Roma.The novel of ancient Rome r-1

by Steven Saylor

  Lucius brought the money. Phagites and his men left without another word. Julia was too distraught to speak. Gaius staggered to his dining couch and collapsed on it.

  Lucius felt Gaius’s forehead. The young man was again burning with fever.

  Despite Gaius’s illness, later that night Lucius and Julia summoned a litter and took him to another hiding place. If Phagites had found Gaius, so might someone else. The fact that his name was not yet among the proscribed clearly was no guarantee of safety.

  In the days and nights that followed, despite his lingering ague, Gaius moved from one refuge to another. Meanwhile, the elders of the Julii entered into frantic negotiations with members of Sulla’s inner circle, trying to remove Gaius from danger. Lucius met with the Julii daily, hoping for good news.

  The proscriptions continued. New names were added daily. Lucius began to fear that he himself might be added to the lists. He made sure that the door broken down by Phagites and his men was repaired and made stronger than before. He kept a dagger on his person at all times. He purchased a quick-acting poison from a dubious character on the waterfront, and gave it to Julia for safekeeping. Death by beheading would be grisly but swift, he told himself, but he shuddered to think of what might be done to Julia once he was gone. He wanted her to have a means of quick escape. What times they lived in, that a man should have to plan for such contingencies!

  One day a visitor came to the house, attended by many bodyguards. He was a beautiful young man with a mane of golden hair. Lucius recognized him: Chrysogonus, an actor who had become one of Sulla’s favorites. Ever since he was young, Sulla had had a weakness for actors, and especially for blonds. Chrysogonus was dressed in a tunic made of a sumptuous green fabric embroidered with silver stitching. The garment must have cost a fortune, Lucius thought. He wondered who had died so that Sulla’s catamite could wear it.

  “I won’t stay long,” said Chrysogonus, gazing about the vestibule with a practiced eye, as if scrutinizing a property that might someday be his. “My friend Felix sends you a message.”

  Lucius could barely stifle his disgust at hearing a former slave and actor speak so familiarly of the most powerful man in Roma. Chrysogonus, sensing his disdain, fixed him with a cold stare. Lucius’s mouth turned dry. “What does Sulla say?”

  “Your wife’s brother will be spared-”

  “You’re certain?” Julia, who had remained out of sight, rushed to Lucius’s side.

  “If you will allow me to finish?” Chrysogonus raised an eyebrow. “Gaius Julius Caesar will be spared-but only on the condition that my friend Felix is able to meet with him face to face.”

  “So that he can see the boy beheaded with his own eyes?” snapped Lucius.

  Chrysogonus gave him a baleful look. “The dictator will call on you tonight. If he sincerely wishes to receive the dictator’s pardon, the young Caesar will be here.” With a theatrical flair, Chrysogonus spun about on his heel and departed, surrounded by his bodyguards.

  A festive retinue appeared in the street outside Lucius’s house that night. Chrysogonus was among them, along with several other actors and mimes, male and female; they laughed and joked among themselves, as if out for a carefree stroll by torchlight. The bodyguards looked more like trouble-loving street toughs than staid, sober lictors. Sobriety was in short supply. Several members of the party were obviously drunk.

  Perusing the group through the peephole of his front door, Lucius shook his head.

  Sulla himself arrived in a curtained red litter carried by a phalanx of burly slaves. One of them dropped to his hands and knees so that the dictator could use his back as a step to descend to the street. Seeing him, Lucius sucked in a breath, appalled that the fate of the Republic and its citizens should rest in the hands of such a decayed specimen. Once strappingly muscular, the very image of a dashing Roman general, Sulla had grown jowly and fat. His complexion had always been splotchy-“mulberries covered with oatmeal,” as some described it-but now a skein of spidery red veins had been added to his blemishes.

  The dictator banged his fist against the door. Lucius stepped back and nodded to a slave to open it, then stood straight to greet his visitor. Sulla stepped past him and entered the vestibule without a word, alone, bringing not a single bodyguard with him. Did he think himself invulnerable? He had named himself Felix, after all.

  Gaius awaited him in the atrium. Physically, the young man could not have presented a greater contrast to the dictator. Naturally slender, with a long face, Gaius had been rendered even leaner by his illness, and his bright eyes glittered with fever. Despite his weakness, his bearing was fearless. He stood with his shoulders back and his chin held high. For the occasion he wore a toga borrowed from Lucius. Even with Julia’s nips and tucks, it hung on him loosely.

  While Lucius stood to one side, Sulla gave Gaius a long, appraising look. He stepped closer.

  “So this is young Caesar,” he finally said. “I stare, and you stare back at me. I frown, but you do not blanch. Who do you think you are, young man?”

  “I am Gaius Julius Caesar. I am the son of my father, who was praetor. I am the scion of the Julii, an ancient patrician house. We trace our lineage back to Venus herself.”

  “Maybe so. But when I look at you, young man, I see another Marius.”

  Lucius held his breath. His heart pounded in his chest. Did Sulla intend to kill Gaius with his bare hands?

  The dictator laughed. “Nonetheless, I have decided to spare you, and so I shall-as long as my conditions are met.”

  Lucius stepped forward. “Dictator, you requested that young Caesar should meet you face and face, and here he is. What more…?”

  “First and foremost,” said Sulla, speaking to Gaius, “you must divorce your wife, Cornelia. And then-”

  “Never.” Gaius stood still. His face showed no emotion, but his voice was adamant.

  Sulla raised an eyebrow. His fleshy forehead was creased with furrows. “I repeat: You must divorce Cornelia. In your marriage, the houses of my enemies Marius and Cinna are combined. I cannot have such a union-”

  “I refuse.”

  “You what?”

  “I refuse. Even a dictator cannot make such a demand of a Roman citizen.”

  Sulla stared at him blankly. His florid complexion became even redder. He nodded slowly. “I see.”

  Lucius braced himself. He felt for the dagger under his toga, and wondered if he would have the courage to use it. What was Gaius thinking, to speak to Sulla in such a way? It had to be the fever, making him delirious.

  And then, Sulla laughed, long and loudly.

  At last he stopped laughing, and spoke in a tone of wonderment. “Is it Marius I see in you, young man-or myself? I wonder! Very well, then, you may keep your head and your wife. But in return for this favor, it seems only fair that some member of your family must remarry to please me.” Sulla glanced over his shoulder. For the first time since entering the house, he looked directly at Lucius. “What about you?”

  “I, Dictator?”

  “Yes, you. What are you to this young man? His brother-in-law?”

  “Yes, Dictator.”

  “And where is the boy’s sister, your wife? I suppose she’s skulking nearby; they usually are. Out with you, woman! Step into the atrium where I can see you.”

  Julia emerged from behind a corner, looking very meek.

  “Why, she’s the very image of her brother! Very well, she can take her brother’s place. You and this fellow here-what’s your name, again?”

  “Lucius Pinarius, Dictator.”

  “You and Lucius Pinarius shall divorce at once. Since it’s a patrician marriage, certain formalities must be observed. I give you two days, no more. Do you both understand?”

  “Dictator, please,” whispered Lucius. “I beg you-”

  “After your marriage is dissolved, I don’t care what you do, Pinarius. But you, Julia, must remarry at once. You’re the niece of Marius, just as your brother is his nephew, a
nd I must keep a watch on all you Julii. But whom shall you marry? Let me think.” He tapped his forehead, then snapped his fingers. “Quintus Pedius! Yes, just the fellow.”

  “I don’t even know him!” said Julia. She was on the verge of tears.

  “Well, soon you shall know him very well indeed!” Sulla smiled broadly. “There, it’s settled. Young Caesar’s name will be removed from the upcoming proscription lists. Even so, I’d advise you to get out of town for a while; accidents happen. Also, young Caesar may keep his wife. Meanwhile, you two shall divorce-”

  “Dictator-”

  “Please, call me Felix.”

  “Lucius Cornelius Sulla-Felix-I beg you to reconsider. My wife and I are deeply devoted to one another. Our marriage is a-” He wanted to declare that their marriage was a love match, but it seemed obscene to speak of love in front of Sulla. “We have a young son. He’s still suckling at his mother’s breast-”

  Sulla shrugged. “Then let the child stay with his mother. You shall give up all claims to him. Let Quintus Pedius adopt him.”

  Lucius gaped, too stunned to speak. Julia began to sob.

  Gaius stepped forward, unsteady on his feet. He was the color of chalk. “Dictator, I see that I was wrong to oppose you. I shall do as you asked. I shall divorce Cornelia-”

  “You shall do no such thing!”

  “Dictator, it was never my intention-”

  “Your intentions mean nothing here. My will prevails. Your life is spared. Your marriage is preserved. But your sister and her husband will divorce each other.” He turned to Lucius. “Either that, or I shall see your name in the proscription lists, Pinarius, and your head on a stake!”

  With a dramatic flourish worthy of Chrysogonus, Sulla turned about and left the house. His entourage welcomed him back with drunken cheers and laughter. A slave quickly closed the door to shut out the raucous noises.

  Lucius stared at the floor. “After all our efforts…all our…sacrifices…our sleepless nights…the bribe I paid to Phagites…the humiliation…”

  “Brother-in-law,” whispered Gaius, “I never imagined-”

  “Don’t call me that! I’m your brother-in-law no longer!”

  From the nursery, the baby began to wail. Julia dropped to her knees, weeping.

  Lucius glared at Gaius. “It’s Julia and I who must now pay the price for your pride. To save your neck and preserve your precious dignity, we must give up everything. Everything!”

  Gaius opened his mouth, but could find nothing to say.

  “You owe us for this!” cried Lucius, pointing his finger at Gaius. “Never forget! Never forget the debt you owe to my son, and to his sons, for as long as you live!”

  Gradually, as thousands died or fled into exile, the frenzied pace of Sulla’s proscriptions subsided, but the dictator continued to rule Roma with an iron grip.

  His divorce left Lucius Pinarius a bitter and broken man. No one blamed him for his misfortune. Friends, many of whom had suffered terribly themselves, did their best to comfort him, and even praised his sacrifice. “You did what you had to, to save another man’s life,” they said. “You did it for the sake of your son and your wife; had you disobeyed, Sulla would have proscribed you, and your family would have been left destitute.”

  But no argument could alleviate Lucius’s anguish and regret. To save his family, he had lost his family. To keep his head, he had surrendered his dignity.

  Julia’s new husband, Quintus Pedius, did nothing to bar Lucius from seeing his son, or Julia for that matter, but Lucius was ashamed to face them. To bow before a dictator reduced a man to a status hardly better than a slave; a Roman without honor was not a Roman at all.

  It would be best, he decided, if his loved ones considered him a dead man. Let Julia be as a widow who had remarried. Let his son be as an orphan. How much better it would have been if Lucius had died. If only he had caught the quartan ague from Gaius and died of that!

  So, like a dead man, he prematurely bequeathed to his son a precious heirloom: the golden fascinum which had been in the family for untold generations. The amulet was very worn, its shape hardly recognizable. Nonetheless, Lucius sent it to Julia with a prayer that it might protect their son from such a disaster as had overtaken his father. The talisman was passed to the next generation.

  Having no desire to remarry, despondent and forlorn, he lived alone in his house on the Palatine.

  As for Gaius, he took the advice of Sulla and left Roma as soon as he was able to travel. He accepted a military posting on the Aegean coast, serving on the staff of the praetor Minucius Thermus.

  Lucius thought about Gaius as little as possible, but one day, while crossing the Forum, he passed a group of men conversing and overheard a stranger mention Gaius’s name. Lucius stopped to listen.

  “Yes, Gaius Julius Caesar,” the man repeated, “the one whose father dropped dead a couple of years ago.”

  “Poor young fellow! I suppose King Nicomedes makes a dashing father figure, but no Roman should ever bend over to pleasure another man, not even a king.”

  “Especially not a king!”

  This was followed by salacious laughter. Lucius stepped forward. “What are you talking about?”

  “Young Caesar’s escapades in the East,” said one of the gossips. “The praetor Thermus sent him on a mission to King Nicomedes in Bithynia. Once Caesar got there, he didn’t want to leave. It seems he hit it off with the king a little too well, if you know what I mean. All that high living in the royal court turned the boy’s head-and Nicomedes is a handsome fellow, to judge by his coins. Meanwhile, Thermus is like a spurned husband, sending messenger after messenger demanding that Caesar return, but Caesar can’t bear to leave the king’s bed!”

  “How could you possibly know such a thing?” snapped Lucius. “If Caesar’s detained on a mission, there could be a hundred other explanations-”

  “Please!” The gossip rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s talking about it. Did you hear the latest joke? Sulla let him keep his head-but Nicomedes took his maidenhead!”

  There was a great deal of laughter. Lucius, disgusted, stalked away with his jaw tightly clenched. He made his hands into fists. Tears welled in his eyes. Was it for this that he had sacrificed everything? So that a fatuous young man could desert his military post to live in luxury in Bithynia? What sort of Roman was Caesar, to speak admiringly of Gaius Gracchus and daydream about rebuilding the Roman state, and then to run off and play catamite to a Bithynian monarch? Lucius should have let Sulla take the young fool and do what he wanted with him!

  78 B.C.

  Belying the worst fears of his enemies-those few who remained alive-Sulla made good on his promise to step down from the dictatorship after two years.

  Declaring that his work was done, he restored full authority to the Senate and magistrates. In retirement he dictated his memoirs, and proudly boasted that, having rid Roma of the worst of the “troublemakers” (as he called those who opposed him), he had instituted reforms that would return the Republic “to the golden days before the Gracchi stirred the pot and threw everything into confusion.”

  But could even Sulla could turn back time? Since the destruction of Carthage, Roman politics had been driven by tremendous wealth and headlong expansion, and the ever-greater injustices and inequalities that resulted. Roma needed powerful generals to conquer new territories and enslave new populations; how else could more wealth be accumulated? But what was to be done when those generals grew jealous and suspicious of one another, and a citizenry riven with greed and resentment was compelled to choose sides? Civil war had resulted once. Nothing in Sulla’s reforms would stop such a war from happening again. If anything, his example was an encouragement to would-be warlords with dreams of absolute power. Sulla had shown that a man could ruthlessly exterminate all opposition, declare his actions to be legitimate and legal, and then retire to live out his days in comfort and peace, beloved by the friends and supporters who had benefited from his largesse.r />
  In the month of Martius, at his villa on the bay near Neapolis, at the age of sixty, Sulla died of natural causes. But his death was not an easy one, and in the revolting symptoms that plagued him some saw the hand of the goddess Nemesis, who restores balance to the natural order when injustice has been done.

  The disease began with an ulceration of the bowels, aggravated by excessive drinking and sumptuous living. Then the corruption spread, and converted his flesh into worms. Day and night, physicians picked the worms away, but more worms appeared to take their place. Then the pores of his flesh discharged a vile flux in such quantities that his bed and his clothing were saturated with it. No amount of bathing and scouring could stop the oozing discharge.

  Even in this wretched state, Sulla continued to conduct business. On the last full day of his life, he dictated the final chapter of his memoirs, concluding with this boast: “When I was young, a Chaldean soothsayer foretold to me that I would lead an honorable, upright life and end my days at the height of my prosperity. The soothsayer was right.”

  Sulla’s secretary then reminded him that he had been requested to settle the case of a local magistrate accused of embezzling public funds. The magistrate, who wished to defend himself, was in the antechamber, awaiting an interview. Sulla agreed to see him.

  The magistrate entered. Before the man could say a word, Sulla ordered the slaves in the room to strangle him on the spot. The slaves were Sulla’s private servants, not assassins; when they hesitated, Sulla became furious and shouted at them. The strain caused an abscess on his neck to rupture. He began to bleed profusely. In the resulting confusion, the magistrate ran for his life.

  Physicians came to stanch the bleeding, but Sulla’s end had come. He became confused and lost consciousness. He survived the night, but died the next morning.

  Some perverse but powerful inclination-the wish to see a dreadful episode to its bitter end, or the need to be absolutely certain that a terrifying creature is truly dead, beyond any doubt-drove Lucius Pinarius out of his house and into the streets to witness Sulla’s funeral.