Curio's popularity in the Forum zoomed at exactly the same rate as his popularity in the Senate plummeted. He would not retract his veto, especially after he read out a letter from Caesar to the House, stating that Caesar would be happy to relinquish his imperium, his provinces and his army if Pompey the Great relinquished his imperium, provinces and army at one and the same moment. Pushed to it, Pompey had no other choice than to declare that Caesar's demand was intolerable, that he couldn't lower himself to oblige a man who was defying the Senate and People of Rome. Which statement allowed Curio to allege that Pompey's refusal meant that it was really Pompey who had designs on the State Caesar was willing, and didn't that mean Caesar was behaving like a faithful servant of the State? And what was all this about having designs on the State? What sort of designs? "Caesar intends to overthrow the Republic and make himself the King of Rome!" cried Cato, tried beyond silent endurance. "He will use that army of his to march upon Rome!" "Rubbish!" said Curio scornfully. "It's Pompeius you ought to be worried about, not Caesar. Caesar is willing to step down, but Pompeius is not. Therefore which of them intends to use his army to overthrow the State? Why, Pompeius, of course!" And so it went through one meeting of the Senate after another; March ended, April began and ended, and still Curio maintained his veto, unintimidated by the wildest threats of trial or death. Wherever he went he was cheered deliriously, which meant that no one dared to arrest him, let alone try him for treason. He had become a hero. Pompey, on the other hand, was beginning to look more and more a villain, and the boni more and more a lot of jealous bigots. While Caesar was beginning to look more and more the victim of a boni conspiracy to set Pompey up as Rome's Dictator. Furious at this turn in public opinion, Cato had written to Bibulus in Syria almost every day, begging for advice; he received no reply until the last day of April:
Cato, my dear father-in-law and even dearer friend, I will try to bend my mind to finding a solution for your dilemma, but events here have overwhelmed me. My eyes run tears, my thoughts return constantly to the loss of my two sons. They are dead, Cato, murdered in Alexandria. You know, of course, that Ptolemy Auletes died in May of last year, well before I arrived in Syria. His eldest living daughter, Cleopatra, ascended the throne at seventeen years of age. Because the throne goes through the female line but cannot be held by a female alone, she is required to marry a close male relative brother, first cousin or uncle. That keeps the royal blood untainted, though there is no doubt that Cleopatra's blood is not pure. Her mother was the daughter of King Mithridates of Pontus, whereas the mother of her younger sister and her two younger brothers was the half sister of Ptolemy Auletes. Oh, I must strive to keep my mind on this! Perhaps I need to talk it out, and there is no one here of proper rank or boni persuasion to lend an ear. Whereas you are the father of my beloved wife, my friend almost forever, and the first one to whom I send this dreadful news. When I arrived in Antioch I sent young Gaius Cassius Longinus packing a very arrogant, cocksure young man. But would you believe he had the temerity to do what Lucius Piso did in Macedonia at the end of his governorship? He paid out his army! Maintaining that the Senate had confirmed his tenure as governor by not sending a replacement, and that this fact endowed him with all the rights, prerogatives and perquisites of a governor! Yes, Cassius paid out and discharged the men of his two legions before skipping off with every last scrap of Marcus Crassus's plunder. Including the gold from the great temple in Jerusalem and the solid gold statue of Atargatis from her temple at Bambyce. With the Parthian threat looming (Cassius had defeated Pacorus, son of King Orodes of the Parthians, in an ambush, and the Parthians had gone home in consequence, but that did not last long), the only troops I had were the legion I brought with me from Italia. A sorry lot, as you well know. Caesar was recruiting madly, taking advantage of Pompeius's law requiring all men between seventeen and forty to serve their time in the legions, and for reasons which elude me completely those compelled to join up all preferred Caesar to Bibulus. I had to resort to pressing. So this one legion of mine was not in a mood to fight the Parthians. I decided that for the time being my best tactic was to attempt to undermine the Parthian cause from within, so I bought a Parthian nobleman, Ornadapates, and set him to whisper in the ear of King Orodes that his beloved son Pacorus had designs upon his throne. As a matter of fact, I have recently learned that it worked. Orodes executed Pacorus. Eastern kings are very sensitive about overthrow from within the family. But before I knew my ploy was successful, I fretted myself into a constant state of blinding headaches because I had no decent army to protect my province. Then the Idumaean prince Antipater, who stands very high at the Jewish court of Hyrcanus, suggested that I recall the legion Aulus Gabinius left in Egypt after he reinstated Ptolemy Auletes on his throne. These, he said, were the most veteran soldiers Rome owned, for they were the last of the Fimbriani, the men who went east with Flaccus and Fimbria to deal with Mithridates on Carbo and Cinna's behalf. They were seventeen then, and during the years since they had fought for Fimbria, Sulla, Murena, Lucullus, Pompeius and Gabinius. Thirty-four years. And that, said Antipater, made them fifty-one years old. Not too old to fight, especially given their unparalleled experience in the field. They were well settled outside Alexandria, but they were not the property of Egypt. They were Romans and still under the authority of Rome. Thus in February of this year I endowed my sons Marcus and Gnaeus with a propraetorian imperium and sent them to Alexandria to see Queen Cleopatra (her husband, her brother called Ptolemy XIII, is only nine years old) and demand that she give up the legion of Gabiniani forthwith. It would be excellent experience for them, I thought, a trifling mission in one way, yet in another way, an important diplomatic coup. Rome has had no official congress with the new ruler of Egypt; my sons would be the first. They journeyed overland to Egypt because neither of them is comfortable upon the sea. They had six lictors each and a squadron of Galatian cavalry whom Cassius had failed to detach from duty in Syria. Antipater met them near Lake Gennesarus and personally escorted them through the Jewish kingdom, then left them to their own devices at Gaza, the border. Shortly after the beginning of March they arrived in Alexandria. Queen Cleopatra received them very graciously. I had a letter from Marcus which didn't reach me until after I learned of his death what a nightmarish ordeal that is, Cato! To read the words of a beloved child who is dead. He was most impressed with the girl Queen, a little wisp of a creature with a face only youth made attractive, for she has, Marcus said, a nose to rival yours. Not an endowment for a female, though noble on a male. She spoke, he said, perfect Attic Greek, and was clad in the dress of Pharaoh a huge tall crown in two parts, white inside red; a gown of finely pleated, diaphanous white linen; and a fabulous jeweled collar ten inches wide. She even wore a false beard made of gold and blue enamel like a rounded braid. In one hand she bore a scepter like a little shepherd's crook, and in the other a fly swish of supple white linen threads with a jeweled handle. The flies in Syria and Egypt are a constant torment. Queen Cleopatra agreed at once to free the Gabiniani from garrison duty at Alexandria. The days when it might have been necessary, she said, were long over. So my sons rode out to the Gabiniani camp, which was located beyond the eastern or Canopic Gate of the city. Where they found what was really a little town; the Gabiniani had all married local girls and gone into business as smiths, carpenters and stonemasons. Of military activity there was none. When Marcus, who acted as spokesman, informed them that they were being recalled by the governor of Syria to duty in Syria, they refused to go! Refusal, said Marcus, was not an alternative. Sufficient ships had been hired and were waiting in the Eunostus Harbor at Alexandria; under Roman law and with the permission of the Queen of Egypt, they were to pack their belongings at once and embark. The primipilus centurion, a villainous oaf, stepped forward and said they were not going back to service in a Roman army. Aulus Gabinius had discharged them after thirty years under the Eagles, and left them to enjoy their retirement right where they were. They had wives, children and businesses
. Marcus grew angry. Gnaeus too. He ordered his lictors to arrest the Gabiniani spokesman, whereupon other centurions came forward and stood around the man. No, they said, they were retired, they would not leave. Gnaeus ordered his lictors to join Marcus's and arrest the lot. But when the lictors attempted to lay hands on the men, they drew their swords. There was a fight, but neither my sons nor their lictors had weapons other than the bound fasces containing the axes, and the Galatian cavalry had been left in Alexandria to enjoy a few days' leave. Thus died my sons and their lictors. Queen Cleopatra acted immediately. She had General Achillas of her own army round up the Gabiniani and cast the centurions in chains. My sons were given a State funeral, and their ashes placed in the most precious little urns I have ever seen. She sent my sons' ashes and the Gabiniani leaders to me in Antioch together with a letter accepting full responsibility for the tragedy. She would wait, she said, humbly upon my decision as to what to do with Egypt. Whatever I wished would be done, even if that included the arrest of her own person. She ended by saying that the enlisted Gabiniani men were loaded onto the ships and would arrive soon in Antioch. I sent the Gabiniani centurions back to her, explaining that she was more disinterested and would therefore judge them impartially, for I could not. And absolved her of any malicious intent. I believe that she executed the primipilus and pilus prior centurions, but that General Achillas stole the rest of them to stiffen the Egyptian army. The rankers, as she had promised, arrived in Antioch, where I have put them back under stern Roman military discipline. Queen Cleopatra had, at her own expense, hired extra ships and sent their wives, children and property too. After thinking about it, I decided that it would be wise to permit the Gabiniani to have their Egyptian families. I am not a sympathetic man, but my sons are dead, and I am no Lucullus. As to Rome, Cato, I think that it is futile to go on encouraging Curio in the Senate. The longer the battle there goes on, the greater will his reputation be outside the Senate. Including among the senior knights of the Eighteen, whose support we desperately need. Therefore I think the boni will be wiser to decree a postponement of the discussion about Caesar's provinces. For long enough to let the fickle memories of the Plebs and People forget how heroic Curio has been. Postpone discussion of Caesar's provinces until the Ides of November. Curio will resume his obstructive tactics and veto yet again, but a month after that date he goes out of office. And Caesar will never get another tribune of the plebs to equal Gaius Scribonius Curio. He will be stripped of everything in December, and we can send Lucius Ahenobarbus to relieve him immediately. All that Curio will have done for him is to postpone the inevitable. I don't fear Caesar. He's a highly constitutional man, not a natural outlaw like Sulla. I know you don't agree with me there, but I have been Gaius Caesar's colleague through aedile, praetor and consul, and though he has great courage, he is not comfortable without due process. Oh, I am feeling better. To have something to think about is some sort of anodyne for grief. And now I'm writing to you, I see you before my inner eyes, and I am comforted. But I must come home this year, Cato! I shiver in dread at the thought that the Senate might prorogue my command. Syria isn't lucky for me; nothing good will happen here. My spies say the Parthians are going to return in the summer, but if I get a replacement, I'll be gone before that. I must be gone! Little though I like or esteem him, I sympathize with Cicero, who goes through the same ordeal. Two more reluctant governors than Cicero and me would be hard to find. Though he at least has enjoyed enough of a campaign to earn himself twelve million from the sale of slaves. My side of our joint campaign in the Amanus ranges yielded six goats, ten sheep and a headache so bad I went completely blind. Cicero has let Pomptinus go home, and intends to leave on the last day of Quinctilis whether he has a successor or not, provided that he has received no letter proroguing him. I may well follow his example. For though I do not fear that Caesar aims at a monarchy, I want to be there in the Senate to make sure that he is not permitted to stand for the consulship next year in absentia. I want to be prosecuting him for maiestas, make no mistake about that. As Brutus's uncle and Servilia's yes, I know, half! brother, perhaps you ought to know one of the stories Cicero is busily scribbling home to Atticus, Caelius and the Gods know who else. You must know the ghastly Publius Vedius, a knight as rich as he is vulgar. Well, Cicero encountered him on the road in Cilicia somewhere at the head of a bizarre and trumpery parade which included two chariots, one containing a dog-faced baboon tricked out in woman's finery, both drawn by wild asses an absolute disgrace for Rome. Anyway, due to a series of events with which I will not weary you, Vedius's baggage was searched. And revealed the portraits of five extremely well known young Roman noblewomen, all married to some very haughty fellows. Including the wife of Manius Lepidus, and one of Brutus's sisters. I presume that Cicero means Junia Prima, Vatia Isauricus's wife, as Junia Secunda is married to Marcus Lepidus. Unless, of course, Vedius's taste runs to cuckolding the Aemilii Lepidi. I leave it to you what to do about this story, but I warn you that it will be all over Rome very soon. Perhaps you could speak to Brutus, and he could speak to Servilia? Best she knows. I do feel better. In fact, this is the first time that I have passed some hours without weeping. Will you break the news of my sons to those who must know? Their mother, my first Domitia. It will almost kill her. To both the Porcias, Ahenobarbus's wife and my wife. To Brutus. Look after yourself, Cato. I cannot wait to see your dear face.
5. Caesar Page 48
