1. First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  "I write, Gaius Memmius, to request that I be allowed to prosecute Titus Annius Albucius, governor propraetore of our province of Sardinia, immediately upon our return to Rome at the end of the year. As the House is aware, one month ago Titus Annius reported that he had succeeded in stamping out brigandage in his province, and requested an ovation for his work. His request for an ovation was refused, and rightly so. Though some nests of these pernicious fellows were eradicated, the province is by no means free of brigands. But the reason I wish to prosecute the governor lies in his un-Roman conduct after he learned that his request for an ovation had been denied. Not only did he refer to the members of the Senate as a pack of unappreciative irrumatores, but he proceeded at great expense to celebrate a mock triumph through the streets of Carales! I regard his actions as threats to the Senate and People of Rome, and his triumph as treasonous. In fact, so strongly do I feel that I am adamant no one other than myself shall conduct the prosecution. Please answer me in good time."

  Memmius laid the letter down amid a profound silence. "I would appreciate an opinion from the learned Leader of the House, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus," he said, and sat down. His lined face grim, Scaurus walked to the middle of the floor. "How strange," he began, "that I was speaking of matters not unlike this just before the House convened. Of matters indicating the erosion of our time-honored systems of government and personal conduct in government. In recent years, this august body composed of Rome's greatest men has suffered the loss not only of its power, but of its dignity as Rome's senior arm in government. We Rome's greatest men! are no longer permitted to direct the path Rome treads. We Rome's greatest men! have become used to the People fickle, untrained, greedy, thoughtless, part-time and good-time amateur politicians at best have become used to the People grinding our faces into the mud! We Rome's greatest men! are held of no account! Our wisdom, our experience, the distinction of our families over the many generations since the founding of the Republic, all have ceased to matter. Only the People matter. And I say to you, Conscript Fathers, that the People are not qualified to govern Rome!" He turned toward the open doors, and threw his voice in the direction of the well of the Comitia. "What segment of the People runs the Plebeian Assembly?" he bellowed. "The men of the Second and Third and even Fourth Classes minor knights ambitious to run Rome like their businesses, shopkeepers and smallholding farmers, even artisans grown large enough to run 'multiple sculpturals,' as I saw one yard describe itself! And men who call themselves advocates, but who must hawk for clients among the bucolic and the imbecilic, and men who call themselves agents, but can never quite describe what they are agents for! Their private activities bore them, so they frequent the Comitia flattering themselves that they in their precious tribes can run Rome better than we in our Curiate exclusivity! Political cant dribbles off their tongues as noisome and lumpy as vomit, and they prate of entertaining this or that tribune of the plebs, and applaud when senatorial prerogatives are handed over to the knights! They are middlemen, these fellows! Neither great enough to belong to the First Class of the Centuries, nor lowly enough to mind their own business like the Fifth Class and the Head Count! I say to you again, Conscript Fathers, that the People are not qualified to govern Rome! Too much power has been accorded to them, and in their overweening arrogance aided and abetted, I might add, by sundry members of this House when tribunes of the plebs! they now presume to ignore our advice, our directives, and our persons!" This, everyone recognized, was going to be one of Scaurus's more memorable speeches; his own secretary and several other scribes were busy scribbling his words down verbatim, and he was speaking slowly enough to make sure his words were properly recorded. "It is high time," he went on sonorously, "that we of the Senate reversed this process. It is high time that we showed the People that they are the juniors in our joint governing venture!" He drew a breath, and spoke conversationally. "Of course the origins of this erosion of senatorial power are easy to pinpoint. This august body has admitted too many parvenus, too many noxious mushrooms, too many New Men into its senior magistracies. What does the Senate of Rome honestly mean to a man who had to wipe the pig-shit off his face before he came to Rome to try his political luck? What does the Senate of Rome mean to a man who is at best a half Latin from the Samnite borderlands who rode into his first consulship on the skirts of a patrician woman he bought! And what does the Senate of Rome mean to a cross-eyed hybrid from the Celt-infested hills of northern Picenum?" Naturally Scaurus was going to attack Marius, that was to be expected; but his approach was tangential enough to be refreshing, and the House felt itself properly rebuked. So the House listened on in a spirit of interest as well as duty. "Our sons, Conscript Fathers," said Scaurus sadly, "are timid creatures, growing up in a political atmosphere which suffocates the Senate of Rome even as it breathes life into the People of Rome. How can we expect our sons to lead Rome in their turn, when the People cow them? I say to you if you have not already begun, today you must begin to educate your sons to be strong for the Senate, and merciless to the People! Make them understand the natural superiority of the Senate! And make them prepared to fight to maintain that natural superiority!" He had moved away from the doors, and now addressed his speech to the tribunes' bench, which was full. "Can anyone tell me why a member of this august House would deliberately set out to undermine it? Can anyone? Because it happens all the time! There they sit, calling themselves senators members of this august House! yet also calling themselves tribunes of the plebs! Serving two masters these days! I say, let them remember they are senators first, and tribunes of the plebs only after that. Their real duty toward the plebs is to educate the plebs in a subordinate role. But do they do that? No! Of course they don't! Some of these tribunes remain loyal to their rightful order, I acknowledge, and I commend them highly. Some, as is always the way in the annals of men, accomplish nothing for Senate or for People, too afraid that if they sit to either end of the tribunes' bench, the rest will get up, and they will be tipped on the ground and turn themselves into laughingstocks. But some, Conscript Fathers, deliberately set out to undermine this august body, the Senate of Rome. Why? What could possibly lead them to destroy their own order?" The ten on the bench sat in various attitudes which clearly reflected their political attitudes: the loyal senatorial tribunes were glowing, upright, smug; the men on the middle of the bench wriggled a little, and kept their eyes on the floor; and the active tribunes sat with eyes and faces hard, defiant, impenitent. "I can tell you why, fellow senators," said Scaurus, voice oozing contempt. "Some allow themselves to be bought like pinchbeck gewgaws on a cheap market stall those men we all understand! But others have more subtle reasons, and of these men the first was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. I speak of the kind of tribune of the plebs who sees in the plebs a tool to further his own ambitions, the kind of man who craves the status of the First Man in Rome without earning it among his peers, as Scipio Aemilianus did, and Scipio Africanus, and Aemilius Paullus, and if I may beg your collective pardon for my presumption Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus! We have borrowed a word from the Greeks to describe the Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus style of tribune of the plebs: we call them demagogues. However, we do not use it in precisely the way that the Greeks do. Our demagogues don't bring the whole city into the Forum screaming for blood, and tear down senators bodily from the steps of the Curia, and work their will through mass violence. Our demagogues content themselves with inflaming the habitual frequenters of the Comitia, and work their will through legislation. Oh, there is violence from time to time, but more often than not, it is we of the Senate who have had to resort to violence to re-establish the status quo. For our demagogues are legislators and legal draftsmen, more subtle, more vindictive, more dangerous by far than simple inciters of riots! They corrupt the People to further their own ambitions. And that, Conscript Fathers, is beneath contempt. Yet every day it is done, and every day it grows more prevalent. The shortcut to power, the easy road to pre-eminence." He broke off, took a turn about
the floor, clutched the massive folds of his purple-bordered toga with his left hand as they fell forward over his left shoulder and cuddled into his neck, flexed his bare right arm so it could continue to emphasize his words by gestures. "The shortcut to power, the easy road to pre-eminence," he repeated sonorously. "Well, we all know these men, don't we? first among them is Gaius Marius, our esteemed senior consul, who I hear is about to have himself elected consul yet again, and yet again in absentia! By our wish? No! Through the medium of the People, of course! How else could Gaius Marius have got where he is today, except through the medium of the People? Some of us have fought him, and fought him tooth and nail, and fought him to exhaustion, and fought him with every legal weapon in our constitutional arsenal! To no avail. Gaius Marius has the support of the People, the ear of the People, and pours money into the purses of some of the tribunes of the plebs. In this day and age, those are enough. Rich as Croesus, he can buy what he cannot get any other way. Such is Gaius Marius. But it is not Gaius Marius I rose to discuss. You will forgive me, Conscript Fathers, for allowing my emotions to carry me too far from the main thrust of my oration.'' He walked back to his original position, and turned to face the dais whereon sat the curule magistrates, and addressed his remarks to Gaius Memmius. "I rose to speak about another upstart, a less noticeable sort of upstart than Gaius Marius. The sort of upstart who claims ancestors in the Senate, and can speak good Greek, and has been educated, and lives in his home with a vastness of power ensuring that his eyes have never rested upon pig-shit if, that is, his eyes could see anything at all! Not a Roman of the Romans, for all he claims otherwise. I speak of the quaestor Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, deputed by this august House to serve the governor of Sardinia, Titus Annius Albucius. "Now who is this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo? A Pompey, who claims blood relationship to the Pompeys in this House for some generations, though it would be interesting to discover just how close the blood links are. Rich as Croesus, half of northern Italy in his clientship, a king inside the borders of his own lands. That's who is this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo." Scaurus's voice rose to a roar. "Members of the Senate, what is this august body coming to, when a brand-new senator in the guise of a quaestor has the temerity and the the crossness to indict his superior? How short of young Roman men are we, that we cannot put Roman arses on a mere three hundred seats? I am scandalized! Does this Pompey Cross-eyes really possess so little education in the niceties of behavior expected from a member of the Senate that he could even dream of indicting his superior? What is the matter with us, that we are letting the likes of this Pompey Cross-eyes put his uncouth arse on a senatorial stool? And what is the matter with him, that he could do such a thing? Ignorance and lack of breeding, that's what's the matter with him! Some things, Conscript Fathers, are just not done! Things like indicting one's superior or one's close relatives, including relatives by marriage. Not done! Crass bovine ill-mannered underbred presumptuous stupid our Latin language does not possess sufficient scathing epithets whereby to catalogue the shortcomings of such a noxious mushroom as this Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, this Pompey Cross-eyes!" A voice came from the tribunes' bench. "Are you inferring, Marcus Aemilius, that Titus Annius Albucius is to be lauded for his behavior?" asked Lucius Cassius. The Princeps Senatus drew himself up like a cobra, and just as venomously. "Oh, grow up, Lucius Cassius!" he said. "The issue here is not Titus Annius. Naturally he will be dealt with in the appropriate manner, which in his case is prosecution. If he is found guilty, he will incur the proper punishment the law prescribes. The issue here is protocol, politesse, etiquette in plain words, Lucius Cassius, manners. Our noxious mushroom Pompey Cross-eyes is guilty of a flagrant breach of manners!'' He faced the House. "I move, Conscript Fathers, that Titus Annius Albucius answer charges of a treasonable nature but that the praetor urbanus shall at the same time write a very stiff letter to the quaestor Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo informing him that, one, under no circumstances will he be permitted to prosecute his superior, and that, two, he has the manners of a boor." The House voted with a flourishing flapping of hands, making a Division unnecessary. "I think, Gaius Memmius," said Lucius Marcius Philippus in a nasal drawl of vastly aristocratic superiority (he was smarting at Scaurus's inference that Marius had bought his services), "that the House should at this time appoint a prosecutor to deal with the case of Titus Annius Albucius." "Do I hear any objections?" asked Memmius, looking around. No one objected. "Very well, let it be tabled that the House will appoint a prosecutor in the case of the State versus Titus Annius Albucius. Do I hear any names?" asked Memmius. "Oh, my dear praetor urbanus, there is only one possible name!" said Philippus, still drawling. "Then speak it, Lucius Marcius." "Why, our learned young man of the courts Caesar Strabo," said Philippus. "I mean, let us not utterly deprive Titus Annius of the sensation that he is being hounded by a voice from his past! I do think his prosecutor must be cross-eyed!" The House fell about laughing, Scaurus hardest of all; and when the hilarity died down, voted unanimously to appoint the cross-eyed young Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo youngest brother of Catulus Caesar and Lucius Caesar as Titus Annius Albucius's prosecutor. And in so doing, revenged itself tellingly upon Pompey Strabo. When Pompey Strabo received the Senate's stiff letter (plus a copy of Scaurus's speech, thrown in by Gaius Memmius to rub salt into the wound), he got the message. And vowed that one day he would have all those high-and-mighty aristocrats on the hop, needing him more than he needed them.

  Fight strenuously though they did, neither Scaurus nor Metellus Numidicus could swing enough votes in the Plebeian Assembly to avert the nomination of Gaius Marius as a candidate for the consulship in absentia. Nor could they sway the Centuriate Assembly, for the Second Class of voters was still smarting at Scaurus's inference during his memorable speech that they were mere middlemen, and as reprehensible as the Third and Fourth Classes. The Centuriate Assembly gave Gaius Marius a continued mandate to stop the Germans, and would not hear of any other man's taking his place. Elected senior consul for the second time in a row, Gaius Marius was the man of the hour, and might without fear of contradiction claim to be the First Man in Rome. "But not primus inter pares first among equals," said Metellus Numidicus to young Marcus Livius Drusus, returned to the law courts after his short-lived military career of the year before. They had encountered each other in front of the urban praetor's tribunal, where Drusus was standing with his friend and brother-in-law, Caepio Junior. "I am afraid, Quintus Caecilius," said Drusus without an ounce of apology in his tone, "that for once I did not subscribe to the thinking of my peers. I voted for Gaius Marius yes, that stops you in your tracks, doesn't it? Not only did I vote for Gaius Marius, but I prevailed upon most of my friends and all my clients to vote for him as well." "You're a traitor to your class!" snapped Numidicus. "Not at all, Quintus Caecilius. You see, I was at Arausio," said Drusus quietly. "I saw at first hand what can happen when senatorial exclusivity overcomes the dictates of good sound Roman common sense. And I say to you flatly that if Gaius Marius was as cross-eyed as Caesar Strabo, as crass as Pompey Strabo, as lowborn as a laborer in the Port of Rome, as vulgar as the knight Sextus Perquitienus still I would have voted for him! I do not believe we have another military man of his caliber, and I will not countenance placing a consul over him who would treat him as Quintus Servilius Caepio treated Gnaeus Mallius Maximus!" And Drusus walked away with great dignity, leaving Metellus Numidicus staring after him openmouthed. "He's changed," said Caepio Junior, who still followed Drusus about, but with less enthusiasm since their return from Gaul-across-the-Alps. "My father says that if Marcus Livius isn't careful, he'll turn into a demagogue of the worst kind." "He couldn't!" cried Metellus Numidicus. "Why, his father the censor was Gaius Gracchus's most obdurate foe young Marcus Livius has been brought up in the most conservative way!" "Arausio changed him," maintained Caepio Junior. "Maybe it was the blow to his head that's what my father thinks, anyway. Ever since he came back, he's stayed as thick as thieves with the Marsic fellow Silo he befriended after the battle." H
e snorted. "Silo comes down from Alba Fucentia and lords it around Marcus Livius's house as if he owns it, and they sit for hours and hours talking, and they never ask me to join in." "A regrettable affair, Arausio," said Metellus Numidicus, laboring a little, since he was passing these remarks to the son of the man who had incurred most of the blame. Caepio Junior escaped as soon as he could, and walked home conscious of a vague dissatisfaction which had wrapped him round from the time oh, he didn't know really, but somewhere about the time he had married Drusus's sister, and Drusus had married his sister. There was no reason why he should feel this way; he just did. And things had changed so since Arausio! His father wasn't the same man either; one moment he would be chuckling gleefully at a joke Caepio Junior didn't understand, the next moment he would be down in the depths of despair at the swelling tide of public resentment for Arausio, and only moments later he would be shouting in rage at the injustice of it all what he meant by "it all" Caepio Junior had not been able to work out. Nor could Caepio Junior's feelings about Arausio ever be free from guilt; while Drusus and Sertorius and Sextus Caesar and even that Silo fellow lay on the field given up for dead, he had run away across the river like a kicked cur, no less anxious to survive than the least Head Count raw recruit in his legion. Naturally this had never been spoken to anyone, even his father; it was Caepio Junior's awful secret. Yet every day when he met Drusus, he wondered what Drusus suspected. His wife, Livia Drusa, was in her sitting room, her infant daughter on her knee, for she had just finished breast-feeding the mite. As always, his advent produced a smile, and that should have warmed him. But it never did. Her eyes were at odds with the rest of her face, for no smile ever reached inside them, and no interest ever flared out of them. Whenever she spoke to him or listened to him speaking, Caepio Junior was aware that her eyes never looked into his, even for a moment. And yet, no man was ever blessed with a nicer, more accommodating wife. She was never too tired or unwell to receive his sexual advances, nor did she object to any sexual request he made of her. Of course at such times he couldn't see her eyes; how then could he know so positively they held not a scrap of pleasure? A more perceptive and intelligent man would have gently taxed Livia Drusa with these things, but Caepio Junior tended to put it all down to his own imagination, having too little imagination to understand he lacked it. Mentally acute enough to know there was something radically wrong, he was not mentally acute enough to make the correct assumptions. Certainly it never occurred to him that she didn't love him, though before they married he had been sure she positively disliked him. But that had been his imagination. For she could not have disliked him, when she had proven a model Roman wife. Therefore she must love him. His daughter, Servilia, was an object rather than a human creature to Caepio Junior, disappointed that he hadn't been dowered with a son. So now he sat down while Livia Drusa gave the baby a few rubs on the back, then handed her over to her Macedonian nursemaid. "Did you know that your brother actually voted for Gaius Marius in the consular elections?" he asked. Livia Drusa's eyes widened. "No. Are you sure?" "He said so today, to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus. While I was there. Waffled on about being at Arausio. Oh, I wish my father's enemies would let that die a natural death!" "Give it time, Quintus Servilius." "It's getting worse," said Caepio Junior despondently. "Are you in to dinner?" "No, on my way out again, actually. Going to eat at Lucius Licinius Orator's house. Marcus Livius will be there too." "Oh," said Livia Drusa flatly. "Sorry, did mean to tell you this morning. Just forgot," said her husband, getting up. "You don't mind, do you?" "No, of course not," said Livia Drusa tonelessly. Of course she did mind, not because she craved her husband's company, but because a little forethought on his part might have saved both money and effort in the kitchen. They lived with Caepio the father, who was forever complaining about the size of the household bills, and forever blaming Livia Drusa for not being a more careful housekeeper. It never occurred to Caepio the father any more than it did to his son that neither of them bothered to apprise her of their movements, and so every day she was obliged to make sure a proper dinner was prepared, even if no one turned up to eat it, and it went back almost untouched to slide down the gullets of Caepio the father's ecstatic slaves. "Domina, shall I take the baby back to the nursery?" the Macedonian girl asked. Livia Drusa started out of her reverie, nodded. "Yes," she said, not even giving the child a glance in passing as the maid carried her off. That she was breast-feeding her daughter was not out of any consideration for the welfare of baby Servilia; it was because she knew while ever she gave the baby her milk, she would not conceive again. She didn't care for baby Servilia very much; every time she looked at the mite, she saw a miniature copy of the mite's father short legs, a darkness so dark it was disquieting, a dense coat of black hair along spine, arms and legs, and a shock of coarse black head hair which grew low down on the forehead and the back of the neck like an animal's pelt. To Livia Drusa, little Servilia possessed no virtues whatsoever. She didn't even attempt to list the baby's assets, which were by no means contemptible, for she had a pair of black eyes so big and dark that they promised great beauty later on, and the tiniest rosebud of a mouth, still and secretive, another harbinger of beauty. The eighteen months of her marriage had not reconciled Livia Drusa to her fate, though never once did she disobey her brother Drusus's orders; her courtesy and demeanor were perfect. Even in the midst of her frequent sexual encounters with Caepio Junior, she behaved impeccably. Luckily her high birth and status precluded an ardent response; Caepio Junior would have been appalled if she had moaned in ecstasy or thrown herself around in the bed as if she enjoyed herself in the manner of a mistress. All she was obliged to do, she did in the manner her wifehood dictated flat on her back, no fancy hipwork, a suitable meed of warmth, and unassailable modesty. Oh, but it was difficult! More difficult than any other aspect of her life, for when her husband touched her she wanted to scream rape and violation, and vomit in his face. There was no room in her to pity Caepio Junior, who in actual fact had never really done anything to deserve the passionate revulsion she felt for him. By now, he and her brother Drusus had merged indissolubly into a single vast and threatening presence capable of reducing her to far worse circumstances; hideously afraid of them, she moved on day by day toward death aware that she was never going to know what it was like to live. Worst of all was her geographical exile. The Servilius Caepio house was on the Circus Maximus side of the Palatine, looked across to the Aventine, and had no houses below it, just a steep and rocky cliff. There were no more chances to stand on Drusus's loggia watching the balcony of the house underneath for a glimpse of her red-haired Odysseus. And Caepio the father was a singularly unpleasant man who grew steadily more unpleasant as time went on; he didn't even have a wife to lighten Livia Drusa's burden, though so remote was he and so remote was her relationship with his son that she never found the courage to ask either of them whether the wife/mother was alive or dead. Of course Caepio the father's temper was tried more and more as time went on because of his part in the disaster at Arausio. First he had been stripped of his imperium, then the tribune of the plebs Lucius Cassius Longinus had succeeded in passing a law stripping his seat in the Senate from him, and now hardly a month went by without some enterprising would-be crowd pleaser trying to prosecute him on thinly veiled treason charges. Virtually confined to his house by the virulent hatred of the People and his own lively sense of self-preservation, Caepio the father spent a good deal of his time watching Livia Drusa and criticizing her remorselessly. However, she didn't help matters by doing some very silly things. One day her father-in-law's mania for watching her made her so angry that she marched out into the middle of the peristyle-garden where no one could overhear what she said, and began to talk to herself aloud. The moment the slaves began to gather beneath the colonnade and whisper debates as to what she might be doing, Caepio the father erupted out of his study with a face like flint. Down the path he came and stood over her fiercely. "What do you think you're doing, girl?" he demand
ed. Her big dark eyes opened guilessly wide. "I'm reciting the lay of King Odysseus," she said. "Well, don't!" snarled her father-in-law. "You're making a spectacle of yourself! The servants are saying you've gone off your head! If you must recite Homer, then do it where people can hear it's Homer! Though why you'd want to beats me." "It passes the time," she said. "There are better ways to pass the time, girl. Set up your loom, or sing to your baby, or do whatever else women do. Go on, go on, go away!" "I don't know what women do, Father," she said, getting to her feet. "What do women do?" "Drive men insane!" he said, went back into his study and shut the door with a snap. After that she went even further, for she took Caepio the father's advice and set up her loom. The only trouble was, she began to weave the first of a whole series of funeral dresses, and as she worked she talked very loudly to an imaginary King Odysseus, pretending that he had been away for years and she was weaving funeral dresses to stave off the day when she must choose a new husband; every so often she would pause in her monologue and sit with head cocked to one side, as if she were listening to someone speak. This time Caepio the father sent his son to find out what was the matter. "I'm weaving my funeral dress," she said calmly, "and trying to find out when King Odysseus is coming home to rescue me. He will rescue me, you know. One day." Caepio Junior gaped. "Rescue you? What are you talking about, Livia Drusa?" "I never set foot outside this house," she said. Flinging his hands up, Caepio Junior made a small sound of exasperation. “Well, what's to stop you going out if you want to, for Juno's sake?" Her jaw dropped; she could think of nothing to say except "I don't have any money." "You want money? I'll give you money, Livia Drusa! Just stop worrying my father!" cried Caepio Junior, goaded from two directions. "Go out whenever you want! Buy whatever you want!" Face wreathed in smiles, she walked across the room and kissed her husband on the cheek. "Thank you," she said, and meant it so sincerely that she actually hugged him. It had been as easy as that! All those years of enforced isolation were gone. For it had not occurred to Livia Drusa that in passing from the authority of her brother to the authority of her husband and his father, the rules might have changed a little.