The truth was that the situation in Rome fascinated him, and he couldn’t bear to leave until he had sorted out his own desires, his own priorities. Namely, did he want to be appointed Dictator? Ever since Caesar had departed for Gaul, the political arena of Rome’s Forum had become steadily more undisciplined. Yet what that had to do with Caesar, he didn’t honestly know. Certainly it wasn’t Caesar causing it. But sometimes in the midst of a white night he found himself wondering whether, were Caesar still here, it would have come to pass. And that was an enormous worry.
When he had married Caesar’s daughter he hadn’t thought very much about her father, except as a consummately clever politician who knew how to get his own way. There were many Caesars in the public eye, tremendously wellborn, canny, ambitious, competent. How exactly Caesar had outstripped them all escaped him. The man was some kind of magician; one moment he was standing in front of you, the next moment he was on the far side of a stone wall. You never saw how he did it, it was so fast. Nor how he managed to rise, a phoenix from its ashes, every time his formidable coterie of enemies thought they had burned him for good.
Take Luca, that funny little timber town on the Auser River just on the Italian Gaul side of the border, where three years ago he had found himself huddled with Caesar and Marcus Crassus and more or less divided the world. But why had he gone? Why did he need to go? Oh, at the time the reasons had seemed mountainous! But now, looking back, they seemed as small as ants’ nests. What he, Pompey the Great, had gained from the conference at Luca he could have achieved unaided. And look at poor Marcus Crassus, dead, degraded, unburied. Whereas Caesar had gone from strength to strength. How did he do that? All through their association, which extended back to before his own campaign against the pirates, it had always seemed that Caesar was his servant. No one gave a better speech, even Cicero, and there had been times when Caesar’s voice had been alone in supporting him. But he had never thought of Caesar as a man who intended to rival him. After all, Caesar had done things the proper way, everything in its time. He had not led legions and forced a partnership with the greatest man in Rome at a mere twenty-two years of age! He had not compelled the Senate to allow him to be consul before he so much as had membership in that august body! He had not wiped Our Sea clean of pirates in a single summer! He had not conquered the East and doubled Rome’s tributes!
So why now did Pompey’s skin prickle? Why now did he feel the cold wind of Caesar’s breath on the back of his neck? How had Caesar managed to make all of Rome adore him? Once it had been Caesar who drew his attention to the fact that there were stalls in the market devoted to selling little plaster busts of Pompey the Great. Now those selfsame stalls were selling busts of Caesar. Caesar was breaking new ground for Rome; all Pompey had done was plough a fresh furrow in the same old field, the East. Of course Caesar’s remarkable dispatches to the Senate had helped—why hadn’t it occurred to Pompey to keep his short, riveting, a kind of chronicle of events shorn of the slightest excess verbiage? Unapologetic? Full of mentions of other men’s deeds, centurions and junior legates? Caesar’s swept through the Senate like a briskly invigorating wind. They earned him thanksgivings! There were myths about the man. The speed with which he traveled, the way he dictated to several secretaries at once, the ease with which he bridged great rivers and plucked hapless legates from the jaws of death. All so personal!
Well, Pompey wouldn’t be going to war again just to put Caesar in his place. He’d have to do it from Rome, and before Caesar’s second five years governing the Gauls and Illyricum was over. He, Pompey the Great, was the First Man in Rome. And he was going to remain the First Man in Rome for the rest of his life, Caesar or no Caesar.
They had been begging him for months to let himself be made Dictator. No one else could deal with the violence, the anarchy, the utter absence of proper procedure. Oh, it always went back to the abominable Publius Clodius! Worse than a parasite under the skin. Imagine it! Dictator of Rome. Elevated above the Law, not answerable for any measures he took as Dictator after he ceased to be Dictator.
From a practical aspect Pompey had no doubt that he could remedy what ailed Rome; it was simply a question of the proper organization, sensible measures, a light hand on government. No, execution of dictatorial powers did not dismay Pompey in the least. What dismayed him was what being Dictator might do to his reputation in the history books, his status as a popular hero. Sulla had been Dictator. And how they hated him still! Not that he’d cared. Like Caesar (that name again!), his birth was so august that he hadn’t needed to care. A patrician Cornelius could do precisely what he pleased without diminishing his prominence in the history books of the future. Whether they portrayed him as a monster or a hero mattered not to Sulla. Only that he had mattered to Rome.
But a Pompeius from Picenum who looked far more a Gaul than a true Roman had to be very, very careful. Not for him the glory of patrician ancestry. Not for him automatic election at the top of the polls just because of the family name he bore. All that he was, Pompey had had to carve out for himself, and in the teeth of a father who had been a considerable force in Rome, yet was loathed by all of Rome. Not quite a New Man, but certainly not a Julian or a Cornelian. And on the whole, Pompey felt vindicated. His wives had all been of the very best: an Aemilia Scaura (patrician), a Mucia Scaevola (ancient plebeian), and a Julia Caesaris (top-of-the-tree patrician). Antistia he didn’t count; he’d married her only because her father was the judge in a trial he hadn’t wanted to take place.
But how would Rome regard him if he consented to be Dictator? The dictatorship was an ancient solution to administrative woes, designed originally to free up the consuls of the year to pursue a war, and the men who had been Dictator down the centuries had mostly been patricians. Its official duration was six months—the length of the old campaign season—though Sulla had remained Dictator for two and a half years, and had not been appointed to free up the consuls. He had forced the Senate to appoint him instead of consuls, then proceeded to have tame consuls elected.
Nor was it senatorial custom to appoint a dictator to deal with civil woes; for that, the Senate had invented the senatus consultum de re publica defendenda when Gaius Gracchus had tried to overthrow the State in the Forum rather than on the battlefield. Cicero had given it an easier name, the Senatus Consultum Ultimum. Infinitely preferable to a dictator because it did not, theoretically at any rate, empower one single man to do as he liked. For the trouble with a dictator was that the law indemnified him against all his actions while dictator; he could not afterward be brought to trial to answer for some action his fellow senators found odious.
Oh, why had people put the idea of becoming Dictator in his head? It had been running round there now for a year, and though before Calvinus and Messala Rufus had finally been elected consuls last Quinctilis he had firmly declined, he hadn’t forgotten that the offer had been made. Now the offers were being renewed, and part of him was enormously attracted to the prospect of yet another extraordinary command. He’d piled up so many, all obtained in the teeth of bitter opposition from the senatorial ultra-conservatives. Why not another one? And it the most important one? But he was a Pompeius from Picenum who looked far more a Gaul than a true Roman.
The diehard sticklers for the mos maiorum were adamantly against the very idea—Cato, Bibulus, Lucius Ahenobarbus, Metellus Scipio, old Curio, Messala Niger, all the Claudii Marcelli, all the Lentuli. Formidable. Top-heavy with clout, though none of them could lay claim to the title of the First Man in Rome, who was a Pompeius from Picenum.
Should he do it? Could he do it? Would it be a disastrous mistake or the final accolade to crown a remarkable career?
All this irresolution occurred in his bedchamber, too grand to be termed a sleeping cubicle. Where reposed a huge, highly polished silver mirror he had taken for himself after Julia died because he had hoped to catch a glimpse of her vanishing into its swimming surface. He never had. Now, pacing up and down, he caught sight of himself, s
aw himself. Stopped, gazed, wept a little. For Julia he had taken care to remain the Pompey of her dreams—slim, lithe, well built. And perhaps he hadn’t ever looked at himself again until this moment.
Julia’s Pompey had gone. In his place stood a man in his middle fifties, overweight enough to have acquired a second chin, a sagging belly, a lower back creased by rolls of fat. His famously vivid blue eyes had disappeared into the flesh of his face, and the nose he had broken in a fall from a horse scant months ago was spread sideways. Only the hair remained as thick and lustrous as ever, but what had once been gold was now silver.
His valet coughed from the door.
“Yes?” asked Pompey, wiping his eyes.
“A visitor, Gnaeus Pompeius. Titus Munatius Plancus Bursa.”
“Quickly, my toga!”
Plancus Bursa was waiting in the study.
“Good evening, good evening!” cried Pompey, bustling in. He seated himself behind his desk and folded his hands together on its surface, then looked at Bursa with the perky, enquiring gaze he had found a useful tool for thirty years.
“You’re late. How did it go?” he asked.
Plancus Bursa cleared his throat loudly; he was not a natural raconteur. “Well, there was no feast following the inaugural session of the Senate, you see. In the absence of consuls, no one thought about the feast. So I went to Clodius’s for dinner afterward.”
“Yes, yes, but finish with the Senate first, Bursa! How did it go, man?”
“Lollius suggested that you be appointed Dictator, but just as men started agreeing with him, Bibulus launched into a speech rejecting the proposal. A good speech. He was followed by Lentulus Spinther, then Lucius Ahenobarbus. Over their dead bodies would you be made Dictator—you know the sort of thing. Cicero spoke in favor of you—another good speech. But before anyone could speak in support of Cicero, Cato began a filibuster. Messala Rufus was in the chair, and terminated the meeting.”
“When’s the next session?” asked Pompey, frowning.
“Tomorrow morning. Messala Rufus has convened it with the intention of choosing the first Interrex.”
“Aha. And Clodius? What did you learn from him over dinner?”
“That he’s going to distribute the freedmen across all thirty-five tribes the moment he’s elected a praetor,” said Bursa.
“Thereby controlling Rome through the tribunate of the plebs.”
“Yes.”
“Who was there at dinner? How did they react?”
“Curio spoke out against it very strongly. Marcus Antonius said very little. Or Decimus Brutus. Or Pompeius Rufus.”
“You mean everyone except Curio was for the idea?”
“Oh, no. Everyone was against it. But Curio summed it up so well all the rest of us could add was that Clodius is insane.”
“Does Clodius suspect that you’re working for me, Bursa?”
“None of them has any inkling, Magnus. I’m trusted.”
Pompey chewed his lower lip. “Hmmm…” He heaved a sigh. “Then we’ll have to think of a way to keep Clodius from suspecting who you work for after the Senate session tomorrow. You’re not going to make life any easier for Clodius at that meeting.”
Bursa never looked curious, nor did he now. “What do you want me to do, Magnus?”
“When Messala Rufus has the lots brought out to draw for an interrex, I want you to veto the proceedings.”
“Veto the appointment of an interrex?” Bursa asked blankly.
“That’s correct, veto the appointment of an interrex.”
“May I ask why?”
Pompey grinned. “Certainly! But I won’t tell you.”
“Clodius will be furious. He wants an election badly.”
“Even if Milo runs for consul?”
“Yes, because he’s convinced Milo won’t get in, Magnus. He knows you’re backing Plautius, and he knows how much money has gone out in bribes for Plautius. And Metellus Scipio, who might have backed Milo with some of his money because he’s so tied to Bibulus and Cato, is running himself. He’s spending his money on his own candidacy. Clodius believes Plautius will be junior consul. The senior consul is bound to be Metellus Scipio,” said Bursa.
“Then I suggest that you tell Clodius after the meeting that you used your tribunician veto because you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m backing Milo, not Plautius.”
“Oh, clever!” Bursa exclaimed, animated for once. He thought about it, then nodded. “Clodius will accept that.”
“Excellent!” beamed Pompey, rising to his feet.
Plancus Bursa got up too, but before Pompey could move round his desk, the steward knocked and entered.
“Gnaeus Pompeius, an urgent letter,” he said, bowing.
Pompey took it, making sure Bursa had no chance to see its seal. After nodding absently to his tame tribune of the plebs, he went back to his desk.
Bursa cleared his throat again.
“Yes?” asked Pompey, looking up.
“A small financial embarrassment, Magnus…”
“After the Senate meets tomorrow.”
Satisfied, Plancus Bursa departed in the wake of the steward, while Pompey broke the seal on Caesar’s letter.
I write this from Aquileia, having dealt with Illyricum. From now on I move westward through Italian Gaul. The cases have piled up in the local assizes; not surprising, since I was obliged to remain on the far side of the Alps last winter.
Enough chatter. You’re as busy as I am, I know.
Magnus, my informants in Rome are insisting that our old friend Publius Clodius intends to distribute the freedmen across all thirty-five tribes of Roman men once he is elected praetor. This cannot be allowed to happen, as I am sure you agree. Were it to happen, Rome would be delivered into Clodius’s hands for the rest of his days. Neither you nor I nor any other man from Cato to Cicero would be able to withstand Clodius short of a revolution.
Were it to happen, there would indeed be a revolution. Clodius would be overpowered, executed, and the freedmen put back where they belong. However, I doubt you want this sort of solution any more than I do. Far better—and far simpler—if Clodius never becomes praetor at all.
I do not presume to tell you what to do. Only rest assured that I am as much against Clodius’s being elected a praetor as you and all other Roman men.
I send you greetings and felicitations.
Pompey went to bed a contented man.
*
The following morning brought the news that Plancus Bursa had done precisely as instructed, and used the veto his office as a tribune of the plebs gave him; when Messala Rufus tried to cast the lots to see which of the patrician prefects of each decury of ten senators would become the first Interrex, Bursa vetoed. The whole House howled its outrage, Clodius and Milo loudest of all, but Bursa could not be prevailed upon to withdraw his veto.
Red with anger, Cato began to shout. “We must have elections! When there are no consuls to enter office on New Year’s Day, this House appoints a patrician senator to serve as interrex for five days. And when his term as first Interrex is over, a second patrician is appointed to serve for five days. It is the duty of this second Interrex to organize the election of our magistrates. What is Rome coming to when any idiot calling himself a tribune of the plebs can stop something as necessary and constitutional as the appointment of an interrex? Condone the appointment of a dictator I will not, but that does not mean I condone a man’s blocking the traditional machinery of the State!”
“Hear, hear!” shouted Bibulus to thunderous applause.
None of which made any difference to Plancus Bursa. He refused to withdraw his veto.
“Why?” demanded Clodius of him after the meeting ended.
Eyes shifting rapidly from side to side to make sure that no one could hear, Bursa made himself look conspiratorially furtive. “I’ve just discovered that Pompeius Magnus is backing Milo for consul after all,” he whispered.
Which appeased Publius Cl
odius, but had no effect on Milo, who knew very well that Pompey was not backing him. Milo marched out to the Campus Martius to ask Clodius’s question of Pompey.
‘“Why?” he demanded.
“Why what?” asked Pompey innocently.
“Magnus, you can’t fool me! I know whose creature Bursa is—yours! He didn’t dream up a veto out of his own imagination, he was acting under orders—yours! Why?”
“My dear Milo, I assure you that Bursa wasn’t acting on any orders of mine,” said Pompey rather tartly. “I suggest you ask your why of someone else with whom Bursa associates.”
“You mean Clodius?” asked Milo warily.
“I might mean Clodius.”
A big, brawny man with the face of an ex-gladiator (though he had never been anything as ignoble as a gladiator), Milo tensed his muscles and grew even larger. A display of aggression quite wasted on Pompey— which Milo knew, but did from force of habit. “Rubbish!” he snorted. “Clodius thinks I won’t get in as consul, so he’s all for holding the curule elections as soon as possible.”
“I think you won’t get in as consul, Milo. But you might find Clodius doesn’t share my opinion. You’ve managed to ingratiate yourself very nicely with the faction of Bibulus and Cato. I’ve heard that Metellus Scipio is reconciled to having you as his junior colleague. I’ve also heard that he’s about to announce this fact to all his many supporters, including knights as prominent as Atticus and Oppius.”
“So it’s Clodius behind Bursa?”
“It might be,” said Pompey cautiously. “Bursa’s certainly not acting for me, of that you can be sure. What would I have to gain by it?”
Milo sneered. “The dictatorship?” he suggested.
“I’ve already refused the dictatorship, Milo. I don’t think Rome would like me as Dictator. You’re thick with Bibulus and Cato these days so you tell me I’m wrong.”
Milo, too large a man for a room stuffed with precious relics of Pompey’s various campaigns—golden wreaths, a golden grapevine with golden grapes, golden urns, delicately painted porphyry bowls—took a turn about Pompey’s study. He stopped to look at Pompey, still sitting tranquilly behind his gold and ivory desk.
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