Cornelius’s activities presented an intriguing aspect of Pompey, whom Caesar had never thought the slightest bit interested in righting wrongs. But perhaps after all he was, given Gaius Cornelius’s dogged persistence in matters which couldn’t affect Pompey’s plans either way. More likely, however, Caesar concluded, that Pompey was merely indulging Cornelius in order to throw sand in the eyes of men like Catulus and Hortensius, leaders of the boni. For the boni were adamantly opposed to special military commands, and Pompey was once again after a special command.
The Great Man’s hand was more evident—at least to Caesar—in Cornelius’s next proposal. Gaius Piso, doomed to govern alone now that Glabrio was going to the East, was a choleric, mediocre and vindictive man who belonged completely to Catulus and the boni. He would rant against any special military command for Pompey until the Senate House rafters shook, with Catulus, Hortensius, Bibulus and the rest of the pack baying behind. Owning little attractive apart from his name, Calpurnius Piso, and his eminently respectable ancestry, Piso had needed to bribe heavily to secure election. Now Cornelius put forward a new bribery law; Piso and the boni felt a cold wind blowing on their necks, particularly when the Plebs made its approval plain enough to indicate that it would pass the bill. Of course a boni tribune of the plebs could interpose his veto, but Otho, Trebellius and Globulus were not sure enough of their influence to veto. Instead the boni shifted themselves mightily to manipulate the Plebs—and Cornelius—into agreeing that Gaius Piso himself should draft the new bribery law. Which, thought Caesar with a sigh, would produce a law endangering no one, least of all Gaius Piso. Poor Cornelius had been outmaneuvered.
When Aulus Gabinius took over, he said not one word about the pirates or a special command for Pompey the Great. He preferred to concentrate on minor matters, for he was far subtler and more intelligent than Cornelius. Less altruistic, certainly. The little plebiscite he succeeded in passing that forbade foreign envoys in Rome to borrow money in Rome was obviously a less sweeping version of Cornelius’s measure to forbid the lending of money to foreign communities. But what was Gabinius after when he legislated to compel the Senate to deal with nothing save foreign delegations during the month of February? When Caesar understood, he laughed silently. Clever Pompey! How much the Great Man had changed since he entered the Senate as consul carrying Varro’s manual of behavior in his hand so he wouldn’t make embarrassing mistakes! For this particular lex Gabinia informed Caesar that Pompey planned to be consul a second time, and was ensuring his dominance when that second year arrived. No one would poll more votes, so he would be senior consul. That meant he would have the fasces—and the authority—in January. February was the junior consul’s turn, and March saw the fasces back with the senior consul. April went to the junior consul. But if February saw the Senate confined to foreign affairs, then the junior consul would have no chance to make his presence felt until April. Brilliant!
*
In the midst of all this pleasurable turbulence, a different tribune of the plebs inserted himself into Caesar’s life far less enjoyably. This man was Gaius Papirius Carbo, who presented a bill to the Plebeian Assembly asking that it arraign Caesar’s middle uncle, Marcus Aurelius Cotta, on charges of stealing the spoils from the Bithynian city of Heracleia. Unfortunately Marcus Cotta’s colleague in the consulship that year had been none other than Lucullus, and they were well known to be friends. Knight hatred of Lucullus inevitably prejudiced the Plebs against any close friend or ally, so the Plebs allowed Carbo to have his way. Caesar’s beloved uncle would stand trial for extortion, but not in the excellent standing court Sulla had established. Marcus Cotta’s jury would be several thousand men who all hungered to tear Lucullus and his cronies down.
“There was nothing to steal!” Marcus Cotta said to Caesar. “Mithridates had used Heracleia as his base for months, then the place withstood siege for several months more—when I entered it, Caesar, it was as bare as a newborn rat! Which everybody knew! What do you think three hundred thousand soldiers and sailors belonging to Mithridates left? They looted Heracleia far more thoroughly than Gaius Verres looted Sicily!”
“You don’t need to protest your innocence to me, Uncle,” said Caesar, looking grim. “I can’t even defend you because it’s trial by the Plebs and I’m a patrician.”
“That goes without saying. However, Cicero will do it.”
“He won’t, Uncle. Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“He’s overwhelmed by grief. First his cousin Lucius died, then his father died only the other day. Not to mention that Terentia has some sort of rheumatic trouble which Rome at this season makes worse, and she rules that particular roost! Cicero has fled to Arpinum.”
“Then it will have to be Hortensius, my brother Lucius, and Marcus Crassus,” said Cotta.
“Not as effective, but it will suffice, Uncle.”
“I doubt it, I really do. The Plebs are after my blood.”
“Well, anyone who is a known friend of poor Lucullus’s is a target for the knights.”
Marcus Cotta looked ironically at his nephew. “Poor Lucullus?” he asked. “He’s no friend of yours!”
“True,” said Caesar. “However, Uncle Marcus, I can’t help but approve of his financial arrangements in the East. Sulla showed him the way, but Lucullus went even further. Instead of allowing the knight publicani to bleed Rome’s eastern provinces dry, Lucullus has made sure Rome’s taxes and tributes are not only fair, but also popular with the local communities. The old way, with the publicani permitted to squeeze mercilessly, might mean bigger profits for the knights, but it also means a great deal of animosity for Rome. I loathe the man, yes. Lucullus not only insulted me unpardonably, he denied me the military credit I was entitled to as well. Yet as an administrator he’s superb, and I’m sorry for him.”
“A pity the pair of you didn’t get on, Caesar. In many ways you’re as like as twins.”
Startled, Caesar stared at his mother’s half brother. Most of the time he never saw much of a family resemblance between Aurelia and any of her three half brothers, but that dry remark of Marcus Cotta’s was Aurelia! She was there too in Marcus Cotta’s large, purplish-grey eyes. Time to go, when Uncle Marcus turned into Mater. Besides, he had an assignation with Servilia to keep.
But that too turned out to be an unhappy business.
If Servilia arrived first, she was always undressed and in the bed waiting for him. But not today. Today she sat on a chair in his study, and wore every layer of clothing.
“I have something to discuss,” she said.
“Trouble?’’ he asked, sitting down opposite her.
“Of the most basic and, thinking about it, inevitable kind. I am pregnant.”
No identifiable emotion entered his cool gaze; Caesar said, “I see,” then looked at her searchingly. “This is a difficulty?”
“In many ways.” She wet her lips, an indication of nervousness unusual in her. “How do you feel about it?”
He shrugged. “You’re married, Servilia. That makes it your problem, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. What if it’s a boy? You have no son.”
“Are you sure it’s mine?” he countered quickly.
“Of that,” she said emphatically, “there can be no doubt. I haven’t slept in the same bed as Silanus for over two years.”
“In which case, the problem is still yours. I would have to take a chance on its being a boy, because I couldn’t acknowledge it as mine unless you divorced Silanus and married me before its birth. Once it’s born in wedlock to Silanus, it’s his.”
“Would you be prepared to take that chance?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate. “No. My luck says it’s a girl.”
“I don’t know either. I didn’t think of this happening, so I didn’t concentrate on making a boy or a girl. It will indeed take its chances as to its sex.”
If his own demeanor was detached, so, he admitted with some admiration, was hers. A
lady well in control.
“Then the best thing you can do, Servilia, is to hustle Silanus into your bed as soon as you possibly can. Yesterday, I hope?”
Her head moved slowly from side to side, an absolute negative. “I am afraid,” she said, “that is out of the question. Silanus is not a well man. We ceased to sleep together not through any fault of mine, I do assure you. Silanus is incapable of sustaining an erection, and the fact distresses him.”
To this news Caesar reacted: the breath hissed between his teeth. “So our secret will soon be no secret,” he said.
To give her credit, she felt no anger at Caesar’s attitude, nor condemned him as selfish, uninterested in her plight. In many ways they were alike, which perhaps was why Caesar could not grow emotionally attached to her: two people whose heads would always rule their hearts—and their passions.
“Not necessarily,” she said, and produced a smile. “I shall see Silanus today when he comes home from the Forum. It may be that I will be able to prevail upon him to keep the secret.”
“Yes, that would be better, especially with the betrothal of our children. I don’t mind taking the blame for my own actions, but I can’t feel comfortable with the idea of hurting either Julia or Brutus by having the result of our affair common gossip.” He leaned forward to take her hand, kissed it, and smiled into her eyes. “It isn’t a common affair, is it?”
“No,” said Servilia. “Anything but common.” She wet her lips again. “I’m not very far along, so we could continue until May or June. If you want to.”
“Oh yes,” said Caesar, “I want to, Servilia.”
“After that, I’m afraid, we won’t be able to meet for seven or eight months.”
“I shall miss it. And you.”
This time it was she who reached for a hand, though she did not kiss his, just held it and smiled at him. “You could do me a favor during those seven or eight months, Caesar.”
“Such as?”
“Seduce Cato’s wife, Atilia.”
He burst out laughing. “Keep me busy with a woman who stands no chance of supplanting you, eh? Very clever!”
“It’s true, I am clever. Oblige me, please! Seduce Atilia!”
Frowning, Caesar turned the idea over in his mind. “Cato isn’t a worthy target, Servilia. What is he, twenty-six years old? I agree that in the future he might prove a thorn in my side, but I’d rather wait until he is.”
“For me, Caesar, for me! Please! Please!”
“Do you hate him so much?”
“Enough to want to see him broken into tiny pieces,” she said through her teeth. “Cato doesn’t deserve a political career.”
“Seducing Atilia won’t prevent his having one, as you well know. However, if it means so much to you—all right.”
“Oh, wonderful! Thank you!” She huffed happily, then thought of something else. “Why have you never seduced Bibulus’s wife, Domitia? Him you certainly owe the pleasure of wearing horns, he is already a dangerous enemy. Besides, his Domitia is my half sister Porcia’s husband’s cousin. It would hurt Cato too.”
“A bit of the bird of prey in me, I suppose. The anticipation of seducing Domitia is so great I keep postponing the actual deed.”
“Cato,” she said, “is far more important to me.”
Bird of prey, nothing, she thought to herself on the way back to the Palatine. Though he may see himself as an eagle, Servilia thought, his conduct over Bibulus’s wife is plain feline.
Pregnancy and children were a part of life, and, with the exception of Brutus, just a something which had to be endured with a minimum of inconvenience. Brutus had been hers alone; she had fed him herself, changed his diapers herself, bathed him herself, played with him and amused him herself. But her attitude to her two daughters had been far different. Once she dropped them, she handed them to nursemaids and more or less forgot about them until they grew sufficiently to need a more sternly Roman supervision. This she applied without much interest, and no love. When each of them turned six, she sent them to Marcus Antonius Gnipho’s school because Aurelia had recommended it as suitable for girls, and she had not had cause to regret this decision.
Now, seven years later, she was going to have a love child, the fruit of a passion which ruled her life. What she felt for Gaius Julius Caesar was not alien to her nature, that being an intense and powerful one well suited to a great love; no, its chief disadvantage stemmed from him and his nature, which she read correctly as unwilling to be dominated by emotions arising out of personal relationships of any kind. This early and instinctive divination had saved her making the mistakes women commonly made, from putting his feelings to the test, to expecting fidelity and overt demonstrations of interest in anything beyond what happened between them in that discreet Suburan apartment.
Thus she had not gone that afternoon to tell him her news in any anticipation that it would provoke joy or add a proprietary feeling of ownership in him, and she had been right to discipline herself out of hope. He was neither pleased nor displeased; as he had said, this was her business, had nothing to do with him. Had she anywhere, buried deep down, cherished a hope that he would want to claim this child? She didn’t think so, didn’t walk home conscious of disappointment or depression. As he had no wife of his own, only one union would have needed the legality of divorce—hers to Silanus. But look at how Rome had condemned Sulla for summarily divorcing Aelia. Not that Sulla had cared once the young wife of Scaurus was freed by widowhood. Not that Caesar would have cared. Except that Caesar had a sense of honor Sulla had not; oh, it wasn’t a particularly honorable sense of honor, it was too bound up in what he thought of himself and wanted from himself to be that. Caesar had set a standard of conduct for himself which embraced every aspect of his life. He didn’t bribe his juries, he didn’t extort in his province, he was not a hypocrite. All no more and no less than evidence that he would do everything the hard way; he would not resort to techniques designed to render political progress easier. His self-confidence was indestructible; he never doubted for one moment his ability to get where he intended to go. But claim this child as his own by asking her to divorce Silanus so he could marry her before the child was born? No, that he wouldn’t even contemplate doing. She knew exactly why. For no other reason than that it would demonstrate to his Forum peers that he was under the thumb of an inferior—a woman.
She wanted desperately to marry him, of course, though not to acknowledge the paternity of this coming child. She wanted to marry him because she loved him with mind as much as body, because in him she recognized one of the great Romans, a fitting husband who would never disappoint her expectations of his political and military performance any more than his ancestry and dignitas could do aught than enhance her own. He was a Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, a Gaius Servilius Ahala, a Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, a Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Of the true patrician aristocracy—a quintessential Roman—possessed of immense intellect, energy, decision and strength. An ideal husband for a Servilia Caepionis. An ideal stepfather for her beloved Brutus.
The dinner hour was not far away when she arrived home, and Decimus Junius Silanus, the steward informed her, was in his study. What was the matter with him? she wondered as she entered the room to find him writing a letter. At forty years of age he looked closer to fifty, lines of physical suffering engraved down either side of his nose, his prematurely grey hair toning into grey skin. Though he was striving to acquit himself well as urban praetor, the demands of that duty were sapping an already fragile vitality. His ailment was mysterious enough to have defeated the diagnostic skills of every physician Rome owned, though the consensus of medical opinion was that its progress was too slow to suggest an underlying malignancy; no one had found a palpable tumor, nor was his liver enlarged. The year after next he would be eligible to stand for the consulship, but Servilia for one now believed he had not the stamina to mount a successful campaign.
“How are you today?” she asked, sitting in the chair
in front of his desk.
He had looked up and smiled at her when she entered, and now laid down his pen with some pleasure. His love for her had grown no less with the accumulation of almost ten years of marriage, but his inability to be a husband to her in all respects ate at him more corrosively than his disease. Aware of his innate defects of character, he had thought when the disease clamped down after the birth of Junilla that she would turn on him with reproaches and criticisms; but she never had, even after the pain and burning in his gut during the night hours forced him to move to a separate sleeping cubicle. When every attempt at love-making had ended in the ghastly embarrassment of impotence, it had seemed kinder and less mortifying to remove himself physically; though he would have been content to cuddle and kiss, Servilia in the act of love was not cozy and not prone to dalliance.
So he answered her question honestly by saying, “No better and no worse than usual.”
“Husband, I want to talk to you,” she said.
“Of course, Servilia.”
“I am pregnant, and you have good cause to know that the child is not yours.”
His color faded from grey to white, he swayed. Servilia leaped to her feet and went to the console table where two carafes and some silver goblets resided, poured un-watered wine into one and stood supporting him while he sipped at it, retching slightly.
“Oh, Servilia!” he exclaimed after the stimulant had done its work and she had returned to her chair.
“If it is any consolation,” she said, “this fact has nothing to do with your own illness and disabilities. Were you as virile as Priapus, I would still have gone to this man.”
The tears gathered in his eyes, poured faster and faster down his cheeks.
“Use your handkerchief, Silanus!” snapped Servilia.
Out it came, mopped away. “Who is he?” he managed to ask.
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