The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  “That’s good,” said Caesar in response to her letter telling him of Ju-Ju’s birth, “we’ve got the two traditional Julian girls over and done with. The next set of dispatches I bring for the Senate, we’ll start on the Julian boys.”

  Which was much what her mother, Rutilia, had said, thinking to offer Aurelia comfort for bearing girls.

  “You might have known you were wasting your words,” said Cotta, amused.

  “Yes, well—!” said Rutilia irritably. “Honestly, Marcus Aurelius, that girl of mine baffles me! When I tried to cheer her up, all she did was raise her brows and remark that it was a matter of complete indifference to her which sex her babies were, as long as she had good babies.”

  “But that’s a wonderful attitude!” protested Cotta. “As those of us who can afford to feed the little things gave up exposing girl-babies at birth a good four or five hundred years ago, it’s better that a mother welcomes her girls, surely.”

  “Of course it is! It’s the only attitude!” snapped Rutilia. “No, it’s not her composure I’m complaining about, it’s that maddening way she has of making you feel a fool for stating the obvious!”

  “I love her,” chuckled Publius Rutilius Rufus, party to this exchange.

  “You would!” said Rutilia.

  “Is it a nice little girl-baby?” Rutilius asked.

  “Exquisite, what else could you expect? That pair couldn’t have an ugly baby if they stood on their heads to make it,” said the goaded Rutilia.

  “Now, now, who’s supposed to be a proper Roman noblewoman?” Cotta chided, winking at Rutilius Rufus.

  “I hope your teeth fall out!” said Rutilia, and pitched her cushions at them.

  Shortly after the birth of Ju-Ju, Aurelia was obliged to deal with the crossroads tavern at last. It was a task she had avoided, for though it was housed in her insula, she could collect no rent, as it was regarded as the meeting place of a religious brotherhood; while it didn’t have temple or aedes status, it was nonetheless “official,” and registered on the urban praetor’s books.

  But it was a nuisance. Activity around it and in it never seemed to abate, even during the night, and some of its frequenters were very quick to push people off the sidewalk outside it, yet very slow to clean up the constant accumulation of refuse on that same section of sidewalk.

  Cardixa it was who first learned of a blacker aspect to the religious brotherhood of the crossroads tavern. She had been sent to the small shop alongside Aurelia’s front door to purchase ointment for Ju-Ju’s bottom, and found the proprietor—an old Galatian woman who specialized in medicines and tonics, remedies and panaceas—backed against the wall while two villainous-looking men debated with each other as to which set of jars and bottles they were going to smash first. Thanks to Cardixa, they smashed nothing; Cardixa smashed them instead. After the men had fled, howling imprecations, she got the tale out of the terrified old woman, who had been unable to pay her protection fee.

  “Every shop has to pay the crossroads brotherhood a fee to remain open,” Cardixa told Aurelia. “They say they’re providing a service to protect the shopkeepers from robbery and violence, but the only robbery and violence the shopkeepers suffer is at their hands when the protection fee isn’t paid. Poor old Galatia buried her husband not long ago, as you know, dominilla, and she buried him very well. So she doesn’t have any money at the moment.”

  “That settles it!” said Aurelia, girding herself for war. “Come on, Cardixa, we’ll soon fix this.”

  Out her front door she marched, down past her shops on the Vicus Patricii, stopping at each one to force its proprietor into telling her about the brotherhood’s protection fees. From some she discovered that the brotherhood’s business extended far beyond her own insula’s shops, and so she ended in walking the entire neighborhood, unraveling an amazing tale of blatant extortion. Even the two women who ran the public latrine on the opposite side of the Subura Minor—under contract to the firm which held the contract from the State—were forced to pay the brotherhood a percentage of the money they received from patrons well off enough to afford a sponge on a stick to clean themselves after defaecating; when the brotherhood discovered that the two women also ran a service collecting chamber pots from various apartments for emptying and cleaning, and had not revealed this, every chamber pot was broken, and the women were obliged to buy new ones. The baths next door to the public latrine were privately owned—as were all baths in Rome—but did a lucrative trade nonetheless. Here too the brotherhood levied fees which assured that the customers were not held under the water until they nearly drowned.

  By the time Aurelia finished her investigation, she was so angry she thought it wise to go home and calm down before confronting the brotherhood in their lair.

  “Out of my house!” she said to Cardixa. “My house!”

  “Don’t you worry, Aurelia, we’ll give them their comeuppance,” Cardixa comforted.

  “Where’s Ju-Ju?” asked Aurelia, taking deep breaths.

  “Upstairs on the fourth floor. It’s Rebeccah’s turn to give her a drink this morning.”

  Aurelia wrung her hands. “Why can’t I seem to make milk? I’m as dry as a crone!”

  Cardixa shrugged. “Some women make milk; others don’t. No one knows why. Now don’t get down in the dumps—it’s this brotherhood business that’s really upsetting you. No one minds giving Ju-Ju a drink, you know that. I’ll send one of the servants upstairs to ask Rebeccah to keep Ju-Ju for a little while, and we’ll go down and sort these wretches out.”

  Aurelia rose to her feet. “Come on, then, let’s get it over and done with.”

  The interior of the tavern was very dim; Aurelia stood in the doorway outlined in light, at the peak of a beauty which lasted all of her life. The din inside subsided at once, but began again angrily when Cardixa loomed behind her mistress.

  “That’s the great elephant beat us up this morning!” said a voice out of the gloom.

  Benches scraped. Aurelia marched in and stood looking about, Cardixa hovering watchfully at her back.

  “Who’s responsible for you louts?” Aurelia demanded.

  Up he got from a table in one back corner, a skinny little man in his forties with an unmistakably Roman look to him. “That’s me,” he said, coming forward. “Lucius Decumius, at your service.”

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Aurelia.

  He nodded.

  “You are tenanting—rent-free!—premises which I own,” she said.

  “You don’t own this here premises, madam,” said Lucius Decumius, “the State do.”

  “The State does not,” she said, and gazed about her now that her eyes were getting used to the poor light. “This place is a downright disgrace. You don’t look after it at all. I am evicting you.”

  A collective gasp went up. Lucius Decumius narrowed his eyes and looked alert.

  “You can’t evict us,” he said.

  “Just watch me!”

  “I’ll complain to the urban praetor.”

  “Do, by all means! He’s my cousin.”

  “Then there’s the Pontifex Maximus.”

  “So there is. He’s my cousin too.”

  Lucius Decumius snorted, a sound which might have been contempt—or laughter. “They can’t all be your cousins!”

  “They can, and they are.” Aurelia’s formidable jaw jutted forward. “Make no mistake, Lucius Decumius, you and your dirty ruffians are going.”

  He stood gazing at her reflectively, one hand scratching his chin, what could have been a smile lurking at the back of his clear grey eyes; then he stepped aside and bowed toward the table where he had been sitting. “How about we discuss our little problem?” he asked, smooth as Scaurus.

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” said Aurelia. “You’re going.”

  “Pooh! There’s always room for discussion. Come on, now, madam, let’s you and me sit down,” wheedled Lucius Decumius.

  And Aurelia found that an awful th
ing was happening to her; she was starting to like Lucius Decumius! Which was manifestly ridiculous. Yet a fact, nonetheless.

  “All right,’’ she said. “Cardixa, stand behind my chair.’’

  Lucius Decumius produced the chair, and sat himself on a bench. “A drop of wine, madam?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?” asked Lucius Decumius.

  “It’s you wanted to discuss things,” she pointed out.

  “S’right, so it was.” Lucius Decumius cleared his throat. “Now what precisely was you objecting to, madam?”

  “Your presence under my roof.”

  “Now, now, that’s a bit broad in scope, ain’t it? I mean, we can come to some sort of arrangement—you tell me what you don’t like, and I’ll see if I can’t fix it,” said Decumius.

  “The dilapidation. The filth. The noise. The assumption that you own the street as well as these premises, when neither is the truth,” Aurelia began, ticking her points off on her fingers. “And your little neighborhood business! Terrorizing harmless shopkeepers into paying you money they can’t afford! What a despicable thing to do!”

  “The world, madam,” said Decumius, leaning forward with great earnestness, “is divided into sheep and wolves. It’s natural. If it weren’t natural, there wouldn’t be a lot more sheep than there are wolves, where we all know for every wolf there’s at least a thousand sheep. Think of us inside here as the local wolves. We’re not bad as wolves go. Only little teeth, a bite or two, no necks broken.”

  “That is a revolting metaphor,” said Aurelia, “and it doesn’t sway me one little bit. Out you go.”

  “Oh, deary me!” said Lucius Decumius, leaning backward. “Deary, deary me.” He shot her a look. “Are they really all your cousins?’’

  “My father was the consul Lucius Aurelius Cotta. My uncle is the consul Publius Rutilius Rufus. My other uncle is the praetor Marcus Aurelius Cotta. My husband is the quaestor Gaius Julius Caesar.’’ Aurelia sat back in her chair, lifted her head a little, closed her eyes, and said smugly, “And what is more, Gaius Marius is my brother-in-law.”

  “Well, my brother-in-law is the King of Egypt, ha ha!” said Lucius Decumius, supersaturated with names.

  “Then I suggest you go home to Egypt,” said Aurelia, not a bit annoyed at this feeble sarcasm. “The consul Gaius Marius is my brother-in-law.”

  “Oh, yes, and of course Gaius Marius’s sister-in-law is going to be living in an insula way up the Subura’s arse-end!” countered Lucius Decumius.

  “This insula is mine. It’s my dowry, Lucius Decumius. My husband is a younger son, so we live here in my insula for the time being. Later on, we’ll be living elsewhere.”

  “Gaius Marius really is your brother-in-law?”

  “Down to the last hair in his eyebrows.”

  Lucius Decumius heaved a sigh. “I like it here,” he said, “so we’d better do some negotiating.”

  “I want you out,” said Aurelia.

  “Now look, madam, I do have some right on my side,” said Lucius Decumius. “The members of this here lodge are the custodians of the crossroads shrine. Legitimate, like. You may think all them cousins means you own the State— but if we go, another lot are only going to move in, right? It’s a crossroads college, madam, official on the urban praetor’s books. And I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned forward again. “All of us crossroads brethren are wolves!” He thrust his neck out, rather like a tortoise. “Now you and me can come to an agreement, madam. We keep this place clean, we slap a bit of paint on the walls, we tippy-toe around after dark, we help old ladies across the drains and gutters, we cease and desist our little neighborhood operation—in fact, we turn into pillars of society! How does that take your fancy?”

  Try though she might to suppress it, that smile would tug at the corners of her mouth! “Better the evil I know, eh, Lucius Decumius?”

  “Much better!” he said warmly.

  “I can’t say I’d look forward to going through all of this again with a different lot of you,” she said. “Very well, Lucius Decumius, you’re on trial for six months.” She got up and went to the door, Lucius Decumius escorting her. “But don’t think for one moment that I lack the courage to get rid of you and break in a new lot,” she said, stepping into the street.

  Lucius Decumius walked with her down the Vicus Patricii, clearing a path for her through the crowds with magical ease. “I assure you, madam, we will be pillars of society.”

  “But it’s very difficult to do without an income after you’ve grown used to spending it,” said Aurelia.

  “Oh, that’s no worry, madam!” said Lucius Decumius cheerfully. “Rome’s a big place. We’ll just shift our income-making operation far enough away not to annoy you— the Viminal—the Agger—the factory swamps—plenty of places. Don’t you worry your lovely little head about Lucius Decumius and his brothers of the sacred crossroads. We’ll be all right.”

  “That’s no kind of answer!” said Aurelia. “What’s the difference between terrorizing our own neighborhood, and doing the same thing somewhere else?”

  “What the eye don’t see and the ear don’t hear, the heart don’t grieve about,” he said, genuinely surprised at her denseness. “That’s a fact, madam.”

  They had reached her front door. She stopped and looked at him ruefully. “I daresay you’ll do as you see fit, Lucius Decumius. But don’t ever let me find out whereabouts you’ve transferred your—operation, as you call it.”

  “Mum, madam, I swear! Mum, dumb, numb!” He reached past her to knock on her door, which was opened with suspicious alacrity by the steward himself. “Ah, Eutychus, haven’t seen you in the brotherhood for a few days now,” said Lucius Decumius blandly. “Next time madam gives you a holiday, I’ll expect to see you in the lodge. We’re going to wash the place out and give it a bit of a paint to please madam. Got to keep the sister-in-law of Gaius Marius happy, eh?”

  Eutychus looked thoroughly miserable. “Indeed,” he said.

  “Oho, holding out on us, were you? Why didn’t you tell us who madam was?” asked Lucius Decumius in tones of silk.

  “As you will have noticed over the years, Lucius Decumius, I do not talk about my family at all,” said Eutychus grandly.

  “Wretched Greeks, they’re all the same,” said Lucius Decumius, giving his lank brown hair a tug in Aurelia’s direction. “Good day to you, madam. Very nice to make your acquaintance. Anything the lodge can do to help, let me know.”

  When the door had closed behind her, Aurelia looked at the steward expressionlessly. “And what have you got to say for yourself?” she asked.

  “Domina, I have to belong!” he wailed. “I’m the steward of the landlords—they wouldn’t not let me belong!”

  “You realize, Eutychus, that I could have you flogged for this,” said Aurelia, still expressionless.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “A flogging is the established punishment, is it not?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Then it is well for you that I am my husband’s wife and my father’s daughter,” said Aurelia. “My father-in-law, Gaius Julius, put it best, I think. Shortly before he died he said that he could never understand how any family could live in the same house with people they flogged, be it their sons or their slaves. However, there are other ways of dealing with disloyalty and insolence. Never think I am not prepared to take the financial loss of selling you with bad references. And you know what that would mean. Instead of a price of ten thousand denarii on your head, it would be a thousand sesterces. And your new owner would be so vulgarly low he’d flog you unmercifully, for you would come to him tagged as a bad slave.”

  “I understand, domina.”

  “Good! Go on belonging to the crossroads brotherhood— I can appreciate your predicament. I also commend you for your discretion about us.” She went to move away, then stopped. “Lucius Decumius
. Does he have a job?”

  “He’s the lodge caretaker,” said Eutychus, looking more uneasy than ever.

  “You’re keeping something back.”

  “No, no!”

  “Come on, give me all of it!”

  “Well, domina, it’s only a rumor,” said Eutychus. “No one really knows, you understand. But he has been heard to say it himself—though that could be idle boasting. Or he could be saying it to frighten us.”

  “Saying what!”

  The steward blanched. “He says he’s an assassin.”

  “Ecastor! And who has he assassinated?” she asked.

  “I believe he takes credit for that Numidian fellow who was stabbed in the Forum Romanum some years ago,” said Eutychus.

  “Will wonders never cease!” said Aurelia, and went off to see what her babies were doing.

  “They broke the mould when they made her,” said Eutychus to Cardixa.

  The huge Gallic maidservant put out a hand and hurled it down on the pretty steward’s shoulder much as a cat might have tethered a mouse by putting a paw on its tail. “They did indeed,” she said, giving Eutychus an ostensibly friendly shake. “That’s why we’ve all got to look after her.”

  *

  It was not so very long after this that Gaius Julius Caesar came home from Italian Gaul bearing Marius’s message from Vercellae. He simply knocked on the door and was admitted by the steward, who then helped Caesar’s orderly in with his baggage while Caesar went to find his wife.

  She was in the courtyard garden tying little gauze bags around the ripening grapes on Gaius Matius’s arbor, and didn’t bother to turn when she heard a footfall. “You wouldn’t think the Subura was so full of birds, would you?” she asked whoever it was. “But this year I’m determined we’ll get to eat the grapes, so I’m going to see if this works.”