Caesar (55 page)

“I wouldn't otherwise be here, Uncle Cato.”

“I wish you were anywhere but here, nevvy.”

“It must be wonderful to have a reputation for unapologetic rudeness,” said Brutus, entering the study. “I'd give a great deal to emulate it.” Cato grinned sourly. “Not with your mother, you wouldn't. She'd shell your balls out.”

“She did that years ago.” Brutus poured himself wine, looked vainly for water, shrugged and sipped, grimacing. “I wish you'd spend a little of your money on decent wine.”

“I don't drink it to flute my appreciation and flutter my eyelashes, I drink it to get drunk.”

“It's so vinegary your stomach must be like rotting cheese.”

“My stomach's in better condition than yours, Brutus. I didn't have pimples at thirty-three. Or eighteen, for that matter.”

“It's no wonder you lost at the consular elections,” said Brutus, wincing.“ People don't like to hear the naked truth, but I have no intention of ceasing to tell it.”

“I realize that, Uncle.”

“Anyway, what brings you?”

“Today's debacle in the Curia Pompeia.” Cato sneered. “Pah! Curio will crumble.”

“I don't think so.”

“Why?”

“Because he produced a reason for his veto.”

“There's always a reason behind a veto. Curio was bought.” Oh, thought Brutus to himself, I see why we don't function as well when Bibulus is away! Here am I trying to fill Bibulus's shoes, and failing miserably. As I do at most things except the making of money, and I don't know why I have a talent for that. He tried again. “Uncle, to dismiss Curio as a bought man isn't clever because it isn't relevant. What is relevant is Curio's reason for the veto. Brilliant! When Caesar sent that letter asking to be treated in the same way as Pompeius, and we refused, we gave Curio his ammunition.”

“How could we agree to treat Caesar identically to Pompeius? I detest Pompeius, but he's infinitely more able than Caesar. He's been a force since the days of Sulla and his career is larded with honors, special commands, highly profitable wars. He doubled our income,” said Cato stubbornly.“ That was ten years ago, and in those ten years Caesar has eclipsed him in the eyes of the Plebs and the People. The Senate may run foreign policy, apportion out foreign commands and have the final word in every military decision, but the Plebs and the People matter. They like Caesar— no, they adore Caesar.”

“I'm not responsible for their stupidity!” snapped Cato.“ Nor I, Uncle. But the fact remains that in proposing to lift his veto the moment the Senate agreed to treat Pompeius in exactly the same way as Caesar, Curio scored an immense victory. He maneuvered those of us who oppose Caesar into the wrong. He made us look petty. He made it seem that our motives are founded purely in jealousy.”

“That isn't so, Brutus.”

“Then what does drive the boni?”

“Ever since I entered the Senate fourteen years ago, Brutus, I've seen Caesar for what he really is,” said Cato soberly. “He's Sulla! He wants to be King of Rome. And I vowed then that I would exert every fiber of my being to prevent his attaining the position and the power which would enable him to achieve his ambition. To gift Caesar with an army is suicide. But we gifted him with three legions, thanks to Publius Vatinius. And what did Caesar do? He enlisted more legions without our consent. He even managed to pay them, and keep on paying them until the Senate broke down.”

“I have heard,” Brutus offered, “that he took an enormous bribe from Ptolemy Auletes when he was consul and secured a decree confirming Auletes in his tenure of the throne of Egypt.”

“Oh, that's a fact,” said Cato bitterly. “I interviewed Ptolemy Auletes when he visited Rhodes after the Alexandrians threw him off the throne—you were convalescing in Pamphylia at the time, rather than being of use to me.”

“No, Uncle, I was in Cyprus doing your preliminary culling of Ptolemy the Cyprian's treasures at the time,” Brutus said. “You terminated my illness yourself, don't you remember?”

“Well, anyway,” said Cato, shrugging this reproach off, “Ptolemy Auletes came to see me in Lindos. I advised him to go back to Alexandria and make peace with his people. I told him that if he went on to Rome he'd only lose more thousands of talents in useless bribes. But of course he didn't listen. He went on to Rome, squandered a fortune in bribes, and got nowhere. But one thing he did tell me—that he paid Caesar six thousand gold talents for those two decrees. Of which Caesar kept four thousand. Marcus Crassus got a thousand, and Pompeius got a thousand. Out of those four thousand gold talents, ably managed by that loathesome Spaniard Balbus, Caesar equipped and paid his illegally recruited legions.”

“Where are you going?” asked Brutus plaintively.“ Into my reasons why I vowed never to let Caesar have command of an army. I didn't succeed because Caesar ignored the Senate and had four thousand gold talents to spend on an army. With the result that he now has eleven legions and control of all the provinces which ring Italia around—Illyricum, Italian Gaul, the Province, and the new province of Gallia Comata. He will bring down the Republic about our ears unless we stop him, Brutus!”

“I wish I could agree, Uncle, but I don't. Say the word Caesar and you over-react. Besides, Curio has found the perfect lever. He has undertaken to remove his veto on terms which will sound extremely reasonable to the Plebs, the People, and at least half the Senate. Make Pompeius step down in one and the same moment as Caesar.”

“But we can't!” Cato yelled. “Pompeius is a Picentine oaf. He has designs on pre-eminence which I can't condone, but he doesn't have the blood to become King of Rome. Which means that Pompeius and his army are our only defense against Caesar. We can't agree to Curio's terms, nor let the Senate agree.”

“I understand that, Uncle. But in stopping its happening, we're going to look very small and vindictive. And we may not, even then, succeed.” Cato's face twisted into a grin. “Oh, we'll succeed!”

“What if Caesar personally confirms that he will step down in the same moment as Pompeius?”

“I imagine he'll do just that. But it doesn't matter one little bit. Because Pompeius will never consent to step down.” Cato poured himself another goblet of wine and drained it, while Brutus sat, frowning, his own untouched.“ Don't you dare say I drink too much!” snapped Cato, seeing the frown.“ I wasn't going to,” said Brutus with dignity.“ Then why the disapproving look?”

“I was thinking.” Brutus paused, then looked at his uncle very directly. “Hortensius is very ill.” The indrawn breath was clearly audible. Cato stiffened. “What has that to do with me?”

“He's asking for you.”

“Let him ask.”

“Uncle, I think you must see him.”

“He's no relation of mine.”

“But,” said Brutus with considerable courage, “four years ago you did him a great favor.”

“I did him no favor in giving him Marcia.”

“He thinks so. I've just come from his bedside.” Cato rose to his feet. “All right, then. I'll go now. You can come with me.”

“I should go home,” said Brutus timidly. “My mother will be wanting a report on the meeting.” The reddened, swollen grey eyes flashed. “My half sister,” said Cato, “is a political amateur. Don't feed her information she will inevitably misinterpret. And probably write off to tell her lover, Caesar, all about.” Brutus emitted a peculiar noise. “Caesar has been away for a great many years, Uncle.” Cato stopped in his tracks. “Does that mean what I think it does, Brutus?”

“Yes. She's intriguing with Lucius Pontius Aquila.”

“Who?”

“You heard me.”

“He's young enough to be her son!”

“Oh, definitely,” said Brutus dryly. “He's three years my junior. But that hasn't stopped her. The goings-on are absolutely scandalous. Or they would be if they were generally known.”

“Then let us hope,” said Cato, opening the front door, “that they don't become generally known. She managed to keep Caesar a deep dark secret for years.” The house of Quintus Hortensius Hortalus was one of the most beautiful residences on the Palatine, and one of the largest. It stood on what had once been the unfashionable side, looking over the Vallis Murcia and the Circus Maximus to the Aventine Mount, and it actually possessed grounds as well as a peristyle garden. In these grounds were the sumptuous marble pools housing Hortensius's darlings, his fish. Cato had never been to his house since his marriage to Marcia; the constant invitations to dine were rejected, the invitations to pop round and taste a particularly fine vintage were rejected. What if, during one of these visits, he should set eyes on Marcia?Now it couldn't be avoided. Hortensius had to be in his early seventies at least; due to the years of war between Sulla and Carbo followed by Sulla's dictatorship, Hortensius had come very late to his praetorship and consulship. Perhaps because of this exasperating hiatus in his political career, he had begun to abuse himself in the name of pleasure, and ended in permanently addling what had been a fine intellect. But the vast, echoing atrium was empty save for servants when Cato and Brutus walked in. Nor was there a sign of Marcia as they were conducted to Hortensius's “reclining chamber,” as he called the room too like a woman's boudoir to be a study, yet too diurnal to be a sleeping room. Striking frescoes adorned its otherwise austere walls, not erotic art. Hortensius had chosen to reproduce the wall paintings in the ruined palace of King Minos on Crete. Wasp-waisted, kilt-clad men and women with long black curls leaped on and off the backs of oddly peaceful bulls, swung from their curving horns like acrobats. No trace of green or red: blues, browns, white, black, yellows. His taste was impeccable in everything. How much Hortensius must have relished Marcia!The room stank of age, excrement and that indefinable odor which heralds the imminence of death. There upon a great bed, lacquered in the Egyptian manner in blues and yellows reflecting the colors in the murals, lay Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, long ago the undisputed ruler of the law courts. He had shrunk to something resembling the description in Herodotus of an Egyptian mummy, hairless, desiccated, parchmented. But the rheumy eyes recognized Cato immediately; he stuck out a liver-spotted claw and grasped Cato's hand with surprising strength.“ I'm dying,” he said piteously.“ Death comes to all of us,” said the master of tact.“ I am so afraid of it!”

“Why?” asked Cato blankly.“ What if some of the Greeks are right, and agony awaits me?”

“The fate of Sisyphus and Ixion, you mean?” The toothless gums showed; Hortensius had not quite lost his sense of humor. “I'm not very good at rolling boulders uphill.”

“Sisyphus and Ixion offended the Gods, Hortensius. You have merely offended men. That's not a crime worthy of Tartarus.”

“Isn't it? Don't you think the Gods require that we treat men the way we treat them?”

“Men are not gods, therefore the answer to that is no.”

“All of us have a black horse as well as a white horse to draw the chariot of the soul,” said Brutus in a soothing voice. Hortensius giggled. “That's the trouble, Brutus. Both my horses have been black.” He twisted to look at Cato, who had moved away. “I wanted to see you to thank you,” he said.“ Thank me? Why?”

“For Marcia. Who has given me more happiness than an old and sinful man deserves. The most dutiful and considerate of wives ...” His eyes rolled, wandered. “I was married to Lutatia—Catulus's sister, you know. Do you know? Had my children by her.... She was very strong, very opinionated. Unsympathetic. My fish ... She despised my beautiful fish.... I could never make her see the pleasure in watching them cruise the water so tranquilly, so very gracefully.... But Marcia liked to watch my fish too. I suppose she still does. Yesterday she brought me Paris, my favorite fish, in a rock-crystal tank.... ”But Cato had had enough. He leaned forward to kiss those awful, stringy lips, for that was a right act. “I have to go, Quintus Hortensius,” he said, straightening. “Don't fear death. It is a mercy. It can be the preferable alternative to life. It is gentle, of that I am sure, though the manner of its coming may be painful. We do what is required of us, and then we are at peace. But make sure your son is here to hold your hand. No one should die alone.”

“I would rather hold your hand,” said Hortensius. “You are the greatest Roman of them all.”

“Then,” said Cato, “I will hold your hand when the time comes.”

Curio's popularity in the Forum zoomed at exactly the same rate as his popularity in the Senate plummeted. He would not retract his veto, especially after he read out a letter from Caesar to the House, stating that Caesar would be happy to relinquish his imperium, his provinces and his army if Pompey the Great relinquished his imperium, provinces and army at one and the same moment. Pushed to it, Pompey had no other choice than to declare that Caesar's demand was intolerable, that he couldn't lower himself to oblige a man who was defying the Senate and People of Rome. Which statement allowed Curio to allege that Pompey's refusal meant that it was really Pompey who had designs on the State—Caesar was willing, and didn't that mean Caesar was behaving like a faithful servant of the State? And what was all this about having designs on the State? What sort of designs?“ Caesar intends to overthrow the Republic and make himself the King of Rome!” cried Cato, tried beyond silent endurance. “He will use that army of his to march upon Rome!”

“Rubbish!” said Curio scornfully. “It's Pompeius you ought to be worried about, not Caesar. Caesar is willing to step down, but Pompeius is not. Therefore which of them intends to use his army to overthrow the State? Why, Pompeius, of course!”

And so it went through one meeting of the Senate after another; March ended, April began and ended, and still Curio maintained his veto, unintimidated by the wildest threats of trial or death. Wherever he went he was cheered deliriously, which meant that no one dared to arrest him, let alone try him for treason. He had become a hero. Pompey, on the other hand, was beginning to look more and more a villain, and the boni more and more a lot of jealous bigots. While Caesar was beginning to look more and more the victim of a boni conspiracy to set Pompey up as Rome's Dictator. Furious at this turn in public opinion, Cato had written to Bibulus in Syria almost every day, begging for advice; he received no reply until the last day of April: