Phagites grinned, showing crooked teeth with a gap in the middle. He saw Lucius watching and curled his upper lip, giving him a look of such malice that Lucius thought he might loose control of his bladder.
“What are you looking at, citizen?”
Lucius said nothing and hurried on.
He arrived home badly shaken. The slave who admitted him quickly barred the door behind him. His wife stood in the atrium beyond the vestibule, holding their newborn son to her breast. A nursemaid stood nearby, waiting to put the child to bed. Seeing Lucius, and the terrible look on his face, Julia pulled the baby from her breast. She kissed the child’s forehead, then handed him to the slave. She waited until the girl had disappeared before speaking.
“It’s bad news, isn’t it? Please, Lucius, tell me at once!”
“It’s not what you think.” He rushed to embrace her, as much to comfort himself as to reassure her. “I saw something…terrible…on the way home. Terrible! But the new list-”
“Was Gaius on the list, or not?” Julia pulled away from his embrace. Her fingers dug painfully into his arms.
“No, Julia, no! Calm yourself. His name wasn’t there.”
“Not yet,” said a rasping voice from the shadows. “But they will post my name any day now. So my informers tell me.”
Julia released her grip on Lucius and hurried to the hunched figure in the shadows. “Little brother, what are you doing out of bed? You’re much too ill to be up.”
Gaius Julius Caesar was only eighteen, but his face was haggard and he moved like an old man, stiff and bent.
He was unshaven, and his matted, unkempt hair made a mockery of his name; generations ago, his branch of the Julius family had taken the cognomen Caesar, meaning “possessor of a fine head of hair.”
“I’m feeling much better, sister. Really, I am. The fever’s broken. The chills are gone.”
“They’ll be back. That’s how the quartan ague runs its course. It comes and goes until it’s entirely spent.”
“Are you my physician now, as well as my sister?”
Julia kissed his forehead. “You are cooler than you were before. Do you think you could swallow some broth? You must keep up your strength.”
In the dining room, Lucius held up a small silver dish with both hands. He bowed his head, and intoned a prayer.
“Asylaeus, we offer the best morsels of the meal to you-you, who were especially worshipped by Father Romulus; you, patron of vagabonds, fugitives, and exiles; you, whose ancient altar on the Capitoline offered a place of sanctuary to those who could find it nowhere else. Keep safe this cherished visitor in my home, my brother by marriage, young Gaius. Grant him asylum here in the shelter of my house. To you, Asylaeus, I make this prayer.”
“Asylaeus, protect my brother!” said Julia.
“Protect us all,” whispered Gaius.
Lucius reclined on the couch next to Julia. He picked at bits of roasted pork on a silver dish. His stomach was empty, but after the horrors he had seen that day, the sight of charred flesh revolted him. Julia likewise had no appetite, but Gaius quickly finished one cup of broth and started on another.
Gaius saw that Lucius was staring at him. He managed a weak smile. “You did a brave thing today, brother-in-law, going down to the Forum to read the new list. I thank you for it.”
Lucius shrugged. “I did it for my own peace of mind. As long as you’re not officially on the list, Julia and I can’t be punished for keeping a wanted man under our roof.”
“I shall move on tomorrow, I promise.”
“Nonsense!” said Julia. “You can stay here for as long as you like.”
Lucius groaned inwardly, but Gaius spared him the awkwardness of objecting.
“Thank you, sister, but for my own safety I need to keep moving. As soon as I’m able, I must leave the city and get as far away from Italy as I can. If it weren’t for this damned ague, I’d be gone already. Sulla wants me dead.”
Lucius shook his head. “How did it come to this? In our grandfathers’ time, Gaius Gracchus was beheaded and his killer collected a bounty, and the bodies of the Gracchi were thrown in the Tiber, without proper burial, but decent Romans were outraged. Now scores of heads are added every day to the display on the Rostra, and men do nothing. The headless bodies of citizens are dumped in the river like refuse from the fish market, without a thought. Did you hear the latest outrage? Sulla disinterred and then deliberately desecrated the body of your uncle, Marius, the one man who might have stopped his madness. He cut the corpse into pieces and smeared it with feces, gouged the eyes from their sockets, and cut out the tongue. What an age we live in! Strong men no longer fear the gods. Wickedness has no limits.”
Gaius turned pale. “Is it true, about Marius? Would even Sulla commit such an abomination?”
“Everyone is whispering about it. Why shouldn’t it be true? Sulla will stop at nothing to punish his enemies. He tortures them while they live. Now he desecrates their corpses after they die.”
Gaius stared into his cup of broth. His expression was a blank, but Lucius knew that his brother-in-law was deep in thought. By nature, young Gaius was analytical and dispassionate. Brought low by sickness and finding himself in precarious circumstances, he nonetheless held his emotions in check. Lucius envied his self-control.
“You ask how it came to this, Lucius. You hint at the answer when you mention the Gracchi. In the days of our grandfathers, the destiny of Roma lay upon one of two paths-the way of the Gracchi, or the way of their enemies. Their enemies won. The wrong path was taken. Nothing has gone right since.
“Gaius Gracchus attempted to expand the rights of common citizens, and to extend those rights to our allies. His selfish, short-sighted enemies thwarted his legislation, but the problems arising from injustice and inequity didn’t go away. Instead, a long, bloody war erupted between us and our Italian allies. What the Gracchi might have accomplished peacefully was instead settled by bloodshed and brute force. What a waste!
“Because the Gracchi saw a better future, they were destroyed. Their enemies got away with murder, and ever since, men in power have never hesitated to use violence. When the Gracchi were killed, people were shocked to see Romans kill Romans. Now we’ve suffered a full-scale civil war, and a catastrophe that would have been unthinkable to our ancestors-a Roman army laid siege to Roma herself!”
In retrospect, the civil war of which Gaius spoke had perhaps been inevitable. Roma’s expanding foreign wars led to the mustering of ever-larger armies, and the acquisition of ever-greater wealth by her military commanders. An era of conquest had given rise to a generation of warlords whose power grew to exceed that of the Senate. Driven more by personal ambition and mutual suspicion than by politics, the warlords turned on one another. In the brief but ferocious civil war that resulted, it was Sulla, surviving his rivals Marius and Cinna, who emerged as the last man standing. Sulla had marched on Roma, laid siege to the city, and then forced the Senate to declare him dictator.
“Now the winner holds the city in his grip,” said Gaius. “He piously vows to restore the Republic and the lawful rule of the Senate, but not before he purges the state of all his enemies and potential enemies, and divides their property among his henchmen.”
Gaius lowered his eyes and gazed into the cup of broth. Because Marius had been his uncle, and because Gaius had recently married Cornelia, whose father Cinna had been another of Sulla’s rivals, he was certain to be counted among Sulla’s enemies.
“That such a monster should rule over us is proof of our decadence,” declared Julia. “The gods are angered. They punish us. In olden times, ‘dictator’ was a title of great honor and respect. Our ancestors were blessed to have a dictator like Cincinnatus, a man who rose up to save the state and then retired. After Sulla, ‘dictator’ shall forever be a dirty word.”
“A monster, as you say,” muttered Lucius, nervously gnawing at his thumbnail. “A madman! Do you remember when the first proscription list was po
sted? Men gathered at the posting wall to read the names. How shocked we were to see eighty names on the list-eighty! Eighty citizens stripped of all protection, eighty good Romans reduced to animals fit to be hunted down and slaughtered. We were outraged at Sulla’s impunity, appalled at such a number. And then, the next day, there was an addendum to the list-two hundred more names. And the next day, two hundred more! On the fourth day, Sulla made a speech about restoring law and order. Someone dared to ask him just how many men he intended to proscribe. His tone was almost apologetic, like a magistrate who’d fallen behind in his duties. ‘So far, I’ve proscribed as many enemies as I’ve been able to remember, but undoubtedly a few have escaped my recollection. I promise you, as soon as I can remember them, I’ll proscribe those men, as well.’”
“He was making a joke,” said Gaius ruefully. “You must admit, Sulla has a wicked wit.”
“He’s as mad as Cassandra!” said Lucius. “The killing never stops. Every day there’s a new list. And anyone who gives shelter to a proscribed man is automatically proscribed as well, even a man’s parents. The sons and grandsons of the proscribed are stripped of their citizenship and robbed of their property. It’s happening not just in Roma, but in cities all over Italy. Men are being murdered every minute of every day, and every killer is given a reward, even a slave who kills his master, even a son who kills his father. It’s madness-an insult to our ancestors, a crime against the gods.”
“It’s a way for Sulla and his friends to accumulate a vast amount of wealth,” said Gaius. “The first men on the list were genuine enemies, men who’d fought against him in the civil war. Then we began to see other names-Equestrians who’d never taken an interest in politics, or wealthy farmers who never even came to the city. Why were they proscribed? So that Sulla could seize their property. The state sells the goods at public auctions, but the dictator’s friends are the only men who dare to bid.”
“It’s as simple as that,” said Lucius. “Men are being murdered for their property.”
“Men are being murdered by their properties,” said Gaius. “I was down in Alba the other day. I rode by a beautiful country house with gardens and vineyards, and the fellow with me said, ‘That’s the estate that killed Quintus Aurelius.’”
Julia groaned. “Gaius, that isn’t funny!”
“Then I don’t suppose you’ll laugh when I tell you that men who’ve committed murder are arranging to have their victims inserted retroactively in the lists. They say Lucius Sergius Catilina pulled that off, after he murdered his brother-in-law. The killing was not only made legal, but Catilina received a bounty for it!”
The grim conversation lapsed for a while. Gaius drank more broth. Lucius pondered the untouched food before him. Julia finally spoke.
“Do you think we can take Sulla at his word, when he promises to lay down his dictatorship and retire to private life? He’ll do so in a year, he says, or at most two years.”
“We can only pray that he’s telling the truth,” said Lucius glumly.
“And what if he is?” said Gaius. “What will have changed, if Sulla steps down? Elections will resume, and the Senate will be in charge again-with all Marius’s men dead and Sulla’s men taking their places. But the state will still be crippled. The things that were broken before the civil war will still be broken, merely patched together with makeshift remedies. Gaius Gracchus, if he’d had the chance, might have sorted things out and breathed new life into the Republic; a petty, vindictive tyrant like Sulla is not the man to accomplish that. It will take someone else to save Roma, someone who can combine the political vision of the Gracchi, the military genius of Scipio Africanus, and a measure of Sulla’s ruthlessness, as well.”
There was a faraway look in Gaius’s eyes, almost as if he were speaking of his own ambitions for the future. That was absurd, thought Lucius. The fever was giving his brother-in-law delusions of grandeur. Gaius should worry about keeping his own head, not daydream about saving the Republic.
“Perhaps,” suggested Lucius, “the man you’re thinking of is Pompeius Magnus.” He referred to one of Sulla’s proteges, a military prodigy only six years older than Gaius. Sulla, who liked pet names-he had dubbed himself Felix, “Lucky”-had taken to addressing young Gnaeus Pompeius, half in jest, half in earnest, as Magnus, “the Great.” The name had stuck.
“Pompeius!” Gaius scoffed. “I hardly think so. He doesn’t have the strength of character to be a true leader.”
“Well…” Lucius raised an eyebrow. He had no affection for Pompeius, but it seemed to him that Gaius was hardly worldly enough to make such a scathing assessment. Gaius read his expression.
“Must I justify the comment? Very well, I need cite only one example to show the fundamental weakness in Pompeius’s character. Other than cutting off heads, what’s Sulla’s most despotic behavior? Arranging marriages for those around him. And not just innocent matchmaking. Against their will, he’s forced women to marry his favorites; that action turns marriage into rape, an offense to the gods. He’s even dissolved existing marriages, forcing spouses to divorce each other and remarry new partners of his choosing.”
“Another symptom of Sulla’s madness,” said Lucius.
“Perhaps. But if Pompeius thinks so, the so-called Great wasn’t great enough to stand up to his master. Sulla told Pompeius to divorce Antistia-a devoted wife, by all accounts-and marry Sulla’s stepdaughter Aemilia, even though Aemilia was already pregnant by her husband! And Pompeius, like the sycophant of some Asian monarch, obeyed without a whimper. This is the man to lead Roma out of the wilderness? I hardly think so!” Gaius shook his head. “I would never submit to such dishonorable, disgraceful behavior to curry favor with another man, no matter what the consequences. Never!”
“Well,” said Julia, seeking to diffuse the tension in the room, “let us pray you never have to face such a dreadful choice. May your marriage to Cornelia be long and fruitful!” She smiled wanly. “When I think of a good marriage, I think of our parents, don’t you, Gaius? They always seemed so happy together. If only the gods had not taken father so swiftly, so suddenly…”
Julia and Gaius had lost their father three years before. To all appearance, the elder Gaius had been a healthy, vigorous man in the prime of life, but one day, while putting on his shoes, he gave a lurch and fell over dead. His own father had also died young, in a similarly sudden fashion. The siblings had felt his loss deeply, and had grown even closer in the years since he died.
Gaius, seeing the look of sadness on his sister’s face, leaned toward her and gently touched her shoulder.
Suddenly, there came a noise from the vestibule, so loud that all three of them gave a start and leaped to their feet. Someone was not merely banging at the door, but was trying to break it down. There was a snap of splintering wood and the shriek of hinges giving way.
Gaius turned to flee, but managed only a few steps. He was too weak to run. He swayed and would have fallen had Julia not rushed to his side.
A gang of armed men barged into the room. Lucius blanched when he recognized their leader: Cornelius Phagites.
Phagites smiled, showing the gap between his crooked teeth. “Ah, there’s the very one I’m looking for-young Caesar!”
Julia stood before Gaius, like a mother protecting her young. Though his knees trembled, Lucius stepped up to Phagites, who was much taller, and raised his chin high.
“You’ve made a mistake. This is my wife’s brother, Gaius Julius Caesar. His name is not on the proscription lists.”
Phagites laughed. “‘Name isn’t on the list!’” he said mockingly. “How often have we heard that one?”
“It’s true! I checked the new lists myself, this afternoon. You saw me when I was coming back from the Forum. Don’t you remember?”
Phagites squinted at him. “Well…if his name’s not on the list yet, it can always be added later,” he said, but in his voice there was a sliver of doubt. Lucius did his best to take advantage of it.
“Taking men on the list is one thing, Phagites. Taking men who aren’t on the list is another. Sooner or later, by his own promise, Lucius Cornelius Sulla will resign his dictatorship. He’s granted himself immunity from prosecution for life, but I doubt that he’s given that sort of protection to you. Well, has he?”
Phagites frowned. “No.”
“Which means that some day there will be an accounting of…of mistakes that were made. This is such a mistake, Phagites. Gaius Julius Caesar is not on the list. He’s a citizen with full rights, not an enemy of the state. You have no right to harm him.”
Phagites turned to one of his underlings, who produced a scrap of parchment, and together they pored over it for a moment, whispering and sniping at one another. At last Phagites swaggered back. He smirked and looked down his nose at Lucius. “Just how much are you willing to pay me to make sure I don’t make any…mistakes?”
Lucius bit his lip. He thought for a long moment, then whispered a sum.
Phagites laughed. “I don’t blame you for whispering! You ought to be ashamed, offering so little to make sure that nothing bad happens to your wife’s darling brother. Make it four times that amount, and I’ll consider your offer.”
Lucius swallowed a lump in his throat. “Very well.”
Phagites nodded. “That’s more like it. Now, all you have to do is beg me to take the money, and I’ll be on my way.”
“What!”
“Beg me. I have to have some sport tonight, don’t I? Go down on your knees, citizen, and beg me to accept your offering.”
Lucius glanced at Julia, who averted her face. Gaius seemed to have been drained of his last ounce of strength by the sudden panic, and was hardly able to stand. Lucius dropped to his knees. “I implore you, Cornelius Phagites, take the money I offer, and leave us in peace!”
Phagites laughed. He mussed Lucius’s hair. “Much better, little man! Very well, go fetch my money. But you’re striking a fool’s bargain. Your brother-in-law will be dead before the next Ides. Oh, I’ll take your money now, and let young Caesar keep his head; and later, when I do take his head, I’ll get a second payment from Sulla. I shall be paid twice for the same head-on his shoulders, and off!”
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