Roma.The novel of ancient Rome r-1

by Steven Saylor

  “I could hardly turn away Caesar’s kinsman. Is there a celebration? My sentinels tell me that all sorts of people are out enjoying themselves along the river. Does it have something to do with Caesar’s pronouncement to the Senate?”

  Lucius smiled at her mistake. “The Feast of Anna Perenna is an ancient plebeian holiday. It has nothing to do with me or with Caesar. He won’t be speaking to the Senate until later this morning.”

  “I see. I have a great deal to learn about Roman customs. Perhaps you could instruct me.”

  “I, Your Majesty?”

  “By rights, the task should fall to Caesar. When he was in Alexandria, I educated him about Egyptian court protocol. But Caesar is much too busy. And there are so few people in the city I can trust.”

  “But you’ve met many people since you arrived. All the best people come to the dinner parties here at your villa.”

  “Yes, and they all go away utterly charmed by the queen of Egypt-or pretending to be so, to curry favor with Caesar. Occasionally, I receive word of their true reaction. That fellow Cicero, for example. To my face, the famous advocate was all smiles and flattery. Behind my back, he wrote a letter to a friend, complaining that he could hardly stand to be in the same room with me.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shrugged. “One didn’t survive as a princess in Alexandria without learning how to discover the truth. Frankly, I don’t see why Caesar allows that man to keep his head. Didn’t Cicero oppose him in the civil war and fight for Pompeius?”

  “Yes. Brutus opposed him, as well, but after Pharsalus, Caesar forgave them both. Caesar is famous for his clemency.”

  The queen narrowed her eyes. “I suppose, operating in a republic, clemency was a tool of statecraft. Caesar will learn new ways to deal with his enemies when he finally puts the last vestiges of this primitive form of government behind him.”

  “Primitive?” Lucius drew back his shoulders. More than ever he wished he had worn his toga; it gave a man a sense of authority. “Roma is much, much older than Alexandria. And I believe the Roman Republic predates the establishment of your dynasty by almost two hundred years.”

  “Perhaps. But when my ancestor Ptolemy inherited control of Egypt from Alexander, he assumed the title, the royal insignia, and the divine status of the Pharaohs who preceded him. Their dynasties can be traced back thousands of years, to the very beginning of time. By comparison, the civilization of the Romans is very young; infantile, in fact. The great pyramids were built many centuries before the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Roma was founded hundreds of years after Troy fell.”

  She frowned. “The other day I hosted a group of Roman scholars, to discuss the holdings of the Library of Alexandria. We fell to talking about the origins of Roma, and they put forward a very novel theory. They said that a Trojan warrior, Aeneas, escaped the sack of the city, sailed to the shores of Italy, and settled near the Tiber, and thus the blood of Troy survives in the Romans. But when I asked for evidence, they had none. I have to wonder whether your scholars are taking a bit of license when they speak of this link between Roma and Troy.”

  “There are those,” admitted Lucius, “who say that historians invent the past.”

  Cleopatra smiled. “I would rather invent the future.”

  She strolled to a place which afforded a better view of the water. Downriver, tiny in the distance, figures could be seen lounging on the bank. “We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. I suppose the Pinarii are an ancient family?”

  “There was a Pinarius in Roma when Hercules appeared and killed the monster Cacus. And the Julii must be just as ancient. Caesar says the line was begun by a union with Venus.”

  “Which makes Caesar almost as divine as myself. He certainly behaves like a god.” She smiled, then frowned. “While they are on earth, the gods do great things; but after they leave the earth, they fall as silent as dead mortals. I frequently pray to the first Ptolemy, who was most certainly a god; I speak, but he never speaks back. He fought beside Alexander, bathed beside him, ate beside him. There are a thousand questions I would like to ask him-What did Alexander’s laughter sound like? Did he snore? What did he smell like? — but to those questions there are no answers, and there never will be. The dead are all dust. The past is as unknowable as the future. When Caesar and I are dust, will men of the future know only our names, and nothing else about us?”

  Lucius could think of nothing to say. He had never heard a woman, or a man for that matter, speak in such a fashion. Even Caesar tended to ruminate more about troop movements than about matters of eternity.

  Cleopatra smiled. “It’s curious that I’m so young, and Caesar is so old-more than twice my age-while the relative ages of our kingdoms are reversed. Egypt is like a mature queen, wealthy, worldly, covered with jewels, sophisticated to her fingertips. Roma is a brawny, brash, brawling upstart. The two need not be at odds. In some ways they’re natural allies, as Caesar and I are natural allies.”

  “Is that what you are? Allies?”

  “To conquer Parthia, Caesar will need the assistance of Egypt.”

  “But surely there’s more between you than that.” Watching her graceful movements, listening to her speak, Lucius had begun to see the attraction Cleopatra must hold for Caesar. He had also glimpsed the qualities that must have been so repellent to a man like Cicero, who believed in the staid, silent, matronly virtues of Roman womanhood.

  For the first time, it seemed possible to Lucius, even likely, that Caesar intended to divorce his Roman wife. Caesar had a viable excuse: Calpurnia had failed to give him a son. If the king of Roma married the queen of Egypt, would Parthia be a gift to their son? What would become of Caesar’s other heirs?

  A childish squeal erupted from the far side of the garden. Two handmaidens appeared, looking slightly chagrinned. Between them stood a tiny boy with upraised arms. The women held him by his hands, or more precisely restrained him, for he was eager to break from them and run to his mother.

  Cleopatra laughed and clapped her hands. “Come to me, Caesarion!”

  The child ran toward her. A few times Lucius thought he would fall, but Caesarion remained upright for the entire distance. He threw himself against his mother and clutched her legs, then looked up at Lucius shyly. He seemed no different from any other child.

  “How old is he?” said Lucius.

  “Three years.”

  “He looks big for his age.”

  “Good. He needs to grow up fast.” The queen gestured to the handmaidens, who came to fetch Caesarion and then set about amusing him in the garden. “Now you must excuse me, Lucius Pinarius. Caesar will call on me later today, after his pronouncement to the Senate. I must prepare myself. I’m glad you came to visit. You and I should know one another better.”

  Lucius headed back to the city.

  He chose a path that led him through the Grove of the Furies. The secluded holy place was deserted and quiet except for the distant singing of revelers along the riverbank. Passing by the altar, Lucius recalled the story of Gaius Gracchus and the terrible fate he had met in this very spot, chased to ground by his enemies and killed by a trusted slave, who then slew himself. Lucius’s great-great-grandfather had been a friend of Gaius Gracchus, or so Lucius had been told; of the two men’s actual dealings with one another, Lucius knew nothing.

  He recalled something that Cleopatra had said: We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. It was true. What did Lucius know about those who had come before him? He knew their names, from the lists kept by his family of marriages and offspring, and from the official records that listed the magistrates of the Republic. About some of them he had heard an anecdote or two, although the details often differed depending upon who told the story. In the vestibule of his father’s house there were wax images of some of the ancestors, so that Lucius had an idea of what they had looked like. But of the m
en and women themselves-their dreams and passions, their failures and triumphs-he knew virtually nothing. His ancestors were strangers to him.

  Until the previous night, he had not even known of the terrible sacrifice made by his grandparents to save Caesar’s life. How much more did he not know? The magnitude of this ignorance overwhelmed him-so many lives, so full of incident and feeling, lost to his knowledge completely and forever. What had Cleopatra said? The past is as unknowable as the future. He suddenly perceived his existence as a tiny point illuminated by the thinnest crack of light-the now-poised between two infinities of darkness-before and after.

  He left the grove, crossed the bridge, and wandered across the Forum Boarium. Close by the Temple of Hercules stood the Ara Maxima, the most ancient altar in all of Roma, dedicated to Hercules, who had saved the people from Cacus. Had there really been a Hercules and a Cacus, a hero and a monster? So the priests declared, and the historians agreed; so the monument attested. If the story was true, there had been a Pinarius among the Romans even then, and the Pinarii, up until the early days of the Republic, had been assigned the sacred duty of maintaining the Ara Maxima and celebrating the Feast of Hercules. They had shared this duty with a family called the Potitii, which no longer existed. Why had the Pinarii abandoned the duty? What had become of the Potitii? Lucius did not know.

  From the Temple of Hercules he heard a man calling, “Shoo! Shoo!” A temple slave appeared at the open doorway, wielding a horsetail whisk to drive a fly from the sanctuary. Everyone knew that flies were forbidden to enter the temple, because flies had swarmed about Hercules and confounded him when he fought against Cacus. Nor could dogs come near, because the dog of Hercules had failed to warn him of the monster’s approach. These things must have occurred, or else why did rituals exist to commemorate them, many lifetimes later?

  Lucius recalled the story of the Romans trapped by the Gauls atop the Capitoline; the geese raised the alarm, while the dogs failed to bark. To commemorate that event, each year a dog was impaled on a stake and paraded through the city, along with one of Juno’s sacred geese carried in a litter. The first time Lucius had witnessed this spectacle as a child, he had been puzzled and revolted by it, until his father had explained its meaning. Now when he saw the ritual each year, Lucius found it reassuring, a reminder both of the city’s past and of his own childhood and the first time he had seen the procession.

  Thinking of all the many rituals that took place during the year, and all the traditions of the ancestors which had been so scrupulously preserved over the centuries, Lucius felt comforted. Religion existed to honor and placate the gods, but did it not also make the past and the future a little less mysterious, and therefore less frightening?

  Lost in thought, Lucius wandered homeward. Turning a corner, he realized that he was very near the house of Brutus. An impulse had caused Lucius to call upon Cleopatra. An equally spontaneous impulse now prompted him to pay a visit to Brutus, who, according to rumor, was another of Caesar’s possible heirs.

  Everyone knew that Caesar had been the lover of Brutus’s mother, Servilia. The fact had come out before Lucius was born, and on the floor of the Senate, of all places. Servilia was the half-sister of Cato, grandson of the famous Cato who had called for the destruction of Carthage. Cato had been one of Caesar’s bitterest enemies. Twenty years ago, during a heated debate in the Senate regarding an alleged conspiracy by the populist Catilina, Caesar had been seen to receive a note from a messenger. Cato, suspecting it might implicate Caesar in the plot, insisted that he read the note aloud. Caesar refused. Cato grew more suspicious and more vehement, until finally Caesar relented and read the message aloud. It was a love note from Servilia, Cato’s sister. Cato was humiliated. Caesar was much amused. From that day, his affair with Servilia was public knowledge, and the speculation began that he might be the father of her son, Marcus Junius Brutus. The special regard in which Caesar had always held Brutus, even when Brutus sided with Pompeius, had further fueled this speculation.

  Whatever their relationship, Brutus was among the men whom Caesar had chosen to fill various posts when he began rebuilding the government. Currently Brutus was praetor in charge of the city, but in the coming year he would leave for Macedonia to serve as provincial governor. Because Caesar’s Parthian campaign might keep the dictator from Roma for an indefinite period, all such appointments had been made not for the usual one year but for five years.

  Brutus was also a key member of the Senate, and it occurred to Lucius that he might already have left home, heading for the Field of Mars and the meeting of the Senate at the assembly hall in the Theater of Pompeius. But evidently Brutus was still at home, for as Lucius drew nearer to Brutus’s house, he saw several men in red-bordered senatorial togas being admitted at the front door. Lucius assumed they must be gathering before heading off in a group to the assembly hall. Clearly, it was not a good time for Lucius to pay a visit. Nonetheless, he continued in the same direction, toward Brutus’s house.

  Suddenly he heard the sound of many footsteps behind him. A large group of men caught up with him and swept past him. Lucius saw a blur of togas, and glimpsed several familiar faces. Some of the senators must surely have recognized him, but not one of them uttered a greeting. They averted their eyes from him. As they hurried on, whispering among themselves, he thought he heard them speak his name. It was very strange.

  The senators reached the house of Brutus, rapped on the door, and disappeared inside.

  Lucius arrived at the threshold and stared dumbly at the door. What was going on in the house of Brutus? Something was not right. It occurred to him that the senators might have been bringing bad news-something to do with Caesar, perhaps? Lucius gathered his nerve and rapped on the door.

  A peephole opened. Lucius gave his name. He was perused by a pair of unblinking eyes. The peephole closed. Lucius was left waiting for so long that he decided he had been forgotten, and was about to leave. Then the door opened. A grim-looking slave admitted him to the vestibule.

  “Wait here,” said the slave, and disappeared.

  Lucius slowly paced back and forth. He looked at the busts of the ancestors in their niches, paying only scant attention until he saw one that was clearly honored above all the others, placed in a special niche with votive candles in sconces at either side. The mask looked very, very old. It was a famous face, known to every Roman from public statues all over the city.

  “That’s only a copy, of course,” said a voice. “Wax masks don’t last forever, and more than one branch of the family lay claim to him, so there had to be duplicates. Still, that mask is very ancient, and very sacred, as you can imagine. The candles are kept lit always, day and night.”

  Brutus stood before him. Curious to see if he could detect a resemblance, Lucius looked from the face of Brutus to the face of his famous ancestor and namesake-the man who had been the nephew of the last king, Tarquinius, who had revenged the rape of Lucretia, who had helped to overthrow the monarchy and had become first consul, who had watched his own sons be put to death for betraying the Republic.

  Lucius frowned. “You don’t look anything alike, as far as I can see.”

  “No? Even so, I think we may share a similar destiny. At any rate, his example inspires me, especially today.”

  Was Brutus feverish? It seemed to Lucius that the man’s eyes glittered unnaturally.

  “Why have you come?” said Brutus.

  “I’m not sure. I happened to be passing. I saw your visitors arriving. It seemed to me that something…that perhaps something was wrong…”

  His voice trailed away as another man appeared behind Brutus. Gaius Cassius Longinus was Brutus’s brother-in-law, married to his sister. He was one of the senators who had swept past Lucius in the street. Lucius nodded to him. “Good day to you, Cassius.”

  Cassius did not return the greeting. He whispered in Brutus’s ear. He looked tense and pale.

  The two exchanged more whispers, and cast furtive glances at
Lucius. They appeared to be arguing and trying to come to some decision. Lucius began to find their scrutiny unnerving.

  Brutus gripped Cassius’s arm and pulled him to the far side of the room, but his whisper was so loud that Lucius overheard. “No! We agreed already-Caesar and only Caesar. No one else! Otherwise, we show ourselves to be no better than-”

  Cassius cast a cold gaze at Lucius, silenced Brutus with a hiss, and pulled him into the next room.

  If they were still whispering, Lucius could not hear; his heartbeat was suddenly so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. He looked toward the front door. It was blocked by the grim-faced slave. From the atrium, more slaves appeared, followed by Brutus.

  “Don’t harm him!” Brutus shouted. “I only want him restrained. We’ll hold him here until-”

  There was no time to think. A thrill of panic ran through Lucius and he acted purely by instinct. He bolted toward the door, but hands on his arms and shoulders held him back. He tried to shrug them off, but the hands gripped him more firmly. With all his strength he pulled free, turned around, and swung his fists. His knuckles connected with the hard jaw of one of the slaves and sent a painful shock through his arm. The slave took a swing at him in return and struck a glancing blow across his shoulder. Lucius struck the man square in the face. The slave staggered back, blood pouring from his nose.

  Now only the slave barring the door stood in his way. Lucius ran toward him, lowered his head, and butted the man in the stomach. The slave cried out in pain and bent forward, clutching his belly. Lucius pushed him out of the way and managed to slip through the doorway, into the street.

  He meant to run in the direction of Caesar’s house, but there were already men in the street, blocking his way. He turned about and ran in opposite direction, away from the Forum, away from the Field of Mars and the Theater of Pompeius.

  Lucius was young and quick, and he knew the streets of the Palatine well. He gained a good lead on his pursuers. He rounded a corner, and then another, and could not see them behind him at all. But he was growing weary; he needed refuge. He realized that he was near the house of Publius Servilius Casca. Surely he could trust Casca, who was deeply indebted to Caesar. The rotund, red-cheeked, bumbling Casca was something of a buffoon. It was impossible to imagine him as a menace to anyone.