The Judgment of Caesar

by Steven Saylor

  Caesar saw my reaction and joined me in front of the Venus. “Impressive, isn’t she?”

  “I’ve never seen her equal,” I admitted.

  “Nor have I. I’m told she was once the property of Alexander himself, and it was he who installed her in the very first royal palace built in Alexandria. Can you imagine? Alexander looked upon her face!”

  “And she looked upon the face of Alexander,” I said, gazing once more into the statue’s eyes and feeling irrationally flummoxed that I should be the first to blink and look away.

  Caesar nodded. “Upon Alexander’s death, Egypt devolved upon his general Ptolemy, and this statue became an heirloom of the new royal family. Do you know, I thought, when I first stepped into this room—knowing that King Ptolemy had chosen it for my personal quarters—I thought that this statue had been brought here especially to impress me, to make me feel at home, since Venus is my ancestor. But if you look at the way the pedestal fits against the floor, it’s obvious that she’s occupied this room for a very long time, perhaps for generations. So it seems that the guest was fitted to the room, and not the room to the guest.” He smiled. “And if you look very closely—here, Gordianus, step closer, she won’t bite—you can see that there’s a very fine, very slightly discolored line around her neck. Do you see?”

  I frowned. “Yes. The head must have been broken off at some point, then reattached.”

  “Exactly. And when I noticed that, I had to wonder: Did that wretched eunuch give me this room because he knows that Venus is my ancestor, and he wished to flatter me? Or did he install me here so as to give me yet another not-so-subtle reminder that anyone—even a deity—can lose a head?”

  I took my eyes from the Venus and stepped toward another of the windows. This one faced east, in the direction of the Jewish Quarter. In the open region beyond the city walls, I discerned the meandering course of the canal that led toward Canopus and the Nile beyond. “You have spectacular views.”

  “You should see them in the daytime. The harbor on one side, the lake on the other—it’s hard to imagine a more ideal location for a city.

  One can see why Alexander thought that he might someday rule the whole world from this spot, once he finished conquering it.”

  “But he never had the chance,” I said. “Before he could enjoy the fruits of his conquests, he died.” A stillness filled the room. Even the Venus seemed to hold her breath, taken aback to hear words of evil omen.

  “The evening is warm,” Caesar said. “Shall we dine outside, on the terrace overlooking the harbor?”

  I followed him onto the flagstone terrace, which was lit by braziers set upon bronze tripods with lion’s feet. He took one couch, and I took the other. The moonlight upon the lighthouse skewed my sense of perspective and created the illusion that the tower was a miniature replica, and that if I were to reach out beyond the balustrade, I might lay my hand upon it.

  I looked to the west, where a massive structure rose even higher than the room in which Caesar was installed. “What’s over there?”

  “That’s the theater, which presents a steep wall toward the town and opens to the harbor, to which it has access. It’s directly adjacent to this building; the space between is quite narrow and could easily be fortified.”

  “Fortified?”

  “Yes, with stones, piled-up rubble, that sort of thing. I’ve been thinking that the theater could serve very nicely as a citadel, easily defended from attack on the landward side, open for reinforcements from the sea.”

  “Do you anticipate the need for such a stronghold?”

  “Officially? No. But assessing the lay of the land has become second nature to me. Wherever I go, I look for strongholds, points of weakness, hiding places, overlooks.” He smiled. “I arrived here in Egypt with a relatively small force, Gordianus, hardly more than an honor guard; but a small number of well-trained men can hold their own against far greater numbers, if their position is carefully chosen.”

  “Will there be warfare in the city, then?”

  “Not if warfare can possibly be avoided. But one must be prepared for all eventualities, especially in a place as volatile as Alexandria.”

  “I see. There appear to be only two couches here on the terrace. Is it only the two of us for dinner?”

  “Why not? Since my arrival in Alexandria, this will be the first night I’ve dined with anyone who’s not a military man, a diplomat, a eunuch, or a spy.”

  I stiffened at the last word.

  Caesar fixed me with a sardonic gaze. “I am right, am I not, Gordianus? You’re not . . . a eunuch, are you?”

  He laughed. I did my best to laugh with him. He clapped his hands. A moment later the first course arrived, a platter of tilapia fish in a saffron brine. The server was apparently Caesar’s taster, as well. As he was displaying the dish for his master’s approval, he whispered, “Absolutely delicious!”

  Caesar smiled. “This meal is an indulgence for me, Gordianus. Pothinus has been quite stingy with apportioning rations to my men, claiming shortages in the city, though it seems to me that the king’s courtiers are quite well fed. But as long as the eunuch starves my men, I eat what they eat—except on a special occasion such as this.”

  Caesar ate with relish. I had little appetite.

  “I still don’t understand why you wished to see me,” I said.

  “Gordianus! You act as if I summoned you here with the intention of interrogating you. I merely asked Pothinus to convey an invitation to dinner, so that we could talk.”

  “About what?”

  “You gave me a bit of a start that day on the landing, when I saw you among the king’s retinue. Before I could point you out to Meto, you vanished. Later, I asked Pothinus, and he confirmed that it was indeed Gordianus the Finder I had seen, wearing a toga and standing by that extraordinary female. I’m curious to know how you came to be in Alexandria.”

  “Did you not ask Pothinus?”

  “I did, but I have no reason to believe anything that eunuch tells me. I should prefer to hear the truth from you.”

  I dropped any pretense of interest in the tilapia and gazed at the lighthouse. “I came to Egypt with my wife, Bethesda. She was ill. She desired to bathe in the Nile, believing its waters would cure her. Instead . . . she was lost in the river.”

  Caesar gestured for the slave to remove the fish. “Then it’s true. Pothinus told me as much. You have my sympathy, Gordianus. I know, from Meto, how dearly you loved your wife.” He was silent for a moment. “You must understand that this puts me in a delicate position. Meto doesn’t yet realize that you’re here in Alexandria.”

  “No? But that day, on the landing, I saw you speak to him, just after you recognized me. He turned to look in my direction. . . .”

  “And saw no one, except of course that extraordinary female, who was suddenly standing all alone, because you had disappeared. I never mentioned your name. I merely asked Meto to take a look at the man in the toga and tell me if my eyes deceived me. When he looked and saw no man in a toga, I let the matter drop—you may recall that I was rather busy with another small matter, exchanging greetings with the king of Egypt. Later, meeting privately with Pothinus—without Meto—I inquired about you, and Pothinus gave me an account of your arrival in Egypt. I saw no point in passing the tale on, third-hand, to Meto, at least not until I could speak to you in person. As a result, Meto remains unaware that you’re in Alexandria, and he knows nothing of the tragic news about your wife—and it hardly seems fitting that I should tell him, when you’re here. Surely the sad news should come from his father.”

  My heart jumped in my chest. “You didn’t invite him to come here tonight, did you?”

  “No. Meto doesn’t know with whom I’m dining tonight, only that I asked to be given complete privacy.” He laughed. “Perhaps he thinks I’m having a liaison with that extraordinary female.”

  “Her name is Merianis,” I said.

  Caesar smiled. “As a rule, I prefer to ke
ep Meto close to me at all times. He maintains the official diary of all my comings and goings—without his notes I’d find it impossible to write my memoirs—but I do occasionally draw a breath or eat a meal without him. Your son won’t be joining us tonight.”

  I felt a pain in my chest. “Please don’t refer him as my son.”

  Caesar shook his head. “Gordianus! The war has been very hard on you, hasn’t it? You’re rather like Cicero, in that way; you thrived during the old days, when everyone was dragging everyone else into the courts, bending laws to punish their political enemies, flinging reckless accusations, and casting dust in the jurors’ eyes. Now all that has changed. Things shall never be the same. I fear that the times we live in no longer suit you. You’ve become discontented, disgruntled—bitter, even—but you shouldn’t take it out on poor Meto. Ah, the second course has arrived: hearts of palm in spiced olive oil. Perhaps you’ll like this dish more than you did the tilapia.”

  Caesar ate. I stared at the food. He had touched on a point that had been troubling my sleep ever since I had seen Meto on the landing. Bethesda had not been kin to Meto by blood, any more than I was; but in every way that mattered she had been a mother to him. Meto would have to be told of her loss. He would want to know exactly what happened; he might have questions that only I could answer, doubts that only I could assuage. Did he not deserve to be told the facts by me, face-to-face?

  Caesar took a sip of wine. “Perhaps we should talk of something else. I understand that you witnessed the end of Pompey, and that you even helped to build his funeral pyre.”

  “Did Philip tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you had him thoroughly interrogated after Pothinus delivered him to you as a gift.”

  “That was an unfortunate moment. As a member of Pompey’s house-hold—as a renegade and an enemy of the Roman people—Philip should have been delivered to me in a more discreet fashion, along with any other prisoners of war. But I’ve treated him with great respect. He was never interrogated, in the sense that you suggest; I myself talked to him at length, in private, as you and I are talking now.”

  “Surely he told you everything you might wish to know about Pompey’s final days.”

  “Philip was revealing about some things, reticent about others. Since you were there, I should very much like to hear the tale from your lips.”

  “Why? So that you can gloat? Or to help you avoid the same fate at the hands of your Egyptian hosts?”

  His expression darkened. “When I looked upon Pompey’s head, I wept. He should never have met such an ignominious end.”

  “He should have been slaughtered by Roman arms, you mean, rather than Egyptian?”

  “I would have preferred that he die in battle, yes, rather than by trickery.”

  “So that you might claim the glory of killing him?”

  “I’m sure that death in battle would have been his preference, as well.”

  “But Pompey had his chance to die fighting, at Pharsalus. Instead, he fled. The end he met was gruesome, but quick. How many of the men you send into battle die as cleanly and as quickly, Consul, and for how many of those men do you weep? You can’t possibly weep for them all, or else you’d never be done weeping.”

  He looked at me coolly, betraying neither anger nor offense. I think he was unused to being spoken to in such a way, and was not sure what to make of it. Perhaps he thought I was a little mad.

  “There are other matters we might discuss, Gordianus. For example, during my absence from Rome, my wife has kept me abreast of events in the city. Calpurnia wrote me a particularly interesting letter about the scrape you got into when Milo and Caelius tried to rouse the people against me. She also told me the details of your involvement with that remarkable young woman called Cassandra. I gathered from Pothinus that another of your purposes in coming to Egypt was to allow Cassandra’s brother to scatter her ashes in the Nile.”

  “Yes. That was done on the same day that Bethesda was lost.”

  “What a dreadful day that must have been for you! I can only imagine the grief you must have felt, given the special bond that developed between you and Cassandra. But I’m glad that my wife was able to facilitate the disposal of Cassandra’s belongings after her death. I understand that Calpurnia took special care to see that you accepted Rupa into your household, and that you received the full amount of the bequest Cassandra intended for you.”

  This was the Caesar I knew: the consummate politician with an un-erring ability to find an adversary’s weakness, with the aim to either disarm or destroy him. Caesar had no need to destroy me, but if he could disarm my animosity by appealing to my emotions and win me over to his side, he would. His behavior toward me that evening had been above reproach, yet he had managed to prick at the guilt I felt for avoiding Meto, and now, in a single stroke, he was reminding me of the link that Cassandra formed between us and also of the special favor his wife, Calpurnia, had shown me following Cassandra’s death. Performing these subtle verbal manipulations came as second nature to him; perhaps he was hardly aware of what he was doing. Yet I felt his words acutely.

  “Cassandra was many things,” he said, his voice wistful. “Beautiful, gifted, amazingly intelligent. I can well understand how you came to desire her, admire her, perhaps even love her—”

  “I had rather not talk about her. Not here. Not with you.”

  He studied me for a long moment. “Why not? With whom else could you ever talk about Cassandra, except with me? You and I have seen much of the world, Gordianus. We two are survivors. There are so many things we could talk about. We should be friends, not enemies! I still don’t know what I ever did to offend you. I took your son into my confidence. I elevated him to a status far above that to which most freedmen could ever dream to aspire. Your son’s course in life has thus far been one glorious ascent, thanks to my largesse and his own strong spirit. You should be thankful to me, and proud of him! I don’t know what to make of you. Meto is equally baffled. Every Roman desires to please his father, and Meto is no different. Your estrangement causes him great pain—”

  “Enough of this, Caesar! Must you win every argument? Must every man in the world give you his love and devotion? I won’t do it. I can’t. I see the mess the likes of you and Pompey have made of the world, and I feel not love but a deep loathing. My son loves you, Caesar, with all his heart and soul, and with his body as well, or so the gossips insist. Is that not enough for you?”

  I stared at Caesar, who stared back me, speechless. Then both of us, in the same instant, felt the presence of another. We turned our heads in unison.

  Meto stood in the doorway.

  CHAPTER XIV

  “Father?” whispered Meto. He was dressed for duty, in gleaming armor with a short cape and a sword in a scabbard at his waist. The rigors of war agreed with him; he looked very lean and fit. He was a man of thirty-one now, but he still looked boyish to me and perhaps always would. His broad, handsome face was dark from the sun. His deep tan highlighted the battle scars scattered here and there on his bare arms and legs. Whenever I met him after a long separation, I counted those scars, fearful of finding new ones. I saw none. He had emerged from the Greek campaign and the battle of Pharsalus without a scratch.

  I made no reply.

  Caesar frowned. “Meto, What are you doing here? I told you I was not to be disturbed.”

  Meto’s eyes traveled back and forth between us. I looked away, unable to bear the confusion on his face. At last Caesar’s question seemed to penetrate his consciousness. “You said you were not to be disturbed, Imperator . . . except under one condition.”

  Caesar’s face lit up. His eyes glittered as if reflecting the beacon of the Pharos. “A message from the queen, at last?”

  “Not just a message, but a messenger, bearing a gift.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Just outside this room. A big, strapping fellow named Apollodorus. He claims that the gift he bears comes f
rom the queen herself.”

  “A gift?”

  “A rug, rolled up and carried in his arms.”

  Caesar sat back and pressed his palms together. “Who is this Apollodorus? What do we know about him?”

  “According to our intelligence, he’s Sicilian by birth. How he came to Alexandria and entered the service of Queen Cleopatra we don’t know, but he seems to have become her constant companion.”

  “A bodyguard?”

  “The chatter among the palace coterie loyal to Ptolemy is that Apollodorus is more than a bodyguard to the queen. He is an impressive specimen.”

  “Even so, I think we must discount such innuendos as vicious gossip,” suggested Caesar, who himself had been the target of whispering campaigns throughout his political career.

  Meto nodded. “Nevertheless, Apollodorus seems never to leave the queen’s side.”

  “He goes with her everywhere?”

  Meto nodded.

  “I see. How did this fellow get into the palace?”

  “He claims he rowed a small boat up to a secluded landing on the waterfront, disembarked with his rug, and made his way through the palace. How he got past Ptolemy’s guard, I don’t know—he obviously knows his way around the palace, and the place is said to be full of secret passages. He appeared at the Roman checkpoint, handed over a nasty-looking dagger and allowed himself to be searched, then told the guards that the rug he carried was a gift from the queen, who had instructed him to present it to no one but yourself, in person.”