1. First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  The young men lingered for perhaps ten more minutes, then they too excused themselves and departed. Night had fallen; the water clocks began to drip away the hours of darkness, twice as long as the hours of daylight. This was midwinter, and for once the calendar was in step with the seasons, thanks to the fastidiousness of the Pontifex Maximus, Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus, who felt date and season ought to coincide quite Greek, really. What did it matter, so long as your eyes and temperature-sensing apparatus told you what season it was, and the official calendar displayed in the Forum Romanum told you what month and day it was? When the servants came to light the lamps, Marius noticed that the oil was of top quality, and the wicks not coarse oakum, but made from properly woven linen. "I'm a reader," said Caesar, following Marius's gaze and interpreting his thoughts with the same uncanny accuracy he had displayed at the outset of that chance meeting of eyes yesterday on the Capitol. "Nor, I'm afraid, do I sleep very well. Years ago now, when the children were first of an age to participate in family councils, we had a special meeting at which we decided each of us should be permitted one affordable luxury. Marcia chose to have a first-class cook, I remember but since that directly benefited all of us, we voted that she should have a new loom, the latest model from Patavium, and always the kind of yarn she likes, even if it's expensive. Sextus chose to be able to visit the Fields of Fire behind Puteoli several times a year.'' A look of anxiety settled momentarily upon Caesar's face; he sighed deeply. "There are certain hereditary characteristics in the Julius Caesars," he explained, "the most famous of which aside from our fairness of coloring is the myth that every Julia is born gifted with the ability to make her men happy. A present from the founder of our house, the goddess Venus though I never heard that Venus made too many mortal men happy. Or Vulcan either, for that matter. Or Mars! Still, that's what the myth says about the Julian women. But there are other, less salubrious gifts visited upon some of us, including the one poor Sextus inherited. I'm sure you've heard of the malady he suffers from the wheezes? When he gets one of his attacks, you can hear him wheezing from anywhere in the house, and in his worst attacks he goes black in the face. We've nearly lost him several times." So that was what was written upon young Sextus's brow! He wheezed, poor fellow. It would slow his career down, no doubt. "Yes," said Marius, "I do know the malady. My father says it's always worst when the air is full of chaff at harvest, or pollen in summer, and that those who suffer from it should stay away from the company of animals, especially horses and hounds. While he's on military service, keep him afoot." "He found that out for himself," said Caesar, sighing again. "Do finish your story about the family council, Gaius Julius," said Marius, fascinated; this much democracy they didn't have in the smallest isonomia in Greece! What an odd lot they were, these Julius Caesars! To an outsider's cursory gaze perfectly correct, patrician pillars of the community. But to those on the inside outrageously unorthodox! "Well, young Sextus chose to go regularly to the Fields of Fire because the sulphur fumes seem to help him," said his father. "They still do, and he still goes." "And your younger son?" asked Marius. "Gaius said there was only one thing in the whole world he wanted as a privilege, though it couldn't be called a luxury. He asked to be allowed to choose his own wife." Marius's eyebrows, hairily alive, danced up and down. "Ye gods! And did you grant him the privilege?" "Oh, yes." "But what if he does the usual boy's trick and falls in love with a tart, or an old trull?" "Then he marries her, if such is his wish. However, I do not think young Gaius will be so foolish, somehow. His head is very well connected to his shoulders," said the doting father tranquilly. "Do you marry in the old patrician way, confarreatio for life?" pressed Marius, scarcely believing what he heard. "Oh, yes." "Ye gods!" "My older girl, Julia, is also very level-headed," Caesar went on. "She elected membership in the library of Fannius. Now I had intended to ask for the exact same thing, but there didn't seem to be any sense in two of us belonging, so I gave the membership to her. Our baby, Julilla, alas, is not at all wise, but I suppose butterflies have no need of wisdom. They just" he shrugged, smiled wryly "brighten up the world. I would hate to see a world without butterflies, and since we were disgracefully improvident in having four children, it's nice that our butterfly didn't come along until last place. And had the grace to be female when she did come along." "What did she ask for?" Gaius Marius smiled. "Oh, about what we expected. Sweetmeats and clothes." "And you, deprived of your library membership?" "I chose the finest lamp oil and the best wicks, and struck a bargain with Julia. If I could borrow the books she borrowed, then she could use my lamps to read by." Marius finished his smile at leisure, liking the author of this moral little tale enormously. What a simple, unenvious, happy life he enjoyed! Surrounded by a wife and children he actually strove to please, was interested in as individuals. No doubt he was spot-on in his character analyses of his offspring, and young Gaius wouldn't pick a wife out of a Suburan gutter. He cleared his throat. "Gaius Julius, it has been an absolutely delightful evening. But now I think it's time you told me why I have had to stay a sober man." "If you don't mind, I'll dismiss the servants first," Caesar said. "The wine is right here where we can reach it ourselves, and now that the moment of truth has arrived, we don't need to be so abstemious." His scrupulousness surprised Marius, used now to the utter indifference with which the Roman upper classes viewed their household slaves. Oh, not in terms of treatment they were usually good to their people but they did seem to think that their people were stuffed and inanimate when it came to overhearing what ought to be private. This was a habit Marius had never become reconciled to himself; like Caesar, his own father had firmly believed in dismissing the servants. "They gossip dreadfully, you know," said Caesar when they were alone behind a tightly closed door, "and we've nosy neighbors on either side. Rome might be a big place, but when it comes to the spread of gossip on the Palatine why, it's a village! Marcia tells me there are several among her friends who actually stoop to paying their servants for items of gossip and give bonuses when the gossip turns out to be accurate! Besides, servants have thoughts and feelings too, so it's better not to involve them." "You, Gaius Julius, ought to have been consul, then turned into our most eminent consular, and been elected censor," said Marius with sincerity. "I agree with you, Gaius Marius, I ought indeed! But I haven't the money to have sought higher office." "I have the money. Is that why I'm here? And kept sober?" Caesar looked shocked. "My dear Gaius Marius, of course not! Why, I'm closer to sixty than I am to fifty! At this late stage, my public career is ossified. No, it is my sons with whom I am concerned, and their sons when the time comes." Marius sat up straight and turned on the couch to face his host, who did the same. Since his cup was empty, Marius picked up the jug and poured himself an unwatered draft, sipped it, and looked stunned. "Is this what I've been watering down to the merest taste all night?" he demanded. Caesar smiled. "Dear me, no! That rich I'm not, I assure you. The wine we watered down was an ordinary vintage. This I keep for special occasions." "Then I'm flattered." Marius looked at Caesar from under his brows. "What is it you want of me, Gaius Julius?" "Help. In return, I will help you," said Caesar, pouring himself a cup of the superb vintage. "And how is this mutual help to be accomplished?" "Simple. By making you a member of the family." "What?" "I am offering you whichever of my two daughters you prefer," said Caesar patiently. "A marriage?” "Certainly a marriage!" "Ohhhhhh! Now that's a thought!" Marius saw the possibilities at once. He took a deeper drink of the fragrant Falernian in his cup, and said no more. "Everyone must take notice of you if your wife is a Julia," said Caesar. "Luckily you have no sons or daughters, for that matter. So any wife you might take at this stage of your life must be young, and come from fertile stock. It is quite understandable that you might be seeking a new wife, no one will be surprised. But if that wife is a Julia, then she is of the highest patrician stock, and your children will have Julian blood in their veins. Indirectly, marriage to a Julia ennobles you, Gaius Marius. Everyone will be forced to regard you quite
differently from the way they regard you now. For your name will be enhanced by the vast dignitas the public worth and standing of Rome's most august family. Money we have not. Dignitas we have. The Julius Caesars are directly descended from the goddess Venus through her grandson Iulus, son of her son Aeneas. And some of our splendor will rub off on you.'' Caesar put his cup down and sighed, but smilingly. "I do assure you, Gaius Marius, it is true! I am not, alas, the oldest son of my generation of the Julian house, but we do have the wax images in our cupboards, we do trace ourselves back for over a thousand years. The other name of the mother of Romulus and Remus, she who is called Rhea Silvia, was Julia! When she cohabited with Mars and conceived her twin sons, we gave mortal form to Romulus, and so to Rome." His smile grew; a smile not of self-mockery, but of sheer pleasure in his illustrious forebears. "We were the kings of Alba Longa, the greatest of all Latin cities, for it was our ancestor Iulus who founded it, and when it was sacked by Rome, we were brought to Rome and elevated in Rome's hierarchy to add weight to Rome's claim to head the Latin race. And though Alba Longa was never rebuilt, to this day the Priest of the Alban Mount is a Julius." He couldn't help himself; Marius sucked in a deep breath of awe. But said nothing, just listened. "On a humbler level," Caesar went on, "I carry no small measure of clout myself, even though I have never had the money to stand for any higher office. My name makes me famous among the electors. I am wooed by social climbers and the centuries which vote in the consular elections are full of social climbers, as you know and I am highly respected by the nobility. My personal dignitas is above reproach, as was my father's before me," Caesar ended very seriously. New vistas were opening up before Gaius Marius, who could not take his eyes off Caesar's handsome face. Oh yes, they were descended from Venus, all right! Every last one of them a beauty. Looks count and throughout the history of the world, it has always been better to be blond. The children I sired of a Julia might be blond, yet have long, bumpy Roman noses too! They would look as right as they would look unusual. Which is the difference between the blond Julius Caesars from Alba Longa and the blond Pompeys from Picenum. The Julius Caesars look unmistakably Roman. Where the Pompeys look like Celts. "You want to be consul," Caesar continued, "so much is clear to everyone. Your activities in Further Spain when you were praetor produced clients. But unfortunately you yourself are rumored to be a client, and that makes your clients the clients of your own patron." The guest showed his teeth, which were large and white and strong looking. "It is a slander!" he said angrily. "I am nobody's client!" "I believe you, but that is not what is generally believed," Caesar maintained, "and what is generally believed is far more important than what is actually the truth. Anyone with sense can discount the Herennius family's claim to hold you as their client the Herennius clan is infinitely less Latin than the Marius clan of Arpinum. But the Caecilius Metelluses also claim to hold you in their patronage as their client. And the Caecilius Metelluses are believed. Why? For one thing, because your mother Fulcinia's family is Etruscan, and the Marius clan owns lands in Etruria. Etruria is the traditional fief of the Caecilius Metelluses." "No Marius or Fulcinius, for that matter! has ever been in clientship to a Caecilius Metellus!" snapped Marius, growing angrier still. "They're far too wily to say I'm their client in any situation where they might be called upon to prove it!" "That goes without saying," said Caesar. "However, they dislike you in a most personal manner, which lends considerable weight to their claim. The fact is remarked upon constantly. Men say it's too personal a dislike to stem merely from the way you tweaked their noses when you were a tribune of the plebs." "Oh, it's personal!" said Marius, and laughed without humor. "Tell me." "I once threw Dalmaticus's little brother the same who is undoubtedly going to be consul next year into a pigsty at Numantia. Actually three of us did and none of the three of us has got very far with the Romans who wield the real influence since, that's certain." "Who were the other two?" "Publius Rutilius Rufus and King Jugurtha of Numidia." "Ah! The mystery is solved." Caesar put his fingertips together and pressed them against his pursed lips. "However, the accusation that you are a dishonorable client is not the worst slur attached to your name, Gaius Marius. There is another, more difficult to deal with." "Then before we go into that slur, Gaius Julius, how would you suggest I stop the client rumor?" asked Marius. "By marrying one of my daughters. If you are accepted as a husband for one of my daughters, it will give the world to understand that I do not find any evidence of truth in the client story. And spread the tale of the Spanish pigsty! If possible, get Publius Rutilius Rufus to confirm it. Everyone will then have a more than adequate explanation for the personal quality of Caecilius Metellus dislike," said Caesar, smiling. "It must have been funny a Caecilius Metellus brought down to the level of why, not even Roman pigs!" "It was funny," said Marius shortly, anxious to press on. "Now what's this other slur?" "You must surely know it for yourself, Gaius Marius." "I can't think of a single thing, Gaius Julius." "It is said that you're in trade." Marius gasped, stunned. "But but how am I in trade differently from three quarters of the rest of the Senate? I own no stock in any company which entitles me to vote in or influence company affairs! I'm purely a sleeping partner, a provider of capital! Is that what's said of me, that I take an active part in trade?" "Certainly not. My dear Gaius Marius, no one elaborates! You are dismissed with a general sneer, the simple phrase 'He's in trade.' The implications are legion, yet nothing concrete is ever said! So those without the wisdom to inquire further are led to believe that your family has been in trade for many generations, that you yourself run companies, farm taxes, get fat off the grain supply," said Caesar. "I see," said Marius, tight-lipped. "You had better see," said Caesar gently. "I do nothing in business that any Caecilius Metellus does not! In fact, I'm probably less actively involved in business." "I agree. But if I had been advising you all along, Gaius Marius," said Caesar, "I would have tried to persuade you to avoid any business venture that didn't involve owning land or property. Your mines are above reproach; they're good, solid real estate. But for a New Man well, company dealings aren't at all wise. You should have stuck to only those ventures which are absolutely unimpeachable for a senator land and property." "You mean, my company activities are yet another indication that I am not and never can be a Roman nobleman,'' said Gaius Marius bitterly. "Precisely!" Marius squared his shoulders; to dwell upon the hurt of a manifest injustice was a waste of precious time and energy. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the alluring prospect of marrying a girl of the Julian house. "Do you really believe my marrying one of your daughters will improve my public image so much, Gaius Julius?" "It can't not." "A Julia... Why then shouldn't I apply to marry a Sulpicia or a Claudia or an Aemilia or a Cornelia? A girl from any of the old patrician houses would surely do as well no, even better! I'd have the ancient name plus a great deal more current political clout," said Marius. Smiling, Caesar shook his head. "I refuse to be provoked, Gaius Marius, so don't bother trying. Yes, you could marry a Cornelia or an Aemilia. But everyone would know you simply bought the girl. The advantage of marrying a Julia lies in the fact that the Julius Caesars have never sold their daughters to rich nobodies desirous of carving public careers for themselves and a noble heritage for their progeny. The very fact that you have been permitted to marry a Julia will inform the world that you are deserving of every political honor, and that the slurs upon your name are pure malice. The Julius Caesars have always been above selling their daughters. It is a universally known fact." Caesar paused to think for a moment, then added, "Mind you, I shall strongly advise both my sons to make capital out of our quirkiness and marry their daughters to rich nobodies as fast as they can!" Marius leaned back with a second full cup. “Gaius Julius, just why are you offering me this chance?" he asked. Caesar frowned. "There are two reasons," he said. "The first is perhaps not very sensible, but out of it came my decision to reverse our traditional family reluctance to make financial capital out of our children. You see, when I noticed you yesterday at the inauguration, I was
visited with a premonition. Now I am not a man who is premonition-prone, you must understand. But I swear by all the gods, Gaius Marius, that suddenly I knew that I was looking at a man who would given the chance! carry Rome on his back out of terrible danger. And I knew too that if you were not given the chance, Rome would cease to be." He shrugged, shivered. "Well, there's a strong streak of superstition in every Roman, and in the really old families, it's very highly developed. I believed what I felt. After the passage of a day, I still believe what I felt. And wouldn't it be lovely, I thought to myself, if I, a humble backbencher senator, gave Rome the man Rome is going to need so desperately?" "I feel it too," said Marius abruptly. "I have ever since I went to Numantia." "So there you are! Two of us." "And your second reason, Gaius Julius?" Caesar sighed. "I have reached an age where I must face the fact that I have not so far managed to provide for my children as a father should. Love they have had. Material comfort they have had, without the burden of too much material comfort. Education they have had. But this house, plus five hundred iugera of land in the Alban Hills, is all I own." He sat up, crossed his legs, leaned forward again. "I have four children. That's two too many, as you well know. Two sons, two daughters. What I own will not ensure the public careers of my sons, even as backbenchers like their father. If I divide what I have between my two boys, neither will qualify for the senatorial census. If I leave what I have to my elder boy, Sextus, he will survive after my fashion. But my younger boy, Gaius, will be so penurious he will not even qualify for the knights' census. In effect, I will make a Lucius Cornelius Sulla out of him do you know Lucius Cornelius Sulla?" asked Caesar. "No," said Marius. "His stepmother is my next-door neighbor, a ghastly woman of low birth and no sense, but very rich. However, she has blood kin of her own who will inherit her money, a nephew, I believe. How do I know so much about her circumstances? The penalty of being a neighbor who also happens to be a senator. She badgered me to draw up her will for her, and never stopped talking. Her stepson, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, lives with her, according to her because he literally has nowhere else to go. Imagine it a patrician Cornelius old enough to be in the Senate right now, but with absolutely no hope of ever entering the Senate. He is destitute! His branch of the family is long decayed, and his father had virtually nothing; to compound Lucius Cornelius's woes, the father turned to wine, and whatever might have been left was drunk up years ago. It was the father married my next-door neighbor, who has kept the son under her roof since her husband died, but is not prepared to do anything else for him. You, Gaius Marius, have been infinitely luckier than Lucius Cornelius Sulla, for at least your family was affluent enough to give you the property and income of a senator when the opportunity came for you to enter the Senate. Your New Man status could not keep you out of the Senate when the opportunity came, where failure to meet the means test most certainly would have. Lucius Cornelius Sulla's birth is impeccable on both sides. But his penuriousness has effectively excluded him from his rightful position in the scheme of things. And I find I care too much for the welfare of my younger son to reduce him or his children or his children's children to the circumstances of a Lucius Cornelius Sulla," said Caesar with some passion. "Birth is an accident!" said Marius with equal passion. "Why should it have the power to dictate the course of a life?" "Why should money?" Caesar countered. "Come now, Gaius Marius, admit that it is the way of all men in all lands to value birth and money. Roman society I find more flexible than most, as a matter of fact compared to the Kingdom of the Parthians, for example, Rome is as ideal as Plato's hypothetical Republic! In Rome, there have actually been cases where men managed to rise from nothing. Not, mind you, that I have ever personally admired any of them who have done so," said Caesar reflectively. "The struggle seems to ruin them as men." "Then perhaps it's better that Lucius Cornelius Sulla stay right where he is," said Marius. "Certainly not!" said Caesar firmly. "I admit that your being a New Man has inflicted an unkind and unjust fate upon you, Gaius Marius, but I am sufficiently a man of my class to deplore the fate of Lucius Cornelius Sulla!" He assumed an expression of businesslike decision. "However, what concerns me at the moment is the fate of my children. My daughters, Gaius Marius, are dowerless! I cannot even scrape together a pittance for them, because to do so would impoverish my sons. That means my daughters have absolutely no chance of marrying men of their own class. I apologize, Gaius Marius, if in saying that you deem I have insulted you. But I don't mean men like yourself, I mean" he waved his hands about "let me say that again. I mean I will have to marry my daughters to men I don't like, don't admire, have nothing in common with. I wouldn't marry them to men of their own class whom I didn't like, either! A decent, honorable, likable man is my desire. But I won't have the opportunity to discover him. The ones who will apply to me for my daughters' hands will be presumptuous ingrates I'd rather show the toe of my boot than the palm of my hand. It's similar to the fate of a rich widow; decent men will have none of her for fear of being deemed a fortune hunter, so that the only ones she is left to choose from are fortune hunters." Caesar slid off the couch and sat on its back edge with his feet dangling. "Would you mind, Gaius Marius, if we took a stroll in the garden? It's cold out there, I know, but I can give you a warm wrap. It's been a long evening, and not an easy one for me. I'm beginning to feel my bones seizing up." Without a word Marius levered himself off the couch, took Caesar's shoes and slipped them onto Caesar's feet, laced them with the swift efficiency of an organized mind. Then he did the same for himself, and stood up, his hand beneath Caesar's elbow. "That's why I like you so much," said Caesar. "No nonsense, no pretenses." It was a small peristyle, yet it had a certain charm few city garden-courtyards possessed. Despite the season, aromatic herbs still thrived and gave off delicious scents, and the plantings were mostly perennial evergreens. Small country habits died hard in the Julius Caesars, Marius noticed with a thrill of gratified warmth; along the edges of the eaves, where they would catch the sun yet not get wet, there hung hundreds of little bunches of fleabane drying, just as at his father's house in Arpinum. By the end of January they would be tucked into every clothes chest and corner from one end of the domus to the other, to discourage fleas, silverfish, vermin of all kinds. Fleabane was cut at the winter solstice for drying; Marius hadn't thought there was a household in Rome knew of it. Because there had been a guest to dinner, the chandeliers which hung from the ceiling of the colonnade surrounding the peristyle all burned faintly, and the little bronze lamps which lit the paths of the garden glowed a delicate amber through the wafer-thin marble of their round sides. The rain had ceased, but fat drops of water coated every shrub and bush, and the air was vaporous, chill. Neither man noticed. Heads together (they were both tall, so it was comfortable to lean their heads together), they paced down the walkways, and finally stood by the little pool and fountain at the middle of the garden, its quartet of stone dryads holding torches aloft. It being winter, the pool was empty and the fountain turned off. This, thought Gaius Marius (whose pool and fountain were full of water all year round thanks to a system of heating), is real. None of my tritons and dolphins and gushing waterfalls move me as this little old relic does. "Are you interested in marrying one of my daughters?" asked Caesar, not anxiously, yet conveying anxiety. "Yes, Gaius Julius, I am," said Marius with decision. "Will it grieve you to divorce your wife?" "Not in the least." Marius cleared his throat. "What do you require of me, Gaius Julius, in return for the gift of a bride and your name?" "A great deal, as a matter of fact," said Caesar. "Since you will be admitted into the family in the guise of a second father rather than as a son-in-law a privilege of age! I will expect you to dower my other daughter and contribute to the welfare of both my sons. In the case of the unlucky daughter and my younger son, money and property are necessarily a large part of it. But you must be willing to throw your weight behind both my boys when they enter the Senate and begin their journey toward the consulship. I want both my boys to be consuls, you see. My son Sextus is one year older than the elder
of the two boys my brother, Sextus, kept for himself, so my son Sextus will be the first of this generation's Julius Caesars to be of age to seek the consulship. I want him consul in his proper year, twelve years after entering the Senate, forty-two after his birth. He will be the first Julian consul in four hundred years. I want that distinction! Otherwise, my brother Sextus's son Lucius will become the first Julian consul, in the following year." Pausing to peer at Marius's dimly lit face, Caesar put out a reassuring hand. "Oh, there was never bad feeling between my brother and me while he was alive, nor is there now between me and mine, and his two sons. But a man should be consul in his proper year. It looks best." "Your brother, Sextus, adopted his oldest boy out, didn't he?" asked Marius, striving to recollect what a Roman of the Romans would have known without stopping to think. "Yes, a very long time ago. His name was Sextus too, it's the name we normally give to our eldest sons." "Of course! Quintus Lutatius Catulus! I would have remembered if he used Caesar as part of his name, but he doesn't, does he? He'll surely be the first Caesar to attain the consulship, he's a lot older than any of the others." "No," said Caesar, shaking his head emphatically. "He's not a Caesar anymore, he's a Lutatius Catulus." "I gather that old Catulus paid well for his adopted son," said Marius. "There seems to be plenty of money in your late brother's family, anyway." "Yes, he paid very dearly. As you will for your new wife, Gaius Marius." "Julia. I'll take Julia," said Marius. "Not the little one?" asked Caesar, sounding surprised. "Well, I admit I'm glad, for no other reason than I consider no girl should be married before she turns eighteen, and Julilla is still a year and a half off that. I think you've chosen rightly, as a matter of fact. Yet I've always thought Julilla the more attractive and interesting of the two." "You would, you're her father," said Marius, grinning. "No, Gaius Julius, your younger daughter doesn't tempt me in the least. If she isn't wild about the fellow she marries, I think she'll lead him a merry dance. I'm too old for girlish caprices. Where Julia seems to me to have sense as good as her looks. I liked everything about her." "She'll make an excellent consul's wife." "Do you honestly think I'll succeed in being consul?" Caesar nodded. "Oh, certainly! But not straightaway. Marry Julia first, then let things and people settle down. Try to find yourself a decent war for a couple of years it will help enormously if you've got a recent military success to your credit. Offer your services to someone as a senior legate. Then seek the consulship two or three years hence." "But I'll be fifty years old," said Marius dismally. "They don't like electing men so far past the normal age." "You're already too old, so what matter another two or three years? They'll stand you in good stead if you use them well. And you don't look your age, Gaius Marius, an important factor. If you were visibly running to seed, it would be quite different. Instead, you're the picture of health and vigor and you're a big man in size, which always impresses the Centuriate electors. In fact, New Man or not, if you hadn't incurred the enmity of the Caecilius Metelluses, you would have been a strong contender for the consulship three years ago, in your proper time for it. Were you an insignificant-looking little chap with a skinny right arm, even a Julia mightn't help. As it is, you'll be consul, never fear." "What exactly do you want me to do for your sons?" "In terms of property?" "Yes," said Marius, forgetting his Chian finery and sitting down on a bench of white unpolished marble. Since he sat there for some time and the bench was very wet, when he rose he left a mottled, oddly natural-looking pinkish-purple stain all over it. The purple dye from his outfit percolated into the porous stone and fixed itself, so that the bench became in the fullness of time, a generation or two down the years one of the most admired and prized pieces of furniture another Gaius Julius Caesar was to bring into the Domus Publicus of the Pontifex Maximus. To the Gaius Julius Caesar who concluded a marriage bargain with Gaius Marius, however, the bench was an omen; a wonderful, wonderful omen. When the slave came to tell him of the miracle in the morning and he saw it for himself (the slave was awed rather than horrified everyone knew the regal significance of the color purple), he heaved a sigh of perfect satisfaction. For the purple bench told him that in striking this marriage bargain, he was advancing his family to the purple of highest office. And it became fused in his mind with that strange premonition; yes, Gaius Marius had a place in Rome's fate that Rome as yet did not dream of. Caesar removed the bench from the garden and put it in his atrium, but he never told a soul how exactly it had become overnight a richly mottled, delicately veined purple and pink. An omen! "For my son Gaius, I need enough good land to ensure him a seat in the Senate," Caesar said now to his seated guest. "It so happens that there are six hundred iugera of excellent land for sale right at this moment, adjoining my own five hundred in the Alban Hills." "The price?" "Horrible, given its quality and proximity to Rome. It's a seller's market, unfortunately." Caesar took a deep breath. "Four million sesterces a million denarii," he said heroically. "Agreed," said Marius, as if Caesar had said four thousand sesterces rather than four million. "However, I do think it prudent if we keep our dealings secret for the moment." "Oh, absolutely!" said Caesar fervently. "Then I'll bring you the money tomorrow myself, in cash," said Marius, smiling. "And what else do you want?" "I expect that before my elder son enters the Senate, you will have turned into a consular. You will have influence and power, both from this fact and from your marriage to my Julia. I expect you to use your influence and power to advance my sons as they stand for the various offices. In fact, if you do get a military legateship to tide you over the next two or three years, I expect you to take my sons with you to your war. They are not inexperienced, they've both been cadets and junior officers, but they need more military service to help their careers, and under you, they'll be under the best." Privately Marius didn't think either young man was the stuff of which great commanders were made, but he did think they would be more than adequate officers, so he made no comment other than to say, "I'd be glad to have them, Gaius Julius." Caesar ploughed on. "As regards their political careers, they have the grave disadvantage of being patricians. As you well know, that means they can't run for office as tribunes of the plebs, and to make a splash as a tribune of the plebs is far and away the most telling method of establishing a political reputation. My sons will have to seek the curule aedileship punitively expensive! So I expect you to make sure both Sextus and Gaius are elected curule aediles, with enough money in their purses to put on the kind of games and shows the people will remember affectionately when they go to the polls to elect praetors. And if it should prove necessary for my sons to buy votes at any stage, I expect you to provide the money." "Agreed," said Gaius Marius, and held out his right hand with commendable alacrity, considering the magnitude of Caesar's demands; he was committing himself to a union which would cost him at least ten million sesterces. Gaius Julius Caesar took the hand, clasped it strongly, warmly. "Good!" he said, and laughed. They turned to walk back into the house, where Caesar sent a sleepy servant to fetch the old sagum for its owner. "When may I see Julia, talk to her?" asked Marius when his head emerged from the opening in the center of the sagum's wagon-wheel-sized circle. "Tomorrow afternoon," said Caesar, opening the front door himself. "Good night, Gaius Marius." "Good night, Gaius Julius," said Marius, and stepped out into the piercing cold of a rising north wind. He walked home without feeling it, warmer than he had been in a very long time. Was it possible that his unwelcome guest, the feeling, had been right to continue to dwell inside him? To be consul! To set his family's feet firmly on the hallowed ground of the Roman nobility! If he could do that, then it definitely behooved him to sire a son. Another Gaius Marius.