Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  Last to arrive, Cato and Thermus ascended the steps on the side where Pollux sat his painted marble horse, picked their way between the praetors with a grin for Bibulus, and attained the bench. Before Metellus Nepos knew what had happened, the two newcomers had each lifted him beneath an elbow and whisked him to the middle of the bench. They then sat down between him and Caesar, with Cato next to Caesar and Thermus next to Nepos. When Bestia tried to flank Nepos on his other side, Lucius Marius shoved his way between them. Metellus Nepos thus sat alone amid his enemies, as did Caesar when Bibulus suddenly shifted his ivory seat to Caesar's side of a startled Philippus.

  Alarm was spreading; the two consuls were looking uneasy, and the uninvolved praetors were clearly wishing the platform stood three times farther off the ground than it did.

  But the meeting got under way at last with the prayers and auguries. All was in order. Caesar spoke briefly to the effect that the tribune of the plebs Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos wished to present a bill for discussion by the People.

  Metellus Nepos rose, pulling the ends of his scroll apart. "Quirites, it is the fourth day of January in the year of the consulship of Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena! To the north of Rome lies the great district of Etruria, where the outlaw Catilina struts with an army of rebels! In the field against him is Gaius Antonius Hybrida, commander-in-chief of a force at least twice the size of Catilina's! But nothing happens! It is now almost two months since Hybrida left Rome to deal with this pathetic collection of veteran soldiers so old their knees creak, but nothing has happened! Rome continues to exist under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum while the ex-consul in charge of her legions bandages his toe!"

  The scroll came into play, but seriously; Nepos was not foolish enough to think that this assemblage would appreciate a clown. He cleared his throat and launched immediately into the details. “I hereby propose that the People of Rome relieve Gaius Antonius Hybrida of his imperium and his command! I hereby ask the People of Rome to install Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in his place as commander-in-chief of the armies! I hereby direct that the People of Rome endow Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus with an imperium maius effective within all Italia except the city of Rome herself! I further direct that Gnaeus Pompeius be given whatever moneys, troops, equipment and legates he requires, and that his special command together with his imperium maius not be terminated until he thinks the time right to lay them down!"

  Cato and Thermus were on their feet as the last word left Nepos's mouth. "Veto! Veto! I interpose my veto!" cried both men in unison.

  A rain of stones came out of nowhere, whizzing viciously at the assembled magistrates, and the bully-boys charged through the ranks of the senators in the direction of both sets of steps. Curule chairs overturned as consuls, praetors and aediles fled up the broad marble stairs into the temple, with all the tribunes of the plebs except for Cato and Metellus Nepos after them. Clubs and cudgels were out; Caesar wrapped his toga about his right arm and retreated between his lictors, dragging Nepos with him.

  But Cato hung on longer, it seemed miraculously preserved, still shouting that he vetoed with every higher step he took until Murena dashed out from among the columns and pulled him forcibly inside. The militia waded into the fray with shields round and staves thudding, and gradually those louts who had attained the platform were driven down again. Senators now scurried up the two flights of steps, making for the shelter of the temple. And. below in the Forum a full-scale riot broke out as a whooping Mark Antony and his boon companion Curio fell together on some twenty opponents, their friends piling in after them.

  "Well, this is a good start to the year!" said Caesar as he walked into the center of the light-filled temple, carefully redraping his toga.

  "It is a disgraceful start to the year!" snapped Silanus, his blood coursing fast enough through his veins to banish belly pain. "Lictor, I command you to quell the riot!"

  "Oh, rubbish!" said Caesar wearily. "I have the militia here, I marshaled them when I saw some of the faces in the crowd. The trouble won't amount to much now we're off the rostra."

  "This is your doing, Caesar!" snarled Bibulus.

  "To hear you talk, Flea, it's always my doing."

  "Will you please come to order?" Silanus shouted. “I have summoned the Senate into session, and I will have order!"

  "Hadn't you better invoke the Senatus Consultum Ultimum, Silanus?" asked Nepos, looking down to find that he still held his scroll. "Better still, as soon as the fuss dies down outside, let me finish my proper business before the People."

  "Silence!" Silanus tried to roar; it came out more like a bleat. The Senatus Consultum Ultimum empowers me as the consul with the fasces to take all the measures I deem necessary to protect the Res Publica of Rome!" He gulped, suddenly needing his chair. But it lay on the platform below, he had to send a servant to fetch it. When someone unfolded it and set it down for him, he collapsed into it, grey and sweating.

  “Conscript Fathers, I will see an end to this appalling affair at once!" he said then. "Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, you have the floor. Kindly explain the remark you made to Gaius Julius Caesar."

  "I don't have to explain it, Decimus Silanus, it's manifest," said Bibulus, pointing to a darkening swelling on his left cheek. "I accuse Gaius Caesar and Quintus Metellus Nepos of public violence! Who else stands to gain from rioting in the Forum? Who else would want to see chaos? Whose ends does it serve except theirs?"

  "Bibulus is right!" yelled Cato, so elated by the brief crisis that for once he forgot the protocol of names. “Who else stood to gain? Who else needs a Forum running with blood? It's back to the good old days of Gaius Gracchus, Livius Drusus, that filthy demagogue Saturninus! You're both Pompeius's minions!"

  Growls and rumbles came from all sides, for there were none among the hundred-odd senators inside the temple who had voted with Caesar during that fateful division on the fifth day of December when five men were condemned to death without trial.

  “Neither the tribune of the plebs Nepos nor I as urban praetor had anything to gain from violence," said Caesar, "nor were those who threw the stones known to us." He looked derisively at Marcus Bibulus. "Had the meeting I convoked progressed peacefully, Flea, the outcome would have been a resounding victory for Nepos. Do you genuinely think the serious voters who came today would want a dolt like Hybrida in charge of their legions if they were offered Pompeius Magnus? The violence began when Cato and Thermus vetoed, not before. To use the power of the tribunician veto to prevent the People from discussing laws in contio or registering their votes is in absolute violation of everything Rome stands for! I don't blame the People for starting to shell us! It's months since they've been acknowledged to have any rights at all!"

  "Speaking of rights, every tribune of the plebs has the right to exercise his veto at his discretion!" bellowed Cato.

  "What a fool you are, Cato!" cried Caesar. "Why do you think Sulla took the veto off the likes of you? Because the veto was never intended to serve the interests of a few men who control the Senate! Every time you yap another veto, you insult the intelligence of all those thousands out there in the Forum cheated by you of their right to listen—calmly!—to laws presented to them— calmly!—then to vote—calmly!—one way or the other!"

  "Calm? Calm? It wasn't my veto disturbed the calm, Caesar, it was your bully-boys!"

  "I wouldn't soil my hands on such rabble!"

  "You didn't have to! All you had to do was issue orders."

  "Cato, the People are sovereign," said Caesar, striving to be more patient, "not the Senate's rump and its few tribunician mouthpieces. You don't serve the interests of the People, you serve the interests of a handful of senators who think they own and rule an empire of millions! You strip the People of their rights and this city of her dignitas! You shame me, Cato! You shame Rome! You shame the People! You even shame your boni masters, who use your naïveté and sneer at your ancestry behind your back! You call me a minion of Pompeius Magnus? I am not! But you
, Cato, are no more and no less than a minion of the boni!"

  "Caesar," said Cato, striding to stand with his face only inches from Caesar's, "you are a cancer in the body of Roman men! You are everything I abominate!" He turned to the stunned group of senators and held out his hands to them, the healing stripes on his face giving him in that filtered light the savagery of a fierce cat. “Conscript Fathers, this Caesar will ruin us all! He will destroy the Republic, I know it in my bones! Don't listen to him prate of the People and the People's rights! Instead, listen to me! Drive him and his catamite Nepos out of Rome, forbid them fire and water within the bounds of Italia! I will see Caesar and Nepos charged with violent crime, I will see them outlawed!"

  "Listening to you, Cato," said Metellus Nepos, “only reminds me that any violence in the Forum is better than letting you run rampant vetoing every single meeting, every single proposal, every single word!"

  And for the second time in a month someone took Cato off-guard to do things to his face. Metellus Nepos simply walked up to him, threw every ounce of himself into his hand, and slapped Cato so hard that Servilia's scratches burst and bled anew.

  "I don't care what you do to me with your precious piddling Senatus Consultum Ultimum!" Nepos yelled at Silanus. "It's worth dying in the Tullianum to know I've walloped Cato!"

  "Get out of Rome, go to your master Pompeius!" panted Silanus, helpless to control the meeting, his own feelings, or the pain.

  "Oh, I intend to!" said Nepos scornfully, turned on his heel and walked out. "You'll see me again!" he called as he clattered down the steps. "I'll be back with brother-in-law Pompeius at my side! Who knows? It might be Catilina ruling Rome by then, and you'll all be deservedly dead, you shit-arsed sheep!"

  Even Cato was silenced, another of his scant supply of togas rapidly bloodying beyond redemption.

  "Do you need me further, senior consul?" asked Caesar of Silanus in conversational tones. 'The sounds of strife appear to be dying away outside, and there's nothing more to be said here, is there?" He smiled coldly. "Too much has been said already."

  “You are under suspicion of inciting public violence, Caesar," said Silanus faintly. "While ever the Senatus Consultum Ultimum remains in effect, you are disbarred from all meetings and all magisterial business." He looked at Bibulus. "I suggest, Marcus Bibulus, that you start preparing your case to prosecute this man de vi today."

  Which set Caesar laughing. "Silanus, Silanus, get your facts correct! How can this flea prosecute me in his own court? He'll have to get Cato to do his dirty work for him. And do you know something, Cato?" asked Caesar softly of the furious grey eyes glaring at him between folds of toga. "You don't stand a chance. I have more intelligence in my battering ram than you do in your citadel!" He pulled his tunic away from his chest and bent his head to address the space created. "Isn't that right, O battering ram?" A sweet smile for the assembled refugees, then: "He says that's right. Conscript Fathers, good day."

  "That," said Publius Clodius, who had been eavesdropping just outside, "was a stunning performance, Caesar! I had no idea you could get so angry."

  "Wait until you enter the Senate next year, Clodius, and you will see more. Between Cato and Bibulus, I may never be whole of temper again." He stood on the platform amid a shambles of broken ivory chairs and gazed across the Forum, almost deserted. “I see the villains have all gone home."

  "Once the militia entered the scene, they lost most of their enthusiasm." Clodius led the way down the side steps beneath the equestrian statue of Castor. "I did find out one thing. They'd been hired by Bibulus. He's a rank amateur at it too."

  "The news doesn't surprise me."

  "He planned it to compromise you and Nepos. You'll go down in Bibulus's court for inciting public violence, wait and see," said Clodius, waving at Mark Antony and Fulvia, who were sitting together on the bottom tier of Gaius Marius's plinth, Fulvia busy patting Antony's right knuckles with her handkerchief.

  "Oh, wasn't that terrific?" asked Antony, one eye puffed up so badly he couldn't see out of it.

  "No, Antonius, it wasn't terrific!" said Caesar tartly.

  “Bibulus intends to have Caesar prosecuted under the lex Plautia de vi—his own court, no less," said Clodius. "Caesar and Nepos got the blame." He grinned. "No surprise, really, with Silanus holding the fasces. I don't imagine you're very popular in that quarter, all considered." And he began to hum a well-known ditty about a wronged and broken-hearted husband.

  "Oh, come home with me, the lot of you!" Caesar chuckled, slapping at Antony's knuckles and Fulvia's hand. "You can't sit here like alley thieves until the militia sweep you up, and any moment now those heroes still drifting around the inside of Castor's are going to poke their noses out to sniff the air. I'm already accused of fraternizing with ruffians, but if they see me with you, they'll send me packing immediately. Not being Pompeius's brother-in-law, I'll have to join Catilina."

  And of course during the short walk to the residence of the Pontifex Maximus—a matter of moments only— Caesar's equilibrium returned. By the time he had ushered his raffish guests into a part of the Domus Publica Fulvia didn't know nearly as well as she did Pompeia's suite upstairs, he was ready to deal with disaster and upset all Bibulus's plans.

  The next morning at dawn the new praetor urbanus took up position on his tribunal, his six lictors (who already thought him the best and most generous of magistrates) standing off to one side with fasces grounded like spears, his table and curule chair arranged to his liking, and a small staff of scribes and messengers waiting for orders. Since the urban praetor dealt with the preliminaries of all civil litigation as well as heard applications for prosecutions on criminal charges, a number of potential litigants and advocates were already clustered about the tribunal; the moment Caesar indicated he was open for business, a dozen people surged forward to do battle for first served, Rome not being a place where people lined up in an orderly fashion and were content to take their turn. Nor did Caesar try to regulate the insistent clamor. He selected the loudest voice, beckoned, and prepared to listen.

  Before more than a few words had tumbled out, the consular lictors appeared with the fasces but without the consul.

  "Gaius Julius Caesar," said the chief of Silanus's lictors as his eleven companions shoved the little crowd away from the vicinity of the tribunal, "you have been disbarred under the Senatus Consultum Ultimum still in effect. Please desist this moment from all praetorian business."

  "What do you mean?" asked the advocate who had been about to lay his case before Caesar—not a prominent lawyer, simply one of the hundreds who haunted the lower Forum touting for business. "I need the urban praetor!"

  “The senior consul has deputed Quintus Tullius Cicero to take over the urban praetor's duties," said the lictor, not pleased at this interruption.

  "But I don't want Quintus Cicero, I want Gaius Caesar! He's urban praetor, and he doesn't dally and dither the way most of Rome's praetors do! I want my case sorted out this morning, not next month or next year!"

  The cluster about the tribunal was growing now in leaps and bounds, the Forum frequenters attracted by the sudden presence of so many lictors and an angry individual protesting.

  Without a word Caesar rose from his chair, signed to his personal servant to fold it and pick it up, and turned to the six lictors he called his own. Smiling, he went to each of them in turn and dropped a handful of denarii into each right palm.

  "Pick up your fasces, my friends, and take them to the temple of Venus Libitina. Lie them where they belong when the man who should be preceded by them is deprived of his office by death or disbarment. I'm sorry our time together has been so short, and I thank you most sincerely for your kind attentions."

  From his lictors he proceeded to his scribes and messengers, giving each man a sum of money and a word of thanks.

  After which he drew the folds of his purple-bordered toga praetexta off his left arm and shoulder, rolling the vast garment into a loose ball as he stri
pped it away; not as much as one corner of it touched the ground, so handily was the disrobing done. The servant holding the chair received the bundle; Caesar nodded to him to go.

  "Your pardon," he said then to the swelling throng, "it seems I am not to be permitted to perform the duties I was elected by you to do." The knife went in: "You must content yourselves with half a praetor, Quintus Cicero."

  Lurking some distance away with his own lictors, Quintus Cicero gasped in outrage.

  "What's the meaning of this?" shouted Publius Clodius from the rear of the crowd, pushing his way to the front as Caesar prepared to leave his tribunal.

  "I am disbarred, Publius Clodius."

  "For what?"

  “Being under suspicion of inciting violence during a meeting of the People I had convened."

  "They can't do that!" cried Clodius theatrically. "First you have to be tried, and then you have to be convicted!"

  "There is a Senatus Consultum Ultimum in effect."

  "What's that got to do with yesterday's meeting?"

  "It came in handy," said Caesar, leaving his tribunal.

  And as he walked in his tunic in the direction of the Domus Publica, the entire gathering turned to escort him. Quintus Cicero took his place on the urban praetor's tribunal to find he had no customers; nor did he all day.

  But all day the crowd in the Forum grew, and as it grew became ugly. This time there were no ex-gladiators to be seen, just many respectable inhabitants of the city liberally interspersed with men like Clodius, the Antonii, Curio, Decimus Brutus—and Lucius Decumius and his crossroads brethren of all walks from the Second Class to the Head Count. Two praetors beginning to try criminal cases looked across a sea of faces and decided the omens were not auspicious; Quintus Cicero packed up and went home early.

  Most unnerving of all, no one left the Forum during the night, which was lit by many little fires to keep out the chill; from the houses on the Germalus of the Palatine the effect was eerily reminiscent of a camping army, and for the first time since the empty-bellied masses had filled the Forum during the days which led to the rebellion of Saturninus, those in power understood how many ordinary people there were in Rome—and how few the men in power were by comparison.