somebody muttered. The seditious talk silenced. That is how serious these men were. The great Antonius swaggered up to us, his toga draped carelessly. He only wore one to formal occasions like a Senate meeting, preferring to go about in a tunic that was briefer than most, the better to show off his magnificent physique. He had a wonderful build and a great many battle scars, and was inordinately proud of both, as well as of that endowment of which Fulvia had spoken.
“Well, it looks official now,” Antonius said without greeting anyone formally. “No turning back from this war now that Caesar’s dressed that Greekling down so publicly.”
“You didn’t find it rude?” Cicero said dryly.
“Rude? You can’t be rude to an enemy. You can speak f
orcefully, though.”
“On a basis of forcefulness, then,” Cicero said, “I cannot find fault with the proceedings.”
“I think Caesar should have beheaded the lot,” Antonius said, “then pickled the heads in brine and send them to Phraates. That’s the sort of language a Parthian understands.”
“Or an Antonius,” Cicero said, “but, as a wise dispensation of our ancestors would have it, Rome can have only one dictator at a time.”
“Of course there can be only one dictator,” Antonius said. “What use would it be to have two?”
“What, indeed?” said Cicero, with the air of a man hurling catapult stones at a rabbit. The others suppressed grins, but I watched Antonius and did not like what I saw. His own little smile of amusement was confident. He was far shrewder than his enemies guessed and his show of genial boneheadedness was a pose.
“Will he take you with him, Marcus?” I asked.
His expression soured. “No, it’s still the city prefecture. Calpurnius and Cassius are to go, though.”
“You’ll have your chance,” Calpurnius Piso said. “Once Caesar has added Parthia to the empire, he may want to take India.”
“That would be something,” Antonius said, brightening. “Awful long march, though.”
In time we went off in search of lunch. A great many taverns had sprung up all around Pompey’s theater complex. I joined a couple of senators of no great reputation at a table beneath an awning and ordered heated, spiced wine. The day was cool but clear, the air free of the many stenches that pervade Rome in the summer. Hermes found me there just as a heaping platter of sausages arrived. He had spent the morning exercising at the Statilian school and upon arrival he sat, snatched up a sausage and bit it in two all in a single motion.
“Did you speak with Asklepiodes?” I asked him.
He swallowed. “I did. The old boy’s at his wits’ end. He can’t stand it that somebody’s found a way to kill people that he can’t understand. He keeps wailing that he needs to find something he calls the fulcrum. Half the boys have sore necks because he’s been experimenting on them.”
SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion Page 8