Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  "He'll forbid everything with you as his senior!"

  "A flea may try."

  Caesar turned away, threw an arm about Crassus's shoulder and walked into the midst of an ecstatic but weeping throng, as upset by the loss of Caesar's triumph as it was overjoyed at his appearance inside the city.

  For a moment Celer watched this emotional reception, then gestured curtly to his attendants. "This booth is closed," he said, and got to his feet. "Lictors, the house of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus—and be quick for once!"

  It being, the Nones and no meeting of the Senate scheduled, Bibulus was at home when Celer arrived.

  "Guess who just declared himself a candidate?" he said through his teeth as he burst into Bibulus's study.

  The bony, bald-looking face confronting him went even paler, something opinion said would be impossible. "You're joking!"

  "I am not joking," Celer said, throwing himself into a chair with a disagreeable glance at the occupant of the important chair, Metellus Scipio. Why did it have to be that gloomy mentula here? “Caesar crossed the pomerium and laid down his imperium."

  "But he was to triumph!"

  "I told you," said Metellus Scipio, "that he'd win. And do you know why he wins all the time? Because he doesn't stop to count the cost. He doesn't think like us. None of us would have given up a triumph when the consulship is there every year."

  "The man's mad" from a scowling Celer.

  "Very mad or very sane, I'm never sure which," Bibulus said, and clapped his hands. When a servant appeared he issued orders: "Send for Marcus Cato, Gaius Piso and Lucius Ahenobarbus."

  “A council of war?'' asked Metellus Scipio, sighing as if at the prospect of another lost cause.

  "Yes, yes! Though I'm warning you, Scipio, not one single word about Caesar's always winning! We don't need a prophet of doom in our midst, and when it comes to prophesying doom you're in Cassandra's league."

  "Tiresias, thank you!" said Metellus Scipio stiffly. "I am not a woman!"

  "Well, he was for a while," giggled Celer. "Blind too! Been seeing any copulating snakes lately, Scipio?"

  By the time Caesar entered the Domus Publica it was after noon. Everything possible had slowed his progress, so many people had flocked to the Forum to detain him, and he had Balbus to think of; Balbus had to be accorded every distinguished attention, introduced to every prominent man Caesar encountered.

  Then it took a little time to install Balbus in one of the guest suites upstairs, and more time to greet his mother, his daughter, the Vestals. But finally not long before dinner he was able to shut the door of his study on the world and commune with himself.

  The triumph was a thing of the past; he wasted no thought whatsoever upon it. More important by far was to decide what to do next—and to divine what the boni would do next. Celer's swift departure from the Forum had not escaped him, which meant no doubt that the boni were even now engaged upon a council of war.

  A great pity about Celer and Nepos. They had been excellent allies. But why had they gone to the trouble of antagonizing him so mortally? Pompey was their avowed target, nor did they have any real evidence that Caesar once consul intended to be Pompey's puppet. Admittedly he had always spoken up for Pompey in the House, but they had never been intimate, nor were they related by blood. Pompey hadn't offered Caesar a legateship while he was conquering the East; no state of amicitia existed between them. Had the Brothers Metelli been obliged to take on all the enemies of the boni as the price of admission to the ranks? Highly unlikely, given the clout the Brothers Metelli owned. No need for them to woo the boni. The boni would have come crawling.

  Most puzzling was that absolutely scurrilous attack of Nepos's in the House; it indicated colossal rancor, a very personal feud. Over what? Had they loathed him two years ago when they collaborated with him so splendidly? Definitely not. Caesar was no Pompey, he was not subject to the kind of insecurities which led Pompey to fret about whether people esteemed or despised him; his common sense informed him now that two years ago the feud had not existed. Then why had the Brothers Metelli turned on him to rend him? Why? Mucia Tertia? Yes, by all the Gods, Mucia Tertia! What had she said to her uterine brothers to justify her conduct during Pompey's absence? Yielding her noble body to the likes of Titus Labienus would not have endeared her to the two most influential Caecilii Metelli left alive, yet they had not only forgiven her, they had championed her against Pompey. Had she blamed Caesar, whom she had known since she married Young Marius twenty-six years before? Had she told them Caesar was her true seducer? The rumor had to have started somewhere. What better source than Mucia Tertia?

  Very well then, the Brothers Metelli were now obdurate foes. Bibulus, Cato, Gaius Piso, Ahenobarbus and a multitude of lesser boni like Marcus Favonius and Munatius Rufus would do anything short of murder to bring him down. Which left Cicero. The world was amply provided with men who could never make up their minds, flirted with this group, flattered that group, and ended in having no allies, few friends. Such was Cicero. Whereabouts Cicero stood at the moment was anybody's guess; in all probability Cicero himself didn't know. One moment he adored his dearest Pompey, the next moment he hated everything Pompey was or stood for. What chance did that leave Caesar, who was friendly with Crassus? Yes, Caesar, abandon all hope of Cicero....

  The sensible thing was to form a political alliance with Lucius Lucceius. Caesar knew him well because they had done a great deal of court duty together, most of it with Caesar on the bench. A brilliant advocate, a splendid orator, and a clever man who deserved to ennoble himself and his family. Lucceius and Pompey could afford to bribe, no doubt would bribe. But would it answer? The more Caesar thought about that, the less confident he felt. If only the Great Man had supporters in the Senate and the Eighteen! The trouble was that he did not, particularly in the Senate, an amazing state of affairs that could be directly attributed to his old contempt for the Law and Rome's unwritten constitution. He had rubbed the Senate's nose in its own excrement in order to force it to allow him to run for consul without ever having been a senator. And they hadn't forgotten, any of the Conscript Fathers who had belonged to the Senate in those days. Days not so distant, really. A mere decade. Pompey's only loyal senatorial adherents were fellow Picentines like Petreius, Afranius, Gabinius, Lollius, Labienus, Lucceius, Herennius, and they just didn't matter. They couldn't summon a backbencher vote among them if the backbencher was not a Picentine. Money could buy some votes, but the logistics of distributing enough of it to enough voters would defeat Pompey and Lucceius if the boni also decided to bribe.

  Therefore the boni would be bribing. Oh yes, definitely. And with Cato condoning the bribery, there was no chance of its being discovered unless Caesar himself adopted Cato's tactics. Which he wouldn't do. Not from principles, simply from lack of time and lack of knowledge of whom to approach to act as an informer. To Cato it was a perfected art; he'd been doing it for years. So gird your loins, Caesar, you are going to have Bibulus as your junior colleague, love it or loathe it....

  What else might they do? Manage to deny next year's consuls access to provinces afterward. They might well succeed. At the moment the two Gauls were the consular provinces, due to unrest in the further province among the Allobroges, the Aedui and the Sequani. The Gauls were usually worked in tandem, with Italian Gaul serving as a recruiting and supply base for Gaul-across-the-Alps, the one governor fighting, the other maintaining strengths. This year's consuls, Celer and Afranius, had been given the Gauls for next year, Celer to do the fighting across the Alps, Afranius backing him up from this side of the Alps. How easy it would be to prorogue them for a year or two. The pattern had been set already, as most of the present governors of provinces were in their second or even third year of tenure.

  Provided the Allobroges had genuinely quietened down—and everyone seemed to think they had—then the strife in Further Gaul was intertribal rather than aimed in Rome's direction. Over a year earlier the Aedui had complained bitterly to the S
enate that the Sequani and the Arverni were making inroads into Aedui territory; the Senate had not listened. Now it was the turn of the Sequani to complain. They had formed an alliance with a German tribe from across the Rhenus, the Suebi, and given King Ariovistus of the Suebi a third of their land. Unfortunately Ariovistus had not thought one third enough. He wanted two thirds. Then the Helvetii began to emerge out of the Alps looking for new homes in the Rhodanus Valley. None of which really interested Caesar, who was happy to let Celer have the responsibility for sorting out the shambles several powerful warring tribes of Gauls could create.

  Caesar wanted Afranius's province, Italian Gaul. He knew where he was going: into Noricum, Moesia, Dacia, the lands around the river Danubius, all the way to the Euxine Sea. His conquests would link Italy to Pompey's conquests in Asia, and the fabulous riches of that enormous river would belong to Rome, give Rome a land route to Asia and the Caucasus. If old King Mithridates had thought he could do it moving from east to west, why not Caesar working from west to east?

  The consular provinces were still allocated by the Senate according to a law brought in by Gaius Gracchus; it stipulated that the provinces to be given to the next year's consuls must be decided before the next year's consuls had been elected. In that way, the candidates for the next year's consulships knew which provinces they would be going to in advance.

  Caesar deemed it an excellent law, designed as it was to prevent men's plotting to secure the province of their choice after they became consul and had consular powers. Under the present circumstances it was best to know as soon as possible which province would be his. If things didn't go the way he wanted them to go—if the consuls for next year were denied provinces, for example—then the law of Gaius Gracchus gave him at least seventeen months to maneuver, to think and plan how to end with the province he wanted. Italian Gaul, he must get Italian Gaul! Interesting that Afranius might prove to be a worse stumbling block than Metellus Celer. Would Pompey be willing to take a promised prize off Afranius in order to reward a helpful senior consul in Caesar?

  During his time governing Further Spain, Caesar's thinking had changed a little. The actual experience of governing had been enlightening. So had the chance to be away from Rome herself. At that distance much fell into place that had eluded him until then, and other ideas underwent modification. His goals were unchanged: he would not only be the First Man in Rome, but the greatest of all Rome's First Men.

  However, he could now see that these goals were impossible to attain in the old, simple way. Men like Scipio Africanus and Gaius Marius had stepped with one stunning, giant stride from the consulship into a military command of such magnitude that it gave them the title, the clout, the enduring fame. Cato the Censor had broken Scipio Africanus after Scipio had become the undeniable First Man in Rome, and Gaius Marius had broken himself after his mind eroded thanks to those strokes. Neither man had been obliged to deal with an organized and massive opposition like the boni. The presence of the boni had radically altered the situation.

  Caesar now understood that he couldn't get there alone, that he needed allies more powerful than the men of a faction created by himself for himself. His faction was coming along nicely, and it contained men like Balbus, Publius Vatinius (whose wealth and wit made him immensely valuable), the great Roman banker Gaius Oppius, Lucius Piso since Piso had saved him from the moneylenders, Aulus Gabinius, Gaius Octavius (the husband of his niece and an enormously wealthy man as well as a praetor).

  He needed Marcus Licinius Crassus, for one. How extraordinary that his luck had thrown Crassus into his waiting arms; the tax-farming contracts constituted a development no one could have predicted. If as senior consul he solved matters for Crassus, he knew that ever after all the man's connections would be his.

  But he also needed Pompey the Great. I need the man, I need Pompeius Magnus. But how am I going to bind him to me after I've secured his land and ratified his settlement of the East? He's neither a true Roman nor grateful by nature. Somehow, without subjecting myself to his rule, I have to keep him on my side!

  At which point his mother invaded his privacy.

  "Your timing is exactly right," he said, smiling at her and rising to assist her into a chair, a compliment he rarely paid her. "Mater, I know where I'm going."

  "That doesn't surprise me, Caesar. To the stars."

  "If not to the stars, certainly to the ends of the earth."

  She frowned. "No doubt you've been told what Metellus Nepos said in the House?"

  "Crassus, actually. Looking very upset."

  "Well, it had to bubble to the surface again sooner or later. How will you deal with it?"

  His turn to frown. "I'm not quite sure. Though I am very glad I wasn't there to hear him—I might have killed him, which wouldn't have been beneficial to my career at all. Ought I, for instance, to blow him lots of kisses and shift the suspicion from my shoulders to his? Crassus thinks him inclined that way."

  "No," she said firmly. "Ignore it and him. There are more feminine corpses—well, metaphorically speaking!— strewn in your wake than there were behind Adonis. You have intrigued with no man, nor have your enemies been able to pluck a man's name out of the air for all their trying. They can do no better than poor old King Nicomedes. It remains the only allegation very nearly twenty-five years later. Time alone renders it thin, Caesar, if you consider it coolly. I realize that your temper is wearing down, but I beg you to hold it in whenever this subject arises. Ignore, ignore, ignore."

  "Yes, you're right." He sighed. "Sulla used to say that no man ever had a harder road to the consulship nor a harder time of it when he finally was consul. But I fear I might eclipse him."

  "That's good! He stood above all the rest, and he still does."

  "Pompeius would hate to be hated the way men hate Sulla, but on thinking about it, Mater, I would rather be hated than sink into obscurity. One never knows what the future will bring. All one can do is be prepared for the worst."

  "And act," said Aurelia.

  "Always that. Is dinner ready? I'm still replacing whatever it was I used up rowing."

  "I came to tell you dinner was ready, actually." She got up. "I like your Balbus. A terrific aristocrat, am I right?"

  "Like me, he can trace his ancestry back a thousand years. Punic. His real name is astonishing—Kinahu Hadasht Byblos."

  "Three names? Yes, he's a nobleman."

  They walked out into the corridor and turned toward the door of the dining room.

  "No troubles among the Vestals?" he asked.

  "None at all."

  "And my little blackbird?"

  "Blooming."

  At which moment Julia came from the direction of the stairs, and Caesar had the tranquillity of mind to see her properly. Oh, she had grown up so much in his absence! So beautiful! Or was that judgement a father's natural prejudice?

  It really wasn't. Julia had inherited Caesar's bones, which he had inherited from Aurelia. She was still so fair that her skin shone transparent and her rich crop of hair had almost no color, a combination which endowed her with an exquisite fragility reflected in huge blue eyes set in faint violet shadows. As tall as the average man, her body was perhaps too slender and her breasts too small for masculine taste, but distance now showed her father that she did have her own allure, and would ravish many men. Would I have wanted her, had I not been her sire? I'm not sure about wanting, but I think I would have loved her. She is a true Julia, she will make her men happy.

  "You'll be seventeen in January," he said, having put her chair opposite his own, and Aurelia's opposite Balbus, who occupied the locus consularis on their couch. "How's Brutus?"

  She answered with complete composure, though her face, he noted, did not light up at mention of her betrothed's name. "He's well, tata."

  "Making a name for himself in the Forum?"

  "More in publishing circles. His epitomes are prized." She smiled. "Actually I think he likes business best, so it's a shame his rank wi
ll be senatorial."

  "With Marcus Crassus as an example? The Senate won't restrict him if he's shrewd."

  "He's shrewd." Julia drew a deep breath. "He would do much better in public life if only his mother left him alone."

  Caesar's smile held no trace of anger. "I agree with you wholeheartedly, daughter. I keep telling her not to make a rabbit of him, but, alas, Servilia is Servilia."

  The name caught Aurelia's attention. "I knew there was something else I had to tell you, Caesar. Servilia wishes to see you."

  But it was Brutus he saw first; he arrived to visit Julia just as the four of them came out of the dining room.

  Oh, dear! Time certainly hadn't improved poor Brutus. As hangdog as ever, he shook Caesar's hand limply and looked everywhere but into Caesar's eyes, a characteristic which had always irritated Caesar, who deemed it shifty. That awful acne actually seemed worse, though at twenty-three it should surely have been starting to clear up. If he hadn't been so dark the stubble spread untidily over his cheeks and chin and jawline might not have looked so villainous; no wonder he preferred to scribble rather than orate. Were it not for all that money and an impeccable family tree, who could ever have taken him seriously?

  He was, however, obviously as deeply in love with Julia as he had been years ago. Kind, gentle, faithful, affectionate. His eyes as they rested on her were filled with warmth, and he held her hand as if it might break. No need to worry that her virtue had ever been subjected to siege! Brutus would wait until they were married. In fact, it occurred to Caesar now that Brutus would wait until they were married—that he had had no sort of sexual experience at all. In which case marriage might do much for him in all sorts of ways, including the skin and the spirit. Poor, poor Brutus. Fortune had not been kind to him when she gave him that harpy Servilia as mother. A reflection which led him to wonder how Julia would cope with Servilia as her mother-in-law. Would his daughter be another the harpy rended tooth and claw, cowed into perpetual obedience?