How lonely he is. Once I hoped that Gaius Matius in the other ground-floor apartment of my insula would be the friend and confidant he lacks. But Caesar moved on too far too fast. Will he always do that? Is there no one to whom he can turn as an equal? How I pray that one day he'll find a true friend. Not in a wife, alas. We women don't have the breadth of vision nor the experience of public life he needs in a true friend. Yet that slur on him about King Nicomedes has meant that he will admit no man as an intimate, he's too aware of what people would say. In all these years, no other rumor. You'd think that would prove it. But the Forum always has a Bibulus in it. And he has Sulla there as a warning. No old age like Sulla's for Caesar!
I understand at last that he'll never marry Servilia. That he never would have at any time. She suffers, but she has Brutus to vent her frustrations upon. Poor Brutus. I wish Julia loved him, but she doesn't. How can that marriage work? A thought which clicked a bead into place inside the abacus of her mind.
But all she said was "Did Bibulus attend the banquet?”
"Oh yes, he was there. So was Cato, so was Gaius Piso and the rest of the boni. But Jupiter Optimus Maximus is a big place, and they arranged themselves on couches as far from mine as they could. Cato's dear friend Marcus Favonius was the center of the group, having got in as quaestor at last." Caesar chuckled. "Cicero informed me that Favonius is now known around the Forum as Cato's Ape, a delicious double pun. He apes Cato in every way he can, including going bare beneath his toga, but he's also such a dullard that he shambles along like an ape. Nice, eh?"
"Apt, certainly. Did Cicero coin it?"
"I imagine so, but he was suffering from an attack of modesty today, probably due to the fact that Pompeius made him swear to be polite and friendly to me, and he hates it after Rabirius."
"You sound desolate," she said with some irony.
"I'd really rather have Cicero on my side, but somehow I can't see that happening, Mater. So I'm prepared."
"For what?"
"The day he decides to join his little faction to the boni."
"Would he go that far? Pompeius Magnus wouldn't like it."
"I doubt he'd ever become an ardent member of the boni, they dislike his conceit as much as they dislike mine. But you know Cicero. He's a grasshopper with an undisciplined tongue, if there is such an animal. Here, there, everywhere, and all the time busy talking himself into trouble. Witness Publius Clodius and the six inches. Terribly funny, but not to Clodius or Fulvia."
"How will you deal with Cicero if he becomes an adversary?"
"Well, I haven't told Publius Clodius, but I secured permission from the priestly Colleges to allow Clodius to become a plebeian."
"Didn't Celer object? He refused to let Clodius stand as a tribune of the plebs."
“Correctly so. Celer is an excellent lawyer. But as to the actuality of Clodius's status, he doesn't care one way or the other. Why should he? The only object of Clodius's nasty streak at the moment is Cicero, who has absolutely no clout with Celer or among the priestly colleges. It's not frowned on for a patrician to want to become a plebeian. The tribunate of the plebs appeals to men with a streak of the demagogue in them, like Clodius."
"Why haven't you told Clodius you've secured permission?"
"I'm not sure I ever will. He's unstable. However, if I have to deal with Cicero, I'll slip Clodius's leash." Caesar yawned and stretched. "Oh, I'm tired! Is Julia here?"
"No, she's at a girls' dinner party, and as it's being held at Servilia's, I said she could stay the night. Girls of that age can spend days talking and giggling."
"She's seventeen on the Nones. Oh, Mater, how times flies! Her mother has been dead for ten years."
"But not forgotten," Aurelia said gruffly.
"No, never that."
A silence fell, peaceful and warm. With no money troubles to worry her, Aurelia was a pleasure, reflected her son.
Suddenly she coughed, looked at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes. "Caesar, the other day I had need to go to Julia's room to look among her clothes. At seventeen, birthday presents should be clothes. You can give her jewelry—I suggest earrings and necklace in plain gold. But I'll give her clothes. I know she ought to be weaving the fabric and making them herself—I did at her age— but unfortunately she's bookish, she'd rather read than weave. I gave up trying to make her weave years ago, it wasn't worth the energy. What she produced was disgraceful."
"Mater, where are you going? I really don't give a fig what Julia does provided it isn't beneath a Julia."
In answer Aurelia got up. "Wait here," she ordered, and left Caesar's study.
He could hear her mount the stairs to the upper storey, then nothing, then the sound of her footsteps descending again. In she came, both hands behind her back. Highly amused, Caesar tried to stare her out of countenance without success. Then she whipped her hands around and put something on his desk.
Fascinated, he found himself looking at a little bust of none other than Pompey. This one was considerably better made than the ones he had seen in the markets, but it was still mass-produced in that it was of plaster cast in a mold; the likeness was a more speaking one, and the paint quite delicately applied.
"I found it tucked among her children's clothes in a chest she probably never thought anyone would invade. I confess I wouldn't have myself, had it not occurred to me that there are any number of little girls in the Subura who would get so much wear out of things Julia has long grown out of. We've always kept her unspoiled in that she's had to make do with old clothes when girls like Junia parade in something new every day, but we've never allowed her to look shabby. Anyway, I thought I'd empty the chest and send Cardixa off to the Subura with the contents. After finding that, I left well alone."
"How much money does she get, Mater?" Caesar asked, picking up Pompey and turning him round between his hands, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth; he was thinking of all those young girls clustered around the stalls in the market, sighing and cooing over Pompey.
"Very little, as we both agreed when she came of an age to need some money in her purse."
"How much do you think this would cost, Mater?"
"A hundred sesterces at least."
"Yes, I'd say that was about right. So she saved her precious money to buy this."
"She must have done."
"And what do you deduce from it?"
“That she has a crush on Pompeius, like almost every other girl in her circle. I imagine right at this moment there are a dozen girls clustered around a similar likeness of the same person, Julia included, moaning and carrying on, while Servilia tries to sleep and Brutus toils away over the latest epitome."
"For someone who has never in her entire life been indiscreet, Mater, your knowledge of human behavior is astonishing."
"Just because I've always been too sensible to be silly myself, Caesar, does not mean that I am incapable of detecting silliness in others," Aurelia said austerely.
"Why are you bothering to show me this?"
"Well," said Aurelia, sitting down again, "on the whole I'd have to say that Julia is not silly. After all, I am her grandmother! When I found that"—pointing at Pompey—"I started to think about Julia in a way I hadn't done before. We tend to forget that they're almost grown up, Caesar, and that's a fact. Next year at this time Julia will be eighteen, and marrying Brutus. However, the older she gets and the closer that wedding comes, the more misgivings I have about it."
"Why?"
"She doesn't love him."
"Love isn't a part of the contract, Mater," Caesar said gently.
"I know that, nor am I prone to be sentimental. I am not being sentimental now. Your knowledge of Julia is superficial because it has to be superficial. You see her often enough, but with you she presents a different face than she does to me. She adores you, she really does. If you asked her to plunge a dagger into her breast, she probably would."
He shifted uncomfortably. "Mater, truly!"
&nbs
p; "No, I mean it. As far as Julia is concerned, if you asked her to do that, she would assume that it was necessary for your future welfare. She's Iphigenia at Aulis. If her death could make the winds blow and fill the sails of your life, she'd go to it without counting the cost to herself. And such," Aurelia said deliberately, "is her attitude to marrying Brutus, I am convinced of it. She will do it to please you, and be a perfect wife to him for fifty years if he lives that long. But she won't ever be happy married to Brutus."
"Oh, I couldn't bear that!" he cried, and put the bust down.
"I didn't think you could."
"She's never said a word to me."
“Nor will she. Brutus is the head of a fabulously rich and ancient family. Marrying him will bring that family into your fold, she knows it well."
"I'll talk to her tomorrow," he said with decision.
"No, Caesar, don't do that. She'll only assume you've seen her reluctance, and protest that you're wrong."
"Then what do I do?"
An expression of feline satisfaction came over Aurelia's face; she smiled and purred in the back of her throat. "If I were you, my son, I'd invite poor lonely Pompeius Magnus to a nice little family dinner."
Between the dropped jaw and the smile fighting to close it, Caesar looked as he had when a boy. Then the smile won, turned into a roar of laughter. "Mater, Mater," he said when he was able, “what would I do without you? Julia and Magnus? Do you think it's possible? I've racked myself hollow trying to find a way to bind him to me, but this is one way never crossed my mind! You're right, we don't see them grown up. I thought I did when I came home. But Brutus was there—I just took them for granted."
"It will work if it's a love match, but not otherwise," said Aurelia, "so don't be hasty and don't betray by word or look to either of them what hangs upon their meeting."
"I won't, of course I won't. When do you suggest?"
"Wait until the land bill is settled, whichever way it goes. And don't push him, even after they meet."
"She's beautiful, she's young, she's a Julia. Magnus will be asking the moment dinner's over."
But Aurelia shook her head. "Magnus won't ask at all."
"Why not?"
"Something Sulla told me once. That Pompeius was always afraid to ask for the hand of a princess. For that is what Julia is, my son, a princess. The highest born in Rome. A foreign queen would not be her equal in Pompeius's eyes. So he won't ask because he is too afraid of being refused. That's what Sulla said—Pompeius would rather remain a bachelor than risk the injury to his dignitas a refusal would mean. So he's waiting for someone with a princess for a daughter to ask him. It's you will have to do the asking, Caesar, not Pompeius. Let him grow very hungry first. He knows she's engaged to Brutus. We will see what happens when they meet, but don't allow them to meet too soon." She rose and plucked the bust of Pompey from the desk. "I'll put this back."
“No, put it on a shelf near her bed and do what you intended to do. Give her clothes away," said Caesar, leaning back and closing his eyes in content.
"She'll be mortified that I've discovered her secret."
"Not if you scold her for accepting presents from Junia, who has too much money. That way she can continue to gaze on Pompeius Magnus without losing her pride."
"Go to bed," said Aurelia at the door.
"I intend to. And thanks to you, I am going to sleep as soundly as a siren-struck sailor."
"That, Caesar, is carrying alliteration too far."
On the second day of January Caesar presented his land bill to the House for its consideration, and the House shuddered at the sight of almost thirty large book buckets distributed around the senior consul's feet. What had been the normal length of a bill was now seen to be minute by comparison; the lex Iulia agraria ran to well over a hundred chapters.
As the chamber of the Curia Hostilia was not an acoustically satisfactory place, the senior consul pitched his voice high and proceeded to give the Senate of Rome an admirably concise and yet comprehensive dissection of this massive document bearing his name, and his name alone. A pity Bibulus was uncooperative; otherwise it might have been a lex Iulia Calpurnia agraria.
"My scribes have prepared three hundred copies of the bill; time prohibited more," he said. "However, there are enough for a copy between every two senators, plus fifty for the People. I will set up a booth outside the Basilica Aemilia with a legal secretary and an assistant in attendance so that those members of the People who wish to peruse it or query it may do so. Attached to each copy is a summary equipped with useful references to pertinent clauses or chapters in case some readers or enquirers are more interested in some provisions than in others."
"You've got to be joking!" sneered Bibulus. "No one will bother reading anything half that long!"
"I sincerely hope everyone reads it," said Caesar, lifting his brows. "I want criticism, I want helpful suggestions, I want to know what's wrong with it." He looked stern. "Brevity may be the core of wit, but brevity in laws requiring length means bad laws. Every contingency must be examined, explored, explained. Watertight legislation is long legislation. You will see few nice short bills from me, Conscript Fathers. But every bill I intend to present to you will have been personally drafted according to a formula designed to cover every foreseeable possibility."
He paused to allow comment, but nobody volunteered. "Italia is Rome, make no mistake about that. The public lands of Italia's cities, towns, municipalities and shires belong to Rome, and thanks to wars and migrations there are many districts up and down this peninsula that have become as underused and underpopulated as any part of modern Greece. Whereas Rome the city has become overpopulated. The grain dole is a burden larger than the Treasury ought to be expected to bear, and in saying this I am not criticizing the law of Marcus Porcius Cato. In my opinion his was an excellent measure. Without it, we would have seen riots and general unrest. But the fact remains that instead of funding an ever-increasing grain dole, we ought to be relieving overpopulation within the city of Rome by offering Rome's poor more than a chance to join the army.
"We also have some fifty thousand veteran soldiers wandering up and down the country—including inside this city!—without the wherewithal to settle down in middle age and become peaceful, productive citizens able to procreate legitimately and provide Rome with the soldiers of the future, rather than with fatherless brats hanging on the skirts of indigent women. If our conquests have taught us nothing else, they have surely taught us that it is Romans who fight best, Romans who give generals their victories, Romans who can look with equanimity upon the prospect of a siege ten years long, Romans who can pick up after their losses and begin to fight all over again.
“What I propose is a law which will distribute every iugerum of public land in this peninsula, save for the two hundred square miles of the Ager Campanus and the fifty square miles of public land attached to the city of Capua, our main training ground for the legions. It therefore includes the public lands attached to places like Volaterrae and Arretium. When I go to fix my boundary stones along Italia's traveling stock routes, I want to know that they comprise the bulk of public land left in the peninsula outside of Campania. Why not the Campanian lands too? Simply because they have been under lease for a very long time, and it would be highly repugnant to those who lease them to have to do without them. That of course includes the maltreated knight Publius Servilius, who I hope by now has replanted his vines and applied as much manure as those delicate plants can tolerate."
Not even that provoked a remark! Because Bibulus's curule chair was actually a little behind his own, Caesar couldn't see his face, but found it interesting that he remained silent. Silent too was Cato, back to wearing no tunic beneath his toga since his Ape, Favonius, had entered the House to imitate him. An urban quaestor, the Ape was able to attend every sitting of the Senate.
"Without dispossessing any person at present occupying our ager publicus under the terms of an earlier lex agraria, I have esti
mated that the available public lands will provide allotments of ten iugera each to perhaps thirty thousand eligible citizens. Which leaves us with the task of finding sufficient land at present privately owned for another fifty thousand beneficiaries. I am counting on accommodating fifty thousand veteran soldiers plus thirty thousand of Rome's urban poor. Not including however many veterans are inside the city of Rome, thirty thousand urban poor removed to productive allotments in rural areas will provide relief for the Treasury of seven hundred and twenty talents per year of grain dole moneys. Add the twenty thousand-odd veterans in the city, and the relief approximates the additional burden Marcus Porcius Cato's law put on public funds.
"But even accounting for the purchase of so much privately owned land, the Treasury can supply the finance necessary because of enormously increased revenues from the eastern provinces—even if, for example, the tax-farming contracts were to be reduced by, let us say, a third. I do not expect the twenty thousand talents of outright profit Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus added to the Treasury to stretch to buying land because of Quintus Metellus Nepos's relaxation of duties and tariffs, a munificent gesture which has deprived Rome of revenue she actually needs badly."
Did that get a response? No, it didn't. Nepos himself was still governing Further Spain, though Celer sat among the consulars. Time he took himself to govern his province, Further Gaul.
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