“Rome will mend, all her religious colleges will see to that. More importantly, you must mend. I know how much holding the Bona Dea meant to you. What a wretched, idiotic, bizarre business!”
“One might expect some rude fellow from the Subura to climb a wall out of drunken curiosity during the Bona Dea, but I cannot understand Publius Clodius! Oh yes, I know he was brought up by that doting fool Appius Claudius—and I am aware Clodius is a mischief-maker. But to disguise himself as a woman to violate Bona Dea? Consciously to commit sacrilege? He must be mad!”
Caesar shrugged. “Perhaps he is, Mater. It’s an old family, and much intermarried. The Claudii Pulchri do have their quirks! They’ve always been irreverent—look at the Claudius Pulcher who drowned the sacred chickens and then lost the battle of Drepana during our first war against Carthage—not to mention putting your daughter the Vestal in your illegal triumphal chariot! An odd lot, brilliant but unstable. As is Clodius, I think.”
“To violate Bona Dea is far worse than violating a Vestal.”
“Well, according to Fabia he tried to do that too. Then when he didn’t succeed he accused Catilina.” Caesar sighed, shrugged. “Unfortunately Clodius’s lunacy is of the sane kind. We can’t brand him a maniac and shut him up.”
“He will be tried at law?”
“Since you unmasked him in front of the wives and daughters of consulars, Mater, he will have to be tried.”
“And Pompeia?”
“Cardixa said you believed her innocent of complicity.”
“I do. So do Servilia and her mother.”
“Therefore it boils down to Pompeia’s word against a slave girl’s—unless, of course, Clodius too implicates her.”
“He won’t do that,” said Aurelia grimly.
“Why?”
“He would then have no choice but to admit that he committed sacrilege. Clodius will deny everything.”
“Too many of you saw him.”
“Caked in face paint. I rubbed at it, and revealed Clodius. But I think a parcel of Rome’s best advocates could make most of the witnesses doubt their eyes.”
“What you are actually saying, I think, is that it would be better for Rome if Clodius were acquitted.”
“Oh, yes. The Bona Dea belongs to women. She won’t thank Rome’s men for exacting punishment in her name.”
“He can’t be allowed to escape, Mater. Sacrilege is public.”
“He will never escape, Caesar. Bona Dea will find him and take him in her own good time.” Aurelia got up. “The pontifices will be arriving soon, I’ll go. When you need me, send for me.”
Catulus and Vatia Isauricus came in not long after, and Mamercus so quickly behind them that Caesar said nothing until all three were seated.
“I never cease to be amazed, Pontifex Maximus, at how much information you can fit into one sheet of paper,” said Catulus, “and always so logically expressed, so easy to assimilate.”
“But not,” said Caesar, “a pleasure to read.”
“No, not that, this time.”
Others were stepping through the door: Silanus, Acilius Glabrio, Varro Lucullus, next year’s consul Marcus Valerius Messala Niger, Metellus Scipio, and Lucius Claudius the Rex Sacrorum.
“There are no others at present in Rome. Do you agree we may start, Quintus Lutatius?’’ Caesar asked.
“We may start, Pontifex Maximus.”
“You already have an outline of the crisis in my note, but I will have my mother tell you exactly what happened. I am aware it ought to be Fabia, but at the moment she and the other adult Vestals are searching the Books for the proper rituals of expiation.”
“Aurelia will be satisfactory, Pontifex Maximus.”
So Aurelia came and told her story, crisply, succinctly, with eminent good sense and great composure. Such a relief! Caesar, men like Catulus were suddenly realizing, took after his mother.
“You will be prepared to testify in court that the man was Publius Clodius?” asked Catulus.
“Yes, but under protest. Let Bona Dea have him.”
They thanked her uneasily; Caesar dismissed her.
“Rex Sacrorum, I ask for your verdict first,” said Caesar then.
“Publius Clodius nefas esse.”
“Quintus Lutatius?”
“Nefas esse.’’
And so it went, every man declaring that Publius Clodius was guilty of sacrilege.
Today there were no undercurrents arising out of personal feuds or grudges. All the priests were absolutely united, and grateful for a firm hand like Caesar’s. Politics demanded enmity, but a religious crisis did not. It affected everyone equally, needed union.
“I will direct the Fifteen Custodians to look at the Prophetic Books immediately,” said Caesar, “and consult the College of Augurs for their opinion. The Senate will meet and ask us for an opinion, and we must be ready.”
“Clodius will have to be tried,” said Messala Niger, whose flesh crawled at the very thought of what Clodius had done.
“That will require a decree of recommendation from the Senate and a special bill in the Popular Assembly. The women are against it, but you’re right, Niger. He must be tried. However, the rest of this month will be expiatory, not retaliatory, which means the consuls of next year will inherit the business.”
“And what of Pompeia?” asked Catulus when no one else would.
“If Clodius does not implicate her—and my mother seems to think he will not—then her part in the sacrilege rests upon the testimony of a slave witness herself involved,” Caesar answered, voice clinical. “That means she cannot be publicly condemned.”
“Do you feel she was implicated, Pontifex Maximus?”
“No, I do not. Nor does my mother, who was there. The slave girl is anxious to save her skin, which is understandable. Bona Dea will demand her death—which she has not yet realized—but that is not in our hands. It’s women’s business.”
“What of Clodius’s wife and sisters?” asked Vatia Isauricus.
“My mother says they’re innocent.”
“Your mother is right,” said Catulus. “No Roman woman would profane the mysteries of Bona Dea, even Fulvia or Clodia.”
“However, I still have something to do about Pompeia,” said Caesar, beckoning to a priestling-scribe holding tablets. “Take this down: ‘To Pompeia Sulla, wife of Gaius Julius Caesar, Pontifex Maximus of Rome: I hereby divorce you and send you home to your brother. I make no claim on your dowry.’ ”
Nobody said a word, nor found the courage to speak even after the terse document was presented to Caesar for his seal.
Then as the bearer of the waxen note left to deliver it at the Domus Publica, Mamercus spoke.
“My wife is her mother, but she will not have Pompeia.”
“Nor should she be asked to,” said Caesar coolly. “That is why I have directed that she be sent to her elder brother, who is her paterfamilias. He’s governing Africa Province, but his wife is here. Whether they want her or not, they must take her.”
It was Silanus who finally asked the question everyone burned to. “Caesar, you say you believe Pompeia innocent of any complicity. Then why are you divorcing her?”
The fair brows rose; Caesar looked genuinely surprised. “Because Caesar’s wife, like all Caesar’s family, must be above suspicion,” he said.
And some days later when the question was repeated in the House, he gave exactly the same answer.
*
Fulvia slapped Publius Clodius from one side of his face to the other until his lip split and his nose bled.
“Fool!” she growled with every blow. “Fool! Fool! Fool!”
He didn’t attempt to fight back, nor to appeal to his sisters, who stood watching in anguished satisfaction.
“Why?” asked Clodia when Fulvia was done.
It was some time before he could answer, when the bleeding was staunched and the tears ceased to flow. Then he said, “I wanted to make Aurelia and Fabia suffer.”
“Oh, what’s the matter with you?” he yelled. “A parcel of women getting rid of their resentment of men, what’s the sense in that? I saw the whips! I know about the snakes! It’s a lot of absolute nonsense!”
But that only made matters worse; all three women flew at him, Clodius was slapped and punched again.
“Bona Dea,” said Clodilla between her teeth, “is not a pretty Greek statue! Bona Dea is as old as Rome, she is ours, she is the Good Goddess. Every woman who was there to be a part of your defilement and who is pregnant will have to take the medicine.”
“And that,” said Fulvia, beginning to weep, “includes me!”
“No!”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Clodia, administering a kick. “Oh, Clodius, why? There must be thousands of ways to revenge yourself on Aurelia and Fabia! Why commit sacrilege? You’re doomed!”
“I didn’t think, it seemed so perfect!” He tried to take Fulvia’s hand. “Please don’t harm our child!”
“Don’t you understand yet?” she shrieked, wrenching away. “You harmed our child! It would be born deformed and monstrous, I must take the medicine! Clodius, you are accursed!”
“Get out!” Clodilla shouted. “On your belly like a snake!”
Clodius crawled away on his belly, snakelike.
*
“There will have to be another Bona Dea,” said Terentia to Caesar when she, Fabia and Aurelia came to see him in his study. “The rites will be the same, though with the addition of a piacular sacrifice. The girl Doris will be punished in a certain way no woman can reveal, even to the Pontifex Maximus.”
Thank all the Gods for that, thought Caesar, having no trouble in imagining who would constitute the piacular sacrifice. “So you need a law to make one of the coming comitial days nefasti, and you are asking the Pontifex Maximus to procure it from the Religious Assembly of seventeen tribes?”
“That is correct,” said Fabia, thinking she must speak if Caesar were not to deem her dependent upon two women outside the Vestal College. “Bona Dea must be held on dies nefasti, and there are no more until February.”
“You’re right, Bona Dea can’t remain awake until February. Shall I legislate for the sixth day before the Ides?”
“That would be excellent,” said Terentia, sighing.
“Bona Dea will go happily to sleep,” comforted Caesar. “I’m sorry that any woman at the feast who is newly pregnant will have to make a harder and a very special sacrifice. I say no more, it is women’s business. Remember too that no Roman woman was guilty of sacrilege. Bona Dea was profaned by a man and a non-Roman girl.”
“I hear,” Terentia announced, rising, “that Publius Clodius likes revenge. But he will not like Bona Dea’s revenge.”
Aurelia remained seated, though she did not speak until after the door had closed behind Terentia and Fabia.
“I’ve sent Pompeia packing,” she said then.
“And all her possessions too, I hope?”
“That’s being attended to this moment. Poor thing! She wept so, Caesar. Her sister-in-law doesn’t want to take her, Cornelia Sulla refuses—it’s so sad.”
“I know.”
” ‘Caesar’s wife, like all Caesar’s family, must be above suspicion,’ ” Aurelia quoted.
“Yes.”
“It seems wrong to me to punish her for something she knew nothing about, Caesar.”
“And wrong to me, Mater. Nevertheless, I had no choice.”
“I doubt your colleagues would have objected had you elected to keep her as your wife.”
“Probably not. But I objected.”
“You’re a hard man.”
“A man who isn’t hard, Mater, is under the thumb of some woman or other. Look at Cicero and Silanus.”
“They say,” said Aurelia, expanding the subject, “that Silanus is failing fast.”
“I believe it, if the Silanus I saw this morning is anything to go by.”
“You may have cause to regret that you will be divorced at the same moment as Servilia is widowed.”
“The time to worry about that is when my ring goes on her wedding finger.”
“In some ways it would be a very good match,” she said, dying to know what he really thought.
“In some ways,” he agreed, smiling inscrutably.
“Can you do nothing for Pompeia beyond sending her dowry and possessions with her?”
“Why should I?”
“No valid reason, except that her punishment is undeserved, and she will never find another husband. What man would espouse a woman whose husband suspects she connived at sacrilege?”
“That’s a slur on me, Mater.”
“No, Caesar, it is not! You know she isn’t guilty, but in divorcing her you have not indicated that to the rest of Rome.”
“Mater, you are fast outwearing your welcome,” he said gently.
She got up immediately. “Nothing?” she asked.
“I will find her another husband.”
“Who could be prevailed upon to marry her after this?”
“I imagine Publius Vatinius would be delighted to marry her. The granddaughter of Sulla is a great prize for one whose own grandparents were Italians.”
Aurelia turned this over in her mind, then nodded. “That,” she said, “is an excellent idea, Caesar. Vatinius was such a doting husband to Antonia Cretica, and she was at least as stupid as poor Pompeia. Oh, splendid! He will be an Italian husband, keep her close. She’ll be far too busy to have time for the Clodius Club.”
“Go away, Mater!” said Caesar with a sigh.
*
The second Bona Dea festival passed off without a hitch, but it took a long time for feminine Rome to settle down, and there were many newly pregnant women throughout the city who followed the example of those present at the first ceremony; the Vestals dispensed the rye medicine until their stocks were very low. The number of male babies abandoned on the shards of the Mons Testaceus was unprecedented, and for the first time in memory no barren couples took them to keep and rear; every last one died unwanted. The city ran with tears and put on mourning until May Day, made worse because the seasons were so out of kilter with the calendar that the snakes would not awaken until later, so who would know whether the Good Goddess had forgiven?
Publius Clodius, the perpetrator of all this misery and panic, was shunned and spat upon. Time alone would heal the religious crisis, but the sight of Publius Clodius was a perpetual reminder. Nor would he do the sensible thing, quit the city; he brazened it out, protesting that he was innocent, that he had never been there.
It also took time for Fulvia to forgive him, though she did after the ordeal of aborting her pregnancy had faded, but only because she saw for herself that he was as grief stricken about it as she. Then why?
“I didn’t think, I just didn’t think!” he wept into her lap. “It seemed such a lark.”
“You committed sacrilege!”
“I didn’t think of it like that, I just didn’t!” He lifted his head to gaze at her out of red-rimmed, swollen eyes. “I mean, it’s only some silly old women’s binge—everyone gets stinking drunk and makes love or masturbates or something—I just didn’t think, Fulvia!”
“Clodius, the Bona Dea isn’t like that. It’s sacred! I can’t tell you what exactly it is, I’d shrivel up and give birth to snakes for the rest of time if I did! Bona Dea is for us! All the other Gods of women are for men too, Juno Lucina and Juno Sospita and the rest, but Bona Dea is ours alone. She takes care of all those women’s things men can’t know, wouldn’t want to know. If she doesn’t go to sleep properly she can’t wake properly, and Rome is more than men, Clodius! Rome is women too!”
“They’ll try me and convict me, won’t they?”
“So it seems, though none of us wants that. It means men are sneaking in where men do not belong, they are usurping Bona Dea’s godhead.” Fulvia shivered uncontrol
lably. “It isn’t a trial at the hands of men terrifies me, Clodius. It’s what Bona Dea will do to you, and that can’t be bought off the way a jury can.”
“There’s not enough money in Rome to buy off this jury.”
But Fulvia simply smiled. “There will be enough money when the time comes. We women don’t want it. Perhaps if it can be averted, Bona Dea will forgive. What she won’t forgive is the world of men taking over her prerogatives.”
*
Just returned from his legateship in Spain, Publius Vatinius jumped at the chance to marry Pompeia.
“Caesar, I am very grateful,” he said, smiling. “Naturally you couldn’t keep her as your wife, I understand that. But I also know that you wouldn’t offer her to me if you thought her a party to the sacrilege.”
“Rome may not be so charitable, Vatinius. There are many who think I divorced her because she was intriguing with Clodius.”
“Rome doesn’t matter to me, your word does. My children will be Antonii and Cornelii! Only tell me how I can repay you.”
“That,” said Caesar, “will be easy, Vatinius. Next year I go to a province, and the year after I’ll be standing for consul. I want you to stand for the tribunate of the plebs at the same elections.” He sighed. “With Bibulus in my year, there is a strong possibility that I’ll have him as my consular colleague. The only other nobleman of any consequence in our year is Philippus, and I believe that for the time being the Epicurean will outweigh the politician in his case. He hasn’t enjoyed his praetorship. The men who have been praetor earlier are pathetic. Therefore I may well need a good tribune of the plebs, if Bibulus is to be consul too. And you, Vatinius,” Caesar ended cheerfully, “will be an extremely able tribune of the plebs.”
“A gnat versus a flea.”
“The nice thing about fleas,” said Caesar contentedly, “is that they crack when one applies a thumbnail. Gnats are far more elusive creatures.”
“They say Pompeius is about to land in Brundisium.”
“They do indeed.”
“And looking for land for his soldiers.”
“To no avail, I predict.”
“Mightn’t it be better if I ran for the tribunate of the plebs next year, Caesar? That way I could get land for Pompeius, and he would be very much in your debt. The only tribunes of the plebs he has this year are Aufidius Lurco and Cornelius Cornutus, neither of whom will prevail. One hears he’ll have Lucius Flavius the year after, but that won’t work either.”
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