“Might it not become a republic again, Uncle?”
Caesar smiled, as if at a whimsical notion. “Anything is possible, I suppose-even that! No man of my generation could find a way to make the Republic work, but perhaps men of a later day will be able to do so. Meanwhile, I think ahead. I do my best to shape the course of the future. It may be that I will live to be very old and that I will work out a means to pass on my legacy intact; or I may die tonight, as my father and his father died, struck down by the gods without warning. At present, my will provides for my heirs, and of course you are among them, Lucius. But if my power endures and if my plans come to fruition, more complicated arrangements will be required.
“I tell you all this, Lucius, because it may be that the gods have in mind for you a very special destiny. Through your descent from the Julii, you are the offspring of Venus, no less than I myself. Through your father’s line, you carry one of the oldest names in Roma’s history. The Pinarii are very ancient-but you, Lucius, are very young. You’ve accomplished nothing, as yet; but neither have you made mistakes. Prepare yourself. Be loyal to me. Prove yourself in battle. Observe the conduct of other men; adopt their virtues and avoid their vices. I’m thinking specifically of Antonius. I know you feel close to him. But you have it in you to become a far better man than he is.”
Lucius frowned. “You place great trust in Antonius.”
“I do. But I’m not blind to his faults.”
Having been taken so deeply into Caesar’s confidence, Lucius felt emboldened to ask him about the incident a month earlier, when Antonius had three times offered Caesar the diadem during the Lupercalia.
“You were there,” said Caesar. “You saw all that took place. What did you think?”
“I think you staged the incident, like a play, to test the citizen’s reaction to a crown. When you saw that so many disapproved, you reassured them that you had no desire to be their king.”
Caesar nodded. “In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be. It’s a tricky business, this matter of crowns and titles. Shall I tell you another secret?”
Lucius nodded.
“Tomorrow, before the debate regarding the Parthian command, one of my loyal senators will make an announcement regarding the Sibylline Books. It appears that the priests in charge of interpreting the verses have discovered a most remarkable passage, which indicates that the Parthians can be conquered only by a king. I refused the diadem that was offered to me by Antonius at the Lupercalia, to the applause of the people. But what if the Senate should implore Caesar to accept a royal title, to ensure the conquest of Parthia?”
“You will become a king, then?” said Lucius. “And this will happen tomorrow?”
Caesar smiled wryly. “This is the plan: The Senate will declare that Caesar is king of all Roman provinces outside Italy, with the right to wear a crown in any place other than Italy, on land or sea. This technicality will satisfy both Caesar’s need for authority and the need of the Senate and the citizens to believe themselves free of a king. Caesar will be king of the rest of the world, on Roma’s behalf.”
Lucius frowned. “Auguries and omens, and the Sibylline Books-are they merely tools for men to use? Do they not truly express the will of the gods?”
“Perhaps both propositions are true. Auguries and the rest are tools, yes; and the man who masters those tools does so because he is favored by the gods. It is a remarkable thing, how frequently divine will coincides with the designs of successful men.” Caesar smiled. “Of course, not every omen is favorable. If I listened to every warning I receive from every soothsayer on every street corner in Roma, I might never leave my house, and I certainly would not venture out to address the Senate tomorrow!”
“Have you received a specific warning?”
“Too many to relate! Shooting stars, goats born two-headed, tears from statues, letters mysteriously formed in the sand-all sorts of portents have been brought to my attention in the last month. Some of these warnings specifically cite the Ides of Martius as a day of ill omen. That’s one reason Antonius has been playing mother hen lately. He thinks I should be surrounded by a bodyguard at all times. But Caesar has decided to ignore these so-called omens and do as he wishes.”
Their quiet conversation was abruptly interrupted by loud voices from a side street. A group of men was heading straight toward them. Caesar seized Lucius’s arm and pulled him into a doorway.
The men began to sing, loudly and badly out of tune. They were obviously drunk. One of them spotted the two figures in the shadows of the doorway and stepped closer, peering at them.
“Numa’s balls! If it isn’t the spawn of Venus himself-our beloved dictator!”
“Who?” shouted one of his companions.
“Gaius Julius Caesar!”
“You liar!”
“No, I swear! Come see for yourselves.”
The men crowded around the doorway. Recognizing Caesar, they were briefly awed, then began a buffoonish mime of bowing and prostrating themselves. “King Caesar!” they cried. “All hail the king!”
Caesar showed no fear. He smiled and graciously acknowledged their gestures with a nod.
One of them staggered back and flung out his arms, miming a crucifixion. “Look at me! I’m a pirate! Oh, great Caesar, have mercy on me!”
Another pulled his tunic up to hide his head. “Look at me! I’m Pompeius after he landed in Egypt! Merciful Caesar, give me back my head!”
“And I’m the Queen of the Nile!” said another, mincing about and putting his fists inside his tunic to mime enormous breasts. “Ravish me, great Caesar! Our baby will be the next king of Egypt!”
They continued with their buffoonery for a while, then seemed to forget what they were doing. Waving good-bye, they moved on and broke into another song. Only when they were out of sight did Caesar relax his grip on Lucius’s arm.
Lucius looked at his great-uncle’s face in the moonlight. Caesar’s eyes glittered with a peculiar excitement. However briefly, Caesar had felt a moment of genuine fear. Its passing seemed to have left him neither angry nor shaken, but exhilarated.
The next day was the Ides of Martius.
Lucius awoke drenched with sweat. His room was dark. The faint blue light that precedes the dawn silhouetted the shutters drawn across his window. Somewhere in the distance a cock was crowing.
He had been experiencing one of those strange dreams in which the dreamer is both participant and observer, aware that he is dreaming and yet unable to stop the dream. In it, Caesar had died. A great multitude had gathered to hear the reading of his will. On the steps of a temple, a Vestal virgin produced a scroll and handed it to Marcus Antonius. Antonius unrolled the document and proceeded to read. Lucius stood at the front of the crowd, but strain as he might, he could not hear the names being read. The roar of the crowd was too great. He wanted to tell the others to be quiet, but he could not open his mouth to speak. He could not move at all. Antonius continued to read, but Lucius could not hear, speak, or move.
The dream was not exactly a nightmare, yet he awoke feeling shaken and covered with sweat. He staggered from his bed and opened the shutters. The cock crowed again. The view from his window showed a jumble of rooftops, the irregular spires of cypress trees, and a glimpse of the Temple of Jupiter atop the Capitoline, rebuilt since its destruction by fire in Sulla’s time. All was bathed in soft light; the world might have been made of ancient, weathered marble, without color or sharp edges.
Lucius filled his lungs with cool, bracing air. The glaze of sweat evaporated from his flesh and left him covered with goosebumps. The dream had been oppressive and disturbing, but now he was awake. The world was just as he had left it, and the first glimmer of sunlight across the rooftops marked the beginning of a day like any other.
And yet, in a matter of hours, Caesar would receive the Senate’s command to begi
n the conquest of Parthia. He would be declared king of all provinces beyond Italy. The age of the Republic would end, and a new age would begin.
Anxious to leave his room and his uneasy dream behind, Lucius quickly dressed. He put on his best tunic, which was bright blue with a yellow hem, and strapped on his best pair of shoes. When the people began cheering Caesar’s decision to wage war against Parthia, it would not do for Caesar’s young kinsman to be seen wearing his second-best.
He left the house and wandered aimlessly for a while, watching the city awaken. At the great houses on the Palatine, slaves opened front doors to air the vestibules, extinguished the lamps that had burned all night, and swept the thresholds. Between two houses, Lucius caught a distant view of the Forum Boarium and the Tiber waterfront. Down in the marketplace, merchants were setting up shop. Many had special displays of baskets stuffed with food. Customers were already lining up to buy the baskets. Lucius had forgotten that this was the feast day of Anna Perenna, a holiday celebrated only by the plebeians.
Anna Perenna was the crone goddess, always portrayed with gray hair, a wrinkled face, and a stooped back; she wore a traveling cloak and carried baskets stuffed with food. Her legend dated to the early days of the Republic, when the plebeians staged their first so-called secession, withdrawing en masse from the city to protest the special privileges of the patricians and to demand tribunes for their protection. When the plebeians ran low on provisions, an old woman calling herself Anna Perenna appeared among them with baskets of food. No matter how much food people took from the baskets, the baskets remained miraculously full, and so the plebs never went hungry.
After the secession, Anna Perenna vanished, never to be seen again. On the day sacred to her, the Ides of Martius, plebeian families left the city to picnic on the banks of the Tiber. They gathered their own baskets of food, or bought ready-made baskets at the market. They pitched small tents and laid out blankets. Children played games with balls and sticks in the grass. Young couples courted in leafy bowers. Everyone ate and drank their fill, then dozed on the banks of the river. At sundown, the plebeian families would stream back into the city in an informal procession, singing songs of praise to Anna Perenna.
The holiday meant little to Lucius. Being a patrician, he had never taken part. Still, strolling across the Forum, passing families on their way to the river carrying food baskets, blankets, and toys, he found their festive mood infectious. It further amused him to think that among all these carefree revelers, he alone knew what a momentous and memorable day this would turn out to be, thanks to the special requests that Caesar would put before the Senate.
Thinking of Caesar, Lucius walked to the area directly north of the ancient Forum, where a large tract of land had in recent years been cleared and rebuilt by his great-uncle and named after him. The Julian Forum was surrounded by a vast rectangular portico of gleaming marble columns. At one end stood the new temple dedicated to Venus, constructed of solid marble, the fulfillment of a vow Caesar had made to the goddess before his victory at Pharsalus. In front of the temple was a fountain adorned with nymphs. Dominating the open square was a magnificent statue of Caesar armored for battle and sitting atop a white charger.
Work on the forum was not finished. When it was done, the portico would open onto courtrooms and legal offices. The comings and goings of scribes, secretaries, judges, and advocates would make the Julian Forum one of the busiest spots in Roma. As it was, on this morning, Lucius was the only person present. He walked under the statue of Caesar, amused to see the very grave look on his great-uncle’s face, then past the fountain, which was full of water but not splashing. Its still face reflected the perfect proportions and dazzling marble facade of the Temple of Venus.
Lucius mounted the steps. A temple slave dozing beside the doorway stirred at his approach. Recognizing Lucius-the dictator’s kinsmen were frequent visitors to the temple of their ancestress-the slave hastily opened the doors for him.
In Lucius’s opinion, the inside of the temple was the most beautiful interior space in all of Roma, perhaps in all the world. The floors, walls, ceiling, and columns were made of solid marble in a staggering array of colors, and newly finished, so that every surface gleamed with a mirror-like polish. The facing walls of the short vestibule were decorated by two of the most famous paintings in the world, the Ajax and the Medea by the renowned artist Timomachus. Within the sanctuary, displayed in six cabinets, were the extraordinary collections of jewels and gemstones which Caesar had acquired in his travels. To Lucius, the most fascinating item was a savage-looking breastplate strung with tiny pearls from the island of Britannia.
At the far end of the chamber, magnificent upon her pedestal, stood Venus herself, as captured in marble by Arcesilaus, the most highly paid sculptor in the world. The goddess stood with one arm bent back to touch her shoulder and her other arm slightly extended; one of her breasts was bare. The molding of her serene features and the folds of her thin gown were extraordinarily delicate.
Next to Venus stood an equally impressive statue of Cleopatra, executed in bronze and covered with gold. The queen was portrayed not in the outlandish garb of the Pharaohs, which the Ptolemies had appropriated when they assumed the rule of Egypt, but in elegant Greek dress, more chastely covered than Venus and wearing a simple diadem on her brow. To Lucius’s eye, Cleopatra was not a particularly beautiful woman-certainly not as beautiful as the idealized image of Venus beside her-but the sculptor had nonetheless managed to capture that indefinable quality that had so captivated a man like Caesar. Caesar’s decision to place her statue in the new Temple of Venus had sparked intense speculation about his intentions. If the purpose of the temple was to honor his ancestress, what place did the queen of Egypt have there, unless Caesar intended to make her the mother of his own descendents?
Lucius had met the queen only once, when she first arrived in Roma for her state visit. During the feasting and entertainments, Lucius had been briefly introduced to her as one of Caesar’s young relatives. The queen had been gracious but aloof; Lucius had been completely tongue-tied. Since then, Caesar had installed Cleopatra at a sumptuous garden estate on the farther bank of the Tiber, where the queen had hosted a number of lavish dinners to introduce herself to the city’s elite.
Staring up at her statue, Lucius felt a sudden impulse to pay her a visit. Why not? Caesar’s overtures to him the previous night emboldened him. Lucius was not just one of the great man’s heirs; he was Caesar’s confidante. He had as much right to pay a social call on the queen of Egypt as any other Roman. To be sure, he was not formally outfitted in his toga, but he was wearing his best tunic. He turned about, left the temple, and headed for the bridge across the Tiber.
Passing through the marketplace in the Forum Boarium, he was surrounded by plebeians on their way to celebrate the Feast of Anna Perenna. There were so many of them heading out of the city that there was a queue to cross the bridge. On the other side, the picnickers drifted toward the public grounds along the riverbank, but Lucius pressed further on, toward the grand private estates that fronted the most desirable stretch of the Tiber. Here the wealthy of Roma had their second homes outside the city, where they could relax in their gardens, pursue the fashionable hobby of beekeeping, and go boating and swimming in the river.
At one of the grandest of these houses, owned by Caesar, Cleopatra had taken up residence. When Lucius knocked at the gate, an Egyptian slave, his eyes outlined with kohl, peered at him through the peephole. Lucius announced himself-“Lucius Pinarius, great-nephew of Gaius Julius Caesar”-and a few moments later the slave opened the gate.
The big man peered beyond him. “Only you?” he said in Greek.
Lucius laughed. “I suppose the queen has very few visitors who arrive without an entourage, and on foot. But yes, it’s only me. My uncle is otherwise engaged today, as the queen probably knows.”
He was conducted to a sunny garden with a view of the river. The garden was formally laid out, with manicured
shrubs, gravel paths, and carefully pruned rose bushes. Tucked amid the shrubbery were quaint pieces of Greek statuary. Lucius noticed one of a winged Eros kneeling down to touch a butterfly, and another of a young boy absorbed in pulling a thorn from his foot. Lucius sat on a stone bench and gazed at the sparkles of morning sunlight on the river.
“You’re as pretty as a statue.”
Lucius stood and turned to see the queen standing nearby.
“Please, remain seated,” she said. “I was enjoying the sight of you. You looked like another statue in the garden: Roman Boy Contemplating the Tiber.”
“I’m not a boy, Your Majesty,” said Lucius, bristling slightly. “I would have worn my toga, but-”
“Roman men and their togas! I’m afraid they always look slightly ridiculous to me.”
“The men or the togas?”
Cleopatra smiled. “You’re a sharp one,” she said. “And of course you’re not a boy. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know how vexing it can be, when one is young but determined to be taken seriously.”
Cleopatra herself was no more than twenty-five. Her statue in the temple made her look older, Lucius thought, as had her royal raiment when he first met her. On this day she wore a simple, sleeveless linen gown tied at the waist with a gold-threaded sash. Her hair, usually pinned atop her head, hung down on either side of her face. She wore no diadem. The day was early, and the queen was not yet dressed for formal visitors.
“It’s good of you to receive me,” said Lucius.
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