5. Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  Fulvia had adjusted to life without Curio. Not happily, but adequately. Her three children by Publius Clodius were some years older than baby Curio: Publius Junior was now sixteen and would become a man at the festival of Juventas in December; Clodia was fourteen and had a head filled with dreams of husbands; and little Clodilla was eight, delightfully obsessed with baby Curio, who was now approaching a year in age and was walking and talking. She still kept up with Clodius's own two sisters, Clodia the widow of Metellus Celer, and Clodilla the divorced widow of Lucius Lucullus. Those two ladies had declined to marry again, preferring the freedom they enjoyed because they were wealthy and not in any man's custody. But to some extent Fulvia's interests became ever more divergent from Clodius's sisters'; she liked her children and she liked being married. Nor was she tempted to have affairs. Her best friend was not a woman. "At least," she grinned, "not in the anatomical sense." "I don't know why I put up with you, Fulvia," said Titus Pomponius Atticus, grinning back. "I'm a happily married man, and I have a delightful little daughter." "You needed an heir to all that money, Atticus." "Perhaps so." He sighed. "Bother these warring generals! I can't travel to Epirus with the freedom I used to have, nor do I dare show my nose in Athens, which is full of Pompeians of high birth strutting about obnoxiously." "But you maintain good relations with both sides." "True. However, lovely lady, it's more prudent for a rich man to rub noses with Caesar's adherents rather than Pompeius's. Pompeius is ravenous for money he asks anyone he thinks has any for a loan. And, candidly, I think Caesar's going to win. Therefore to be inveigled into lending Pompeius or his adherents money is tantamount to throwing it into the sea. Thus no Athens." "And no delicious boys." "I can live without them." "I know. I'm just sorry you have to." "So are they," said Atticus dryly. "I'm a generous lover." "Speaking of lovers," she said, "I miss Curio dreadfully." "Odd, that." "Odd, what?" "Men and women usually fall in love with the same kind of person every time. But you didn't. Publius Clodius and Curio are very different, in nature as well as looks." "Well, Atticus, that makes marriage an adventure. I missed being married very much after Clodius died, and Curio was always there. I never used to notice him as a man. But the more I looked, the more the differences between him and Clodius became interesting. The freckles, the homeliness. That awful mop of disobedient hair. The missing tooth. The thought of having a red-haired baby." "The way babies turn out has nothing to do with their sire," said Atticus thoughtfully. "I've come to the conclusion that their mothers force them in utero into whatever sort of baby they want." "Rubbish!" said Fulvia, chuckling. "No, it really isn't. If babies emerge a disappointment, that's because their mothers don't care enough to force. When my Pilia was pregnant with Attica, she was determined to produce a girl with tiny little ears. She didn't care about anything save the sex and those ears, though big ears run on both sides of the family. Yet Attica has tiny little ears. And she's a girl." These were the things the best friends spoke about; for Fulvia, a masculine view of feminine concerns, and for Atticus, a rarely accorded chance to be himself. They had no secrets from each other, nor any wish to impress each other. But the pleasure and inconsequence of that particular visit from Atticus was interrupted by Mark Antony, whose appearance inside the sacred boundary was so disturbing in itself that Fulvia paled at sight of him, began to shake. He looked very grim yet was curiously aimless couldn't sit, couldn't speak, looked anywhere except at Fulvia. Her hand went out to Atticus. "Antonius, tell me!" "It's Curio!" he blurted. "Oh, Fulvia, Curio is dead!" Her head seemed stuffed with wool, her lips parted, the dark blue eyes stared glassily. She got to her feet and went to her knees in the same movement, a reflex from somewhere outside; inside herself she couldn't assimilate it, couldn't believe it. Antony and Atticus lifted her, put her into a high-backed chair, chafed her nerveless hands. Her heart where was it going? Tripping, stumbling, booming, dying. No pain yet. That would come later. There were no words, no breath to scream, no power to run. Just the same as Clodius. Antony and Atticus looked at one another above her head. "What happened?" asked Atticus, trembling. "Juba and Varus led Curio into a trap. He'd been doing well, but only because they didn't want him to do otherwise. Curio's not a military man. They cut his army to pieces hardly any of his men survived. Curio died on the field. Fighting." "He's one man we couldn't afford to lose." Antony turned to Fulvia, stroked the hair from her brow and took her chin in one huge hand. "Fulvia, did you hear me?" "I don't want to hear," she said fretfully. "Yes, I know that. But you must." "Marcus, I loved him!" Oh, why was he here? Save that he had to come, imperium or no. The news had reached him and Lepidus by the same messenger; Lepidus had gone galloping out to Pompey's villa on the Campus Martius, where Antony, following Caesar's example, had taken up residence when in the vicinity of Rome. Curio's best friend since adolescence, Antony took his death very hard, wept for those old days and for what Curio might have become in Caesar's government. The fool, with his laurel-wreathed fasces! Going off so blithely. To Lepidus, a rival had been removed from his path. Ambition hadn't blinded him, it simply drove him. And Curio dead was a bonus. Unfortunately he didn't have the wit to hide his satisfaction from Antony, who, being Antony, dashed his tears away as soon as Lepidus arrived and swore that he would have his revenge on Attius Varus and King Juba; Lepidus interpreted this swift change in mood as lack of love for Curio on Antony's part, and spoke his mind. "A good thing if you ask me," he said with satisfaction. "How do you arrive at that conclusion?" asked Antony quietly. Lepidus shrugged, made a moue. "Curio was bought, therefore he wasn't to be trusted." "Your brother Paullus was bought too. Does that go for him?" "The circumstances were very different," said Lepidus stiffly. "You're right, they were. Curio gave value for Caesar's money. Paullus swallowed it up without gratitude or return service." "I didn't come here to quarrel, Antonius." "Just as well. You're not up to my weight, Lepidus." "I'll convene the Senate and give it the news." "Outside the pomerium, please. And I'll give it the news." "As you wish. I suppose that means I inherit the job of telling the ghastly Fulvia." Lepidus produced a smile. "Still, I don't mind. It will be an experience to break that kind of news to someone. Especially someone I dislike. It won't cause me any grief at all to do so." Antony got to his feet. "Ill tell Fulvia," he said. "You can't!" gasped Lepidus. "You can't enter the city!" "I can do whatever I like!" roared Antony, unleashing the lion. "Leave it to an icicle like you to tell her? I'd sooner be dead! That's a great woman!" "I must forbid it, Antonius. Your imperium!" Antony grinned. "What imperium, Lepidus? Caesar gave it to me without any authority to do so beyond his own confidence that one day he'll be able to make it real. Until he does until I receive my lex curiata I'll come and go as I please!" He'd always liked her, always thought her the final touch in Clodius's world. Sitting at the base of old Gaius Marius's statue after that terrific riot in the Forum lying on a couch, adding her mite to Clodius's machinations shrewdly tempering Clodius's craziness by playing on it not so much transferring her affections to Curio as willing herself to live and love again and the only woman in Rome who didn't have an unfaithful bone in her delectable body. The gall of Lepidus, to apostrophize her as "ghastly"! And he married to one of Servilia's brood! "Marcus, I loved him!" she repeated. "Yes, I know. He was a lucky man." The tears began to fall; Fulvia rocked. Torn with pity, Atticus drew up his chair closer and cradled her head against his chest. His eyes met Antony's; Antony relinquished her hand and her care to Atticus, and went away. Twice widowed in three years. For all her proud heritage and her strength, the granddaughter of Gaius Gracchus couldn't bear to look at a life suddenly emptied of purpose. Was this how Gaius Gracchus had felt in the grove of Lucina beneath the Janiculum eighty-two years ago? His programs toppled, his adherents dead, his enemies baying for his blood. Well, they hadn't got that. He killed himself. They had had to be satisfied with lopping off his head and refusing his body burial. "Help me die, Atticus!" she mourned. "And leave your children orphans? Is that all you think of Clodius? Of Curio? And what of little Curio?" "I wa
nt to die!" she moaned. "Just let me die!" "I can't, Fulvia. Death is the end of all things. You have children to live for."

  The Senate's comprising none but Caesar's adherents (or the careful neutrals like Philippus, Lucius Piso and Cotta) meant that it was no longer capable of opposing Caesar's wishes. Confident and persuasive, Lepidus went to work to fulfill Caesar's orders. "I do not like alluding to a time best forgotten," he said to that thin and apprehensive body, "beyond drawing your attention to the fact that Rome in the aftermath of the battle at the Colline Gate was utterly exhausted and completely incapable of governing. Lucius Cornelius Sulla was appointed Dictator for one reason: he represented Rome's only chance to recover. Things needed to be done which could not be done in an atmosphere of debate, of many different opinions on how they ought to be done. From time to time in the history of the Republic, it has been necessary to hand the welfare of this city and her empire into the care of one man alone. The Dictator. The strong man with Rome's best interests at heart. The pity of it is that our most recent experience of the Dictator was Sulla. Who did not step down at the end of the obligatory six months, nor respect the lives and property of his country's most influential citizens. He proscribed." The House listened gloomily, wondering how Lepidus thought he could ever persuade a tribal Assembly to ratify the decree he was clearly going to ask the Senate to hand down. Well, they were Caesar's men; they had no choice in it. But the tribal Assemblies were dominated by the knights, the very people whom Sulla had chosen for his proscription victims. "Caesar," said Lepidus in tones of absolute conviction, "is no Sulla. His only aim is to establish good government and heal the wounds of this disgraceful exodus, the disappearance of Gnaeus Pompeius and his tame senators. Business is languishing, economic affairs are a shambles, both debtors and creditors are suffering. Consider the career of Gaius Caesar, and you will realize that this is no bigoted fool, no partisan preferrer. What has to be done, he will do. In the only way possible by being appointed Dictator. It is not without precedent that I, a mere praetor, ask for this decree. As you well know. But we need elections, we need stability, we need that strong hand. Not my hand, Conscript Fathers! I do not so presume. We need to appoint Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator of Rome." He got his decree without difficulty, and took it to the Popular Assembly, which was the whole People gathered in its tribes, patricians as well as plebeians. He ought perhaps to have gone to the whole People in its Centuries, but the Centuriate Assembly was far too weighted in favor of the knights. Those who would oppose the appointment of a dictator most bitterly. The move was very carefully timed; it was early September, and Rome was filled with country visitors in town for the games, the ludi Romani. Both the curule aediles, responsible for staging the games, had fled to Pompey. Nothing daunted, Lepidus as temporary ruler of the city appointed two senators to take their place for the purpose of the games, and funded them from Caesar's private moneys. Harping on the fact that the absent curule aediles had abrogated their duty to honor Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and that Caesar had stepped into the breach. When there were sufficient country people in Rome, a tribal Assembly could not be manipulated by the First Class of voters; rural voters, despite their reasonable prosperity, tended to want the men whose names they knew and the thirty-one rural tribes constituted a massive majority. Pompey had done himself no good in their eyes by speaking openly of proscriptions Italia-wide, whereas Caesar had behaved with clemency and great affection for country people. They liked Caesar. They believed in Caesar. And they voted in the Popular Assembly to appoint Caesar the Dictator of Rome. "Don't be alarmed," said Atticus to his fellow plutocrats. "Caesar is a conservative man, not a radical. He won't cancel debts and he won't proscribe. Wait and see."

  At the end of October, Caesar arrived in Placentia with his army, secure in the knowledge that he was now Dictator. The governor of Italian Gaul, Marcus Crassus Junior, met him there. "All's well, save for Gaius Antonius's fiasco in Illyricum," said Crassus, and sighed. "I wish I could say that was a freak mischance, but I can't. Why on earth he chose to base himself on an island, I don't know. And the local people were so supportive! They adore you, therefore any legate of yours has to be worthwhile. Would you believe that a group of them built a raft and tried to help fend Octavius's fleet off? They hadn't anything beyond spears and stones no ballistae, no catapultae. All day they took what Octavius threw at them. When night came, they committed suicide rather than fall into enemy hands." Caesar and his legates listened grimly. "I wish," said Caesar savagely, "that we Romans didn't hold the family in such reverence! I knew Gaius Antonius would manage to stuff up whatever command I gave him! The pity of it is that wherever I sent him, things would have gone the same way. Well, I can bear losing him. Curio is a tragedy." "We've lost Africa, certainly," said Trebonius. "And will have to do without Africa until Pompeius is beaten." "His navy is going to be a nuisance, I predict," said Fabius. "Yes," said Caesar, tight-lipped. "It's time Rome admitted that the best ships are all built at the eastern end of Our Sea. Where Pompeius is obtaining his fleets, while we're at the mercy of Italians and Spaniards. I took every ship Ahenobarbus left behind at Massilia, but the Massiliotes don't build much better than the shipyards in Narbo, Genua and Pisae. Or Novum Carthago." "The Liburnians of Illyricum build a beautiful little galley," said Crassus. "Very fast." "I know. Unfortunately they've done it in the past to equip pirates; it's not a well-organized industry." Caesar shrugged. "Well, we shall see. At least we're aware of our deficiencies." He looked at Marcus Crassus enquiringly. "What of preparations to give all Italian Gauls the full citizenship?" "Just about done, Caesar. I appreciate your sending me Lucius Rubrius. He conducted a brilliant census." "Will I be able to legislate it when I'm next in Rome?" "Give us another month, and yes." "That's excellent, Crassus. I've put my Lucius Roscius onto the Roman end, which means I ought to be able to have the whole matter finished by the end of the year. They've waited since the Italian War for their citizenships, and it's twenty years since I first gave them my word that I'd enfranchise them. Yes, high time."

  There were eight legions encamped around Placentia the new Sixth, the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth. The bulk of Caesar's Gallic army. The men of the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth had been under the Eagles now for ten years, and were at the peak of their fighting ability; in age they were between twenty-seven and twenty-eight, and had been enlisted in Italian Gaul. The Eleventh and Twelfth were a little younger, and the Thirteenth, whose men were only twenty-one years old, was a mere baby by comparison. The Sixth, recruited earlier in this year and still unblooded, was a legion of shavelings looking very forward to some real fighting. As Caesar had remarked to Gaius Trebonius, his was an army composed of Italian Gauls, many of whom were from the far side of the Padus. Well, shortly these men could no longer be dismissed as non-citizens by certain senatorial fools. Recruitment was flourishing as Italian Gaul across the Padus realized that its forty-year battle to attain the full citizenship was over, and Caesar was its hero. He wanted twelve legions to take east to fight Pompey; Mamurra, Ventidius and their staff had labored to achieve Caesar's figure, and informed him when he reached Placentia that there would indeed be a Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth by the time he was ready to ship them to Brundisium. Serene in the knowledge that his veteran troops belonged to him completely, Caesar went about the business of a governor. He paid a special visit to his colony at Novum Comum, where Marcus Marcellus had ordered a citizen flogged two years before, and personally paid the man compensation at a public meeting in the town marketplace. From there he visited the people of Marius's old colony at Eporedia, dropped in to see how things were at the big and thriving town of Cremona, and toyed with the idea of going further east along the foothills of the Alps to give out the news of impending citizenship. This was a great coup, for it meant that the large population still disenfranchised in Italian Gaul would, when citizens, come into his clientship. A courier came from Gaius Trebonius in Placentia, demandi
ng that Caesar return there immediately. "Trouble," said Trebonius curtly when Caesar arrived. "What kind of trouble?" "The Ninth is disaffected." For the first time in their long association, Trebonius saw the General bereft of words, stunned. "It can't be," he said slowly. "Not my boys!" "I'm afraid it is." "Why?" "I'd rather they told you. There's a deputation coming here this afternoon." It consisted of the Ninth's senior centurions, and was led by the chief centurion of the Seventh Cohort, one Quintus Carfulenus. A Picentine, not an Italian Gaul. Perhaps, thought Caesar, face flinty, Carfulenus was in the clientele of Pompey. If so, he gave no sign of it. The General received the men, ten in all, clad in full armor and seated in his curule chair; on his head he wore a chaplet of oak leaves to remind them but how could the Ninth forget? that he too was no mean soldier in the front line. "What is this?" he asked. "We're fed up," said Carfulenus. Caesar looked not at Carfulenus but at his primipilus centurion, Sextus Cloatius, and his pilus prior centurion, Lucius Aponius. Two good men, yet very ill at ease; Carfulenus, a hard-bitten man of forty, was ten years their senior in age. Not satisfactory, thought Caesar, seeing an unsuspected problem for the first time. He would have to order his legates to examine the pecking order in their legions' centurions. Quintus Carfulenus, a senior man yet eleven grades junior to Cloatius and Aponius, was the dominant influence in this legion, under the command of Sulpicius Rufus. Behind Caesar's set face and cold eyes a turmoil seethed; of grief, awful anger, incredulity. He had never believed this could happen to him never believed for one moment that any of his beloved boys would cease to love him, plot to bring him down. Not a humbling experience, to find that his confidence had been misplaced; rather a disillusionment of huge proportions, in the wake of which roared an iron determination to reverse the process, to make the Ninth his again, to strike Carfulenus and any who genuinely felt as he did down to the dust. Literally, dust. Dead. "What are you fed up with, Carfulenus?" he asked. "This war. Or better say, this non-war. No fighting worth a lead denarius. I mean, that's what soldiering is all about. The fighting. The plunder. But so far all we've done is march until we drop, freeze in wet tents, and go hungry." "You've done that for years in Gallia Comata." "Why, that's exactly the point, General. We've done it for years in Gallia Comata. And that war's over. Been over for near two years. But where's the triumph, eh? When are we going to march in your triumph? When are we going to be discharged to a nice little plot of good land with our share of the spoils in our own purses and our legion savings accounts cashed in?" "Do you doubt my word that you'll march in my triumph?" Carfulenus drew a breath; he was truculent and on his guard, but not quite sure of himself. "Yes, General, we do." "And what leads you to that conclusion?" "We think you're deliberately stalling, General. We think you're trying to wriggle out of paying us our due. That you're going to take us to the other end of the world and leave us there. This civil war is a farce. We don't believe it's real." Caesar stretched his legs out and looked at his feet, no expression on his face. Then the unsettling eyes came up and stared into the eyes of Carfulenus, who moved uncomfortably; they shifted to Cloatius, who looked agonized, then to Aponius, clearly wishing he was somewhere else, and slowly, horribly, at each of the other seven men. "What are you going to do if I tell you that you're marching for Brundisium within a few days?" "Simple," said Carfulenus, gaining assurance. "We won't go to Brundisium. The Ninth won't march a step. We want to be paid out and discharged here in Placentia, and we'd like our land around Verona. Though I want my piece in Picenum." "Thank you for your time, Carfulenus, Cloatius, Aponius, Munatius, Considius, Apicius, Scaptius, Vettius, Minicius, Pusio," said Caesar, demonstrating that he knew the name of every member of the delegation. He didn't rise; he nodded. "You may go." Trebonius and Sulpicius, who had witnessed this extraordinary interview, stood without a word to say, sensing the gathering of some terrible storm but unable to divine the form it was going to take. Odd, that such control, such lack of emotion, could give off emanations of impending doom. Caesar was angry, yes. But he was also shattered. And that never happened to Caesar. How would he cope with it? What might he do? "Trebonius, summon the Ninth to an assembly on, the parade ground at dawn tomorrow. Have the First Cohort of every other legion present as well. I want my whole army to participate in this affair, even if only as onlookers," said Caesar. He looked at Sulpicius. "Rufus, there's something very wrong with a legion whose two most senior centurions are dominated by a man of lower rank. Take the military tribunes who are liked by the rankers and start investigating who in the Ninth among the centurions has the gumption and the natural authority to fulfill the proper roles of primipilus and pilus prior. Cloatius and Aponius are nothings." It became Trebonius's turn again. "Gaius, the legates in command of my other legions will have to undertake the same sort of investigation. Look for troublemakers. Look for centurions who are dominating more senior men. I want the army swept from top to tail." At dawn the five thousand-odd men of the Ninth Legion were joined on the parade ground by the six hundred men of the First Cohort of seven other legions, a total of four thousand two hundred extra men. To speak to ten thousand men was feasible, particularly for Caesar, who had worked out his technique while campaigning in Further Spain as propraetor thirteen years ago. Specially chosen clerks with stentorian voices were positioned at intervals through the assembled soldiers. Those close enough to hear Caesar repeated what he said three words behind him; the next wave repeated what they heard, and so on through the crowd. Few speakers could do it, for the shouted repeats formed a colossal echo and made it extremely difficult to keep going against what had already been said. By making his mind tune the echoes out, Caesar could do it. The Ninth was apprehensive yet determined. When Caesar mounted the dais in full armor he scanned the faces, which didn't blur with distance; his eyes, thank the Gods, were still keen both near and far. A thought popped into his head having nothing to do with legionary discontent: what were Pompeius's eyes like these days? Sulla's eyes had gone, and made him mighty touchy. Things happened to eyes in middle age look at Cicero. Though he had often wept at assemblies, today there were no tears. The General stood with feet apart and hands by his sides, his corona civica on his head, the scarlet cloak of his high estate attached to the shoulders of his beautifully worked silver cuirass. No helmet. His legates stood to either side of him on the dais, his military tribunes in two groups on either side below the dais. "I am here to rectify a disgrace," he cried in the high, carrying voice he had found went further than his naturally deep tones. "One of my legions is mutinous. You see it here in its entirety, representatives of my other legions. The Ninth." No one murmured in surprise; word got round, even when men were quartered in different camps. "The Ninth! Veterans of the whole war in Gallia Comata, a legion whose standards groan with the weight of awards for valor, whose Eagle has been wreathed with laurel a dozen times, whose men I have always called my boys. But the Ninth has mutinied. Its men are no longer my boys. They are rabble, stirred and turned against me by demagogues in the guise of centurions. Centurions! What would those two magnificent centurions Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus call these shabby men who have replaced them at the head of the Ninth?" Caesar's right hand went out, pointed close by. "See them, men of the Ninth? Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus! Gone to the honorable duty of training other centurions here in Placentia, but present today to weep at their old legion's dishonor. See their tears? They weep for you! But I cannot. I am too filled with contempt, too consumed by anger. The Ninth has broken my perfect record; I can no longer say no legion of mine has ever mutinied." He didn't move. The hands remained by his sides. "Representatives of my other legions, I have called you together to witness what I will do to the men of the Ninth. They have informed me that they will not move from Placentia, that they wish to be discharged here and now, paid out and paid up, including their share of the spoils of a nine-year war. Well, they can have their discharge but it will not be an honorable one! Their share of the spoils of that nine-year war will be divided up among my faithful legions.
They will have no land, and I will strip every last one of them of his citizenship! I am the Dictator of Rome. My imperium outranks the imperium of the consuls, of the governors. But I am no Sulla. I will not abuse the power inherent in the dictatorship. What I do here today is not an abuse of that power. It is the just and rational decision of a commander-in-chief whose soldiers have mutinied. "I tolerate much. I don't care if my legionaries stink of perfume and ram each other up the arse, provided they fight like wildcats and remain utterly loyal to me! But the men of the Ninth are disloyal. The men of the Ninth have accused me of deliberately cheating them of their entitlements. Accused me! Gaius Julius Caesar! Their commander-in-chief for ten long years! My word isn't good enough for the Ninth! The Ninth has mutinied!" His voice swelled; he roared, something he never did in a soldier assembly. "I WILL NOT TOLERATE MUTINY! Do you hear me? I WILL NOT TOLERATE MUTINY! Mutiny is the worst crime soldiers can commit! Mutiny is high treason! And I will treat the mutiny of the Ninth as high treason! I will strip its men of their rights, their entitlements, and their citizenships! And I will decimate!" He waited then until the last of the echoing voices died away. No one made a sound, save for Pullo and Vorenus, weeping. Every eye was riveted on Caesar. "How could you?" he cried then to the Ninth. "Oh, you have no idea how profoundly I have thanked all of our Gods that Quintus Cicero is not here today! But this isn't his legion these men can't be the same men who held off fifty thousand Nervii for over thirty days, who all bore wounds, who all sickened, who all watched their food and baggage go up in flames AND WHO SOLDIERED ON! No, these aren't the same men! These men are puling, avaricious, mean, unworthy! I won't call men like these my boys! I don't want them!" Both hands went out. "How could you? How could you believe the men who whispered among you? What have I ever done to deserve this? When you were hungry, did I eat better? When you were cold, did I sleep warm? When you were afraid, did I deride you? When you needed me, wasn't I there? When I gave you my word, did I ever go back on it? What have I done? What have I done?" The hands shook, clenched. "Who are these men among you, that you believe them before you believe me? What laurels are on their brows that I have not worn? Are they the champions of Mars? Are they greater men than I? Have they served you better than I? Have they enriched you more than I? No, you haven't had your share of the triumphal spoils yet nor has any other among my legions! But you've had much from me despite that cash bonuses I found out of my own purse! I doubled your pay! Is your pay in arrears? No, it is not! Haven't I compensated you for the lack of booty a civil war forbids? What have I done?" The hands fell. "The answer is, Ninth, that I have done nothing to merit a mutiny, even were mutiny an accepted prerogative. But mutiny is not an accepted prerogative. Mutiny is high treason, were I the stingiest, crudest commander-in-chief in the entire history of Rome! You have spat on me. I do not dignify you by spitting back. I simply call you unworthy to be my boys!" A voice rang out: Sextus Cloatius, tears streaming down his face. "Caesar, Caesar, don't!" he wailed, walking out of the front rank and up to the dais. "I can bear the discharge. I can bear the loss of money. I can bear being decimated if the lot falls on me. But I can't bear not to be one of your boys!" Out they came, all of the ten men who had formed the Ninth's deputation, weeping, begging forgiveness, offering to die if only Caesar would call them his boys, accord them the old respect. The grief spread; the rankers sobbed and moaned. Genuine, heartfelt. They're such children! thought Caesar, listening. Swayed by fair words out of foul mouths. Gulled like Apulians in congress with charlatans. Children. Brave, hard, sometimes cruel. But not men in the true sense of that word. Children. He let them have their tears. "Very well," he said then, "I won't discharge you. I won't deem you all guilty of high treason. But there are terms. I want the one hundred and twenty ringleaders in this mutiny. They will all be discharged, they will all forfeit their citizenship. And I will decimate them, which means twelve of them will die in the traditional way. Produce them now." Eighty of them constituted Carfulenus's entire century, the first of the Seventh Cohort; the other forty included Carfulenus's centurion friends. And Cloatius and Aponius. The lots to choose the twelve men who would die had been rigged; Sulpicius Rufus had made his own enquiries as to the true ringleaders. One of whom, the centurion Marcus Pusio, was not among the one hundred and twenty men the Ninth indicated. "Is there any innocent man here?" asked Caesar. "Yes!" cried a voice from the depths of the Ninth. "His centurion, Marcus Pusio, nominated him. But Pusio is guilty!" "Step out, soldier," said Caesar. The innocent man stepped out. "Pusio, take his place." Carfulenus, Pusio, Apicius and Scaptius drew death lots; the other eight doomed men were all rankers, but heavily implicated. The sentences were carried out immediately. In each decury of the nominated men, the nine whom the lots let live were given cudgels and ordered to beat the owner of the death lot until he was unrecognizable pulp. "Good," said Caesar when it was over. But it wasn't good. He could never again say that his troops were innocent of mutiny. "Rufus, have you a revised list of centurion seniority for me?" "Yes, Caesar." "Then restructure your legion accordingly. I've lost over twenty of the Ninth's centurions today." "I'm glad we didn't have to lose the whole Ninth," said Gaius Fabius, sighing. "What an awful business!" "One really bad man," said Trebonius, sad face sadder. "If it hadn't been for Carfulenus, I doubt it would have happened." "Perhaps so," said Caesar, voice hard, "but it did happen. I will never forgive the Ninth." "Caesar, they're not all bad!" said Fabius, perturbed. "No, they're simply children. Yet why do people expect that children must be forgiven? They're not animals, they're members of the gens humana. Therefore they ought to be able to think for themselves. I will never forgive the Ninth. As they will discover when this civil war is over and I do discharge them. They won't get land in Italia or Italian Gaul. They can go to a colony near Narbo." He nodded dismissal. Fabius and Trebonius walked to their own quarters together, very quiet at first. Finally, from Fabius: "Trebonius, is it my imagination, or is Caesar changing?" "Hardening, you mean?" "I'm not sure that's the right word. Perhaps ... yes, more conscious of his specialness. Does that make sense?" "Definitely." "Why?" "Oh, the march of events," said Trebonius. "They'd have broken a lesser man. What's held him together is that he's never doubted himself. But the mutiny of the Ninth has fractured something in him. He never dreamed of it. He didn't think it could ever, ever happen to him. In many ways, I think a worse Rubicon for Caesar than that piddling river." "He still believes in himself." "He'll still believe in himself while he's dying," said Gaius Trebonius. "It's just that today tarnished his idea of himself. Caesar wants perfection. Nothing must diminish him." "He asks with increasing frequency why no one will believe he can win this war," said Fabius, frowning. "Because he's getting angrier at the foolishness of other people. Imagine, Fabius, what it must be like to know that there is no one in your league! Caesar knows. He can do anything! He's proven it too many times to enumerate. All he really wants is to be acknowledged for what he is. Yet it doesn't happen. He gets opposition, not recognition. This is a war to prove to other people what you and I and Caesar already know. He's turned fifty, and he's still battling for what he considers his due. Little wonder, I think, that he's growing thin-skinned."