Caesar (87 page)

“The only one we can be sure of, Caesar—aside from dear little Marcus Brutus—is Ahenobarbus.”

“That is true, Antonius. The only one of the great men to die on the field of Pharsalus. And the second one of my enemies to go. Though I confess I won't miss him the way I will Bibulus. Are his ashes taken care of?”

“On their way to his wife already,” said Pollio, who found himself entrusted with all kinds of tasks.“ Good.”

“We march tomorrow?” asked Calvinus.“ That we do.”

“There might be a large number of refugees heading in the direction of Brundisium,” said Publius Sulla.“ For which reason I've already sent to Publius Vatinius in Salona. Quintus Cornificius can maintain Illyricum for the moment. Vatinius can go to command Brundisium and turn the refugees away.” Caesar grinned at Antony. “And you may rest easy, Antonius. I've heard that Gnaeus Pompeius the son has released your brother from detention on Corcyra. Safe and well.”

“I'll offer to Jupiter for that!”

In the morning, Pharsalus returned to a sleepy, swampy river valley amid the Thessalian hills; Caesar's army dispersed. With him on the road to Asia Province, Caesar took two legions only, both made up of volunteers from Pompey's defeated legions. His own veterans were to return to a well-deserved furlough in Italian Campania under the command of Antony. With Caesar went Brutus and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, whom Caesar found himself liking more and more. A good man in a hard situation, that was Calvinus. The march to Amphipolis was done in Caesar's usual swift manner; if Pompey's old legionaries found the pace a little more hectic than they were used to, they didn't complain. The truth was that Caesar ran a good army; a man always knew where he stood. Eighty miles east of Thessalonica on the Via Egnatia and located where the widened river Strymon flowed out of Lake Cercinitis on its short course to the sea, Amphipolis was a shipbuilding and timber town. The trees grew far inland and were sent down the Strymon as logs to be dismembered and reconstructed in Amphipolis. Here Marcus Favonius waited alone for the pursuit he knew would come.“ I cry pardon, Caesar,” he said when they met, another one whom defeat at Pharsalus had changed out of all recognition. His strident manner and his aping of Cato were gone.“ I grant it with great good will, Favonius. Brutus is with me, and very anxious to see you.”

“Ah, you pardoned him too.”

“Of course. It's no part of my policy to punish decent men for mistaken ideals. What I hope is to see us all together in Rome one day, working together for Rome's well-being. What do you want to do? I'll give you a letter for Vatinius in Brundisium saying whatever you wish.”

“I wish,” said Favonius, tears on his lashes, “that none of this had ever happened.”

“So do I,” said Caesar sincerely.“ Yes, I can understand that.” He drew a breath. “For myself, I want only to retire to my estates in Lucania and live a quiet life. No war, no politics, no strife, no dissent. Peace, Caesar. That's all I want. Peace.”

“Do you know where the others have gone?”

“Mitylene was their next port of call, but I doubt they have any intention of staying there. The Lentuli say they'll remain with Pompeius, at least for the time being. Just before he left, Pompeius had messages from some of the others. Labienus, Afranius, Petreius, Metellus Scipio, Faustus Sulla and some others have headed for Africa. I know nothing else.”

“And Cato? Cicero?”

“Who knows? But I think Cato will head for Africa once he finds out so many others are going there. After all, there is a pro-Pompeian government in Africa Province. I doubt it will submit to you without a fight, Caesar.”

“I doubt that too. Thank you, Marcus Favonius.” That evening there was a quiet dinner alone with Brutus, but at dawn Caesar was on his way toward the Hellespont, Calvinus by his side and Brutus, to whom Caesar was most tender, ensconced in a comfortable gig with a servant to minister to him. Favonius rode out to watch, he hoped for the last time, the silvery column of Roman legions stride off down a Roman-made road, straight where it could be straight, easily graded, unexhausting. But in the end all Favonius saw was Caesar, riding a mettlesome brown stallion with the ease and grace of a much younger man. He would, Favonius knew, be scarcely out of sight of the Amphipolan walls before he was down and marching on his feet. Horses were for battles, parades and spectacles. How could a man so sure of his own majesty be so down to earth? A most curious mixture, Gaius Julius Caesar. The sparse gold hair fluttered like ribbons in the keen wind off the Aegaean Sea, the spine was absolutely straight, the legs hanging down unsupported as powerful and sinewy as ever. One of the handsomest men in Rome, yet never pretty like Memmius or effete like Silius. Descended from Venus and Romulus. Well, who knew? Maybe the Gods did love their own best. Oh, Cato, don't go on resisting him! No one can. He will be King of Rome—but only if he wants to be.

Mitylene was panic stricken too. Panic was spreading all over the East at the result of this clash between two Roman titans, so unexpected, so horrifying. For no one knew this Caesar save at second or third or fourth hand; all his governorships had been in the West, and those far-off days when he had been in the East were obscure. Mitylene knew that when Lucullus besieged it in Sulla's name, this Gaius Caesar had fought in the front lines and won a corona civica for valor. Hardly anyone knew of the battle he had generaled against the forces of Mithridates outside Tralles in Asia Province, though Tralles knew that it had erected a statue of him in a little temple to Victory near the site of the battle, and flocked now to tidy the temple up, make sure the statue was in good repair. To find, awestruck, that a palm seed had germinated between the flags at the base of Caesar's statue, the sign of a great victory. And the sign of a great man. Tralles talked. Rome had dominated the world of Our Sea for so long now that any convulsion within the ranks of the Roman powerful sent cracks racing through every land around it like the cracks which spread after an earthquake. What was going to happen? What would the new structure of the world be like? Was Caesar a reasonable man of Sulla's kind, would he institute measures to relieve the squeezing of governors and tax farmers? Or would he be another Pompeius Magnus, encourage the depredations of governors and tax farmers? In Asia Province, utterly exhausted by Metellus Scipio, Lentulus Crus and one of Pompey's minor legates, Titus Ampius Balbus, every island, city and district scrambled to tear down its statues of Pompey the Great and erect statues to Gaius Caesar; traffic was very heavy to the temple of Victory outside Tralles, where an authentic likeness of the new First Man in Rome existed. In Ephesus some of the coastal cities of Asia Province clubbed together to commission a copy of Caesar's Tralles statue from the famous studios at Aphrodisias. It stood in the center of the agora and said on its plinth: GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR, SON OF GAIUS, PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, IMPERATOR, CONSUL FOR THE SECOND TIME, DESCENDED FROM ARES AND APHRODITE, GOD MADE MANIFEST AND COMMON SAVIOR OF MANKIND. Heady stuff, particularly because it chose to put Caesar's descent from Mars and his son, Romulus, ahead of his descent from Venus and her son, Aeneas. Asia Province was very busy doing its homework. It was into this atmosphere of mingled panic and sycophantic adulation that Pompey stepped when he disembarked with the two Lentuli in Mitylene harbor on the big island of Lesbos. All of Lesbos had declared for him long since, but to receive him, a beaten man, was difficult and delicate. His arrival indicated that he was not yet forced from the arena, that perhaps in time to come there would be another Pharsalus. Only—could he win? The word was that Caesar had never lost a battle (the “great victory” in Dyrrachium was now being called hollow), that no one could defeat him. Pompey handled the situation well, maintaining his Greek dress and informing the ethnarchs in council that Caesar was most famous for his clemency.“ Be nice to him” was his advice. “He rules the world.” Cornelia Metella and young Sextus were waiting for him. A curious reunion, dominated by Sextus, who threw his arms about his adored father and wept bitterly.“ Don't cry,” said Pompey, stroking the brown, rather straight hair; Sextus was the only one of his three children to inherit Mucia Tertia's darker coloring.“ I should have been there as your cadet!”

“And you would have been, had events marched slower. But you did a better job, Sextus. You looked after Cornelia for me.”

“Women's work!”

“No, men's work. The family is the nucleus of all Roman thought, Sextus, and the wife of Pompeius Magnus is a very important person. So too his sons.”

“I won't leave you again!”

“I hope not. We must offer to the Lares and Penates and Vesta that one day we are all reunited.” Pompey eased Sextus out of his arms, gave him his handkerchief to blow his nose and dry his eyes. “Now you can do me a good turn. Start a letter to your brother, Gnaeus. I'll be with you soon to finish it.” Only after Sextus, sniffling and clutching the handkerchief, had gone off to do his father's bidding did Pompey have the opportunity to look at Cornelia Metella properly. She hadn't changed. Still supercilious looking, haughty, a trifle remote. But the grey eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, and gazed at him with genuine grief. He walked forward to kiss her hand.“ A sad day,” he said.“ Tata?”

“Gone in the direction of Africa, I think. In time we'll find out. He wasn't hurt at Pharsalus.” How hard to say that word! “Cornelia,” he said, playing with her fingers, “you have my full permission to divorce me. If you do, your property will remain yours. At least I was clever enough to put the villa in the Alban Hills in your name. I didn't lose that when I had to sell so much to fund this war. Nor the villa on the Campus Martius. Nor the house on the Carinae. Those are mine, you and my sons may lose them to Caesar.”

“I thought he wasn't going to proscribe.”

“He won't proscribe. But the property of the leaders in this war will be confiscate, Cornelia. That's custom and tradition. He won't stand in the way of it. Therefore I think it's safer and more sensible for you to divorce me.” She shook her head, gave one of her rare and rather awkward smiles. “No, Magnus. I am your wife. I will remain your wife.”

“Then go home, at least.” He released her hand, waved his own about aimlessly. “I don't know what will become of me! I don't know what's the best thing to do. I don't know where to go from here, but I can't stay here either. Life with me won't be very comfortable, Cornelia. I'm a marked man. Caesar knows he has to apprehend me. While I'm at liberty I represent a nucleus for the gathering of another war.”

“Like Sextus, I won't leave you again. But surely the place to go is Africa. We should sail for Utica at once, Magnus.”

“Should we?” The vivid blue eyes were emerging once more from his puffy face, shrinking, like his body, from the anguish, the pain, the blow to his pride he still found impossible to govern. “Cornelia, it has been terrible. I don't mean Caesar or the war, I mean my associates in this venture. Oh, not your father! He's been a tower of strength. But he wasn't there for most of it. The bickering, the carping, the constant faultfinding.”

“They found fault with you?”

“Perpetually. It wore me down. Perhaps I could have coped better with Caesar if I'd had control of my own command tent. But I didn't. Labienus generaled, Cornelia, not me. That man! How did Caesar ever put up with him? He's a barbarian. I do believe that he can only achieve physical satisfaction from putting men's eyes out—oh, worse acts I can't speak of to you! And though Ahenobarbus died very gallantly on the field, he tormented me at every opportunity. He called me Agamemnon, King of Kings.” The shocks and dislocations of the past two months had done much for Cornelia Metella; the spoiled amateur scholar had gained a measure of compassion, some much-needed sensitivity to the feelings of others. So she didn't make the mistake of interpreting Pompey's words as evidence of self-pity. He was like a noble old rock, worn away by the constant dripping of corrosive water.“ Dear Magnus, I think the trouble was that they deemed war as another kind of Senate. They didn't begin to understand that politics has nothing to do with military matters. They passed the Senatus Consultum Ultimum to make sure Caesar wouldn't be able to order them about. How then could they let you order them about?” He smiled wryly. “That is very true. It should also tell you why I shrink from going to Africa. Your tata will go, yes. But so will Labienus and Cato. What would be different in Africa? I wouldn't own my command tent there either.”

“Then we should seek shelter with the King of the Parthians, Magnus,” she said decisively. “You sent your cousin Hirrus to see Orodes. He hasn't come back, though he's safe. Ecbatana is one place won't see either Caesar or Labienus.”

“But what would it be like to look up at seven captured Roman Eagles? I'd be living with the shade of Crassus.”

“Where else is there?”

“Egypt.”

“It's not far enough away.”

“No, but it's a place to jump off from. Can you imagine how much the people of the Indus or Serica might pay to gain a Roman general? I could win that world for my employer. The Egyptians know how to get to Taprobane. In Taprobane there will be someone who knows how to get to Serica or the Indus.” She smiled broadly, a nice sight. “Magnus, that's brilliant! Yes, let's you and I and Sextus go to Serica!”

He didn't stay long in Mitylene, but when he heard that the great philosopher Cratippus was there, he went to seek an audience.“ I am honored, Pompeius,” said the old man in the pure white robe with the pure white beard flowing down its front.“ No, the honor is mine.” Pompey made no attempt to sit down, stood looking into the rheumy eyes and wondering why they showed no sign of wisdom. Didn't philosophers always look wise?“ Let us walk,” said Cratippus, putting his arm through Pompey's. “The garden is so beautiful. Done in the Roman style, of course. We Greeks have not the gift of gardening. I have always thought that the Roman appreciation of Nature's beauty is an indication of the innate worth of the Roman people. We Greeks deflected our love of beauty into man-made things, whereas you Romans have the genius to insert your man-made things into Nature as if they belonged there. Bridges, aqueducts ... So perfect! We never understood the beauty of the arch. Nature,” Cratippus rambled on, “is never linear, Gnaeus Pompeius. Nature is round, like the globe.”