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Halfway through May the Senate voted to postpone any discussion of Caesar's provinces until the Ides of November. Cato's lobbying had succeeded, though, not surprisingly, persuasion of his closest adherents proved hardest; Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus wept, Marcus Favonius howled. Only letters from Bibulus to each of them had finally reconciled them to it. "Oh, good!" said Curio gleefully in the House after the vote. "I can have a few months off. But don't think that I won't be interposing my veto again on the Ides of November, because I will." "Veto away, Gaius Curio!" brayed Cato, the fabulous aura of his scandalous remarriage endowing him with considerable glamour. "You'll be out of office shortly after that, and Caesar will fall." "Someone else will take my place," said Curio jauntily. "But not like you" was Cato's rejoinder. "Caesar will never find another like you." Perhaps Caesar would not, but his envisioned replacement for Curio was hurrying from Gaul to Rome. The death of Hortensius had created a gap in more than the ranks of the great advocates; he had also been an augur, which meant that his spot in the College of Augurs was up for election. And Ahenobarbus was going to try again, determined that he would put his family back into the most exclusive club in Rome, the priestly colleges. Priest or augur did not matter, though priest would have been more satisfactory for one whose grandfather had been Pontifex Maximus and brought in the law which required public election for priests and augurs. Only candidates for consul and praetor were compelled to register in person inside the sacred boundary of Rome; for all other magistracies, including the religious ones, in absentia candidacy could be obtained. Thus Caesar's envisioned replacement for Curio as tribune of the plebs, hurrying from Gaul, sent ahead and registered as a candidate for the vacant augurship of Quintus Hortensius. The election was held before he reached Rome, and he won. Ahenobarbus's very vocal chagrin when he was defeated yet again seemed likely to inspire the writing of several epic poems. "Marcus Antonius!" sniffled Ahenobarbus, his shiny hairless pate rucked into wrinkles by his writhing fingers. Rage was not possible; he had passed beyond it into despair at the last augural election, when Cicero had beaten him. "Marcus Antonius! I thought Cicero was as low as the electors could get, but Marcus Antonius! That oaf, that lecher, that brainless bully-boy brat! Rome is littered with his bastards! A cretin who vomits in public! His father committed suicide rather than come home to face his trial for treason; his uncle tortured free Greek men, women and children; his sister was so ugly they had to marry her to a cripple; his mother is undoubtedly the silliest female alive even if she is a Julia; and his two younger brothers differ from Antonius only in having even less intelligence!" Ahenobarbus's auditor was Marcus Favonius; Cato seemed to spend every spare moment at home with Marcia these days, Metellus Scipio was off in Campania dancing attendance on Pompey, and the boni lesser lights were all thronging admiringly around the Marcelli. "Do cheer up, Lucius Domitius," Favonius soothed. "Everyone knows why you lost. Caesar bought Antonius the post." "Caesar didn't spend half the money I did on bribing," Ahenobarbus moaned, hiccuping. Then it came out. "I lost because I'm bald, Favonius! If I had one single strand of hair somewhere on my head it would be all right, but here I am, only forty-seven years old, and I've been as bare as a baboon's arse since I turned twenty-five! Children point and giggle and call me Egghead, women lift their lips in revulsion, and every man in Rome thinks I'm too decrepit to be worth voting for!" "Oh, tch tch tch," clucked Favonius helplessly. He thought of something. "Caesar's bald, but he doesn't have any trouble." "He's not bald!" cried Ahenobarbus. "He's still got enough hair to comb forward and cover his scalp, so he's not bald!" He ground his teeth. "He's also obliged by law to wear his Civic Crown on all public occasions, and it holds his hair in place." At which point Ahenobarbus's wife marched in. She was that Porcia who was Cato's older full sister, and she was short, plump, sandy-haired and freckled. They had been married early and the union had proven a very happy one; the children had come along at regular intervals, two sons and four daughters, but luckily Lucius Ahenobarbus was so rich the number of sons whose careers he had to finance and daughters he had to dower was immaterial. They had, besides, adopted one son out to an Attilius Serranus. Porcia looked, crooned, shot Favonius a glance of sympathy, and pulled Ahenobarbus's despised head against her stomach, patting his back. "My dear, stop mourning," she said. "For what reason I do not know, the electors of Rome decided years ago that they were not going to put you in a priestly college. It has nothing to do with your lack of hair. If it did, they wouldn't have voted you in as consul. Concentrate your efforts on getting our son Gnaeus elected to the priestly colleges. He's a very nice person, and the electors like him. Now stop carrying on, there's a good boy." "But Marcus Antonius!" he groaned. "Marcus Antonius is a public idol, a phenomenon of the same kind as a gladiator." She shrugged, rolling her hand around her husband's back like a mother with a colicky baby. "He's not like Caesar in ability, but he is like Caesar when it comes to charming the crowds. People like to vote for him, that's all." "Porcia's right, Lucius Domitius," said Favonius. "Of course I'm right." "Then tell me why Antonius bothered to come to Rome? He was returned in absentia."
Ahenobarbus's plaintive question was answered a few days later when Mark Antony, newly created augur, announced that he would stand for election as a tribune of the plebs. "The boni are not impressed," said Curio, grinning. For a creature who always looked magnificently well, Antony was looking, thought Curio, even more magnificently well. Life with Caesar had done him good, including Caesar's ban on wine. Rarely had Rome produced a specimen to equal him, with his height, his strongman's physique, his awesomely huge genital equipment, and his air of unquenchable optimism. People looked at him and liked him in a way they never had Caesar. Perhaps, thought Curio cynically, because he radiated masculinity without owning beauty of face. Like Sulla's, Caesar's charms were more epicene; if they were not, that ancient canard about Caesar's affair with King Nicomedes would not be so frequently trotted out, though no one could point to any suspect sexual activity since, and King Nicomedes rested on the testimony of two men who loathed Caesar, the dead Lucullus and the very much alive Bibulus. Whereas Antony, who used to give Curio lascivious kisses in public, was never for one moment apostrophized as homosexual. "I didn't expect the boni to be impressed," said Antony, "but Caesar thinks I'll do very well as tribune of the plebs, even when that means I have to follow you." "I agree with Caesar," answered Curio. "And, whether you like it or not, my dear Antonius, you are going to pay attention and learn during the next few months. I'm going to coach you to counter the boni." Fulvia, very pregnant, was lying next to Curio on a couch. Antony, who owned great loyalty to his friends, had known her for many years and esteemed her greatly. She was fierce, devoted, intelligent, supportive. Though Publius Clodius had been the love of her youth, she seemed to have transferred her affections to the very different Curio most successfully. Unlike most of the women Antony knew, Fulvia bestowed love for other than nest-making reasons. One could be sure of her love only by being brave, brilliant and a force in politics. As Clodius had been. As Curio was proving to be. Not unexpected, perhaps, in the granddaughter of Gaius Gracchus. Nor in a creature so full of fire. She was still very beautiful, though she was now into her thirties. And clearly as fruitful as ever: four children by Clodius, now one by Curio. Why was it that in a city whose aristocratic women were so prone to die in the childbed, Fulvia popped out babies without turning a hair? She destroyed so many of the theories, for her blood was immensely old and noble, her genealogy much intermarried. Scipio Africanus, Aemilius Paullus, Semprordus Gracchus, Fulvius Flaccus. Yet she was a baby manufactory. "When's the sprog due?" asked Antony. "Soon," said Fulvia, reaching out to ruffle Curio's hair. She smiled at Antony demurely. "We er anticipated our legal conjoining." "Why didn't you get married sooner?" "Ask Curio," she yawned. "I wanted to be clear of debt before I married an extremely rich woman." Antony looked shocked. "Curio, I never have understood you! Why should that worry you?" "Because," said a new voice cheerfu
lly, "Curio isn't like the rest of us impoverished fellows." "Dolabella! Come in, come in!" cried Curio. "Shift over, Antonius." Publius Cornelius Dolabella, patrician pauper, eased himself down onto the couch beside Antony and accepted the beaker of wine Curio poured and watered. "Congratulations, Antonius," he said. They were, thought Curio, very much the same kind of man, at least physically. Like Antony, Dolabella was tall and owned both a superb physique and unassailable masculinity, though Curio thought he probably had the better intellect, if only because he lacked Antony's intemperance. He was also much handsomer than Antony; his blood relationship to Fulvia was apparent in their features and in their coloring pale brown hair, black brows and lashes, dark blue eyes. Dolabella's financial position was so precarious that only a fortuitous marriage had permitted him to enter the Senate two years earlier; at Clodius's instigation, he had wooed and won the retired Chief Vestal Virgin, Fabia, who was the half sister of Cicero's wife, Terentia. The marriage hadn't lasted long, but Dolabella came out of it still legally possessed of Fabia's huge dowry and still possessed of the affections of Cicero's wife, who blamed Fabia for the disintegration of the marriage. "Did I hear right, Dolabella, when my ears picked up a rumor that you're paying a lot of attention to Cicero's daughter?" asked Fulvia, munching an apple. Dolabella looked rueful. "I see the grapevine is as efficient as ever," he said. "So you are courting Tullia?" "Trying not to, actually. The trouble is that I'm in love with her." "With Tullia?" "I can understand that," said Antony unexpectedly. "I know we all laugh at Cicero's antics, but not his worst enemy could dismiss the wit or the mind. And I noticed Tullia years ago, when she was married to the first one ah Piso Frugi. Very pretty and sparkly. Seemed as if she might be fun." "She is fun," said Dolabella gloomily. "Only," said Curio with mock seriousness, "with Terentia for a mother, what might Tullia's children look like?" They all roared with laughter, but Dolabella definitely did appear to be a man deeply in love. "Just make sure you get a decent dowry out of Cicero" was Antony's last word on the subject. "He might complain that he's a poor man, but all he suffers from is shortage of cash. He owns some of the best property in Italia. And Terentia even more."
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