Caesar (63 page)

“Proper,” he said, leaning back to watch.“ He's four months old today,” she said.“ Yes, and I've missed three nundinae of seeing him grow.”

“How was Ravenna?” He shrugged, grimaced.“ Ought I to have asked, how is Caesar?”

“I don't honestly know, Fulvia.”

“Haven't you talked with him?”

“Hours every day for three nundinae.”

“And yet you don't know.”

“He keeps his counsel while he discusses every aspect of the situation lucidly and dispassionately,” said Curio, frowning and leaning forward to caress the undeniably red fuzz on his son's working scalp. “If one wanted to hear a master Greek logician, the man would be a disappointment after Caesar. Everything is weighed and defined.”

“So?”

“So one comes away understanding everything except the single aspect one wants most to understand.”

“Which is?”

“What he intends to do.”

“Will he march on Rome?”

“I wish I could say yes, I wish I could say no, meum mel. But I can't. I have no idea.”

“They don't think he will, you know. The boni and Pompeius.”

“Fulvia!” Curio exclaimed, sitting up straight. “Pompeius can't possibly be that naive, even if Cato is.”

“I'm right,” she said, detaching baby Curio from her nipple, sitting him up on her lap to face her and bending him gently forward until he produced a loud eructation. When she picked him up again, she transferred him to her other breast. This done, she resumed speaking as if there had been no pause. “They remind me of certain small animals— the kind which own no real aggression, but make a mock show of it because they've learned that such mock shows work. Until the elephant comes along and treads on them because he simply doesn't see them.” She sighed. “The strain in Rome is enormous, husband. Everyone is petrified. Yet the boni keep on behaving like those mock-aggressive little animals. They posture and prate in the Forum, they send the Senate and the Eighteen into absolute paroxysms of fear. While Pompeius says all sorts of weighty and gloomy things about civil war being inevitable to mice like poor old Cicero. But he doesn't believe what he says, Curio. He knows that Caesar has only one legion this side of the Alps, and he has had no evidence that more are coming. He knows that were more to come, they'd be in Italian Gaul by now. The boni know those things too. Don't you see? The louder the fuss they make and the more upsetting it is, the greater their victory will appear when Caesar gives in. They want to cover themselves in glory.”

“What if Caesar doesn't give in?”

“They'll be stepped on.” She looked at Curio keenly. “You must have some sort of instinct about what will happen, Gaius. What does your instinct say?”

“That Caesar is still trying to solve his dilemma legally.”

“Caesar doesn't dither.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Therefore it's all sorted out in his mind already.”

“Yes, in that I think you're right, wife.”

“Are you here for a purpose, or are you home for good?”

“I've been entrusted with a letter from Caesar to the Senate. He wants it read today at the inaugural meeting of the new consuls.”

“Who's to read it out?”

“Antonius. I'm a privatus these days; they wouldn't listen.”

“Can you stay with me for a few days at least?”

“I hope I never have to leave again, Fulvia.” Shortly thereafter Curio departed for the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol, wherein the New Year's Day meeting of the Senate was always held. When he returned several hours later, he brought Mark Antony with him. The preparations for dinner took some moments; prayers had to be said, an offering made to the Lares and Penates, togas doffed and folded, shoes removed, feet washed and dried. During all of which Fulvia held her peace, then usurped the lectus imus for herself—she was one of those scandalously forward women who insisted on reclining to eat.“ Tell me everything,” she said as soon as the first course was laid out and the servants had retired. Antony ate, Curio talked.“ Our wolfing friend here read Caesar's letter out so loudly that nothing could overcome his voice,” said Curio, grinning.“ What did Caesar have to say?”

“He proposed that either he should be allowed to keep his provinces and his army, or else that all other holders of imperium should step down at one and the same moment he did.”

“Ah!” Fulvia exclaimed, satisfied. “He'll march.”

“What makes you think that?” asked her husband.“ He made an absolutely absurd, unacceptable request.”

“Well, I know that, but...”

“She's right,” mumbled Antony, hand and mouth full of eggs. “He'll march.”

“Go on, what happened next?”

“Lentulus Crus was in the chair. He refused to throw Caesar's proposal open to debate. Instead, he filibustered on the general state of the nation.”

“But Marcellus Minor is the senior consul; he has the fasces for January! Why wasn't he in the chair?”

“Went home after the religious ceremonies,” mumbled Antony, “Headache or something.”

“If you're going to speak, Marcus Antonius, take your snout out of the trough!” said Fulvia sharply. Startled, Antony swallowed and achieved a penitent smile. “Sorry,” he said.“ She's a strict mother,” said Curio, eyes adoring her.“ What happened next?” asked the strict mother.“ Metellus Scipio launched into a speech,” said Curio, and sighed. “Ye Gods, he's boring! Luckily he was too eager to get to his peroration to waffle on interminably. He put a motion to the House. The Law of the Ten Tribunes was invalid, he said, and that meant Caesar had no right whatsoever to his provinces or his army. He would have to appear inside Rome as a privatus to contest the next consular elections. Scipio then moved that Caesar be ordered to dismiss his army by a date to be fixed, or else be declared a public enemy.”

“Nasty,” said Fulvia.“ Oh, very. But the House was all on his side. Hardly anyone voted against his motion.”

“It didn't pass, surely!”

Antony gulped hastily, then said with commendable clarity, “Quintus Cassius and I vetoed it.”

“Oh, well done!”

Pompey, however, didn't consider the veto well done at all. When the debate resumed in the House on the second day of January and resulted in another tribunician veto, he lost his temper. The strain was telling on him more than on anyone else in that whole anguished, terrified city; Pompey had the most to lose.“ We're getting nowhere!” he snarled to Metellus Scipio. “I want to see this business finished! It's ridiculous! Day after day, month after month—if we're not careful, the anniversary of the Kalends of March last year will roll around and we'll still have come no closer to putting Caesar in his place! I have the feeling that Caesar is running rings around me, and I don't like that feeling one little bit! It's time the comedy was ended! It's time the Senate acted once and for all! If they can't secure a law in the Popular Assembly to strip Caesar of everything, then they'll have to pass the Senatus Consultum Ultimum and leave the matter to me!”

He clapped three times, the signal for his steward.“ I want a message sent immediately to every senator in Rome,” he told his steward curtly. “They are to report to me here two hours from now.” Metellus Scipio looked worried. “Pompeius, is that wise?” he ventured. “I mean, summon censors and consulars?”

“Yes, summon! I'm fed up, Scipio! I want this business with Caesar settled!”

Like most men of action, Pompey found it extremely difficult to coexist with indecision. And, like most men of action, Pompey wanted to be in absolute command. Not pushed and pulled by a parcel of incompetent, shilly-shallying senators who he knew were not his equals in anything. The situation was totally exasperating!Why hadn't Caesar given in? And, since he hadn't given in, why was he still sitting in Ravenna with only one legion? Why wasn't he doing something? No, clearly he didn't intend to march on Rome—but if he didn't, what did he think he was going to do? Give in, Caesar! Give up, give way! But he didn't. He wouldn't. What tricks did he have up his sleeve? How could he extricate himself from this predicament if he didn't intend to give in, nor intend to march? What was going on in his mind? Did he think to prolong this senatorial impasse until the Nones of Quinctilis and the consular elections? But he would never get permission to stand in absentia, even if he managed to hang onto his imperium. Was it in his mind to send a few thousand of his loyalest soldiers to Rome on an innocent furlough at the time of the elections? He'd done that already, to secure the consulship for Pompeius and Crassus six years ago. But nothing got round the in absentia, so why? Why? Did he think to terrorize the Senate into yielding permission to stand in absentia? By sending thousands of his loyalest soldiers on furlough?Up and down, up and down; Pompey paced the floor in torment until his steward came, very timidly, to inform him that there were many senators waiting in the atrium.“ I've had enough!” he shouted, striding into the room. “I have had enough!”

Perhaps one hundred and fifty men stood gaping at him in astonishment, from Appius Claudius Pulcher Censor to the humble urban quaestor Gaius Nerius. A pair of angry blue eyes raked the ranks and noted the omissions: Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censor, both the consuls, many of the consulars, every senator known to be a partisan of Caesar's and several who were known not to favor Caesar—but didn't favor being summoned by a man with no legal right to summon either. Still, there were sufficient to make a good beginning.“ I have had enough!” he said again, climbing onto a bench of priceless pink marble. “You cowards! You fools! You vacillating milksops! I am the First Man in Rome, and I am ashamed to call myself the First Man in Rome! Look at you! For ten months this farce has been going on over the provinces and the army of Gaius Julius Caesar, and you've gotten nowhere! Absolutely nowhere!”

He bowed to Cato, Favonius, Ahenobarbus, Metellus Scipio and two of the three Marcelli. “Honored colleagues, I do not include you in these bitter words, but I wanted you here to bear witness. The Gods know you've fought long and hard to terminate the illegal career of Gaius Caesar. But you get no real support, and this evening I intend to remedy that.” Back to the rest, some of them, like Appius Claudius Pulcher Censor, none too pleased. “I repeat! You fools! You cowards! You weak, whining, puny collection of has-beens and nowheres! I am fed up!” He drew a long, sucking breath. “I have tried. I have been patient. I have held back. I have suffered all of you. I have wiped your arses and held your heads while you puked. And don't stand there looking mortally offended, Varro! If the shoe fits, wear it! The Senate of Rome is supposed to set the tone and serve as the example to every other body politic and body public from one end of Rome's empire to the other. And the Senate of Rome is a disgrace! Every last one of you is a disgrace! Here you are, faced by one man—one man!—yet for ten months you've let him shit all over you! You've wavered and shivered, argued and sniveled, voted and voted and voted and voted—and gotten nowhere! Ye Gods, how Gaius Caesar must be laughing!”

By this everyone was stunned far beyond indignation; few of the men present had served in the field with Pompey in a situation which revealed his ugly side, but many of them were now grasping why Pompey got things done. Their affable, sweet-tempered, self-deprecating Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was a martinet. Many of them had seen Caesar lose his temper, and still shivered in their boots at the memory of it. Now they saw Pompey lose his temper, and shivered in their boots. And they began to wonder: which of the two, Caesar or Pompey, would prove the harder master?“ You need me!” roared Pompey from the superior height of his bench. “You need me, and never forget it! You need me! I'm all that stands between you and Caesar. I'm your only refuge because I'm the only one among the lot of you who can beat Caesar on a field of battle. So you'd better start being nice to me. You'd better start bending over backward to please me. You'd better smarten up your act. You'd better resolve this mess. You'd better pass a decree and procure a law in the Assembly to strip Caesar of army, provinces and imperium! I can't do it for you because I'm only one man with one vote, and you haven't got the guts to institute martial law and put me in charge!”

He bared his teeth. “I tell you straight, Conscript Fathers, that I don't like you! If I were ever in a position to proscribe the lot of you, I would! I'd throw so many of you off the Tarpeian Rock that you'd end in falling on a senatorial mattress! I have had enough. Gaius Caesar is defying you and defying Rome. That has to stop. Deal with him! And don't expect mercy from me if I see any one of you tending to favor Caesar! The man's an outcast, an outlaw, though you don't have the guts to declare him one legally! I warn you, from this day on I will regard any man who favors Caesar as an outcast, as an outlaw!”

He waved his hand. “Go home! Think about it! And then, by Jupiter, do something! Rid me of this Caesar!”

They turned and left without a word. Pompey jumped down, beaming. “Oh, that feels better!” he said to the little group of boni who remained.“ You certainly rammed a red-hot poker up their arses,” said Cato, voice for once devoid of expression. sol_“Pah! They needed it, Cato. Our way one day, Caesar's way the next. I'm fed up. I want an end to the business.”

“So we gathered,” said Marcellus Major dryly. “It wasn't politic, Pompeius. You can't order the Senate of Rome around like raw recruits on a drill ground.”

“Someone's got to!” snapped Pompey.“ I've never seen you like this,” said Marcus Favonius.“ You'd better hope you never see me like this again,” said Pompey grimly. “Where are the consuls? Neither of them came.”

“They couldn't come, Pompeius,” said Marcus Marcellus. “They are the consuls; their imperium outranks yours. To have come would have been tantamount to acknowledging you their master.”

“Servius Sulpicius wasn't here either.”

“I don't think,” said Gaius Marcellus Major, walking toward the door, “that Servius Sulpicius answers summonses.” A moment later only Metellus Scipio was left. He gazed at his son-in-law reproachfully.“ What's wrong with you?” demanded Pompey aggressively.“ Nothing, nothing! Except perhaps that I think this wasn't wise, Magnus.” He sighed dolefully. “Not wise at all.” An opinion echoed the next day, which happened to be Cicero's fifty-seventh birthday, and the day upon which he arrived outside Rome to take up residence in a villa on the Pincian Hill; granted a triumph, he could not cross the pomerium. Atticus came out of the city to welcome him, and was quick to apprise him of the extraordinary scene of the evening before.“ Who told you?” asked Cicero, horrified at the details.“ Your friend the senator Rabirius Postumus, not the banker Rabirius Postumus,” said Atticus.“ Old Rabirius Postumus? Surely you mean the son.”