Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  “The arms were stored in the house of Gaius Cethegus!" said the praetor Sulpicius, entering breathless. "Hundreds and hundreds of swords and daggers. A few shields, no cuirasses."

  "I am an ardent collector of weapons," said Cethegus, bored.

  Frowning, Cicero pondered on another logistical problem this confined space had generated. "Gaius Cosconius," he said to that praetor, "I hear you're brilliant at shorthand. Candidly, I can see no room whatsoever in here for half a dozen scribes, so I'll dispense with the professionals. Choose three pedarii who are also capable of taking down the proceedings verbatim. That divides the task among four of you, and four will have to be enough. I doubt this will be a long meeting, so you'll have time after it to compare notes and get a draft together."

  “Will you look at him and listen to him?'' whispered Silanus to Caesar—an odd choice of confidant given the relationship between them, but probably, Caesar decided, there was no one else jammed near Silanus he deemed worth speaking to, including Murena. "In his glory at last!" Silanus made a noise Caesar interpreted as disgust. "Well, I for one find this business unspeakably sordid!"

  "Even squires from Arpinum must have their day," said Caesar. "Gaius Marius started a tradition."

  Finally and fussily Cicero opened his meeting with the prayers and the offerings, the auspices and the salutations. But his prior assessment was right; it was not a protracted affair. The guide Titus Volturcius listened to Fabius Sanga and Brogus testify, then wept and demanded to be allowed to tell all. Which he did, answering every question, incriminating Lentulus Sura and the other four more and more heavily. Lucius Cassius, he explained, had departed very suddenly for Further Gaul, Volturcius guessed on his way to Massilia and a voluntary exile. Others too had fled, including the senators Quintus Annius Chilo, the Brothers Sulla, and Publius Autronius. Name after name tumbled out, knights and bankers, minions, leeches. By the time Volturcius got to the end of his litany, there were some twenty-seven Roman men importantly involved, from Catilina all the way down to himself (and the Dictator's nephew, Publius Sulla—not named—was sweating profusely).

  After which Mamercus Princeps Senatus broke the seals on the letters and read them out. Almost an anticlimax.

  Looking forward to playing the role of great advocate in howling chase of the truth, Cicero questioned Gaius Cethegus first. But, alas, Cethegus broke down and confessed immediately.

  Next came Statilius, with a similar result.

  After that it was Lentulus Sura's turn, and he didn't even wait for the questioning to begin before he confessed.

  Gabinius Capito fought back for some time, but confessed just as Cicero was getting into stride.

  And finally came Marcus Caeparius, who erupted into frenzied weeping and seemed to confess between bouts of sobbing.

  Though it came hard to Catulus, when the business was over he moved a vote of thanks to Rome's brilliant and vigilant senior consul, the words sticking a little, but emerging quite as clearly as Caeparius's confession.

  "I hail you as pater patriae—father of our country!" was Cato's contribution.

  “Is he serious or sarcastic?'' asked Silanus of Caesar.

  "With Cato, who knows?"

  Cicero was then given the authority to issue warrants for the apprehension of the conspirators not present, after which it was time to farm out the five conspirators present to senatorial custody.

  "I will take Lentulus Sura," said Lucius Caesar sadly. "He is my brother-in-law. By family he should go to another Lentulus, perhaps, but by right he falls to me."

  "I'll take Gabinius Capito," said Crassus.

  "And I Statilius," said Caesar.

  "Give me young Cethegus," said Quintus Cornificius.

  "And I'll have Caeparius," said old Gnaeus Terentius.

  "What do we do with a treasonous praetor in office?" asked Silanus, who looked very grey in that airless atmosphere.

  “We command that he doff his insignia of office and dismiss his lictors," said Cicero.

  "I don't believe that's legal," said Caesar, a little wearily. "No one has the power to terminate the office of a curule magistrate before the last day of his year. Strictly, you can't arrest him."

  "We can under a Senatus Consultum Ultimum!" snapped Cicero, nettled. Why was Caesar always picking fault? "If you prefer, don't call it a termination! Just think of it as the removal of his curule trappings!"

  Whereupon Crassus, fed up with the crush and dying to get out of Concord, interrupted this acrimonious exchange to move that a public thanksgiving be celebrated for the discovery of the plot without bloodshed within the city walls. But he didn't name Cicero.

  "While you're about it, Crassus, why don't you vote our dear Marcus Tullius Cicero a Civic Crown?" snarled Poplicola.

  "Now that," said Silanus to Caesar, "is definitely ironic."

  "Oh, the Gods be thanked, he's finally breaking the meeting up" was Caesar's reply. "Couldn't he have thought of a reason why we could meet in Jupiter Stator or Bellona?"

  "Here tomorrow at the second hour of day!" cried Cicero to a chorus of groans, then rushed from the temple to mount the rostra and deliver a reassuring speech to the large and expectant crowd.

  "I don't know why he's in such a tearing hurry," said Crassus to Caesar as they stood flexing their muscles and breathing deeply of the sweet outside air. "He can't go home tonight, his wife's hosting the Bona Dea."

  "Yes, of course," said Caesar, sighing. "My wife and mother are off there, not to mention all my Vestals. And Julia too, I suppose. She's growing up."

  "I wish Cicero would."

  "Oh, come, Crassus, he's in his element at last! Let him have his little victory. It's not really a very big conspiracy, and it stood about as much chance of succeeding as Pan competing against Apollo. A tempest inside a bottle, no more."

  "Pan against Apollo? He won, didn't he?"

  "Only because Midas was the judge, Marcus. For which he wore a pair of ass's ears ever after."

  "Midas always sits in judgement, Caesar."

  "The power of gold."

  "Exactly."

  They began to move up the Forum, not the least bit tempted to stop and hear Cicero's address to the People.

  "You've family involved, of course," said Crassus when Caesar ignored the Via Sacra and headed toward the Palatine too.

  "Indeed I have. One very silly cousin and her three strapping lout sons."

  "Will she be at Lucius Caesar's, do you think?"

  "Definitely not. Lucius Caesar is too punctilious. He's got his sister's husband there in custody. So, with my mother at Cicero's house celebrating the Bona Dea, I thought I'd look in on Lucius and tell him I'll go straight over to see Julia Antonia."

  "I don't envy you," said Crassus, grinning.

  "Believe me, I don't envy myself!"

  He could hear Julia Antonia before he knocked on the door of Lentulus Sura's very nice house, and squared his shoulders. Why did it have to be the Bona Dea tonight? Julia Antonia's entire circle of friends would be at Cicero's house, and Bona Dea was not the sort of deity one ignored in favor of a distressed friend.

  All three of Antonius Creticus's boys were ministering to their mother with a degree of patience and kindness Caesar found surprising—which didn't stop her leaping to her feet and throwing herself on Caesar's chest.

  "Oh, cousin!" she howled. "What am I to do? Where will I go? They'll confiscate all Sura's property! I won't even have a roof over my head!"

  "Leave the man alone, Mama," said Mark Antony, her eldest, pulling her clutching fingers away and escorting her back to her chair. “Now sit there and keep your misery to yourself, it's not going to help us out of this predicament."

  Perhaps because she had already worn herself into exhaustion, Julia Antonia obeyed; her youngest, Lucius, a rather fat and clumsy fellow, sat on the chair next to her, took her hands in his and began to make soothing noises.

  "It's his turn," said Antony briefly, and drew his cousin outside into the pe
ristyle, where the middle son, Gaius, joined them.

  "It's a pity the Cornelii Lentuli comprise the majority of Cornelians in the Senate these days," said Caesar.

  "And none of them will be a bit happy to claim a traitor in the bosom of the family," said Mark Antony grimly. "Is he a traitor?"

  "Beyond any shadow of doubt, Antonius."

  "You're sure?"

  "I just said so! What's the matter? Worried that it will come out you're involved too?" asked Caesar, suddenly anxious.

  Antony flushed darkly, but said nothing; it was Gaius who answered, stamping his foot.

  "We're not involved! Why is it that everyone—including you!—always believes the worst of us?"

  "It's called earning a reputation," said Caesar patiently. "All three of you have shocking reputations— gambling, wine, whores." He looked at Mark Antony ironically. "Even the occasional boyfriend."

  "It isn't true about me and Curio," said Antony uncomfortably. "We only pretend to be lovers to annoy Curio's father."

  "But it's all a part of earning a reputation, Antonius, as you and your brothers are about to find out. Every hound in the Senate is going to be sniffing around your arses, so I suggest that if you are involved, even remotely, you tell me so now."

  All three of Creticus's sons had long ago concluded that this particular Caesar had the most disconcerting eyes of anyone they knew—piercing, cold, omniscient. It meant they didn't like him because those eyes put them on the defensive, made them feel less than they secretly believed they were. And he never bothered to condemn them for what they deemed minor failings; he came around only when things were really bad, as now. Thus his appearances were reminiscent of a harbinger of doom, tended to strip them of the ability to fight back, defend themselves.

  So Mark Antony answered sulkily, "We're not even remotely involved. Clodius said Catilina was a loser."

  “And whatever Clodius says is right, eh?''

  "Usually."

  "I agree," said Caesar unexpectedly. "He's shrewd."

  "What will happen?" asked Gaius Antonius abruptly.

  "Your stepfather will be tried for treason and convicted," Caesar said. "He's confessed, had to. Cicero's praetors caught the Allobroges with two incriminating letters of his, and they're not forgeries, I can assure you."

  "Mama is right, then. She'll lose everything."

  "I shall try to see that she doesn't, and there will be a good number of men who will agree with me. It's time Rome stopped punishing a man's family for his crimes. When I'm consul I shall try to put a law on the tablets to that effect.'' He began to move back toward the atrium. "There's nothing I can do for your mother personally, Antonius. She needs female company. As soon as my mother comes home from the Bona Dea, I’ll send her over.'' In the atrium he gazed around. "A pity Sura didn't collect art, you might have had a few things to salt away before the State arrives to collect. Though I meant what I said, I will do my best to ensure that the little Sura has is not confiscated. I suppose that's why he joined the conspiracy, to increase his fortune."

  "Oh, undoubtedly," said Antony, ushering Caesar to the door. "He was forever moaning about how badly expulsion from the Senate had ruined him—and that he'd done nothing to warrant it. He's always maintained that the censor Lentulus Clodianus had it in for him. Some family squabble going back to when Clodianus was adopted into the Lentuli."

  "Do you like him?" asked Caesar, stepping across the threshold.

  "Oh, yes! Sura is a splendid fellow, the best of men!"

  And that was interesting, he thought, making his way back to the Forum and the Domus Publica. Not every stepfather would have managed to make himself liked by that trio of young men! They were such typical Antonii. Heedless, passionate, impulsive, prone to indulge their lusts of whatever kind. No political heads on any of those broad shoulders! Massive brutes, all three of them, and ugly in a way that women seemed to find enormously attractive. What on earth would they do to the Senate when they were old enough to stand for quaestor? Provided, that is, that they had the money to stand. Creticus had suicided in disgrace, though no one had moved to indict him posthumously for crimes against the State; he had lacked sense and judgement, not loyalty to Rome. However, his estate was eroded when Julia Antonia married Lentulus Sura, a man without children of his own—but without a large fortune either. Lucius Caesar had a son and a daughter; the Antonii could hope for nothing there. Which meant that it would be up to him, Caesar, to try to improve the Antonian fortune. How he was going to do this he had no idea, but he would do it. Money always appeared when it was desperately needed.

  The fugitive Lucius Tarquinius who had jumped off the Mulvian Bridge into the Tiber was apprehended on the road to Faesulae and brought to Cicero before the Senate met in Concord the day after the Bona Dea. His house being closed to him, Cicero had spent the night with Nigidius Figulus, who had most thoughtfully asked Atticus and Quintus Cicero to dinner. They had spent a pleasant evening made more pleasant when Terentia sent a message to say that after the fire on the altar to Bona Dea had gone out, a huge flare of flame suddenly roared up, which the Vestals had taken to mean that Cicero had saved his country.

  What a delightful thought that was! Father of his country. Savior of his country. He, the lodger from Arpinum.

  He was not, however, entirely at ease. Despite his reassuring speech to the People from the rostra, this morning's clients who had managed to track him down to the house of Nigidius Figulus were edgy, anxious, even afraid. How many ordinary people inside Rome were in favor of a new order—and a general cancellation of debt? Many, it seemed; Catilina might well have been able to take the city from within on the night of the Saturnalia. All those hopes in all those financially distressed breasts were permanently dashed as of yesterday, and those who had harbored those hopes were today aware that there would be no respite. Rome seemed peaceful; yet Cicero's clients insisted there were violent undercurrents. So did Atticus. And here am I, thought Cicero, conscious of a tiny panic, responsible for arresting five men! Men with clout and clients, especially Lentulus Sura. But Statilius was from Apulia, and Gabinius Capito from southern Picenum—two places with a history of revolt or devotion to an Italian rather than a Roman cause. As for Gaius Cethegus—his father had been known as the King of the Backbenchers! Enormous wealth and clout there. And he, Cicero, the senior consul, was solely responsible for their arrest and detention. For producing the hard evidence which had caused all five to break down and confess. Therefore he would be responsible for their condemnation at trial, and that was going to be a long, drawn-out process during which violent undercurrents might boil to the surface. None of this year's praetors would want the duty of being president of a specially convened Treason Court—treason trials had been so thin on the ground of late that no praetor had been assigned to it in two years. Therefore his prisoners would continue to live under custody in Rome until well into the New Year, which also meant new tribunes of the plebs like Metellus Nepos yammering that Cicero had exceeded his authority, and other tribunes of the plebs like Cato hovering to pounce on any legal slip.

  If only, thought Cicero, conducting his prisoner Tarquinius to the temple of Concord, those wretched men didn't have to stand trial! They were guilty; everyone knew that from their own mouths. They would be condemned; they could not be acquitted by the most lenient or corrupt jury. And eventually they would be—executed? But the courts couldn't execute! The best the courts could do was pronounce permanent exile and confiscate all property. Nor could a trial in the Popular Assembly produce a death sentence. To get that would necessitate trial in the Centuries under perduellio, and who was to say what verdict that might bring in, with phrases like "a general cancellation of debt" still passing from mouth to mouth? Sometimes, thought the Champion of the Courts as he plodded along, trials were a wretched nuisance.

  Lucius Tarquinius had little new to offer when questioning began in the temple of Concord. Cicero retained the privilege of asking the questions himself, a
nd took Tarquinius through the steps leading up to apprehension at the Mulvian Bridge. After which the senior consul threw questions open to the House, feeling that it might be prudent to allow someone else a little glory.

  What he didn't expect was the answer Tarquinius gave to the first such question, put to him by Marcus Porcius Cato.

  "Why were you with the Allobroges in the first place?" Cato asked in his loud, harsh voice.

  "Eh?" from Tarquinius, a cheeky fellow with scant respect for his senatorial betters.

  "The Allobroges had a guide in the person of Titus Volturcius. Marcus Caeparius said he was present to report the result of the meeting between the Allobroges and Lucius Sergius Catilina back to the conspirators in Rome. So why were you there, Tarquinius?"

  "Oh, I really didn't have much to do with the Allobroges, Cato!" said Tarquinius cheerfully. "I just traveled with the party because it was safer and more amusing than going north on my own. No, I had different business with Catilina."

  "Did you now? And what business was that?" asked Cato.

  "I was carrying a message from Marcus Crassus to Catilina."

  The crowded little temple fell absolutely silent.

  "Say that again, Tarquinius."

  "I was carrying a message from Marcus Crassus to Catilina."

  A buzz of voices arose, growing in volume until Cicero had to have his chief lictor pound the fasces on the floor.

  "Silence!" he roared.

  "You were carrying a message from Marcus Crassus to Catilina," Cato repeated. "Then where is it, Tarquinius?"

  "Oh, it wasn't written down!" chirped Tarquinius, seeming happy. "I had it inside my head."

  "Do you still have it inside your head?" asked Cato, gazing now at Crassus, who sat on his stool looking stunned.

  "Yes. Want to hear it?"

  "Thank you."

  Tarquinius went up on his toes and jigged. '“Marcus Crassus says to be of good cheer, Lucius Catilina. Rome is not fully united against you, there are more and more important people coming over,' " chanted Tarquinius.

  "He's as cunning as a sewer rat!" growled Crassus. "Accuse me, and that automatically means that in order to clear myself, I will have to spend a great deal of my fortune getting men like him acquitted!"