Presiding over the festivities, seated on the Rostra upon a golden throne, arrayed in magnificent purple robes, and attended by a devoted retinue of scribes, bodyguards, military officers, and assorted sycophants, sat Gaius Julius Caesar.
At the age of fifty-six, Caesar was a handsome man. He had a trim figure, but-ironically, given his cognoman-he had lost much of his hair, especially at the crown and the temples; the remainder he combed over his forehead in a vain attempt to hide his baldness. The men around him hung on his every word. The citizens, gathered to watch the Lupercalia, gazed up at him with fear, awe, respect, hatred, and even love, but never with indifference. To all appearances, Caesar might have been a king presiding over his subjects, except for the fact that he did not wear a crown.
A lifetime of political maneuvering and military conquests had brought Caesar to this point. Early in his career, he proved to be a master of political procedure; no man could manipulate the Senate’s convoluted rules as deftly as Caesar, and many were the occasions he thwarted his rivals by invoking some obscure point of order. He had proven to be a military genius as well; in less than ten years he had conquered all of Gaul, enslaving millions and accumulating a huge fortune for himself. When his envious, fearful enemies in the Senate attempted to deprive him of his legions and his power, Caesar marched on Roma itself. A second civil war, the great fear of every Roman since the days of Sulla, commenced.
Pompeius Magnus, who had sometimes been Caesar’s ally, led the coalition against him. At the battle of Pharsalus in Greece, Pompeius’s forces were destroyed. Pompeius fled to Egypt, where the minions of the boy-king Ptolemy killed him. They presented his head to Caesar as a gift.
Caesar had circled the Mediterranean, destroying all vestiges of opposition. He set Roma’s subject states in order, confirming the loyalty of their rulers and making them accountable to him alone. Egypt, the great grain producer of the world, remained independent, but Caesar disposed of King Ptolemy and put the boy’s slightly older sister Cleopatra on the throne. Caesar’s relationship with the young queen was both political and personal; Cleopatra was said to have borne him a son. At present, she and the child were residing just outside Roma, on the far side of the Tiber, in a grand house suitable for a visiting head of state.
Caesar’s authority was absolute. Like Sulla before him, he proudly assumed the title of dictator. Unlike Sulla, he showed no inclination ever to lay down his power. To the contrary, he publicly announced his intention to reign as dictator for life. “King” was a forbidden word in Roma, but Caesar was a king in everything but name. He had done away with elections and appointed magistrates for several years to come; his right-hand man Marcus Antonius was serving as consul. The ranks of the Senate, thinned by civil war, had been filled with new members handpicked by Caesar. These new senators included, to the outrage of many, some Gauls, whose loyalty was more to Caesar than to Roma. It was not clear what function the Senate would serve from this time forward, except to approve the decisions of Caesar. He had assigned control of the mint and the public treasury to his own slaves and freedmen. All legislation and all currency were under his control. His personal fortune, acquired over many years of conquest, was immense beyond imagining. Beside him, Roma’s richest men were paupers.
Whatever his title, it had become clear to everyone that Caesar’s triumph signaled the death of the Republic. Roma would no longer be ruled by a Senate of competing equals, but by one man with absolute power over all others, including the power of life and death.
The long civil war had disrupted many traditions. As all power now attached to the dictator-for-life, it was up to him to oversee a return to normalcy. And so, on the Ides of Februarius, Caesar sat on a throne on the Rostra and presided over the Lupercalia.
Among the runners assembled in the Forum, stretching their legs and getting ready, was Lucius Pinarius. His grandmother had been the late Julia, one of Caesar’s sisters. His grandfather had been Lucius Pinarius Infelix-“the Unlucky”-so-called, young Lucius had been told, because of his untimely death due to a fall on an icy street. Lucius was seventeen and had run in the Lupercalia before, but he was especially excited to be doing so on this day, with his grand-uncle Gaius presiding.
A burly man with a broad, hairy chest and powerful limbs came swaggering up to him. Some men, by the age of thirty-six, begin to soften and turn fat, but not Marcus Antonius. He carried himself with immense confidence; he appeared completely comfortable, even pleased, to be seen naked in public. Lucius still had a boy’s body, slender and smooth, and felt envious of Antonius’s athletic physique; Lucius thought the man looked quite magnificent. Lucius was also fascinated by the consul’s reputation for high living; nobody could out-gamble, out-drink, out-brawl, or out-whore Antonius. But Antonius was such a friendly fellow that Lucius never felt self-conscious or shy around him, as he often did with his uncle.
“What’s that?” Antonius tapped the pendant that hung from a chain around Lucius’s neck.
“A good-luck charm, Consul,” said Lucius.
Antonius snorted. “Call me Marcus, please. If I ever become so puffed up that my friends must call me by a title, stick a pin in me.”
Lucius smiled. “Very well, Marcus.”
“Where did you get it?” said Antonius, referring to the pendant. “A gift from Caesar?”
“Oh, no, it’s an heirloom from my father’s side of the family. He gave it to me on my toga day last year.”
Antonius peered at the amulet. His eyes were a bit bloodshot from carousing the night before. “I can’t make out the shape.”
“Nobody can. We’re not quite sure what it was. Father says it’s been worn away by time. He says it’s very, very old, maybe from the time of the kings, or even before.”
Antonius nodded. “‘From the time of the kings’-that’s what people say when they mean something is so far in the past it’s beyond imagining. As if a time of kings could never come again.” He looked up at the Rostra and nodded to Caesar. Caesar nodded back, then stood to address the crowd.
“Citizens!” cried Caesar. The single utterance hushed the crowd and gained him everyone’s attention. Among his other accomplishments, Caesar was one of the best orators in Roma, able to project his voice a great distance and to speak extemporaneously and with great eloquence on any subject. On this occasion his speech was short and to the point.
“Citizens, we are gathered to observe one of the most ancient and revered of all rituals, the running of the Lupercalia. The highest servants of the state and the youths of our most ancient families will take part. The Lupercalia returns us to the pastoral days of our ancestors, when Romans lived close to the earth, close to their flocks, and close to the gods, who gave to Roma the gifts of fertility and abundance.
“Citizens, in recent years, because of the interruptions of war, many rituals have been neglected or performed in a perfunctory manner. The Lupercalia has been run with a very scant contingent and with little joy. But to neglect our religious obligations is to neglect our ancestors. To perform our vital rituals with bare adequacy is to give merely adequate worship to the gods. Today, I am pleased to say, we have a very full and very robust gathering to run the Lupercalia. Our beloved city has been depopulated by the misfortunes of war; many fine men have been lost. But with the snapping of their sacred thongs, let these runners set in motion the repopulation of Roma! Let every woman of childbearing age offer her wrist! Let there be rejoicing and abundance!
“Citizens, the priests have observed the auspices for this day. The auspices are good. Therefore, with the raising of my hand, I, Gaius Julius Caesar, your dictator, declare that the Lupercalia may begin!”
To a burst of applause from the crowd, the runners set off. Their course would take them to various points all over the city, and they would run the circuit three times in all.
Lucius stayed close to Antonius. He liked the familiar way the man treated him, as if they were old drinking companions or fellow warriors, leaning in clo
se to crack a joke about the sagging backside of one of the participating magistrates or to make lewd comments about the women gathered along the way. At the sight of Antonius, women whispered and giggled, teasing one another to step forward and present their wrists to be slapped. How effortless it was for Antonius to flirt with them!
When Antonius saw that Lucius hung back, he encouraged him to put himself forward. “Growl at them-they love that! Run a circle around them. Don’t be afraid to look them straight in the eye, and up and down. Imagine you’re a wolf picking out the plumpest of the sheep.”
“But Marcus, I’m not sure I have the-”
“Nonsense! You heard your uncle, young man-this is your religious duty! Just follow me and do as I do. Call for some courage from that amulet you wear!”
Lucius took a deep breath and did as he was told. With Antonius leading the way, it was easy. He felt the power of his legs as they carried him forward, and the rush of breath in his lungs. He saw the grinning faces of the girls gathered along the course, and he grinned back at them. He snapped his thong in the air, threw back his head, and howled.
A sense of euphoria came over him, and the sacred nature of the ritual became manifest to him. When he had run the Lupercalia before, he had performed his duty by rote, without abandoning himself to the spirit of the occasion. What was different about this day? He was a man, for one thing, and Antonius was beside him, and his great-uncle Gaius was the undisputed ruler of Roma, presiding over the world’s rebirth. The great fountainhead of the earth’s fecundity, which found expression in the Lupercalia, surged through Lucius. When he slapped the wrist of a giddy, laughing girl with his thong, he felt a connection to something divine such as he had never experienced before. The sensation manifested itself physically, as well. From time to time he felt a pleasant stirring and a heaviness between his legs. He stole a glance at Antonius’s sex, and saw that his friend was mildly excited as well.
Antonius saw the change in Lucius and laughed. “There you go, young man! That’s the spirit!”
They finished the first circuit and ran back through the Forum, where an even larger crowd had gathered before the Rostra. People wanted to be present for the end of the run, and the public feast that would follow. As the runners passed the Rostra, Caesar remained seated on his throne but raised his arm in salute.
“Wait here for me,” said Antonius to Lucius. He broke from the pack and mounted the Rostra, taking giant steps. From somewhere-he had not been carrying it before-he produced a diadem made of gold and wrapped with laurel leaves. He held the diadem aloft so that everyone in the crowd could see. He knelt before Caesar, then rose and held the crown above Caesar’s head.
The crowd reacted with surprise. This was not a part of the ritual of Lupercalia. Some laughed, some cheered. A few dared to jeer and groan with disapproval. Caesar suppressed a smile. Managing to look very grave, he raised his hand and prevented Antonius from placing the crown on his head.
The crowd applauded and cheered. Caesar sat motionless. Only his eyes moved, scanning the crowd, closely observing their reaction. With his upraised hand, he made a dismissive gesture, indicating that Antonius should continue the run.
“What was that about?” said Lucius, when Antonius rejoined the pack.
In one hand Antonius still held the diadem, in the other his goat-hide thong. He shrugged. “The glare off your great-uncle’s bald spot was blinding me. I thought it needed something to cover it.”
“Marcus, be serious.”
“To a man of Caesar’s years, there is nothing more serious than a bald spot.”
“Marcus!”
But Antonius would say no more. He growled and howled and leaped toward a group of young women who screamed with excitement. Lucius followed him, anxious to regain the euphoria he had experienced during the first circuit.
When they ran through the Forum to make the second pass before the Rostra, the crowd had grown even larger. Again, Antonius broke away and ran onto the platform. Again, he displayed the diadem to the crowd. A number of people began to chant, “Crown him! Crown him!” Others chanted, “Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”
Like a mime on a stage, Antonius made a great show of trying to place the diadem on Caesar’s brow. Again, Caesar gently refused it, waving his hand as if to ward off a buzzing insect. The crowd’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than before. They cheered and stamped their feet.
Antonius withdrew and rejoined the pack.
“Marcus, what is going on?” said Lucius.
Antonius grunted. “Caesar is my commander. I was thinking that vulnerable bald spot could use a bit of strategic cover.”
“Marcus, this isn’t funny!”
Antonius shook his head and laughed. “There is nothing as funny as your great-uncle’s bald spot!” He would say no more.
They completed the third and final circuit. An immense crowd had gathered before the Rostra, made up not only of the pious and those who wished to take advantage of the feast, but of many others, for word of Caesar’s refusal of a crown had spread through the city. When Antonius mounted the Rostra, the competing chants were deafening.
“Crown him! Crown him!”
“Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”
A third time Antonius moved to place the diadem on Caesar’s head. A third time Caesar refused it.
The applause was thunderous.
Caesar rose to his feet. He raised his hands for silence. He took the diadem from Antonius and held it high above his head. The crowd watched in suspense. For a moment it appeared that Caesar might crown himself.
“Citizens!” he cried. “We Romans know only one king-Jupiter, king of the gods. Marcus Antonius, take back this diadem and carry it to the Temple of Jupiter. Offer it to the god on behalf of Gaius Julius Caesar and the people of Roma.”
The applause of the crowd was deafening. Caesar again raised his hands for silence. “I declare that the Lupercalia has been well and truly run. Let the feasting begin!”
Amid the surging throng, Lucius stood before the Rostra and looked up at his great-uncle. He did not know what to think of the performance he had just witnessed, nor what to make of the crowd’s reaction to it. It seemed to him that those who chanted “Crown him!” had cheered the loudest when Caesar refused the crown, as if the very act of rejecting the symbol entitled him to the power it represented. Those who had chanted “Never a king, never a crown!” had cheered as well; were they so foolish as to believe that because Caesar refused a diadem, he was not in fact their king? “In politics, appearance is everything,” Antonius had once told him. Still, it was all very confusing.
Lucius was also not sure what to make of Caesar. Every man, woman, and child in Roma seemed either to revere or despise the man with great intensity, but to Lucius, Caesar had always been Uncle Gaius, a bit larger than life, to be sure, yet all too human, with his preoccupied air, his combed-over hair, and his slightly absurd habit of speaking of himself in the third person. Caesar had loomed over Lucius all his life, yet he always seemed a bit distant and aloof. Indeed, whenever the two of them had been alone together, Lucius had sensed an uneasiness in his great-uncle’s manner. Sometimes Caesar averted his eyes rather than look Lucius in the face. Why was that?
A few times, Lucius’s father had made veiled references to a debt owed to the family by Caesar, but he had never explained. Lucius sensed that something tragic or shameful had occurred in the past, the sort of thing that grownups never discuss in front of children. He had an idea, though he could not say why, that it involved his grandparents, Julia and Lucius the Unlucky. What had Caesar done to them, or failed to do? Probably money was involved, or an insult to someone’s dignity, or both. Whatever the lapse or transgression, it was surely a very small matter when compared to the enslavement of Gaul or the carnage of the civil war. Still, Lucius was curious. Now that he was a man, would he be told what had happened in those mysterious, long-ago days before he
was born?
A month later-on the day before the Ides of Martius-Lucius Pinarius attended a dinner party at the house of Marcus Lepidus on the Palatine. Lepidus had fought under Caesar and was now serving as the dictator’s Master of the Horse. Caesar himself was in attendance, as were Marcus Antonius and several other of Caesar’s most trusted officers.
Antonius drank more than anyone else. He showed no obvious signs of inebriation-his speech was not slurred, his gestures were controlled-but his eyes shone with a mischievous glimmer. “So, commander, what is this grand announcement you’ve assembled us to hear tonight?”
Caesar smiled. He had kept them in suspense through the fish course and the game course, but it seemed that Antonius would not submit to eating the custard course without hearing what Caesar had to say. “You become bored and impatient so quickly, Antonius. Well, I suppose I’ve become a bit bored myself lately. That’s why I asked Lepidus to invite this particular group for dinner. Some of you served me in Gaul, and saw the surrender of Vercingetorix. Some of you served me at Pharsalus, where we took down Pompeius. Some of you were in Alexandria, where we made peace among the bickering Egyptians, despite their treachery and their wiles. And some of you were at Thapsus, where Cato met his end. You’ve all been tested by battle-or you soon will be.” He smiled and glanced at Lucius. “You are a select band, the cream of Roma’s warriors. You are my most trusted men at arms. That’s why I wanted to meet with you all tonight, ahead of the official announcement I shall make tomorrow.”
“Yes!” whispered Antonius. “This is about-”
“Parthia,” said Caesar, who refused to let even Antonius utter the word before him. “I’ve reached my decision regarding the feasibility of an invasion of Parthia.”
There was a stir of movement around the room. Everyone knew what Caesar must be about to say, but the magnitude of it was so great that it could not seem entirely real until the words were actually said aloud.
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