2. The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  Pompey Strabo made no attempt to leave Rome, though he kept telling people that they wouldn't miss him or Lucius Cato because the urban praetor, Aulus Sempronius Asellio, was a very capable man. It soon became apparent, however, that the real reason he lingered was to keep an eye on the spate of legislation which followed the lex Julia. Lucius Porcius Cato Licinianus, the junior consul, left Pompey Strabo to it; this was one pair of consuls who were not amicable. Off Lucius Cato went to Campania, only to change his mind and locate himself in the central theater after all. Pompey Strabo had made no secret of his intention to continue the war in Picenum; yet it was Sextus Julius Caesar he sent to the siege of Asculum Picentum, though Sextus Caesar's chest was bad and the winter was the coldest anyone could remember. News came not long after Sextus Caesar set out that he had killed eight thousand rebel Picentines he caught changing from a fouled camp to a fresh one outside Camerinum. Pompey Strabo huffed, but remained in Rome. His lex Pompeia was going through the Comitia uneventfully. It granted the full Roman citizenship to every Latin Rights town south of the Padus River in Italian Gaul, and gave the Latin Rights to the towns of Aquileia, Patavium, and Mediolanum north of the Padus. All the people of these many large and prosperous communities now entered into his clientele, the reason why he had legislated in the first place. No true champion of citizen rights, Pompey Strabo then permitted Piso Frugi to handicap those benefiting from the three enfranchisement laws. At first Piso Frugi enacted a bill creating two new tribes into which all the new citizens everywhere would be placed, keeping the thirty-five tribes exclusively for old Romans. But when Etruria and Umbria began to rumble at the unfairness of being treated no better than Roman freedmen, Piso Frugi altered his law to put all the new citizens into eight of the old tribes plus the two freshly invented ones. The senior consul then held the censors' elections; Lucius Julius Caesar and Publius Licinius Crassus became censors. Even before he let the sacerdotal contracts, Lucius Caesar announced that in honor of his ancestor Aeneas he would remit all taxes levied upon the town of Troy, his beloved Ilium. As Troy was no more than a small village, he was let have his way without opposition. Scaurus Princeps Senatus who might have objected was being driven to distraction by the two refugee kings, Nicomedes of Bithynia and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, who wailed and bribed with equal fervor, finding it impossible to understand why Rome was more concerned with her war against the Italians than the coming war with Mithridates. The chief opponent of Lucius Caesar's enfranchisement bill had been Quintus Varius, fearing that he would turn out to be the law's first victim. The new tribunes of the plebs fell on him like wolves, Marcus Plautius Silvanus in the lead; a quick lex Plautia, and the Varian Commission hitherto prosecuting all those who had supported citizenship for the Italians became the Plautian Commission, prosecuting all those who had tried to stop citizenship for the Italians. It was Lucius Caesar's younger brother, the crosseyed Caesar Strabo, who drew the lucky straw and prepared the first case in the Plautian Commission the prosecution of Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis. Caesar Strabo's technique was as always brilliant. The verdict was a foregone conclusion long before the last day of Quintus Varius's trial, especially because the lex Plautia had taken the Commission off the knights and given it to citizens of all and any classes across the thirty-five tribes. Quintus Varius elected not to wait for the verdict. Much to the grief and chagrin of his close friends, Lucius Marcius Philippus and young Gaius Flavius Fimbria, Quintus Varius took poison. Unfortunately he chose his medicine badly, and lingered in agony for several days before expiring. Only his few friends came to his funeral, during which Fimbria swore an oath that he would revenge himself upon Caesar Strabo. "Ask me if I'm frightened," said Caesar Strabo to his brothers, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar and Lucius Julius Caesar, who had not attended the funeral, but had lingered with Scaurus Princeps Senatus on the Senate steps to see what happened. "You'd dare Hercules or Hades," said Scaurus, eyes dancing. "I tell you what I would dare to run for consul without first being praetor," said Caesar Strabo quickly. "Now why would you want to do that?" asked Scaurus. "To test a point of law." "Aaaaah, you advocates!" cried Catulus Caesar. "You're all the same. You'd test a point of law on what constitutes virginity in a Vestal, I swear you would." "I think we have already!" laughed Caesar Strabo. "Well," said Scaurus, "I'm off to see how Gaius Marius is, then I'm going home to work on my speech." He looked at Catulus Caesar. "When are you leaving for Capua?" "Tomorrow." "Don't, Quintus Lutatius, I beg of you! Stay until the end of the market interval and hear my speech! It's probably the most important one of my career.'' "Now that is saying something," said Catulus Caesar, who had come up from Capua to witness his brother Lucius Caesar's lifting of the tribute from Troy. "May I ask the subject?" "Oh, certainly. Readying ourselves for war with King Mithridates of Pontus," said Scaurus affably. All the Caesars stared. "I see none of you believes it will come either. It will, gentlemen, I promise you it will!" And off went Scaurus toward the Clivus Argentarius. He found Julia with her sister-in-law Aurelia. So lovely, so quintessentially Roman did both women look, that he was moved to kiss their hands, an unusual homage from Scaurus. "Not feeling well, Marcus Aemilius?" asked Julia with a smile and a glance at Aurelia. “Feeling very tired, Julia, but never too tired to appreciate beauty." Scaurus inclined his head toward the study door. "And how is the Great Man today?" "In a more cheerful mood, thanks to Aurelia," said the Great Man's wife. "Oh?" "He's been given a companion." "Oh?" "My son, Young Caesar," said Aurelia. "A boy?" Julia laughed as she led the way to the study. "At not quite eleven years of age, I suppose he is a boy. But in every other way, Marcus Aemilius, Young Caesar is at least as old as you. Gaius Marius is beginning to improve dramatically. However, he's bored. The paralysis makes it difficult for him to get about, yet he loathes being bedridden." She opened the door and said, "Here is Marcus Aemilius come to call, husband." Marius was lying on a couch beneath a window opening on to the peristyle-garden, his useless left side propped up upon pillows, and the couch turned so that his right side was nearest to the room. On a stool at his feet sat Aurelia's son or so, at least, Scaurus assumed, for he had never met the boy. A true Caesar, he thought, having just left the company of three of them. Tall, fair, handsome. This one, rising to his feet, had a look of Aurelia as well. "Princeps Senatus, this is Gaius Julius," said Julia. "Sit down, lad," said Scaurus, leaning across to grasp Marius by the right hand. "And how goes it, Gaius Marius?" "Slowly," said Marius, his speech still clumsy. "As you see, the women have given me a watch-dog. My own Cerberus." "A watch-pup, more like." Scaurus sat down on the chair Young Caesar positioned for him before returning to the stool. "And what precisely are your duties, young man?" "I don't know yet," said Young Caesar without evidence of shyness. "My mother only brought me today." "I think the women think I need someone to read to me," said Marius. "What do you think, Young Caesar?" "I'd rather talk to Gaius Marius than read to him," said Young Caesar, unabashed. "Uncle Marius doesn't write books, but I've often wished he did. I want to hear all about the Germans." "He asks good questions'," said Marius, starting to flounder as he tried to move. The boy was up at once, slipping his entire arm under Marius's right arm, and giving his uncle sufficient impetus to complete his change of position. It was done without fuss or fluster, and it indicated a remarkable degree of strength for one so young. "Better!" panted Marius, now able to look more comfortably into Scaurus's face. "I'm going to do well with my watch-pup." Scaurus stayed for an hour, more fascinated with Young Caesar than with Marius's malady. Though the boy didn't put himself forward, he answered the questions put to him with an adult grace and dignity, and listened eagerly while Marius and Scaurus discussed the incursions of Mithridates into Bithynia and Cappadocia. "You're well read for a ten-year-old, Young Caesar," Scaurus said when he rose to go. "Do you know a boy named Marcus Tullius Cicero, by any chance?" "Only by repute, Princeps Senatus. They say he will be the finest advocate Rome has ever produced." "Perhaps so. Perhaps not," said Scaurus, walking to t
he door. "For the moment Marcus Cicero is confined to duties military. I shall see you in two or three days, Gaius Marius. Since you can't come to the Senate to hear me speak, I shall try my speech out on you here and on Young Caesar." Scaurus set out to walk home to the Palatine, feeling very tired, and more distressed by Marius's condition than he cared to admit to himself: Nearly six months, and still the Great Man had not got any further than a couch in his tablinum. Perhaps the stimulus of the boy a good idea, that! would prod him on. But Scaurus doubted that his old friend and enemy would ever improve sufficiently to attend meetings of the Senate. The long tramp up the Vestal Steps quite exhausted him; he was obliged to stop on the Clivus Victoriae and rest before plodding the last paces home. Mind preoccupied with the difficulties he knew he was going to have in impressing the Conscript Fathers with the urgency of matters in Asia Minor, he tapped on his street door, and was admitted by his wife rather than his porter. How wonderful she was! thought Scaurus, looking with pure delight into her face. All those old troubles had faded long since, she was the woman of his heart. Thank you for that gift, Quintus Caecilius, he thought, fondly remembering his dead friend Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle. It had been Metellus Numidicus who had given him Caecilia Metella Dalmatica. Scaurus reached out to touch her face, then tipped his head forward to rest it against her breast and pillowed his cheek against her smooth young skin. His eyes closed. He sighed. "Marcus Aemilius?" she asked, suddenly taking all his weight, and staggering a little. "Marcus Aemilius?" Her arms went round him and she screamed until the servants came running, took his limp body from her. "What is it? What is it?" she kept asking. The steward answered her at last, rising from his knees beside the couch where Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus lay. "He is dead, domina. Marcus Aemilius is dead."