Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  This put the boni in a cleft stick. On the one hand they didn't want Clodius tried at all, because the moment it was put in train the praetorian provinces would be drawn; on the other hand they didn't want Clodius convicted because Catulus thought the Bona Dea affair outside the realm of men and the State.

  "Are Caesar's creditors at all worried?" asked Catulus.

  "Oh yes," said Bibulus. "If we can manage to keep vetoing proceedings against Clodius until March, it will really look as if the lots won't be drawn. Then they'll act."

  "Can we keep going another month?"

  "Easily."

  On the Kalends of February, Decimus Junius Silanus woke from a restless stupor vomiting blood. It was many moons since he had first put the little bronze bell beside his bed, though he used it so rarely that whenever it did ring the whole house woke.

  "This is how Sulla died," he said wearily to Servilia.

  "No, Silanus," she said in a bracing tone, "this is no more than an episode. Sulla's plight was far worse. You'll be all right. Who knows? It might be your body purging itself."

  "It's my body disintegrating. I'm bleeding from the bowel as well, and soon there won't be enough blood left." He sighed, tried to smile. "At least I managed to be consul, my house has one more consular imago."

  Perhaps so many years of marriage did count for something; though she felt no grief, Servilia was stirred enough to reach for Silanus's hand. "You were an excellent consul, Silanus."

  "I think so. It wasn't an easy year, but I survived it." He squeezed the warm dry fingers. "It's you I didn't manage to survive, Servilia."

  "You've been ill since before we married."

  He fell silent, his absurdly long fair lashes fanned against sunken cheeks. How handsome he is, thought his wife, and how I liked that when I first met him. I am going to be a widow for the second time.

  "Is Brutus here?" he asked some time later, lifting tired lids. "I should like to speak to him." And when Brutus came he looked beyond the dark unhappy face to Servilia. "Go outside, my dear, fetch the girls and wait. Brutus will bring you in."

  How she detested being dismissed! But she went, and Silanus made sure she was gone before he turned his head to see her son.

  "Sit down on the foot of my bed, Brutus."

  Brutus obeyed, his black eyes in the flickering lamplight shining with tears.

  "Is it me you weep for?" Silanus asked.

  "Yes."

  "Weep for yourself, my son. When I'm gone she'll be harder to deal with."

  "I don't think," said Brutus, suppressing a sob, "that that is possible, Father."

  "She'll marry Caesar."

  "Oh yes."

  "Perhaps it will be good for her. He's the strongest man I have ever met."

  "Then it will be war between them," said Brutus.

  "And Julia? How will the two of you fare if they marry?"

  "About the same as we do now. We manage."

  Silanus plucked feebly at the bedclothes, seemed to shrink. "Oh, Brutus, my time is here!" he cried. "So much I had to say to you, but I've left it until too late. And isn't that the story of my life?"

  Weeping, Brutus fled to fetch his mother and sisters. Silanus managed to smile at them, then closed his eyes and died.

  The funeral, though not held at State expense, was a huge affair not without its titillating side: the lover of the widow presided over the obsequies of the husband and gave a fine eulogy from the rostra as if he had never in his life met the widow, yet knew the husband enormously well.

  "Who was responsible for Caesar's giving the funeral oration?" asked Cicero of Catulus.

  "Who do you think?"

  "But it isn't Servilia's place!"

  "Does Servilia have a place?"

  "A pity Silanus had no sons."

  "A blessing, more like."

  They were trudging back from the Junius Silanus tomb, which lay to the south of the city alongside the Via Appia.

  "Catulus, what are we going to do about Clodius's sacrilege?"

  "How does your wife feel about it, Cicero?"

  “Torn. We men ought never to have stuck our noses in, but as we have, then Publius Clodius must be condemned." Cicero stopped. "I must tell you, Quintus Lutatius, that I am placed in an extremely awkward and delicate situation."

  Catulus stopped. "You, Cicero? How?"

  "Terentia thinks I'm having a love affair with Clodia."

  For a moment Catulus could do no more than gape; then he threw his head back and laughed until some of the other mourners stared at them curiously. They looked quite ridiculous, both in black mourning toga with the thin purple stripe of the knight on the right shoulder of the tunic, officially accoutred for a death; yet the one was howling with mirth, and the other stood in what was obviously furious indignation.

  "And what's so funny?" asked Cicero dangerously.

  "You! Terentia!" gasped Catulus, wiping his eyes. "Cicero, she doesn't—you—Clodia!"

  "I'll have you know that Clodia has been making sheep's eyes at me for some time," said Cicero stiffly.

  "That lady," Catulus said, resuming his walk, "is harder to get inside than Nola. Why do you think Celer puts up with her? He knows how she operates! Coos and giggles and flutters her eyelashes, makes a complete fool of some poor man, then retreats behind her walls and bolts the gates. Tell Terentia not to be so silly. Clodia is probably having fun at your expense."

  "You tell Terentia not to be so silly."

  "Thank you, Cicero, but no. Do your own dirty work. I have enough to contend with in Hortensia, I don't need to cross swords with Terentia."

  "Nor do I," said Cicero miserably. "Celer wrote to me, you know. Well, he's been doing that ever since he went to govern Italian Gaul!"

  "Accusing you of being Clodia's lover?" asked Catulus.

  "No, no! He wants me to help Pompeius get land for his men. It's very difficult."

  "It will be if you enlist in that cause, my friend!" said Catulus grimly. "I can tell you right now that Pompeius will get land for his men over my dead body!"

  "I knew you'd say that."

  "Then what are you rambling about?"

  Out went Cicero's arms; he ground his teeth. "I am not in the habit of rambling! But doesn't Celer know that all of Rome is talking about Clodia and that new poet fellow, Catullus?"

  "Well," said Catulus comfortably, "if all of Rome is talking about Clodia and some poet fellow, then it can't take you and Clodia very seriously, can it? Tell Terentia that."

  "Grrr!" grumped Cicero, and decided to walk in silence.

  Very properly, Servilia left a space of some days between the death of Silanus and a note to Caesar asking for an interview—in the rooms on the Vicus Patricii.

  The Caesar who went to meet her was not the usual Caesar; if the knowledge that this was likely to be a troubled confrontation had not been sufficient to cause a change, then the knowledge that his creditors were suddenly pressing certainly would have. The word was up and down the Clivus Argentarius that there would be no praetorian provinces this year, a state of affairs which turned Caesar from a likely bet into an irretrievable loss. Catulus, Cato, Bibulus and the rest of the boni, of course. They had found a way to deny provinces to the praetors after all, and Fufius Calenus was a very good tribune of the plebs. And if matters could be made worse, the economic situation achieved that; when someone as conservative as Cato saw the need to lower the price of the grain dole, then Rome was in severe straits indeed. Luck, what had suddenly become of Caesar's luck? Or was Goddess Fortuna simply testing him?

  But it seemed Servilia was not in the mood to sort out her status; she greeted him fully clad and rather soberly, then sat in a chair and asked for wine.

  "Missing Silanus?" he asked.

  "Perhaps I am." She began to turn the goblet between her hands, round and round. "Do you know anything about death, Caesar?"

  "Only that it must come. I don't worry about it as long as it's quick. Were I to suffer Silanus's fate, I'd fa
ll on my sword."

  "Some of the Greeks say there is a life after it."

  "Yes."

  "Do you believe that?"

  "Not in the conscious sense. Death is an eternal sleep, of that I'm sure. We don't float away disembodied yet continue to be ourselves. But no substance perishes, and there are worlds of forces we neither see nor understand. Our Gods belong in one such world, and they're tangible enough to conclude contracts and pacts with us. But we don't ever belong to it, in life or in death. We balance it. Without us, their world would not exist. So if the Greeks see anything, they see that. And who knows that the Gods are eternal? How long does a force last? Do new ones form when the old ones dwindle? What happens to a force when it is no more? Eternity is a dreamless sleep, even for the Gods. That I believe."

  "And yet," said Servilia slowly, "when Silanus died something went out of the room. I didn't see it go, I didn't hear it. But it went, Caesar. The room was empty."

  "I suppose what went was an idea."

  "An idea?"

  "Isn't that what all of us are, an idea?"

  "To ourselves, or to others?"

  "To both, though not necessarily the same idea."

  "I don't know. I only know what I sensed. What made Silanus live went away."

  "Drink your wine."

  She drained the cup. “I feel very strange, but not the way I felt when I was a child and so many people died. Nor the way I felt when Pompeius Magnus sent me Brutus's ashes from Mutina."

  "Your childhood was an abomination," he said, got up and crossed to her side. "As for your first husband, you neither loved him nor chose him. He was just the man who made your son."

  She lifted her face for his kiss, never before so aware of what constituted Caesar's kiss because always before she had wanted it too badly to savor and dissect it. A perfect fusion of senses and spirit, she thought, and slid her arms about his neck. His skin was weathered, a little rough, and he smelled faintly of some sacrificial fire, ashes on a darkening hearth. Perhaps, her wondering mind went on through touch and taste, what I try to do is have something of his force with me forever, and the only way I can get it is this way, my body against his, him inside me, the two of us spared for some few moments all knowledge of other things, existing only in each other . . .

  Neither of them spoke then until both of them had slipped in and out of a little sleep; and there was the world again, babies howling, women shrieking, men hawking and spitting, the rumble of carts on the cobbles, the dull clunk of some machine in a nearby factory, the faint tremble which was Vulcan in the depths below.

  "Nothing," said Servilia, "lasts forever."

  "Including us, as I was telling you."

  "But we have our names, Caesar. If they are not forgotten, it is a kind of immortality."

  "The only one I'm aiming for."

  A sudden resentment filled her; she turned away from him. "You're a man, you have a chance at that. But what about me?"

  "What about you?" he asked, pulling her to face him.

  "That," she said, "was not a philosophical question."

  "No, it wasn't."

  She sat up and linked her arms about her knees, the ridge of down along her spine hidden by a great mass of fallen black hair.

  "How old are you, Servilia?"

  "I'll soon be forty-three."

  It was now or never; Caesar sat up too. “Do you want to marry again?" he asked.

  "Oh, yes."

  "Who?"

  She turned wide eyes to stare at him. "Who else, Caesar?"

  "I can't marry you, Servilia."

  Her shock was perceptible; she cringed. "Why?"

  "For one thing, there are our children. It isn't against the law for us to marry and for our children to marry each other. The degree of blood is permissible. But it would be too awkward, and I won't do it to them."

  "That," she said tightly, "is a prevarication."

  "No, it isn't. To me it's valid."

  "And what else?"

  "Haven't you heard what I said when I divorced Pompeia?" he asked. " 'Caesar's wife, like all Caesar's family, must be above suspicion.' "

  "I am above suspicion."

  "No, Servilia, you're not."

  "Caesar, that's just not so! It's said of me that I am too proud to ally myself with Jupiter Optimus Maximus."

  "But you weren't too proud to ally yourself with me."

  "Of course not!"

  He shrugged. "And there you have it."

  "Have what?"

  "You're not above suspicion. You're an unfaithful wife."

  "I am not!"

  "Rubbish! You've been unfaithful for years."

  "But with you, Caesar, with you! Never before with anyone, and never since with anyone else, even Silanus!"

  "It doesn't matter," said Caesar indifferently, "that it was with me. You are an unfaithful wife."

  "Not to you!"

  "How do I know that? You were unfaithful to Silanus. Why not later to me?"

  It was a nightmare; Servilia drew a breath, fought to keep her mind on these incredible things he was saying. "Before you," she said, "all men were insulsus. And after you, all other men are insulsus."

  "I won't marry you, Servilia. You're not above suspicion, and you're not above reproach."

  "What I feel for you," she said, struggling on, "cannot be measured in terms of the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. You are unique. Not for any other man—or for a god!—would I have beggared my pride or my good name. How can you use what I feel for you against me?''

  "I'm not using anything against you, Servilia, I'm simply telling you the truth. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

  "I am above suspicion!"

  "No, you're not."

  "Oh, I don't believe this!" she cried, shaking her head back and forth, hands wrung together. "You are unfair! Unjust!"

  And clearly the interview was over; Caesar got off the bed. "You must see it that way, of course. But that doesn't change it, Servilia. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

  Time went by; she could hear Caesar in the bath, apparently at peace with his world. And finally she dragged herself out of the bed, dressed.

  "No bath?" he asked, actually smiling at her when she went through to the balcony service room.

  "Today I'll go home to bathe."

  "Am I forgiven?"

  "Do you want to be?"

  "I am honored to have you as my mistress."

  "I believe you really do mean that!"

  "I do," he said sincerely.

  Her shoulders went back, she pressed her lips together. "I will think about it, Caesar."

  "Good!"

  Which she took to mean that he knew she'd be back.

  And thank all the Gods for a long walk home. How did he manage to do that to me? So deftly, with such horrible civility! As if my feelings were of no moment— as if I, a patrician Servilia Caepionis, could not matter. He made me ask for marriage, then he threw it in my face like the contents of a chamber pot. He turned me down as if I had been the daughter of some rich hayseed from Gaul or Sicily. I reasoned! I begged! I lay down and let him wipe his feet on me! I, a patrician Servilia Caepionis! All these years I've held him in thrall when no other woman could—how then was I to know he would reject me? I genuinely thought he would marry me. And he knew I thought he would marry me. Oh, the pleasure he must have experienced while we played out that little farce! I thought I could be cold, but I am not cold the way he is cold. Why then do I love him so? Why in this very moment do I go on loving him? Insulsus. That is what he has done to me. After him all other men are utterly insipid. He's won. But I will never forgive him for it. Never!

  Having Pompey the Great living in a hired mansion above the Campus Martius was a little like knowing that the only barrier between the lion and the Senate was a sheet of paper. Sooner or later someone would cut a finger and the smell of blood would provoke an exploratory paw. For that reason and no other it was decided to hold a contio of
the Popular Assembly in the Circus Flaminius to discuss Piso Frugi's format for the prosecution of Publius Clodius. Bent on embarrassing Pompey because Pompey so clearly wanted no part of the Clodius scandal, Fufius Calenus promptly asked him what he thought of the clause instructing the judge himself to hand-pick the jury. The boni beamed; anything which embarrassed Pompey served to diminish the Great Man!

  But when Pompey stepped to the edge of the speaker's platform a huge cheer went up from thousands of throats; apart from the senators and a few senior knights of the Eighteen, everyone had come just to see Pompey the Great, Conqueror of the East. Who over the course of the next three hours managed so thoroughly to bore his audience that it went home.

  "He could have said it all in a quarter of an hour," whispered Cicero to Catulus. "The Senate is right as always and the Senate must be upheld—that's all he actually said! Oh, so interminably'!"

  "He is one of the worst orators in Rome," said Catulus. "My feet hurt!"

  But the torture wasn't done, though the senators could now sit down; Messala Niger called the Senate into session on the spot after Pompey concluded.

  "Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus," said Messala Niger in ringing tones, "would you please give this House a candid opinion on the sacrilege of Publius Clodius and the bill of Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi?"

  So strong was fear of the lion that no one groaned at this request. Pompey was seated among the consulars and next to Cicero, who swallowed hard and retreated into a daydream about his new city house and its decor. This time the speech took a mere hour; at its end Pompey sat down on his chair with a thump loud enough to wake Cicero with a start.

  Tanned face gone crimson with the effort of trying to remember the techniques of rhetoric, the Great Man ground his teeth. "Oh, surely I've said enough on the subject!"

  "You surely have said enough," Cicero answered, smiling sweetly.

  The moment Crassus rose to speak, Pompey lost interest and began to quiz Cicero about the more gossipy events in Rome during his absence, but Crassus hadn't got into stride before Cicero was sitting bolt upright and paying absolutely no attention to Pompey. How wonderful! The bliss! Crassus was praising him to the skies! What a terrific job he'd done when consul to bring the Orders much closer together; knights and senators ought to be happily entwined. .. .