Caesar's Women

by Colleen McCullough

  The laws went through nonetheless; the second land act, the various acts which together made up the leges Vatiniae endowing Caesar with his provinces, and many more inconspicuous but useful measures Caesar had been itching for years to implement. King Ptolemy XI Theos Philopator Philadelphus called Auletes was confirmed in his tenure of the Egyptian throne, and made Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Four thousand talents remained in Balbus's bank in Gades, Pompey and Crassus having been paid, and Balbus, together with Titus Labienus, hurried north to Italian Gaul to commence work. Balbus would procure armaments and equipment (where possible from Lucius Piso and Marcus Crassus), while Labienus started to enlist the third legion for Italian Gaul.

  His sights set upon a war to the northeast and along the basin of the Danubius, Caesar regarded Further Gaul as a nuisance. He had not recalled Pomptinus, though he detested the man, preferring to deal with troubles along the Rhodanus River by diplomatic means. King Ariovistus of the German Suebi was a new force in Further Gaul; he now held complete sway over the area between Lake Lemanna and the banks of the Rhenus River, which divided Further Gaul from Germania. The Sequani had originally invited Ariovistus to cross into their territory with the promise that he would receive one third of Sequani land. But the Suebi kept pouring across the great river in such numbers that Ariovistus was soon demanding two thirds of the Sequani lands. The domino effect had spread the disturbances to the Aedui, who had been titled Friend and Ally of the Roman People for years. Then the Helvetii, a sept of the great tribe Tigurini, began to issue out of their mountain fastnesses to seek more clement living at a lower altitude in Further Gaul itself.

  War threatened, so much so that Pomptinus established a more or less permanent camp not far from Lake Lemanna, and settled down with his one legion to watch events.

  Caesar's discerning eye picked Ariovistus as the key to the situation, so in the name of the Senate he began to parley with the German King's representatives, his object a treaty which would keep what was Rome's Rome's, contain Ariovistus, and calm the huge Gallic tribes the German incursion was provoking. That in doing so he was infringing the treaties Rome already had with the Aedui worried him not one bit. More important to establish a status quo spelling the least danger possible to Rome.

  The result was a senatorial decree calling King Ariovistus a Friend and Ally of the Roman People; it was accompanied by lavish gifts from Caesar personally to the leader of the Suebi, and it had the desired effect. Tacitly confirmed in his present position, Ariovistus could sit back with a sigh of relief, his Gallic outpost a fact acknowledged by the Senate of Rome.

  Neither of the Friend and Ally decrees had proven difficult for Caesar to procure; innately conservative and against the huge expense of war, the Senate was quick to see that confirming Ptolemy Auletes meant men like Crassus couldn't try to snaffle Egypt, and that confirming Ariovistus meant war in Further Gaul had been averted. It was hardly even necessary to have Pompey speak.

  In the midst of all this waning popularity, Caesar acquired his third wife, Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Just eighteen, she turned out to be exactly the kind of wife he needed at this time in his career. Like her father she was tall and dark, a very attractive girl owning an innate calm and dignity which rather reminded Caesar of his mother, who was the first cousin of Calpurnia's grandmother, a Rutilia. Intelligent and well read, unfailingly pleasant, never demanding, she fitted into life in the Domus Publica so easily that she might always have been there. Much the same age as Julia, she was some compensation for having lost Julia. Particularly to Caesar.

  He had of course handled her expertly. One of the great disadvantages of arranged marriages, particularly those of rapid genesis, was the effect on the new wife. She came to her husband a stranger, and if like Calpurnia she was a self-contained person, shyness and awkwardness built a wall. Understanding this, Caesar proceeded to demolish it. He treated her much as he had treated Julia, with the difference that she was wife, not daughter. His love-making was tender, considerate, and lighthearted; his other contacts with her were also tender, considerate, and light-hearted.

  When she had learned from her delighted father that she was to marry the senior consul and Pontifex Maximus, she had quailed. How would she ever manage? But he was so nice, so thoughtful! Every day he gave her some sort of little present, a bracelet or a scarf, a pair of earrings, some pretty sandals he had seen glitter on a stall in the marketplace. Once in passing he dropped something in her lap (though she was not to know how practised he was at that). The something moved and then mewed a tiny squeak—oh, he had given her a kitten! How did he know she adored cats? How did he know her mother hated them, would never let her have one?

  Dark eyes shining, she held the ball of orange fur against her face and beamed at her husband.

  "He's a little young yet, but give him to me at the New Year and I'll castrate him for you," said Caesar, finding himself quite absurdly pleased at the look of joy on her very appealing face.

  "I shall call him Felix," she said, still smiling.

  Her husband laughed. "Lucky because he's fruitful? In the New Year that will be a contradiction in terms, Calpurnia. If he isn't castrated he'll never stay at home to keep you company, and I will have yet one more tom to throw my boot at in the middle of the night. Call him Spado, it's more appropriate."

  Still holding the kitten, she got up and put one arm about Caesar's neck, kissed him on the cheek. "No, he's Felix."

  Caesar turned his head until the kiss fell on his mouth. "I am a fortunate man," he said afterward.

  “Where did he come from?'' she asked, unconsciously imitating Julia by kissing one white fan at the corner of his eye.

  Blinking away tears, Caesar put both arms about her. "I am moved to make love to you, wife, so put Felix down and come with me. You make it easier."

  A thought he echoed to his mother somewhat later.

  "She makes it easier to live without Julia."

  "Yes, she does. A young person in the house is necessary, at least for me. I'm glad it's so for you too."

  "They're not alike."

  "Not at all, which is good."

  "She liked the kitten better than the pearls."

  "An excellent sign." Aurelia frowned. "It will be difficult for her, Caesar. In six months you'll be gone, and she won't see you for years."

  "Caesar's wife?" he asked.

  "If she liked the kitten better than the pearls, I doubt her fidelity will waver. It would be best if you quicken her before you go—a baby would keep her occupied. However, these things cannot be predicted, and I haven't noticed that your devotion to Servilia has waned. A man only has so much to go round, Caesar, even you. Sleep with Calpurnia more often, and with Servilia less often. You seem to throw girls, so I worry less about a son."

  "Mater, you're a hard woman! Sensible advice which I have no intention of taking."

  She changed the subject. “I hear that Pompeius went to Marcus Cicero and begged him to persuade young Curio to cease his attacks in the Forum."

  "Stupid!" Caesar exclaimed, frowning. "I told him it would only give Cicero a false idea of his own importance. The savior of his country is bitten by the boni these days, it gives him exquisite pleasure to decline any offer we make him. He wouldn't be a committeeman, he wouldn't be a legate in Gaul next year, he wouldn't even accept my offer to send him on a trip at State expense. Now what does Magnus do? Offers him money!"

  "He refused the money, of course," said Aurelia.

  "Despite his mounting debts. I never saw a man so obsessed with owning villas!"

  "Does this mean you will unleash Clodius next year?"

  The eyes Caesar turned on his mother were very cold. "I will definitely unleash Clodius."

  “What on earth did Cicero say to Pompeius to make you so angry?"

  “The same kind of thing he said during the trial of Hybrida. But unfortunately Magnus displayed sufficient doubt of me to let Cicero think he stood a chance to wea
n Magnus away from me."

  "I doubt that, Caesar. It's not logical. Julia reigns."

  "Yes, I suppose you're right. Magnus plays both ends against the middle, he wouldn't want Cicero knowing all his thoughts."

  "I'd worry more about Cato, if I were you. Bibulus is the more organized of the pair, but Cato has the clout," said Aurelia. "It's a pity Clodius couldn't eliminate Cato as well as Cicero."

  “That would certainly guard my back in my absence, Mater! Unfortunately I can't see how it can be done."

  "Think about it. If you could eliminate Cato, you'd draw all the teeth fixed in your neck. He's the fountainhead."

  The curule elections were held a little later in Quinctilis than usual, and the favored candidates were definitely Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso. They canvassed strenuously, but were too canny to give Cato any opportunity to cry bribery. Capricious public opinion swung away from the boni again; it promised to be a good election result for the triumvirs.

  At which point, scant days before the curule elections, Lucius Vettius crawled out from beneath his stone. He approached young Curio, whose Forum speeches were directed mostly in Pompey's direction these days, and told him that he knew of a plan to assassinate Pompey. Then he followed this up by asking young Curio if he would join the conspiracy. Curio listened intently and pretended to be interested. After which he told his father, for he had not the kidney of a conspirator or an assassin. The elder Curio and his son were always at loggerheads, but their differences went no further than wine, sexual frolics and debt; when danger threatened, the Scribonius Curio ranks closed up.

  The elder Curio notified Pompey at once, and Pompey called the Senate into session. Within moments Vettius was summoned to testify. At first the disgraced knight denied everything, then broke down and gave some names: the son of the future consular candidate Lentulus Spinther, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, hitherto known as Caepio Brutus. These names were so bizarre no one could believe them; young Spinther was neither a member of the Clodius Club nor famed for his indiscretions, Lepidus's son had an old history of rebellion but had done nothing untoward since his return from exile, and the very idea of Brutus as an assassin was ludicrous. Whereupon Vettius announced that a scribe belonging to Bibulus had brought him a dagger sent by the housebound junior consul. Afterward Cicero was heard to say that it was a shame Vettius had no other source of a dagger, but in the House everyone understood the significance of the gesture: it was Bibulus's way of saying that the projected crime had his support.

  "Rubbish!" cried Pompey, sure of one thing. "Marcus Bibulus himself took the trouble to warn me back in May that there was a plot afoot to assassinate me. Bibulus can't be involved."

  Young Curio was called in. He reminded everyone that Paullus was in Macedonia, and apostrophized the whole business as a tissue of lies. The Senate was inclined to agree, but felt it wise to detain Vettius for further questioning. There were too many echoes of Catilina; no one wanted the odium of executing any Roman, even Vettius, without trial, so this plot was not going to be allowed to escalate out of senatorial control. Obedient to the Senate's wishes, Caesar as senior consul ordered his lictors to take Lucius Vettius to the Lautumiae and chain him to the wall of his cell, as this was the only preventative for escape from that rickety prison.

  Though on the surface the affair seemed utterly incongruous, Caesar felt a stirring of disquiet; this was one occasion, self-preservation told him, when every effort ought to be made to keep the People apprised of developments. Matters should not be confined to the interior of the Senate chamber. So after he had dismissed the Conscript Fathers he called the People together and informed them what had happened. And on the following day he had Vettius brought to the rostra for public questioning.

  This time Vettius's list of conspirators was quite different. No, Brutus had not been involved. Yes, he had forgotten that Paullus was in Macedonia. Well, he might have been wrong about Spinther's son, it could have been Marcellinus's son—after all, both Spinther and Marcellinus were Cornelii Lentuli, and both were future consular candidates. He proceeded to trot out new names: Lucullus, Gaius Fannius, Lucius Ahenobarbus, and Cicero. All boni or boni flirts. Disgusted, Caesar sent Vettius back to the Lautumiae.

  However, Vatinius felt Vettius needed sterner handling, so he hied Vettius back to the rostra and subjected him to a merciless inquisition. This time Vettius insisted he had the names correct, though he did add two more: none other than that thoroughly respectable pillar of the establishment, Cicero's son-in-law Piso Frugi; and the senator Iuventius, renowned for his vagueness. The meeting broke up after Vatinius proposed to introduce a bill in the Plebeian Assembly to conduct a formal enquiry into what was rapidly becoming known as the Vettius Affair.

  By this time none of it made any sense beyond an inference that the boni were sufficiently fed up with Pompey to conspire to assassinate him. However, not even the most perceptive analyst of public life could disentangle the confusion of threads Vettius had—woven? No, tied up in knots.

  Pompey himself now believed there was a plot in existence, but could not be brought to believe that the boni were responsible. Hadn't Bibulus warned him? But if the boni were not the culprits, who was? So he ended like Cicero, convinced that once Vatinius got his enquiry into the Vettius Affair under way, the truth would out.

  Something else gnawed at Caesar, whose left thumb pricked. If he knew nothing more, he knew that Vettius loathed him, Caesar. So where exactly was the Vettius Affair going to go? Was it in some tortuous way aimed at him? Or at driving a wedge between him and Pompey? Therefore Caesar decided not to wait the month or more until the official enquiry would begin. He would put Vettius back on the rostra for another public interrogation. Instinct told him that it was vital to do so quickly. Maybe then the name of Gaius Julius Caesar would not creep into the proceedings.

  It was not to be. When Caesar's lictors appeared from the direction of the Lautumiae, they came alone, and hurrying white-faced. Lucius Vettius had been chained to the wall in his cell, but he was dead. Around his neck were the marks of big strong hands, around his feet the marks of a desperate struggle to hang on to life. Because he had been chained it had not occurred to anyone to set a guard on him; whoever had come in the night to silence Lucius Vettius had come and gone unseen.

  * * *

  Standing by in a mood of pleasant expectation, Cato felt the blood drain from his face, and was profoundly glad the attention of the throng around the rostra was focused upon the angry Caesar, snapping instructions to his lictors to make enquiries of those in the vicinity of the prison. By the time those around him might have turned to him for an opinion as to what was going on, Cato was gone. Running too fast for Favonius to keep up.

  He burst into Bibulus's house to find that worthy sitting in his peristyle, one eye upon the cloudless sky, the other upon his visitors, Metellus Scipio, Lucius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Piso.

  "How dare you, Bibulus?" Cato roared.

  The four men turned as one, jaws slack.

  "How dare I what?" asked Bibulus, plainly astonished.

  "Murder Vettius!"

  "What?"

  "Caesar just sent to the Lautumiae to fetch Vettius to the rostra, and found him dead. Strangled, Bibulus! Why? Oh, why did you do that? I would never have consented, and you knew I would never have consented! Political trickery is one thing, especially when it's aimed at a dog like Caesar, but murder is despicable!"

  Bibulus had listened to this looking as if he might faint; as Cato finished he rose unsteadily to his feet, hand outstretched. "Cato, Cato! Do you know me so little? Why would I murder a wretch like Vettius? If I haven't murdered Caesar, why would I murder anyone?”

  The rage in the grey eyes died; Cato looked uncertain, then held his own hand out. "It wasn't you?"

  "It wasn't me. I agree with you, I always have and I always will. Murder is despicable."

  The other three were recovering from their shock; Metellus Scipio
and Ahenobarbus gathered round Cato and Bibulus, while Gaius Piso leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  "Vettius is really dead?" Metellus Scipio asked.

  "So Caesar's lictors said. I believed them."

  "Who?" asked Ahenobarbus. "Why?"

  Cato moved to where a flagon of wine and some beakers stood on a table, and poured himself a drink. "I really thought it was you, Marcus Calpurnius," he said, and tipped the beaker up. "I'm sorry. I ought to have known better."

  "Well, we know it wasn't us," said Ahenobarbus, "so who?"

  "It has to be Caesar," said Bibulus, helping himself to wine.

  "What did he have to gain?" asked Metellus Scipio, frowning.

  "Even I can't tell you that, Scipio," said Bibulus. At which moment his gaze rested on Gaius Piso, the only one still sitting. An awful fear filled him; he drew in his breath audibly. "Piso!" he cried suddenly. "Piso, you didn't!"

  The bloodshot eyes, sunk into Gaius Piso's fleshy face, blazed scorn. "Oh, grow up, Bibulus!" he said wearily. "How else was this idiocy to succeed? Did you and Cato really think Vettius had the gall and the guts to carry your scheme through? He hated Caesar, yes, but he was terrified of the man too. You're such amateurs! Full of nobility and high ideals, weaving plots you've neither the talent nor the cunning to push to fruition—sometimes you make me sick, the pair of you!"

  "The feeling goes both ways!" Cato shouted, fists doubled.

  Bibulus put his hand on Cato's arm. "Don't make it worse, Cato," he said, the skin of his face gone grey. "Our honor is dead along with Vettius, all thanks to this ingrate." He drew himself up. "Get out of my house, Piso, and never come back."

  The chair was overturned; Gaius Piso looked from one face to the next, then deliberately spat upon the flagstones at Cato's feet. "Vettius was my client," he said, "and I was good enough to use to coach him in his role! But not good enough to give advice. Well, fight your own fights from now on! And don't try to incriminate me, either, hear me? Breathe one word, and I'll testify against the lot of you!''