Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  Clodius's father had been that Appius Claudius Pulcher who never managed to recoup his family fortune after his nephew, the censor Philippus, had thrown him out of the Senate and confiscated all his property as punishment for his stubborn loyalty to the exiled Sulla. His mother, the awesomely noble Caecilia Metella Balearica, had died giving birth to him, the sixth child in six years— three boys and three girls. The vicissitudes of war and always managing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time had meant that Appius Claudius Senior was never home, and that in turn had meant that Clodius's oldest brother, Appius Claudius Junior, was usually the only voice of authority available. Though all five of his charges were turbulent, self-willed and full of a desire to wreak havoc, baby Publius was the worst of them. Had he sampled some nonexistent firm discipline, perhaps Publius would have been less subject to the whims which dominated his childhood, but as all five of his elder siblings spoiled him atrociously, he did precisely as he liked, and very early in his life was convinced that of any Claudian who ever lived, he was the most different.

  At about the moment that his father died in Macedonia, he told big brother Appius that he would in future spell his name the popular way, Clodius, and would not use the family cognomen of Pulcher. Pulcher meant beautiful, and it was true that most of the Claudii Pulchri were handsome or beautiful; the original owner of the nickname, however, had received it because he owned a singularly unbeautiful character. "What a beauty!" people had said of him, and Pulcher stuck.

  Naturally Publius Clodius had been allowed to popularize the spelling of his name; the precedent had been set with his three sisters, the eldest of whom was known as Claudia, the middle as Clodia, and the youngest as Clodilla. Big brother Appius so doted on his charges that he could never resist granting any of them whatever they wanted. For example, if the adolescent Publius Clodius liked to sleep with Clodia and Clodilla because he had nightmares, why not? Poor little things, no mother and no father! Big brother Appius mourned for them. A fact which littlest brother Publius Clodius was well aware of, and used ruthlessly.

  At about the time that young Publius Clodius had put on his toga virilis and officially become a man, big brother Appius had brilliantly retrieved the tottering family fortune by marrying the spinster lady Servilia Gnaea; she had looked after six other noble orphans, those belonging to the Servilius Caepio, Livius Drusus and Porcius Cato menage. Her dowry was as immense as her lack of beauty. But they had care of orphans in common and she turned out to suit sentimental big brother Appius, who promptly fell in love with his thirty-two-year-old bride (he was twenty-one), settled down to a life of uxorious content, and bred children at the rate of one a year, thus living up to Claudian tradition.

  Big brother Appius had also managed to provide extremely well for his three dowerless sisters: Claudia went to Quintus Marcius Rex, soon to be consul; Clodia went to their first cousin Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (who was also the half brother of Pompey's wife, Mucia Tertia); and Clodilla went to the great Lucullus, fully thrice her age. Three enormously wealthy and prestigious men, two of whom were old enough to have already cemented familial power, and Celer not needing to do so because he was the senior grandson of Metellus Balearicus as well as the grandson of the distinguished Crassus Orator. All of which had worked out particularly well for young Publius Clodius, as Rex had not managed to sire a son on Claudia, even after some years of marriage; Publius Clodius therefore confidently expected to be Rex's heir.

  At the age of sixteen Publius Clodius went for his tirocinium fori, his apprenticeship as legal advocate and aspiring politician in the Forum Romanum, then spent a year on the parade grounds of Capua playing at soldiers, and returned to Forum life aged eighteen. Feeling his oats and aware that the girls thought him swoonable, Clodius looked around for a feminine conquest who fitted in with his ideas of his own specialness, which were growing by leaps and bounds. Thus he conceived a passion for Fabia—who was a Vestal Virgin. To set one's sights on a Vestal was frowned upon, and that was just the sort of amorous adventure Clodius wanted. In every Vestal's chastity resided Rome's luck; most men recoiled in horror from the very thought of seducing a Vestal. But not Publius Clodius.

  No one in Rome asked or expected the Vestal Virgins to lead sequestered lives. They were permitted to go out to dinner parties provided the Pontifex Maximus and the Chief Vestal gave approval of the venue and the company, and they attended all the priestly banquets as the equals of priests and augurs. They were permitted to have masculine visitors in the public parts of the Domus Publica, the State-owned house they shared with the Pontifex Maximus, though it was required to be a chaperoned business. Nor were the Vestals impoverished. It was a great thing for a family to have a Vestal in its ranks, so girls not needed to cement alliances by marriage were often given up to the State as Vestals. Most came with excellent dowries; those unprovided for were dowered by the State.

  Also aged eighteen, Fabia was beautiful, sweet-natured, merry and just a little stupid. The perfect target for Publius Clodius, who adored to make mischief of the kind which made people stiffen with outraged disapproval. To woo a Vestal would be such a lark! Not that Clodius intended to go as far as actually deflowering Fabia, for that would lead to legal repercussions involving his own much-beloved hide. All he really wanted was to see Fabia pine away from love and want of him.

  The trouble began when he discovered that he had a rival for Fabia's affections: Lucius Sergius Catilina, tall, dark, handsome, dashing, charming—and dangerous. Clodius's own charms were considerable, but not in Catilina's league; he lacked the imposing height and physique, for one, nor did he radiate an ominous power. Ah yes, Catilina was a formidable rival. About his person hung many rumors never proven, glamorous and evil rumors. Everyone knew he had made his fortune during Sulla's proscriptions by proscribing not only his brother-in-law (executed) but also his brother (exiled). It was said he had murdered his wife of that moment, though if he had, no one tried to make him answer for the crime. And, worst of all, it was said he had murdered his own son when his present wife, the beauteous and wealthy Orestilla, had refused to marry a man who already had a son. That Catilina's son had died and that Catilina had married Orestilla everyone knew. Yet had he murdered the poor boy? No one could say for certain. Lack of confirmation did not prevent much speculation, however.

  There were probably similar motives behind Catilina's siege of Fabia and Clodius's attempted siege. Both men liked making mischief, tweaking Rome's prudish nose, provoking a furor. But between the thirty-four-year-old man of the world Catilina and the eighteen-year-old inexpert Clodius lay the success of the one and the failure of the other. Not that Catilina had laid siege to Fabia's hymen; that reverenced scrap of tissue remained intact, and Fabia therefore technically chaste. Yet the poor girl had fallen desperately in love with Catilina, and yielded everything else. After all, what was the harm in a few kisses, the baring of her breasts for a few more kisses, even the application of a finger or tongue to the deliciously sensitive parts of her pudenda? With Catilina whispering in her ear, it had seemed innocent enough, and the resulting ecstasy something she was to treasure for the rest of her term as a Vestal—and even further than that.

  The Chief Vestal was Perpennia, unfortunately not a strict ruler. Nor was the Pontifex Maximus resident in Rome; he of course was Metellus Pius, waging war against Sertorius in Spain. Fonteia was next in seniority, after her the twenty-eight-year-old Licinia, then Fabia at eighteen, followed by Arruntia and Popillia, both aged seventeen. Perpennia and Fonteia were almost the same age, around thirty-two, and looking forward to retirement within the next five years. Therefore the most important thing on the minds of the two senior Vestals was their retirement, the decline in value of the sestertius, and the consequent worry as to whether what had been plump fortunes would run to comfort in old age; neither woman contemplated marriage after her term as a Vestal had finished, though marriage was not forbidden to an ex-Vestal, only thought to be unlucky.

  And
this was where Licinia came in. Third in age among the six, she was the most comfortably off, and though she was more closely related to Licinius Murena than to Marcus Licinius Crassus, the great plutocrat was nonetheless a cousin and a friend. Licinia called him in as senior consultant in financial matters, and the three senior Vestals spent many a cozy hour huddled together with him discussing business, investments, unhandy fathers when it came to profitably safe dowries.

  While all the time right under their noses Catilina was dallying with Fabia, and Clodius was trying. At first Fabia did not understand what the youth was about, for compared to Catilina's smooth expertise, Clodius's advances were clumsily callow. Then when Clodius pounced on her murmuring endearments through little kisses all over her face, she made the mistake of laughing at his absurdity, and sent him away with the sound of her chuckles booming in his ears. That was not the right way to handle Publius Clodius, who was used to getting what he wanted, and had never in his entire life been laughed at. So huge was the insult to his image of himself that he determined on immediate revenge.

  He chose a very Roman method of revenge: litigation. But not the relatively harmless kind of litigation Cato, for instance, had elected after Aemilia Lepida had jilted him when he was eighteen. Cato had threatened breach of promise. Publius Clodius laid charges of unchastity, and in a community which on the whole abhorred the death penalty for crimes, even against the State, this was the one crime which still carried an automatic death penalty.

  He didn't content himself with revenge upon Fabia. Charges of unchastity were laid against Fabia (with Catilina), Licinia (with Marcus Crassus), and Arruntia and Popillia (both with Catilina). Two courts were set up, one to try the Vestals, with Clodius himself prosecuting the Vestals, and one to try the accused lovers, with Clodius's friend Plotius (he too had popularized his name, from Plautius to Plotius) prosecuting Catilina and Marcus Crassus.

  All those charged were acquitted, but the trials caused a great stir, and the ever-present Roman sense of humor was highly tickled when Crassus got off by declaring simply that he had not been after Licinia's virtue, but rather her snug little property in the suburbs. Believable? The jury certainly thought so.

  Clodius worked very hard to convict the women, but he faced a particularly able and learned defense counsel in Marcus Pupius Piso, who was assisted by a stunning retinue of junior advocates. Clodius's youth and lack of hard evidence defeated him, particularly after a large panel of Rome's most exalted matrons testified that all three accused Vestals were virgo intacta. To compound Clodius's woes, both judge and jury had taken against him; his cockiness and feral aggression, unusual in such a young man, set everyone's back up. Young prosecutors were expected to be brilliant, but a trifle humble, and "humble" was not a word in Clodius's vocabulary.

  "Give up prosecuting" was Cicero's advice—kindly meant—after it was all over. Cicero of course had attended as part of Pupius Piso's defense team, for Fabia was his wife's half sister. "Your malice and your prejudices are too naked. They lack the detachment necessary for a successful career as a prosecutor."

  That remark did not endear Cicero to Clodius, but Cicero was a very small fish. Clodius itched to make Catilina pay, both for beating him to Fabia and for wriggling out of a death penalty.

  To make matters worse, after the trials people who might have been expected to help him shunned Clodius instead. He also had to endure a rare tongue-lashing from big brother Appius, very put out and embarrassed.

  "It's seen as sheer spite, little Publius," big brother Appius said, "and I can't change people's minds. You have to understand that nowadays people recoil in horror at the mere thought of a convicted Vestal's fate—buried alive with a jug of water and a loaf of bread? And the fate of the lovers—tied to a forked stake and flogged to death? Awful, just awful! To have secured the conviction of any one of them would have taken a mountain of evidence that couldn't be refuted, whereas you couldn't even produce a small hillock of evidence! All four of those Vestals are connected to powerful families whom you have just antagonized mortally. I can't help you, Publius, but I can help myself by leaving Rome for a few years. I'm going east to Lucullus. I suggest you do the same."

  But Clodius was not about to have anyone decide the future course of his life, even big brother Appius. So he sneered, turned his shoulder. And sentenced himself thereby to four years of skulking around a city which snubbed him unmercifully, while big brother Appius in the East accomplished deeds which showed all of Rome that he was a true Claudian when it came to making mischief. But as his mischief contributed greatly to the discomfiture of King Tigranes, Rome admired it—and him—enormously.

  Unable to convince anyone that he was capable of prosecuting some villain, and spurned by villains in need of defense counsel, Publius Clodius had a hideous time of it. In others the snubbing might have led to a self-examination bearing positive fruit when it came to reforming character, but in Clodius it merely contributed to his weaknesses. It deprived him of Forum experience and banished him to the company of a small group of young noblemen commonly dismissed as ne'er-do-wells. For four years Clodius did nothing save drink in low taverns, seduce girls from all walks of life, play at dice, and share his dissatisfactions with others who also bore grudges against noble Rome.

  In the end it was boredom drove him to do something constructive, for Clodius didn't really have the temperament to be content with a daily round owning no purpose. Thinking himself different, he knew he had to excel at something. If he didn't, he would die as he was living, forgotten, despised. That just wasn't good enough. Wasn't grand enough. For Publius Clodius the only acceptable fate was to end up being called the First Man in Rome. How he was going to achieve this he didn't know. Except that one day he woke up, head aching from too much wine, purse empty from too much losing at dice, and decided that the degree of his boredom was too great to bear a moment longer. What he needed was action. Therefore he would go where there was action. He would go to the East and join the personal staff of his brother-in-law Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Oh, not to earn himself a reputation as a brave and brilliant soldier! Military endeavors did not appeal to Clodius in the least. But attached to Lucullus's staff, who knew what opportunities might not present themselves? Big brother Appius hadn't earned the admiration of Rome by soldiering, but by stirring up so much trouble for Tigranes in Antioch that the King of Kings had rued his decision to put Appius Claudius Pulcher in his place by making him kick his heels for months waiting for an audience.

  Off went Publius Clodius to the East not long before big brother Appius was due to return; it was the beginning of the year immediately after the joint consulship of Pompey and Crassus. The same year Caesar left for his quaestorship in Further Spain.

  Carefully choosing a route which would not bring him face-to-face with big brother Appius, Clodius arrived at the Hellespont to find that Lucullus was engaged in pacifying the newly conquered kingdom of King Mithridates, Pontus. Having crossed the narrow strait into Asia, he set off cross-country in pursuit of brother-in-law Lucullus. Whom Clodius thought he knew: an urbane and punctilious aristocrat with a genuine talent for entertaining, immense wealth no doubt now increasing rapidly, and a fabled love of good food, good wine, good company. Just the kind of superior Clodius fancied! Campaigning in Lucullus's personal train was bound to be a luxurious affair.

  He found Lucullus in Amisus, a magnificent city on the shores of the Euxine Sea in the heart of Pontus. Amisus had withstood siege and been badly mauled in the process; now Lucullus was busy repairing the damage and reconciling the inhabitants to the rule of Rome rather than the rule of Mithridates.

  When Publius Clodius turned up on his doorstep, Lucullus took the pouch of official letters (all of which Clodius had prised open and read with glee) from him, then proceeded to forget he existed. An absent directive to make himself useful to the legate Sornatius was as much time as Lucullus could spare for his youngest brother-in-law before returning to what occupied his thoughts most
: his coming invasion of Armenia, the kingdom of Tigranes.

  Furious at this offhand dismissal, Clodius hied himself off—but not to make himself useful to anyone, least of all a nobody like Sornatius. Thus while Lucullus got his little army into marching mode, Clodius explored the byways and alleys of Amisus. His Greek of course was fluent, so there was no impediment in the way of his making friends with anyone he met as he drifted around, and he met many intrigued by such an unusual, egalitarian and oddly un-Roman fellow as he purported to be.

  He also gathered much information about a side of Lucullus he didn't know at all—about his army, and about his campaigns to date.

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  King Mithridates had fled two years before to the court of his son-in-law Tigranes when he was unable to contend with the Roman remorselessness in war, and feeling the pinch of those quarter-million seasoned troops he had lost in the Caucasus on a pointless punitive expedition against the Albanian savages who had raided Colchis. It had taken Mithridates twenty months to persuade Tigranes to see him, longer still to persuade Tigranes to help him recover his lost lands of Pontus, Cappadocia, Armenia Parva and Galatia.

  Naturally Lucullus had his spies, and knew perfectly well that the two kings were reconciled. But rather than wait for them to invade Pontus, Lucullus had decided to go on the offensive and invade Armenia proper, strike at Tigranes and prevent his aiding Mithridates. His original intention had been to leave no sort of garrison in Pontus, trusting to Rome and Roman influence to keep Pontus quiet. For he had just lost his governorship of Asia Province, and now learned from the letters brought by Publius Clodius that the enmity he had stirred in the breasts of the Ordo Equester back in Rome was growing by leaps and bounds. When the letters not only told him that the new governor of Asia Province was a Dolabella, but also that Dolabella was to "supervise" Bithynia too, Lucullus understood much. Obviously the knights of Rome and their tame senators preferred incompetence to success in war. Publius Clodius, concluded Lucullus dourly, was no harbinger of good luck!