The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  “Since Marcus Brutus bought all Bibulus’s property, I live in Bibulus’s house with Bibulus’s youngest son.”

  “I’m very glad that Brutus was so generous.” Taking in the sight of several more cats, Caesar used them as an excuse to bolt. “You’re lucky, Calpurnia. These creatures make my eyes water and my skin itch. Ave, ladies.”

  And he escaped.

  Faberius had put his important correspondence on his desk; frowning, he noted one scroll whose tag bore a date in May. Vatia Isauricus’s seal. Before he opened it, he knew it held bad news.

  Syria is without a governor, Caesar. Your young cousin Sextus Julius Caesar is dead.

  Did you by any chance meet a Quintus Caecilius Bassus when you passed through Antioch last year? In case you did not, I had better explain who he is. A Roman knight of the Eighteen, who took up residence in Tyre and went into the purple-dye business after serving with Pompeius Magnus during his eastern campaigns. He speaks fluent Median and Persian, and it is now being bandied about that he has friends at the court of the King of the Parthians. Certainly he is enormously rich, and not all his income is from Tyrian purple.

  When you imposed those heavy penalties on Antioch and the cities of the Phoenician coast for so strongly supporting the Republicans, Bassus was gravely affected. He went to Antioch and looked up some old friends among the military tribunes of the Syrian legion, all men who had served with Pompeius Magnus. The next thing, governor Sextus Caesar was informed that you were dead in Africa Province and the Syrian legion was restive. He called the legion to an assembly intending to calm its men down, but they murdered him and hailed Bassus as their new commander.

  Bassus then proclaimed himself the new governor of Syria, so all your clients and adherents in northern Syria fled at once to Cilicia. As I happened to be in Tarsus visiting Quintus Philippus, I was able to act swiftly, sent a letter to Marcus Lepidus in Rome, and asked him to send Syria a governor as quickly as possible. According to his reply, he has dispatched Quintus Cornificius, who should answer well. Cornificius and Vatinius fought a brilliant campaign in Illyricum last year.

  However, Bassus has entrenched himself formidably. He marched to Antioch, which shut its gates and refused to let him in. So our friend the purple merchant marched down the road to Apameia: in return for many trade favors, it declared for Bassus, who entered it and has set himself up there, calling Apameia the capital of Syria.

  He has worked a great deal of mischief, Caesar, and he is definitely in league with the Parthians. He’s made an alliance with the new king of the Skenite Arabs, one Alchaudonius—who, incidentally, was one of the Arabs with Abgarus when he led Marcus Crassus into the Parthian trap at Carrhae. Alchaudonius and Bassus are very busy recruiting troops for a new Syrian army. I imagine that the Parthians are going to invade, and that Bassus’s Syrian army will join them to move against Rome in Cilicia and Asia Province.

  This means that both Quintus Philippus and I are also recruiting, and have sent warning to the client-kings.

  Southern Syria is quiet. Your friend Antipater is making sure the Jews stay out of Bassus’s plans, and has sent to Queen Cleopatra in Egypt for men, armaments and food supplies against the day when the Parthians invade. The rebuilding and fortification of Jerusalem’s walls may turn out to be more vital than even you envisioned.

  There have been Parthian raids up and down the Euphrates, though the territory of the Skenite Arabs has not suffered. You may have thought that the eastern end of Our Sea was pacified, but I doubt that Rome will ever be able to say that about any part of her world. There’s always someone lusting to take things off her.

  Poor young Sextus Caesar, the grandson of his uncle, Sextus. That branch of the family—the elder branch—had had none of Caesar’s fabled luck. The patrician Julii Caesares used three first names—Sextus, Gaius and Lucius. If a Julius Caesar had three sons, the first was Sextus, the second Gaius, and the third Lucius. His own father was the second son, not the first, and only the marriage of his father’s elder sister to the fabulously wealthy New Man Gaius Marius had given his father the money to stay in the Senate and ascend the cursus honorum, the ladder to the senior magistracies. His father’s younger sister had married Sulla, so Caesar could rightly say that both Marius and Sulla were his uncles. Very handy through the years!

  His father’s elder brother, Sextus, had died first, of a lung inflammation during a bitter winter campaign of the Italian civil war. Lungs! Suddenly Caesar remembered where he had previously seen the stigmata he had noticed in young Gaius Octavius. Uncle Sextus! He’d had the same look about him: the same narrow rib cage, small chest. There had not been a moment to ask Hapd’efan’e, and now he could offer the priest-physician more information. Uncle Sextus had suffered from the wheezes, used to go to the Fields of Fire behind Puteoli once a year to inhale the sulphur fumes that belched out of the earth amid splutters of lava and licks of flame. He remembered his father saying that the wheezes cropped up from time to time in a Julius Caesar, that it was a family trait. A family trait young Gaius Octavius had inherited? Was that why the lad didn’t attend the youths’ drills and exercises on the Campus Martius regularly?

  Caesar summoned Hapd’ efan’e.

  “Has Trogus given you a nice room, Hapd’efan’e?” he asked.

  “Yes, Caesar. A beautiful guest suite that overlooks the big peristyle. I have the space to store my medicaments and my instruments, and Trogus has found me a lad for my apprentice. I like this house and I like the Forum Romanum—they are old.”

  “Tell me about the wheezes.”

  “Ah!” said the priest-physician, dark eyes widening. “You mean a wheezing noise when a patient breathes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But on expiration, not on inspiration.”

  Caesar wheezed experimentally. “Breathing out, definitely.”

  “Yes, I know of it. When the air is still and reasonably dry and the season is neither blossoms nor harvest, the patient is quite well unless some painful emotion troubles him. But when the air is full of pollen or little bits of straw or dust, or is too humid, the patient is distressed when he breathes. If he is not removed from the irritation, he goes into a fully fledged attack of wheezing, coughs until he retches, goes blue in the face as he struggles for every breath. Sometimes he dies.”

  “My Uncle Sextus had it, and did die, but apparently of a lung inflammation due to exposure to extreme cold. Our family physician called it dyspnoea, as I remember,” said Caesar.

  “No, it is not dyspnoea. That is a constant struggle for breath, rather than episodic,” said Hapd’efan’e firmly.

  “Can this episodic non-dyspnoea run in families?”

  “Oh, yes. The Greek name for it is asthma.”

  “How best to treat it, Hapd’efan’e?”

  “Certainly not the way the Greeks do, Caesar! They advocate bloodletting, laxatives, hot fomentations, a potion of hydromel mixed with hyssop, and lozenges made from galbanum and turpentine resin. The last two may help a little, I admit. But in our medical lore, it is said that asthmatics are suffused with sensitive feelings, that they take things to heart when others do not. We treat an attack with inhalation of sulphur fumes, but work more on avoiding attacks. We advise the patient to stay away from dust, tiny particles of grass or straw, animal hair or fur, pollen, heavy sea vapors,” said Hapd’efan’e.

  “Is it present for life?”

  “In some cases, Caesar, yes, but not always. Children who suffer from it sometimes grow out of it. A harmonious home life and general tranquillity are helpful.”

  “My thanks, Hapd’efan’e.”

  One of his worries about young Gaius Octavius had just been elucidated, though finding a solution would be hugely difficult. The boy shouldn’t be let near horses or mules—yes, that had been true of Uncle Sextus as well! Military training was going to be almost impossible, yet it was absolutely obligatory for a man with aspirations to be consul. All very well for Brutus! His family was so powerf
ul, so ancestor-rich, and his fortune so vast that no colleague or peer would ever be indelicate enough to refer to Brutus’s lack of martial spirit. Whereas Octavius lacked imposing ancestors on his father’s side, and bore his father’s name. The patrician Julian blood was distaff blood, not manifest in his name. Poor fellow! His road to the consulship would prove hard, perhaps insuperable. If he lived to get that far.

  Caesar got up to pace, bitterly disappointed. There didn’t seem to be enough of a chance that Gaius Octavius would survive to warrant making the lad Caesar’s heir. Back to Marcus Antonius—what a hideous prospect!

  Lucius Marcius Philippus had extended an invitation to dinner at his spacious house on the Palatine to “celebrate your return to Rome” said the gracefully written note.

  Cursing the waste of time but aware that family obligations insisted they attend, Caesar and Calpurnia arrived at the ninth hour of daylight to find themselves the only guests. Equipped with a dining room able to hold six couches, Philippus usually filled all six, but not today. Some warning alarm sounded; Caesar doffed his toga, made sure his thin layer of hair covered his scalp—he grew it long forward from the crown—and let the servant offer him a bowl of water to wash his feet. Naturally he was put in the locus consularis, the place of honor on Philippus’s own couch, with young Gaius Octavius at its far end from Caesar; Philippus took the middle position. His elder son wasn’t present—was that the reason for his sense that something was wrong? Caesar wondered. Was he here to be informed that Philippus was divorcing his wife for adultery with his son? No, no, of course not! That wasn’t the kind of news passed on at a dinner party with the wife sitting there. Marcia wasn’t present either; just Atia and her daughter, Octavia, joined Calpurnia on the three chairs opposite the only occupied couch.

  Calpurnia looked delicious in an artfully draped lapis blue gown that echoed the color of her eyes; she was wearing the new sleeves, cut open from the shoulder and pinched together at intervals down the outer arm with little jeweled buttons. Atia had chosen a lavender blue that suited her fair beauty, and the young girl was exquisitely garbed in pale pink. How like her brother she was! The same masses of waving golden hair, his oval face, high cheekbones and nose with the sliding upward tilt. Her eyes alone were different, a clear aquamarine.

  When Caesar smiled at Octavia she smiled back to reveal perfect teeth and a dimple in her right cheek; their eyes met, and Caesar drew an involuntary breath of astonishment. Aunt Julia! Aunt Julia’s gentle, peaceful soul looked out at him, warmed him to the marrow. She is Aunt Julia all over again. I shall give her a bottle of Aunt Julia’s perfume and rejoice. This girl will inspire love in all who meet her, she is a pearl beyond price. From her face he turned to gaze at her brother, to see an unqualified affection. He adores her, this elder sister.

  The meal was quite up to Philippus’s standards, and included his favorite party fare—a smooth, yellowish mass of cream churned with eggs and honey inside an outer barrel filled with a mixture of snow and salt. It was brought at the gallop from the Mons Fiscellus, Italy’s highest mountain. The two young people spooned up the icy, melting poultice ecstatically, as did Calpurnia and Philippus. Caesar refused it. So did Atia.

  “Between the eggs and the cream, Uncle Gaius, I simply dare not,” she laughed, but nervously. “Here, have some strawberries.”

  “For Philippus, out of season means nothing,” said Caesar, growing ever more intrigued at the apprehension in the air. He lay back against his bolster and eyed Philippus mockingly, one fair brow raised. “There has to be a reason for this occasion, Lucius. Enlighten me.”

  “As my note said, a celebration of your return to Rome. Ah—however, there is an additional reason to celebrate, I admit,” said Philippus as smoothly as his iced cream.

  Caesar braced himself. “Since my great-nephew has been a man for nearly eight months, it can’t concern him. Therefore it must concern my great-niece. Is she betrothed?”

  “She is,” said Philippus.

  “Where’s the prospective bridegroom?”

  “On his Etrurian estates.”

  “May I ask his name?”

  “Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor,” said Philippus airily.

  “Minor.”

  “Well, it couldn’t be Major! He’s still abroad, unpardoned.”

  “I wasn’t aware that Minor had been pardoned.”

  “Since he did nothing wrong and remained in Italy, why does he need a pardon?” Philippus asked, beginning to sound truculent.

  “Because he was senior consul when I crossed the Rubicon, and made no attempt to persuade Pompeius Magnus and the boni to reach an accommodation with me.”

  “Come, Caesar, you know he was ill! Lentulus Crus did all the work, though as junior consul he didn’t hold the fasces for January. Once sworn in, Marcellus Minor was obliged to take to his bed, and there he remained for many moons. Since none of the physicians could find a reason for his sickness, I’ve always been of the opinion that it was Minor’s way of avoiding the displeasure of his far more militant brother and first cousin.”

  “A coward, you’re implying.”

  “No, not a coward! Oh, sometimes you’re too much the lawyer, Caesar! Marcellus Minor is simply a prudent man with the foresight to see that you can’t be beaten. It’s no disgrace for any man to deal craftily with his more unperceptive relatives,” said Philippus, grimacing. “Relatives can be a terrible nuisance—look at me, handicapped with a mother like Palla and a half brother who tried to murder his own father! Not to mention my father, who tergiversated perpetually. They’re the reasons why I adopted Epicureanism and have remained resolutely neutral all my political life. And look at you, with Marcus Antonius!”

  Philippus scowled and clenched his fists, then disciplined himself to relax. “After Pharsalus, Marcellus Minor made a good recovery, and he’s been attending the Senate ever since you left for Africa. Not even Antonius objected to his presence, and Lepidus welcomed him.”

  Caesar kept his face expressionless, but his eyes didn’t thaw. “Does this match please you, Octavia?” he asked, looking at her, and remembering that Aunt Julia had gone to Gaius Marius in a spirit of self-sacrifice, though apparently she had loved him. Caesar preferred to remember the pain Marius caused her.

  Octavia shivered. “Yes, it pleases me, Uncle Gaius.”

  “Did you ask for this match?”

  “It is not my place to ask,” she said, the pink fading from her cheeks and lips.

  “Have you met him, this forty-five-year-old?”

  “Yes, Uncle Gaius.”

  “And you can look forward to married life with him?”

  “Yes, Uncle Gaius.”

  “Is there anyone you would prefer to marry?”

  “No, Uncle Gaius,” she whispered.

  “Are you telling me the truth?”

  The big, terrified eyes lifted to his; her skin was ashen now. “Yes, Uncle Gaius.”

  “Then,” said Caesar, putting down his strawberries, “I offer you my felicitations, Octavia. However, as Pontifex Maximus, I forbid marriage confarreatio. An ordinary marriage, and you will retain the full control of your dowry.”

  As pale as her daughter, Atia rose to her feet with rare clumsiness. “Calpurnia, come and see Octavia’s wedding chest.”

  The three women left very quickly, heads down.

  Voice conversational, Caesar addressed Philippus. “This is a very strange alliance, my friend. You have betrothed Caesar’s great-niece to one of Caesar’s enemies. What gives you the right to do that?”

  “I have every right,” Philippus said, dark eyes burning. “I am the paterfamilias. You are not. When Marcellus Minor came to me with his offer, I considered it by far the best I’ve had.”

  “Your status as paterfamilias is debatable. Legally I would have said she’s in her brother’s hand, now he’s of age. Did you consult her brother?”

  “Yes,” said Philippus between his teeth, “I did.”

  “And what was you
r answer, Octavius?”

  The official man slid off the couch and transferred himself to the chair opposite Caesar, a place from which he could look at his great-uncle directly. “I considered the offer carefully, Uncle Gaius, and advised my stepfather to accept it.”

  “Give me your reasons, Octavius.”

  The lad’s breathing had become audible, a moist rattle on every expiration, but he was clearly not about to back down, even though the emotional strain, according to Hapd’efan’e, was of an order to produce wheezing.

  “First of all, Marcellus Minor had come into possession of the estates of his brother, Marcus, and his first cousin, Gaius Major. He bought them at auction. When you listed the estates confiscate, Uncle, you did not list Minor’s, so my stepfather and I assumed Minor was an eligible suitor. Thus his wealth was my first reason. Secondly, the Claudii Marcelli are a great family of plebeian nobles with consuls going back many generations, and strong ties to the patrician Cornelii of the Lentulus branch. Octavia’s children by Marcellus Minor will have great social and political clout. Thirdly, I do not consider that the conduct of either this man or his brother, Marcus the consul, has been dishonest or unethical, though I admit that Marcus was a terrible enemy to you. But he and Minor adhered to the Republican cause because they deemed it right, and you of all men, Uncle Gaius, have never castigated men for that. Had the suitor been Gaius Marcellus Major, my decision would have been different, for he lied to the Senate and lied to Pompeius Magnus. Offenses you and I—and all decent men—find abhorrent. Fourthly, I watched Octavia very closely when they met, and talked to her afterward. Though you may not like him, Uncle, Octavia liked him very well. He is not ill looking, he is well-read, cultured, good-natured and besottedly in love with my sister. Fifthly, his future position in Rome depends heavily upon your favor. Marriage to Octavia strengthens that position. Which leads me to my sixth point, that he will be an excellent husband. I doubt Octavia will ever be able to reproach him for infidelity or treatment I for one would find repellent.”