Fortune's Favorites (106 page)

He rode the hundred and thirty miles without stopping for longer than it took to change horses, which he did often enough to get ten miles an hour out of those he rode during daylight, and seven miles an hour out of those he rode during the night. The road was a good Roman one, and though the moon was thin, the sky was cloudless; his luck. Having started out from Tralles at dawn the day after the victory feast had ended, he arrived in Pergamum three hours after dark on the same day. It was the middle of October.

Lucullus received him at once. Caesar found it significant that he did so unaccompanied by Caesar's uncle Marcus Cotta, who was also in the governor's palace; in the consul's favor, however, of Juncus there was no sign either.

Caesar found his outstretched hand ignored. Nor did Lucullus bid him sit down; the interview was conducted throughout with both men on their feet.

“What brings you so far from your studies, Caesar? Have you encountered more pirates?” Lucullus asked, voice cold.

“Not pirates,” said Caesar in a businesslike manner, “but an army belonging to Mithridates. It came down the Maeander fifty thousand strong. I heard about its advent before you arrived in the east, but I thought it pointless to notify the governor, whose access to information was better than mine, but who had made no move to defend the Maeander valley. So I had Memnon of Priene call up the Asian militia-which, as you know, he is authorized to do provided he has been so instructed by Rome. And he had no reason to assume I was not acting for Rome. By the middle of September the local city leaders of Lydia and Caria had assembled a force of twenty thousand men, which I put through drills and exercises in preparation for combat. The Pontic army entered the province in the latter part of September. Under my command, the Asian militia defeated Prince Eumachus near the city of Tralles three days ago. Almost all the Pontic soldiers were killed or captured, though Prince Eumachus himself got away. I understand that another Pontic army under the Spaniard Marcus Marius will be dealt with by the tetrarch Deiotarus of the Tolistobogii. You should receive word as to whether Deiotarus has succeeded within the next few days. That is all,” Caesar ended.

The long face with the chilly grey eyes did not thaw. “I think that is quite enough! Why didn't you notify the governor? You had no way of knowing what he planned.”

“The governor is an incompetent and venal fool. I have already experienced his quality. Had he been willing to take control-which I doubt-nothing would have been done quickly enough. I knew that. And that is why I didn't notify him. I didn't want him underfoot because I knew I could do what had to be done far better than he could.”

“You exceeded your authority, Caesar. In fact, you had no authority to exceed.”

“That's true. Therefore I exceeded nothing.”

“This is not a contest in sophistry!”

“Better perhaps if it was. What do you want me to say? I am not very old, Lucullus, but I have already seen more than enough of these fellows Rome sends to her provinces endowed with imperium, and I do not believe that Rome is better served by blind obedience to the likes of Juncus, the Dolabellae or Verres than it is by men of my kind, imperium or not. I saw what had to be done and I did it. I might add, I did it knowing I would get no thanks. I did it knowing I would be reprimanded, perhaps even put on trial for a little treason.”

“Under Sulla's laws, there is no little treason.”

“Very well then, a big treason.”

“Why have you come to see me? To beg for mercy?”

“I'd sooner be dead!”

“You don't change.”

“Not for the worse, anyway.”

“I cannot condone what you've done.”

“I didn't expect you to.”

“Yet you came to see me. Why?”

“To report to the magistrate in command, as is my duty.”

“I presume you mean your duty as a member of the Senate of Rome,” said Lucullus, “though that was surely owed to the governor as much as to me. However, I am not unjust, and I see that Rome has cause to be grateful for your swift action. In similar circumstances I might have acted in a similar way-could I have assured myself I was not flouting the governor's imperium. To me, a man's imperium is far more important than his quality. I have been blamed by some for the fact that King Mithridates is at large to commence this third war against Rome because I refused to aid Fimbria in capturing Mithridates at Pitane, and-it is commonly said-thereby allowed Mithridates the room to escape. You would have collaborated with Fimbria on the premise that the end justifies the means. But I did not see my way clear to acknowledging the outlawed representative of an illegal Roman government. I stand by my refusal to help Fimbria. I stand by every Roman man endowed with imperium. And to conclude, I find you far too much like the other youth with big ideas, Gnaeus Pompeius who calls himself Magnus. But you, Caesar, are infinitely more dangerous than any Pompeius. You are born to the purple.”

“Odd,” Caesar interrupted. “I said the same thing myself.”

Lucullus gave him a withering look. “I will not prosecute you, Caesar, but nor will I commend you. The battle fought at Tralles will be reported very briefly in my dispatches to Rome, and described as conducted by the Asian militia under local command. Your name will not be mentioned. Nor will I appoint you to my staff, nor will I permit any other governor to appoint you to his staff.”

Caesar had listened to this with wooden face and distant eyes, but when Lucullus indicated by an abrupt gesture that he was finished, Caesar's expression changed, became mulish.

“I do not insist that I be mentioned in dispatches as the commander of the Asian militia, but I do absolutely insist that I be named in dispatches as present for the entire duration of the campaign on the Maeander. Unless I am listed, I will not be able to claim it as my fourth campaign. I am determined to serve in ten campaigns before I stand for election as quaestor.”

Lucullus stared. “You don't have to stand as quaestor! You are already in the Senate.”

“According to Sulla's law, I must be quaestor before I can be praetor or consul. And before I am quaestor, I intend to have ten campaigns listed.”

“Many men elected quaestor have never served in the obligatory ten campaigns. This isn't the time of Scipio Africanus and Cato the Censor! No one is going to bother to count up how many campaigns you've served in when your name goes up for the quaestorian elections.”

“In my case,” said Caesar adamantly, “someone will make it his business to count up my campaigns. The pattern of my life is set. I will get nothing as a favor and much against bitter opposition. I stand above the rest and I will outdo the rest. But never, I swear, unconstitutionally. I will make my way up the cursus honorum exactly as the law prescribes. And if I am listed as having served in ten campaigns, in the first of which I won a Civic Crown, then I will come in at the top of the quaestor's poll. Which is the only place I would find acceptable after so many years a senator.”

Eyes flinty, Lucullus looked at the handsome face with its Sullan eyes and understood he could go so far, no further. “Ye gods, your arrogance knows no bounds! Very well, I will list you in dispatches as present for the duration of the campaign and also present at the battle.”

“Such is my right.”

“One day, Caesar, you will overextend yourself.”

“Impossible!” said Caesar, laughing.

“It's remarks like that make you so detestable.”

“I fail to see why when I speak the truth.”

“One further thing.”

About to go, Caesar stayed. “Yes?”

“This winter the proconsul Marcus Antonius is moving his theater of command against the pirates from the western end of Our Sea to its eastern end. I believe he means to concentrate upon Crete. His headquarters will be at Gytheum, where some of his legates are already working hard-Marcus Antonius has to raise a vast fleet. You, of course, are our best gatherer of ships, as I know from your activities in Bithynia and Vatia Isauricus from your activities in Cyprus. Rhodes has obliged you twice! If you wish to add another campaign to your count, Caesar, then report to Gytheum at once. Your rank, I will inform Marcus Antonius, will be junior military tribune, and you will board with Roman citizens in the town. If I hear that you have set up your own establishment or exceeded your junior status in any way, I swear to you, Gaius Julius Caesar, that I will have you tried in Marcus Antonius's military court! And do not think I can't persuade him! After you-a relative!-prosecuted his brother, he doesn't love you at all. Of course you can refuse the commission. Such is your right as a Roman. But it's the only military commission you'll get anywhere after I write a few letters. I am the consul. That means my imperium overrules every other imperium, including the junior consul's-so don't look for a commission there, Caesar!”

“You forget,” said Caesar gently, “that the aquatic imperium of Marcus Antonius is unlimited. On water, I believe he would outrank even the senior consul of the year.”

“Then I'll make sure I'm never upon the same piece of water as the one where Antonius is bobbing up and down,” said Lucullus tiredly. “Go and see your uncle Cotta before you leave.”

“What, no bed for the night?”

“The only bed I'd give you, Caesar, belonged to Procrustes.”

Said Caesar to his uncle Marcus Aurelius Cotta some moments later: “I knew dealing with Eumachus would land me in hot water, but I had no idea Lucullus would go as far as he has. Or perhaps I ought to say that I thought either I would be forgiven or tried for treason. Instead, Lucullus has concentrated upon personal retaliations aimed at hampering my career.”

“I have no genuine influence with him,” said Marcus Cotta. “Lucullus is an autocrat. But then, so are you.”

“I can't stay, Uncle. I'm ordered to leave at once for- oh, Rhodes I suppose, preparatory to relocating myself at Gytheum-in a boardinghouse which has to be run by a Roman citizen! Truly, your senior colleague's conditions are extraordinary! I will have to send my freedmen home, including Burgundus-I am not to be allowed to live in any kind of state.”

“Most peculiar! Provided his purse is fat enough, even a contubernalis can live like a king if he wants. And I imagine,” said Marcus Cotta shrewdly, “that after your brush with the pirates, you can afford to live like a king.”

“No, I've been strapped. Clever, to pick on Antonius. I am not beloved of the Antonii.” Caesar sighed. “Fancy his giving me junior rank! I ought at least to be a tribunus militum, even if of the unelected kind.”

“If you want to be loved, Caesar-oh, rubbish! What am I doing, advising you? You know more answers than I know questions, and you know perfectly well how you want to conduct your life. If you're in hot water, it's because you stepped into the cauldron of your own free will-and with both eyes wide open.”

“I admit it, Uncle. Now I must go if I'm to find a bed in the town before all the landlords bolt their doors. How is my uncle Gaius?”

“Not prorogued for next year in Italian Gaul, despite the fact it needs a governor. He's had enough. And he expects to triumph.”

“I wish you luck in Bithynia, Uncle.”

“I suspect I'm going to need it,” said Marcus Cotta.

It was the middle of November when Caesar arrived in the small Peloponnesian port city of Gytheum, to find that Lucullus had wasted no time; his advent was anticipated and the terms of his junior military tribunate spelled out explicitly.

“What on earth have you done?” asked the legate Marcus Manius, who was in charge of setting up Antonius's headquarters.

“Annoyed Lucullus,” said Caesar briefly.

“Care to be more specific?”

“No.”

“Pity. I'm dying of curiosity.” Manius strolled down the narrow, cobbled street alongside Caesar. “I thought first I'd show you where you'll be lodging. Not a bad place, actually. Two old Roman widowers named Apronius and Canuleius who share a huge old house. Apparently they were married to sisters-women of Gytheum-and moved in together after the second sister died. I thought of them immediately when the orders came through because they have lots of room to spare, and they'll spoil you. Funny old codgers, but very nice. Not that you'll be in Gytheum much. I don't envy you, chasing ships from the Greeks! But your papers say you're the best there is, so I daresay you'll manage.”

“I daresay I will,” agreed Caesar, smiling.

Collecting warships in the Peloponnese was not entirely unenjoyable, however, for one soaked in the Greek classics: did sandy describe Pylos, did titans build the walls of Argos? There was a certain quality of ageless dreaming about the Peloponnese that rendered the present irrelevant, as if the gods themselves were mere nurselings compared to the generations of men who had lived here. And while he was very good at incurring the enmity of the Roman great, when Caesar dealt with humbler men he found himself much liked.

The fleets grew slowly through the winter, but at a rate Caesar thought Antonius would find hard to criticize. Instead of accepting promises, the best gatherer of ships in the world would commandeer any warlike vessels he saw on the spot, then tie the towns down to signed contracts guaranteeing delivery of newly built galleys to Gytheum in April. Marcus Antonius, Caesar thought, would not be ready to move before April, as he wasn't expected to sail from Massilia until March.

In February the Great Man's personal entourage began to dribble in, and Caesar-brows raised, mouth quivering-got a far better idea of how Marcus Antonius campaigned. When Gytheum did not prove to own a suitable residence, the entourage insisted that one be built on the shore looking down the Laconian Gulf toward the beautiful island of Cythera; it had to be provided with pools, waterfalls, fountains, shower baths, central heating and imported multicolored marble interiors.

“It can't possibly be finished until summer,” said Caesar to Manius, eyes dancing, “so I was thinking of offering the Great Man room and board with Apronius and Canuleius.”

“He won't be happy when he finds his house unfinished,” said Manius, who thought the situation as funny as Caesar did. “Mind you, the locals are adopting a praiseworthily Greek attitude toward sinking their precious town funds into that vast sybaritic eyesore-they're planning on renting it for huge sums to all sorts of would-be potentates after Antonius has moved on.”