Roma

by Steven Saylor

  At the far end of the chamber, magnificent upon her pedestal, stood Venus herself, as captured in marble by Arcesilaus, the most highly paid sculptor in the world. The goddess stood with one arm bent back to touch her shoulder and her other arm slightly extended; one of her breasts was bare. The molding of her serene features and the folds of her thin gown were extraordinarily delicate.

  Next to Venus stood an equally impressive statue of Cleopatra, executed in bronze and covered with gold. The queen was portrayed not in the outlandish garb of the Pharaohs, which the Ptolemies had appropriated when they assumed the rule of Egypt, but in elegant Greek dress, more chastely covered than Venus and wearing a simple diadem on her brow. To Lucius’s eye, Cleopatra was not a particularly beautiful woman—certainly not as beautiful as the idealized image of Venus beside her—but the sculptor had nonetheless managed to capture that indefinable quality that had so captivated a man like Caesar. Caesar’s decision to place her statue in the new Temple of Venus had sparked intense speculation about his intentions. If the purpose of the temple was to honor his ancestress, what place did the queen of Egypt have there, unless Caesar intended to make her the mother of his own descendents?

  Lucius had met the queen only once, when she first arrived in Roma for her state visit. During the feasting and entertainments, Lucius had been briefly introduced to her as one of Caesar’s young relatives. The queen had been gracious but aloof; Lucius had been completely tongue-tied. Since then, Caesar had installed Cleopatra at a sumptuous garden estate on the farther bank of the Tiber, where the queen had hosted a number of lavish dinners to introduce herself to the city’s elite.

  Staring up at her statue, Lucius felt a sudden impulse to pay her a visit. Why not? Caesar’s overtures to him the previous night emboldened him. Lucius was not just one of the great man’s heirs; he was Caesar’s confidante. He had as much right to pay a social call on the queen of Egypt as any other Roman. To be sure, he was not formally outfitted in his toga, but he was wearing his best tunic. He turned about, left the temple, and headed for the bridge across the Tiber.

  Passing through the marketplace in the Forum Boarium, he was surrounded by plebeians on their way to celebrate the Feast of Anna Perenna. There were so many of them heading out of the city that there was a queue to cross the bridge. On the other side, the picnickers drifted toward the public grounds along the riverbank, but Lucius pressed further on, toward the grand private estates that fronted the most desirable stretch of the Tiber. Here the wealthy of Roma had their second homes outside the city, where they could relax in their gardens, pursue the fashionable hobby of beekeeping, and go boating and swimming in the river.

  At one of the grandest of these houses, owned by Caesar, Cleopatra had taken up residence. When Lucius knocked at the gate, an Egyptian slave, his eyes outlined with kohl, peered at him through the peephole. Lucius announced himself—“Lucius Pinarius, great-nephew of Gaius Julius Caesar”—and a few moments later the slave opened the gate.

  The big man peered beyond him. “Only you?” he said in Greek.

  Lucius laughed. “I suppose the queen has very few visitors who arrive without an entourage, and on foot. But yes, it’s only me. My uncle is otherwise engaged today, as the queen probably knows.”

  He was conducted to a sunny garden with a view of the river. The garden was formally laid out, with manicured shrubs, gravel paths, and carefully pruned rose bushes. Tucked amid the shrubbery were quaint pieces of Greek statuary. Lucius noticed one of a winged Eros kneeling down to touch a butterfly, and another of a young boy absorbed in pulling a thorn from his foot. Lucius sat on a stone bench and gazed at the sparkles of morning sunlight on the river.

  “You’re as pretty as a statue.”

  Lucius stood and turned to see the queen standing nearby.

  “Please, remain seated,” she said. “I was enjoying the sight of you. You looked like another statue in the garden: Roman Boy Contemplating the Tiber.”

  “I’m not a boy, Your Majesty,” said Lucius, bristling slightly. “I would have worn my toga, but—”

  “Roman men and their togas! I’m afraid they always look slightly ridiculous to me.”

  “The men or the togas?”

  Cleopatra smiled. “You’re a sharp one,” she said. “And of course you’re not a boy. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know how vexing it can be, when one is young but determined to be taken seriously.”

  Cleopatra herself was no more than twenty-five. Her statue in the temple made her look older, Lucius thought, as had her royal raiment when he first met her. On this day she wore a simple, sleeveless linen gown tied at the waist with a gold-threaded sash. Her hair, usually pinned atop her head, hung down on either side of her face. She wore no diadem. The day was early, and the queen was not yet dressed for formal visitors.

  “It’s good of you to receive me,” said Lucius.

  “I could hardly turn away Caesar’s kinsman. Is there a celebration? My sentinels tell me that all sorts of people are out enjoying themselves along the river. Does it have something to do with Caesar’s pronouncement to the Senate?”

  Lucius smiled at her mistake. “The Feast of Anna Perenna is an ancient plebeian holiday. It has nothing to do with me or with Caesar. He won’t be speaking to the Senate until later this morning.”

  “I see. I have a great deal to learn about Roman customs. Perhaps you could instruct me.”

  “I, Your Majesty?”

  “By rights, the task should fall to Caesar. When he was in Alexandria, I educated him about Egyptian court protocol. But Caesar is much too busy. And there are so few people in the city I can trust.”

  “But you’ve met many people since you arrived. All the best people come to the dinner parties here at your villa.”

  “Yes, and they all go away utterly charmed by the queen of Egypt—or pretending to be so, to curry favor with Caesar. Occasionally, I receive word of their true reaction. That fellow Cicero, for example. To my face, the famous advocate was all smiles and flattery. Behind my back, he wrote a letter to a friend, complaining that he could hardly stand to be in the same room with me.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shrugged. “One didn’t survive as a princess in Alexandria without learning how to discover the truth. Frankly, I don’t see why Caesar allows that man to keep his head. Didn’t Cicero oppose him in the civil war and fight for Pompeius?”

  “Yes. Brutus opposed him, as well, but after Pharsalus, Caesar forgave them both. Caesar is famous for his clemency.”

  The queen narrowed her eyes. “I suppose, operating in a republic, clemency was a tool of statecraft. Caesar will learn new ways to deal with his enemies when he finally puts the last vestiges of this primitive form of government behind him.”

  “Primitive?” Lucius drew back his shoulders. More than ever he wished he had worn his toga; it gave a man a sense of authority. “Roma is much, much older than Alexandria. And I believe the Roman Republic predates the establishment of your dynasty by almost two hundred years.”

  “Perhaps. But when my ancestor Ptolemy inherited control of Egypt from Alexander, he assumed the title, the royal insignia, and the divine status of the Pharaohs who preceded him. Their dynasties can be traced back thousands of years, to the very beginning of time. By comparison, the civilization of the Romans is very young; infantile, in fact. The great pyramids were built many centuries before the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Roma was founded hundreds of years after Troy fell.”

  She frowned. “The other day I hosted a group of Roman scholars, to discuss the holdings of the Library of Alexandria. We fell to talking about the origins of Roma, and they put forward a very novel theory. They said that a Trojan warrior, Aeneas, escaped the sack of the city, sailed to the shores of Italy, and settled near the Tiber, and thus the blood of Troy survives in the Romans. But when I asked for evidence, they had none. I have to wonder whether your scholars are taking a bit of license when they speak of this link between Roma and
Troy.”

  “There are those,” admitted Lucius, “who say that historians invent the past.”

  Cleopatra smiled. “I would rather invent the future.”

  She strolled to a place which afforded a better view of the water. Downriver, tiny in the distance, figures could be seen lounging on the bank. “We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. I suppose the Pinarii are an ancient family?”

  “There was a Pinarius in Roma when Hercules appeared and killed the monster Cacus. And the Julii must be just as ancient. Caesar says the line was begun by a union with Venus.”

  “Which makes Caesar almost as divine as myself. He certainly behaves like a god.” She smiled, then frowned. “While they are on earth, the gods do great things; but after they leave the earth, they fall as silent as dead mortals. I frequently pray to the first Ptolemy, who was most certainly a god; I speak, but he never speaks back. He fought beside Alexander, bathed beside him, ate beside him. There are a thousand questions I would like to ask him—What did Alexander’s laughter sound like? Did he snore? What did he smell like?—but to those questions there are no answers, and there never will be. The dead are all dust. The past is as unknowable as the future. When Caesar and I are dust, will men of the future know only our names, and nothing else about us?”

  Lucius could think of nothing to say. He had never heard a woman, or a man for that matter, speak in such a fashion. Even Caesar tended to ruminate more about troop movements than about matters of eternity.

  Cleopatra smiled. “It’s curious that I’m so young, and Caesar is so old—more than twice my age—while the relative ages of our kingdoms are reversed. Egypt is like a mature queen, wealthy, worldly, covered with jewels, sophisticated to her fingertips. Roma is a brawny, brash, brawling upstart. The two need not be at odds. In some ways they’re natural allies, as Caesar and I are natural allies.”

  “Is that what you are? Allies?”

  “To conquer Parthia, Caesar will need the assistance of Egypt.”

  “But surely there’s more between you than that.” Watching her graceful movements, listening to her speak, Lucius had begun to see the attraction Cleopatra must hold for Caesar. He had also glimpsed the qualities that must have been so repellent to a man like Cicero, who believed in the staid, silent, matronly virtues of Roman womanhood.

  For the first time, it seemed possible to Lucius, even likely, that Caesar intended to divorce his Roman wife. Caesar had a viable excuse: Calpurnia had failed to give him a son. If the king of Roma married the queen of Egypt, would Parthia be a gift to their son? What would become of Caesar’s other heirs?

  A childish squeal erupted from the far side of the garden. Two handmaidens appeared, looking slightly chagrinned. Between them stood a tiny boy with upraised arms. The women held him by his hands, or more precisely restrained him, for he was eager to break from them and run to his mother.

  Cleopatra laughed and clapped her hands. “Come to me, Caesarion!”

  The child ran toward her. A few times Lucius thought he would fall, but Caesarion remained upright for the entire distance. He threw himself against his mother and clutched her legs, then looked up at Lucius shyly. He seemed no different from any other child.

  “How old is he?” said Lucius.

  “Three years.”

  “He looks big for his age.”

  “Good. He needs to grow up fast.” The queen gestured to the handmaidens, who came to fetch Caesarion and then set about amusing him in the garden. “Now you must excuse me, Lucius Pinarius. Caesar will call on me later today, after his pronouncement to the Senate. I must prepare myself. I’m glad you came to visit. You and I should know one another better.”

  Lucius headed back to the city.

  He chose a path that led him through the Grove of the Furies. The secluded holy place was deserted and quiet except for the distant singing of revelers along the riverbank. Passing by the altar, Lucius recalled the story of Gaius Gracchus and the terrible fate he had met in this very spot, chased to ground by his enemies and killed by a trusted slave, who then slew himself. Lucius’s great-great-grandfather had been a friend of Gaius Gracchus, or so Lucius had been told; of the two men’s actual dealings with one another, Lucius knew nothing.

  He recalled something that Cleopatra had said: We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. It was true. What did Lucius know about those who had come before him? He knew their names, from the lists kept by his family of marriages and offspring, and from the official records that listed the magistrates of the Republic. About some of them he had heard an anecdote or two, although the details often differed depending upon who told the story. In the vestibule of his father’s house there were wax images of some of the ancestors, so that Lucius had an idea of what they had looked like. But of the men and women themselves—their dreams and passions, their failures and triumphs—he knew virtually nothing. His ancestors were strangers to him.

  Until the previous night, he had not even known of the terrible sacrifice made by his grandparents to save Caesar’s life. How much more did he not know? The magnitude of this ignorance overwhelmed him—so many lives, so full of incident and feeling, lost to his knowledge completely and forever. What had Cleopatra said? The past is as unknowable as the future. He suddenly perceived his existence as a tiny point illuminated by the thinnest crack of light—the now—poised between two infinities of darkness—before and after.

  He left the grove, crossed the bridge, and wandered across the Forum Boarium. Close by the Temple of Hercules stood the Ara Maxima, the most ancient altar in all of Roma, dedicated to Hercules, who had saved the people from Cacus. Had there really been a Hercules and a Cacus, a hero and a monster? So the priests declared, and the historians agreed; so the monument attested. If the story was true, there had been a Pinarius among the Romans even then, and the Pinarii, up until the early days of the Republic, had been assigned the sacred duty of maintaining the Ara Maxima and celebrating the Feast of Hercules. They had shared this duty with a family called the Potitii, which no longer existed. Why had the Pinarii abandoned the duty? What had become of the Potitii? Lucius did not know.

  From the Temple of Hercules he heard a man calling, “Shoo! Shoo!” A temple slave appeared at the open doorway, wielding a horsetail whisk to drive a fly from the sanctuary. Everyone knew that flies were forbidden to enter the temple, because flies had swarmed about Hercules and confounded him when he fought against Cacus. Nor could dogs come near, because the dog of Hercules had failed to warn him of the monster’s approach. These things must have occurred, or else why did rituals exist to commemorate them, many lifetimes later?

  Lucius recalled the story of the Romans trapped by the Gauls atop the Capitoline; the geese raised the alarm, while the dogs failed to bark. To commemorate that event, each year a dog was impaled on a stake and paraded through the city, along with one of Juno’s sacred geese carried in a litter. The first time Lucius had witnessed this spectacle as a child, he had been puzzled and revolted by it, until his father had explained its meaning. Now when he saw the ritual each year, Lucius found it reassuring, a reminder both of the city’s past and of his own childhood and the first time he had seen the procession.

  Thinking of all the many rituals that took place during the year, and all the traditions of the ancestors which had been so scrupulously preserved over the centuries, Lucius felt comforted. Religion existed to honor and placate the gods, but did it not also make the past and the future a little less mysterious, and therefore less frightening?

  Lost in thought, Lucius wandered homeward. Turning a corner, he realized that he was very near the house of Brutus. An impulse had caused Lucius to call upon Cleopatra. An equally spontaneous impulse now prompted him to pay a visit to Brutus, who, according to rumor, was another of Caesar’s possible heirs.

  Everyone knew that Caesar had been the lover of Brutus’s mother, Servilia. The
fact had come out before Lucius was born, and on the floor of the Senate, of all places. Servilia was the half-sister of Cato, grandson of the famous Cato who had called for the destruction of Carthage. Cato had been one of Caesar’s bitterest enemies. Twenty years ago, during a heated debate in the Senate regarding an alleged conspiracy by the populist Catilina, Caesar had been seen to receive a note from a messenger. Cato, suspecting it might implicate Caesar in the plot, insisted that he read the note aloud. Caesar refused. Cato grew more suspicious and more vehement, until finally Caesar relented and read the message aloud. It was a love note from Servilia, Cato’s sister. Cato was humiliated. Caesar was much amused. From that day, his affair with Servilia was public knowledge, and the speculation began that he might be the father of her son, Marcus Junius Brutus. The special regard in which Caesar had always held Brutus, even when Brutus sided with Pompeius, had further fueled this speculation.

  Whatever their relationship, Brutus was among the men whom Caesar had chosen to fill various posts when he began rebuilding the government. Currently Brutus was praetor in charge of the city, but in the coming year he would leave for Macedonia to serve as provincial governor. Because Caesar’s Parthian campaign might keep the dictator from Roma for an indefinite period, all such appointments had been made not for the usual one year but for five years.

  Brutus was also a key member of the Senate, and it occurred to Lucius that he might already have left home, heading for the Field of Mars and the meeting of the Senate at the assembly hall in the Theater of Pompeius. But evidently Brutus was still at home, for as Lucius drew nearer to Brutus’s house, he saw several men in red-bordered senatorial togas being admitted at the front door. Lucius assumed they must be gathering before heading off in a group to the assembly hall. Clearly, it was not a good time for Lucius to pay a visit. Nonetheless, he continued in the same direction, toward Brutus’s house.