Roma

by Steven Saylor

  Julia laughed. “Dear Gaius—always with an eye to the future! I think he shall be consul someday, don’t you?”

  Lucius’s mouth was dry. His chest ached from coughing. “Perhaps he’ll be the next Sulla,” he said.

  “Lucius! What a terrible thing to say.”

  “Or perhaps the next Gracchus—except that your brother will probably succeed where the Gracchi failed.”

  Before Julia could respond to this, their son came running into the room. The boy’s elderly Greek tutor followed, looking flustered. “Mistress, I couldn’t stop him. Word’s spread through the house that you’ve received a letter from your brother. Little Lucius wants to know—”

  “Where is Uncle Gaius?” shouted the boy. Lucius noticed that he was wearing the fascinum of his ancestors. The sight of the amulet both pleased and pained him. “Where is Uncle Gaius? Do the pirates still have him?”

  Julia took the boy’s face in her hand. “No, they don’t! Brave Uncle Gaius escaped from the pirates.”

  “He escaped?”

  “Yes, indeed. And then do you know what he did? He hunted them down, and he killed them.”

  “All the pirates?”

  “Yes, every one! Uncle Gaius nailed them to crosses, and gave them the terrible deaths they deserved. Those awful pirates will never bother anyone ever again.”

  “Because Uncle Gaius killed them!”

  “That’s right. So you must have no more bad dreams about them. Now, there’s someone here to whom you must say hello.”

  Julia looked up, but Lucius had disappeared.

  Out in the street, Lucius coughed violently. His breath formed streams of mist in the cold air. He walked quickly, aimlessly, his thoughts a muddle; his slave had to hurry to keep up with him. His eyes welled with tears. The tears felt hot running down his cheeks. They blurred his vision. He did not see the patch of ice on the paving stones ahead of him. The slave saw, and shouted a warning, but too late.

  Lucius stepped on the ice. Limbs flailing, he fell backward. He struck his head on a stone. He shuddered and twitched, then lay very still. Blood ran from his skull.

  Seeing the empty look in his master’s wide-open eyes and the peculiar way his neck was twisted, the slave let out a scream, but there was nothing to be done. Lucius was dead.

  CAESAR’S HEIR

  44 B.C.

  It was the Ides of Februarius. Since the time of King Romulus, this was the day set aside for the ritual called the Lupercalia.

  The origin of the Lupercalia—the boisterous occasion when young Romulus and Remus and their friend Potitius ran about the hills of Roma naked with their faces disguised by wolfskins—was long forgotten, as were the origins of many Roman holidays. But above all else, the Romans honored the traditions that had been handed down by their ancestors. Paying scrupulous attention to the most minute details, they continued to observe many arcane rituals, sacrifices, feasts, holidays, and propitiations to the gods, long after the origins of these rites were lost.

  The Roman calendar was filled with such enigmatic observances, and numerous priesthoods had been established to maintain them. Because religion determined, or at least justified, the actions of the state, senatorial committees studied lists of precedents to determine the days when certain legislative procedures could and could not be performed.

  Why did the Romans adhere so faithfully to tradition? There was sound reasoning behind such devotion. The ancestors had performed certain rituals, and in return had been favored by the gods above all other people. It only made sense that living Romans, the inheritors of their predecessors’ greatness, should continue to perform those rituals precisely as handed down to them, whether they understood them or not. To do otherwise was to tempt the Fates. This logic was the bedrock of Roman conservatism.

  And so, as their ancestors had done for many hundreds of years, on the day of the Lupercalia the magistrates of the city, along with the youths of noble families, stripped naked and ran through the streets of the city. They carried thongs of goat hide and cracked them in the air like whips. Young women who were pregnant or desired to become so would purposely run toward them and offer their hands to be slapped by the thongs, believing that this act would magically enhance their fertility and grant them an easy birth. Where this belief came from, no one knew, but it was part of the great compendium of beliefs that had come down to them and thus was worthy of observance.

  Presiding over the festivities, seated on the Rostra upon a golden throne, arrayed in magnificent purple robes, and attended by a devoted retinue of scribes, bodyguards, military officers, and assorted sycophants, sat Gaius Julius Caesar.

  At the age of fifty-six, Caesar was a handsome man. He had a trim figure, but—ironically, given his cognoman—he had lost much of his hair, especially at the crown and the temples; the remainder he combed over his forehead in a vain attempt to hide his baldness. The men around him hung on his every word. The citizens, gathered to watch the Lupercalia, gazed up at him with fear, awe, respect, hatred, and even love, but never with indifference. To all appearances, Caesar might have been a king presiding over his subjects, except for the fact that he did not wear a crown.

  A lifetime of political maneuvering and military conquests had brought Caesar to this point. Early in his career, he proved to be a master of political procedure; no man could manipulate the Senate’s convoluted rules as deftly as Caesar, and many were the occasions he thwarted his rivals by invoking some obscure point of order. He had proven to be a military genius as well; in less than ten years he had conquered all of Gaul, enslaving millions and accumulating a huge fortune for himself. When his envious, fearful enemies in the Senate attempted to deprive him of his legions and his power, Caesar marched on Roma itself. A second civil war, the great fear of every Roman since the days of Sulla, commenced.

  Pompeius Magnus, who had sometimes been Caesar’s ally, led the coalition against him. At the battle of Pharsalus in Greece, Pompeius’s forces were destroyed. Pompeius fled to Egypt, where the minions of the boy-king Ptolemy killed him. They presented his head to Caesar as a gift.

  Caesar had circled the Mediterranean, destroying all vestiges of opposition. He set Roma’s subject states in order, confirming the loyalty of their rulers and making them accountable to him alone. Egypt, the great grain producer of the world, remained independent, but Caesar disposed of King Ptolemy and put the boy’s slightly older sister Cleopatra on the throne. Caesar’s relationship with the young queen was both political and personal; Cleopatra was said to have borne him a son. At present, she and the child were residing just outside Roma, on the far side of the Tiber, in a grand house suitable for a visiting head of state.

  Caesar’s authority was absolute. Like Sulla before him, he proudly assumed the title of dictator. Unlike Sulla, he showed no inclination ever to lay down his power. To the contrary, he publicly announced his intention to reign as dictator for life. “King” was a forbidden word in Roma, but Caesar was a king in everything but name. He had done away with elections and appointed magistrates for several years to come; his right-hand man Marcus Antonius was serving as consul. The ranks of the Senate, thinned by civil war, had been filled with new members handpicked by Caesar. These new senators included, to the outrage of many, some Gauls, whose loyalty was more to Caesar than to Roma. It was not clear what function the Senate would serve from this time forward, except to approve the decisions of Caesar. He had assigned control of the mint and the public treasury to his own slaves and freedmen. All legislation and all currency were under his control. His personal fortune, acquired over many years of conquest, was immense beyond imagining. Beside him, Roma’s richest men were paupers.

  Whatever his title, it had become clear to everyone that Caesar’s triumph signaled the death of the Republic. Roma would no longer be ruled by a Senate of competing equals, but by one man with absolute power over all others, including the power of life and death.

  The long civil war had disrupted many traditions. As all
power now attached to the dictator-for-life, it was up to him to oversee a return to normalcy. And so, on the Ides of Februarius, Caesar sat on a throne on the Rostra and presided over the Lupercalia.

  Among the runners assembled in the Forum, stretching their legs and getting ready, was Lucius Pinarius. His grandmother had been the late Julia, one of Caesar’s sisters. His grandfather had been Lucius Pinarius Infelix—“the Unlucky”—so-called, young Lucius had been told, because of his untimely death due to a fall on an icy street. Lucius was seventeen and had run in the Lupercalia before, but he was especially excited to be doing so on this day, with his grand-uncle Gaius presiding.

  A burly man with a broad, hairy chest and powerful limbs came swaggering up to him. Some men, by the age of thirty-six, begin to soften and turn fat, but not Marcus Antonius. He carried himself with immense confidence; he appeared completely comfortable, even pleased, to be seen naked in public. Lucius still had a boy’s body, slender and smooth, and felt envious of Antonius’s athletic physique; Lucius thought the man looked quite magnificent. Lucius was also fascinated by the consul’s reputation for high living; nobody could out-gamble, out-drink, out-brawl, or out-whore Antonius. But Antonius was such a friendly fellow that Lucius never felt self-conscious or shy around him, as he often did with his uncle.

  “What’s that?” Antonius tapped the pendant that hung from a chain around Lucius’s neck.

  “A good-luck charm, Consul,” said Lucius.

  Antonius snorted. “Call me Marcus, please. If I ever become so puffed up that my friends must call me by a title, stick a pin in me.”

  Lucius smiled. “Very well, Marcus.”

  “Where did you get it?” said Antonius, referring to the pendant. “A gift from Caesar?”

  “Oh, no, it’s an heirloom from my father’s side of the family. He gave it to me on my toga day last year.”

  Antonius peered at the amulet. His eyes were a bit bloodshot from carousing the night before. “I can’t make out the shape.”

  “Nobody can. We’re not quite sure what it was. Father says it’s been worn away by time. He says it’s very, very old, maybe from the time of the kings, or even before.”

  Antonius nodded. “‘From the time of the kings’—that’s what people say when they mean something is so far in the past it’s beyond imagining. As if a time of kings could never come again.” He looked up at the Rostra and nodded to Caesar. Caesar nodded back, then stood to address the crowd.

  “Citizens!” cried Caesar. The single utterance hushed the crowd and gained him everyone’s attention. Among his other accomplishments, Caesar was one of the best orators in Roma, able to project his voice a great distance and to speak extemporaneously and with great eloquence on any subject. On this occasion his speech was short and to the point.

  “Citizens, we are gathered to observe one of the most ancient and revered of all rituals, the running of the Lupercalia. The highest servants of the state and the youths of our most ancient families will take part. The Lupercalia returns us to the pastoral days of our ancestors, when Romans lived close to the earth, close to their flocks, and close to the gods, who gave to Roma the gifts of fertility and abundance.

  “Citizens, in recent years, because of the interruptions of war, many rituals have been neglected or performed in a perfunctory manner. The Lupercalia has been run with a very scant contingent and with little joy. But to neglect our religious obligations is to neglect our ancestors. To perform our vital rituals with bare adequacy is to give merely adequate worship to the gods. Today, I am pleased to say, we have a very full and very robust gathering to run the Lupercalia. Our beloved city has been depopulated by the misfortunes of war; many fine men have been lost. But with the snapping of their sacred thongs, let these runners set in motion the repopulation of Roma! Let every woman of childbearing age offer her wrist! Let there be rejoicing and abundance!

  “Citizens, the priests have observed the auspices for this day. The auspices are good. Therefore, with the raising of my hand, I, Gaius Julius Caesar, your dictator, declare that the Lupercalia may begin!”

  To a burst of applause from the crowd, the runners set off. Their course would take them to various points all over the city, and they would run the circuit three times in all.

  Lucius stayed close to Antonius. He liked the familiar way the man treated him, as if they were old drinking companions or fellow warriors, leaning in close to crack a joke about the sagging backside of one of the participating magistrates or to make lewd comments about the women gathered along the way. At the sight of Antonius, women whispered and giggled, teasing one another to step forward and present their wrists to be slapped. How effortless it was for Antonius to flirt with them!

  When Antonius saw that Lucius hung back, he encouraged him to put himself forward. “Growl at them—they love that! Run a circle around them. Don’t be afraid to look them straight in the eye, and up and down. Imagine you’re a wolf picking out the plumpest of the sheep.”

  “But Marcus, I’m not sure I have the—”

  “Nonsense! You heard your uncle, young man—this is your religious duty! Just follow me and do as I do. Call for some courage from that amulet you wear!”

  Lucius took a deep breath and did as he was told. With Antonius leading the way, it was easy. He felt the power of his legs as they carried him forward, and the rush of breath in his lungs. He saw the grinning faces of the girls gathered along the course, and he grinned back at them. He snapped his thong in the air, threw back his head, and howled.

  A sense of euphoria came over him, and the sacred nature of the ritual became manifest to him. When he had run the Lupercalia before, he had performed his duty by rote, without abandoning himself to the spirit of the occasion. What was different about this day? He was a man, for one thing, and Antonius was beside him, and his great-uncle Gaius was the undisputed ruler of Roma, presiding over the world’s rebirth. The great fountainhead of the earth’s fecundity, which found expression in the Lupercalia, surged through Lucius. When he slapped the wrist of a giddy, laughing girl with his thong, he felt a connection to something divine such as he had never experienced before. The sensation manifested itself physically, as well. From time to time he felt a pleasant stirring and a heaviness between his legs. He stole a glance at Antonius’s sex, and saw that his friend was mildly excited as well.

  Antonius saw the change in Lucius and laughed. “There you go, young man! That’s the spirit!”

  They finished the first circuit and ran back through the Forum, where an even larger crowd had gathered before the Rostra. People wanted to be present for the end of the run, and the public feast that would follow. As the runners passed the Rostra, Caesar remained seated on his throne but raised his arm in salute.

  “Wait here for me,” said Antonius to Lucius. He broke from the pack and mounted the Rostra, taking giant steps. From somewhere—he had not been carrying it before—he produced a diadem made of gold and wrapped with laurel leaves. He held the diadem aloft so that everyone in the crowd could see. He knelt before Caesar, then rose and held the crown above Caesar’s head.

  The crowd reacted with surprise. This was not a part of the ritual of Lupercalia. Some laughed, some cheered. A few dared to jeer and groan with disapproval. Caesar suppressed a smile. Managing to look very grave, he raised his hand and prevented Antonius from placing the crown on his head.

  The crowd applauded and cheered. Caesar sat motionless. Only his eyes moved, scanning the crowd, closely observing their reaction. With his upraised hand, he made a dismissive gesture, indicating that Antonius should continue the run.

  “What was that about?” said Lucius, when Antonius rejoined the pack.

  In one hand Antonius still held the diadem, in the other his goat-hide thong. He shrugged. “The glare off your great-uncle’s bald spot was blinding me. I thought it needed something to cover it.”

  “Marcus, be serious.”

  “To a man of Caesar’s years, there is nothing more seri
ous than a bald spot.”

  “Marcus!”

  But Antonius would say no more. He growled and howled and leaped toward a group of young women who screamed with excitement. Lucius followed him, anxious to regain the euphoria he had experienced during the first circuit.

  When they ran through the Forum to make the second pass before the Rostra, the crowd had grown even larger. Again, Antonius broke away and ran onto the platform. Again, he displayed the diadem to the crowd. A number of people began to chant, “Crown him! Crown him!” Others chanted, “Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”

  Like a mime on a stage, Antonius made a great show of trying to place the diadem on Caesar’s brow. Again, Caesar gently refused it, waving his hand as if to ward off a buzzing insect. The crowd’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than before. They cheered and stamped their feet.

  Antonius withdrew and rejoined the pack.

  “Marcus, what is going on?” said Lucius.

  Antonius grunted. “Caesar is my commander. I was thinking that vulnerable bald spot could use a bit of strategic cover.”

  “Marcus, this isn’t funny!”

  Antonius shook his head and laughed. “There is nothing as funny as your great-uncle’s bald spot!” He would say no more.

  They completed the third and final circuit. An immense crowd had gathered before the Rostra, made up not only of the pious and those who wished to take advantage of the feast, but of many others, for word of Caesar’s refusal of a crown had spread through the city. When Antonius mounted the Rostra, the competing chants were deafening.