Bibulus stopped, but did not sit down, apparently thinking of something to add. “I have never asked this body for much during my years as a senator. Grant me this one boon and I will never ask for anything more. You have the word of a Calpurnius Bibulus.”
The applause was enthusiastic and widespread; Caesar too applauded heartily, but not for Bibulus’s proposal. It had been beautifully done. Far more effective than declining a province in advance. Take on a dolorous, thankless task voluntarily and make anyone who objects look small.
Pompey continued to sit unhappily while many men gazed on him and wondered that so wealthy and powerful a man could have treated poor Publius Servilius the knight so atrociously; it was Lucius Lucceius who answered Bibulus very strongly and loudly, protesting at anything so ridiculous as a task better suited to professional surveyors contracted out by the censors. Others spoke, but always in praise of Bibulus’s proposal.
“Gaius Julius Caesar, you’re a highly favored candidate for these elections,” said Celer sweetly. “Do you have anything to add before I call for a division?’’
“Not a thing, Quintus Caecilius,” said Caesar, smiling.
Which rather took the wind out of the boni sails. But the motion to assign Italy’s woodland and pasture trails and paths to next year’s consuls passed overwhelmingly. Even Caesar voted for it, apparently perfectly content. What was he up to? Why hadn’t he come roaring out of his cage?
“Magnus, don’t look so down in the mouth,” said Caesar to Pompey, who had remained in the House after the mass exodus.
“No one ever told me about this Publius Servilius!” he cried. “Just wait until I get my hands on my stewards!”
“Magnus, Magnus, don’t be ridiculous! There is no Publius Servilius! Bibulus made him up.”
Pompey stopped short, eyes as round as his face. “Made him up?” he squeaked. “Oh, that settles it! I’ll kill the cunnus!”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Caesar. “Stroll home with me and drink a cup of better wine than Publius Servilius ever made. Remind me to send a pamphlet to King Phraates of the Parthians, would you? I think he’ll love the wine I make. It might be a less wearing way to make money than governing Rome’s provinces—or surveying her traveling stock routes.”
This lighthearted attitude did much to mend Pompey’s spirits; he laughed, cuffed Caesar on the arm and strolled as bidden.
“Time we had a talk,” said Caesar, dispensing refreshments.
“I confess I’ve wondered when we were going to get together.”
“The Domus Publica is a sumptuous residence, Magnus, but it does have some disadvantages. Everyone sees it—and who goes in and out. The same thing happens at your place, you’re so famous there are always tourists and spies lurking.” A sly smile lit Caesar’s eyes. “So famous are you, in fact, that when I was going to see Marcus Crassus the other day, I noticed whole stalls in the markets selling little busts of you. Are you getting a good royalty? These miniature Pompeiuses were being snapped up faster than the vendors could put them out.”
“Really?” asked Pompey, eyes sparkling. “Well, well! I’ll have to look. Fancy that! Little busts of me?”
“Little busts of you.”
“Who was buying them?”
“Young girls, mostly,” Caesar said gravely. “Oh, there were quite a few older customers of both sexes, but in the main they were young girls.”
“An old fellow like me?”
“Magnus, you’re a hero. The mere mention of your name makes every feminine heart beat faster. Besides,” he added, grinning, “they’re not great works of art. Someone’s made a mold and pops out plaster Pompeii as rapidly as a bitch pops pups. He’s got a team of painters who slap some color on your skin and drench your hair with gaudy yellow, then put in two big blue eyes—you are not quite as you actually look.”
Give Pompey his due, he could also laugh at himself once he understood that he was being teased without malice. So he leaned back in his chair and laughed until he cried because he knew he could afford to. Caesar didn’t lie. Therefore those busts were selling. He was a hero, and half of Rome’s adolescent female population was in love with him.
“You see what you miss by not visiting Marcus Crassus?”
That sobered Pompey. He eased upright, looked grim. “I can’t stand the man!”
“Who says you have to like each other?’’
“Who says I have to ally myself with him?”
“I do, Magnus.”
“Ah!” Down went the beautiful goblet Caesar had given him, up came two very shrewd blue eyes to stare into Caesar’s paler and less comforting orbs. “Can’t you and I do it alone?”
“Possibly, but not probably. This city, country, place, idea—call it what you will—is foundering because it’s run by a timocracy dedicated to depressing the aims and ambitions of any man who wants to stand higher than the rest. In some ways that’s admirable, but in other ways it’s fatal. As it will be to Rome unless something is done. There ought to be room for outstanding men to do what they do best, as well as for many other men who are less gifted but nonetheless have something to offer in terms of public duty. Mediocrities can’t govern, that’s the problem. If they could govern, they’d see that putting all their strength into the kind of ludicrous exercise Celer and Bibulus ran in the Senate today accomplishes nothing. Here am I, Magnus, a very gifted and capable man, deprived of the chance to make Rome more than she already is. I am to become a surveyor tramping up and down the peninsula watching teams of men use their gromae to mark out the routes where traveling stock can legally eat with one end and shit with the other. And why am I to become a minor official doing a much-needed job which could be done, as Lucceius said, more efficiently by men contracted at the censors’ booth? Because, Magnus, like you I dream of greater things and know I have the ability to carry them through.”
“Jealousy. Envy.”
“Is it? Perhaps some is jealousy, but it’s more complicated than that. People don’t like being outclassed, and that includes people whose birth and status should render them immune. Who and what are Bibulus and Cato? The one is an aristocrat whom Fortune made too small in every way, and the other is a rigid, intolerant hypocrite who prosecutes men for electoral bribery but approves of electoral bribery when it meets his own needs. Ahenobarbus is a wild boar, and Gaius Piso a totally corrupt bumbler. Celer is infinitely more gifted, yet falls down in that same area—he would rather channel his energies into trying to bring you crashing than forget personal differences and think of Rome.”
“Are you trying to say that they genuinely can’t see their inadequacies? That they really believe themselves as capable as us? That conceited they couldn’t be!”
“Why not? Magnus, a man has only one instrument whereby to measure intelligence—his own mind. So he measures everyone by the greatest intellect he knows of. His own. When you sweep Our Sea clear of pirates in the space of one short summer, all you’re actually doing is showing him that it can be done. Ergo, he too could have done it. But you didn’t let him. You denied him the opportunity. You forced him to stand by and watch you do it by enacting a special law. The fact that all he’s been doing for years is talk is beside the point. You showed him it can be done. If he admits he couldn’t do it the way you did, then he’s telling himself he’s worthless, and that he won’t do. It isn’t pure conceit. It’s a built-in blindness coupled to misgivings he dare not acknowledge. I call him the revenge of the Gods on men who are genuinely superior.”
But Pompey was growing restless. Though he was quite capable of assimilating abstract concepts, he just didn’t find the exercise a useful one.
“All well and good, Caesar, but it doesn’t get us anywhere to speculate. Why do we have to bring Crassus in?”
A logical and practical question. A pity then that in asking it Pompey rejected an offer of what might have become a deep and enduring friendship. What Caesar had been doing was reaching out to him, one superior sort of ma
n to another. A pity then that Pompey was not the right superior man. His talents and interests lay elsewhere. Caesar’s impulse died.
“We have to bring Crassus in because neither you nor I has anything like his clout among the Eighteen,” Caesar said patiently, “nor do we know one-thousandth the number of lesser knights Crassus does. Yes, both of us know many knights, senior and junior, so don’t bother to say it. But we’re not in Crassus’s league! He’s a force to be reckoned with, Magnus. I know you’re probably far richer than he is, but you didn’t make your money the way he does to this day. He’s an entirely commercial creature, he can’t help it. Everyone owes Crassus a favor. That is why we need him! At heart all Romans are businessmen. If they’re not, why did Rome rise to dominate the world?”
“Because of her soldiers and her generals,” Pompey said instantly—and defensively.
“Yes, that too. Which is where you and I come in. However, war is a temporary condition. Wars can also be more pointless and more costly to a country than any number of bad business ventures. Think of how much richer Rome would be today if she hadn’t had to fight a series of civil wars for the last thirty years. It took your conquest of the East to put Rome back on her financial feet. But the conquering is done. From now on it’s business as usual. Your contribution to Rome in relation to the East is finished. Whereas Crassus’s is only just beginning. That’s where his power comes from. What conquests win, commerce keeps. You win empires for Crassus to preserve and Romanize.”
“All right, you’ve convinced me,” said Pompey, picking up his goblet. “Let’s say the three of us unite, form a triumvirate. What exactly will that do?’’
“It endows us with the clout to defeat the boni because it gives us the numbers we need to enact laws in the Assemblies. We won’t get approval from the Senate, basically a body designed to be dominated by ultraconservatives. The Assemblies are the tools of change. What you have to understand is that the boni have learned since Gabinius and Manilius legislated your special commands, Magnus. Look at Manilius. We’ll never get him home, so he stands as an example to would-be tribunes of the plebs of what can happen when a tribune of the plebs defies the boni too much. Celer broke Lucius Flavius, which is why your land bill went down—not to defeat in a vote, it never even got that far. It died because Celer broke you and Flavius. You tried the old way. But these days the boni can’t be bluffed. From now on, Magnus, brute strength is all-important. Three of us have to be better than two of us, simply because three are stronger than two. We can all do things for each other if we’re united, and with me as senior consul we have the most powerful legislator the Republic owns. Don’t underestimate consular power just because consuls don’t usually legislate. I intend to be a legislating consul, and I have a very good man for my tribune of the plebs—Publius Vatinius.”
Eyes fixed on Pompey’s face, Caesar paused to assess the effect of his argument. Yes, it was sinking in. Pompey was no fool, for all his need to be loved.
“Consider how long you and Crassus have been struggling to no avail. Has Crassus managed after almost a year of trying to get the Asian tax-farming contracts amended? No. Have you after a year and a half got your settlement of the East ratified or land for your veterans? No. Each of you has tried with all your individual power and strength to move the boni mountain, and each of you has failed. United, you might have succeeded. But Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Crassus and Gaius Caesar united can move the world.”
“I admit you’re right,” Pompey said gruffly. “It has always amazed me how clearly you see, Caesar, even back in the days when I thought Philippus would be the one to get me what I wanted. He didn’t. You did. Are you a politician, a mathematician, or a magician?”
“My best quality is common sense,” laughed Caesar.
“Then we approach Crassus.”
“No, I approach Crassus,” Caesar said gently. “After the drubbing both of us took in the House today, it won’t come as any surprise that we’re drowning our sorrows together at this moment. We’re not known as natural allies, so let’s keep it that way. Marcus Crassus and I have been friends for years, it will look logical that I form an alliance with him. Nor will the boni be terribly alarmed at that prospect. It’s three of us can win. From now until the end of the year your participation in our triumvirate—I like that word!—is a secret known only among the three of us. Let the boni think they’ve won.”
“I hope I can keep my temper when I have to mix with Crassus all the time,” sighed Pompey.
“But you don’t actually have to mix with him at all, Magnus. That’s the beauty of three. I’m there to go between, I’m the link which obviates the need for you and Crassus to see each other much. You’re not colleagues in the consulship, you’re privati.”
“All right, we know what I want. We know what Crassus wants. But what do you want out of this triumvirate, Caesar?”
“I want Italian Gaul and Illyricum.”
“Afranius knows today that he’s prorogued.”
“He won’t be prorogued, Magnus. That has to be understood.”
“He’s my client.”
“Playing second lead to Celer.”
Pompey frowned. “Italian Gaul and Illyricum for one year?’’
“Oh, no. For five years.”
The vivid blue eyes suddenly looked away; the basking lion felt the sun go behind a cloud. “What are you after?”
“A great command, Magnus. Do you grudge it to me?”
What Pompey knew of Caesar went under lightning assessment: some story about winning a battle near Tralles years ago—a Civic Crown for bravery—a good but peaceful quaestorship—a brilliant campaign in northwestern Iberia just finished, but nothing really out of the common way. Where was he going? Into the Danubius Basin, presumably. Dacia? Moesia? The lands of the Roxolani? Yes, that would be a great campaign, but not like the conquest of the East. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus had done battle with formidable kings, not barbarians in war paint and tattoos. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus had been on the march at the head of armies since the age of twenty-two. Where was the danger? There couldn’t be any.
The chill rolled off the lion’s fur; Pompey smiled broadly. “No, Caesar, I don’t grudge it to you at all. I wish you luck.”
*
Past the stalls displaying those crude busts of Pompey the Great went Gaius Julius Caesar, into the Macellum Cuppedenis, up the five flights of narrow stairs to see Marcus Crassus, who had not been in the Senate this day, rarely bothered to attend. His pride was injured, his dilemma unsolved. Financial ruin was never a consideration, but here he was with all that clout and utterly unable to deliver what was actually a trifle. His position as the brightest and biggest star in Rome’s business firmament was in jeopardy, his reputation in ruins. Every day important knights came asking him why he hadn’t managed to have the tax-farming contracts amended, and every day he had to try to explain that a small group of men were leading the Senate of Rome like a bull with a ring through its nose. Ye gods, he was supposed to be the bull! And more than dignitas was dwindling; many of the knights now suspected he was up to something, that he was deliberately stalling renegotiation of those wretched contracts. And his hair was falling out like a cat’s in spring!
“Don’t come near me!” he growled to Caesar.
“Whyever not?” asked Caesar, grinning as he sat down on the corner of the Crassus desk.
“I have the mange.”
“You’re depressed. Well, cheer up, I have good news.”
“Too many people here, but I’m too tired to move.”
He opened his mouth and bellowed at the crowded room: “Go home, the lot of you! Go on, go home! I won’t even dock your pay, so go, go!”
They went, fleeing delightedly; Crassus insisted everyone put in every moment of the daylight hours, and they were lengthening into summer, still a long way off. Of course every eighth day was a holiday, so were the Saturnalia, the Compitalia and the major games, but not with pay. You didn’t work, Crassu
s didn’t pay you.
“You and I,” said Caesar, “are going into partnership.”
“It won’t answer,” said Crassus, shaking his head.
“It will if we’re a triumvirate.”
The big shoulders tensed, though the face remained impassive. “Not with Magnus!”
“Yes, with Magnus.”
“I won’t, and that’s that.”
“Then say goodbye to the work of years, Marcus. Unless you and I form an alliance with Pompeius Magnus, your reputation as patron of the First Class is utterly destroyed.”
“Rubbish! Once you’re consul you’ll succeed in having the Asian contracts reduced.”
“Today, my friend, I received my province. Bibulus and I are to survey and demarcate the traveling livestock routes of Italy.”
Crassus gaped. “That’s worse than not getting a province! It’s laughingstock material! A Julian—and a Calpurnian for that matter!—forced to do the work of minor officials?”
“I note you said Calpurnian. So you think it will be Bibulus too. But yes, he’s even willing to diminish his dignitas just to foil me. It was his idea, Marcus, and doesn’t that tell you how serious the situation is? The boni will lie down to be slaughtered if that means I’m slaughtered too. Not to mention you and Magnus. We’re taller than the field of poppies, it’s Tarquinius Superbus all over again.”
“Then you’re right. We form an alliance with Magnus.”
And it was as simple as that. No need to delve into the realm of philosophy when dealing with Crassus. Just shove facts under his nose and he’d come round. He even began to look happy about the projected triumvirate when he realized that, as both he and Pompey were privati, he wouldn’t have to make any public appearances hand in hand with the man he detested most in all of Rome. With Caesar acting as go-between, the decencies would be preserved and the three-way partnership would work.
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