‘What about this, father-in-law?’ Davus held up the other jar, now brimming with golden oil.
‘We’ll offer it to Minerva.’ It seemed a logical solution. If the oil was what it was purported to be, it was of the highest quality and fit for an offering to the goddess. If it was what Davus feared, it could do no harm to a goddess made of bronze. I took the jar from Davus and set it on the pedestal at her feet.
‘Accept this offering and grant us wisdom,’ I whispered. It couldn’t hurt.
The jar which had originally held the oil, now empty, I placed on the paving stone beside my chair. I sat and closed my eyes, letting the warm sunlight of Aprilis warm my face. My thoughts wandered. I dozed.
Suddenly I was wide awake.
I went to my study. Among the scrolls in my pigeonhole bookcase I located the memoirs of the dictator Sulla. I scrolled past political scandals, slaughters, looted cities, visits to oracles, homages to favourite actors, sexual braggadocio, and finally found the passage I was looking for:
A military commander and political leader must often resort to sending secret messages. I credit myself with having invented a few clever methods of my own.
Once, when I needed to send secret orders to a confederate, I took the urinary bladder of a pig, inflated it stoutly, and let it dry that way. While it was still inflated, I wrote upon it with encaustic ink. After the ink was dry, I deflated the bladder and inserted it into a jar, then filled the jar with oil, which reinflated the bladder within. I sealed the jar and sent it as if it were a culinary gift to the recipient, who knew beforehand to open and empty the jar in private, then break the jar to retrieve the bladder, upon which the message remained perfectly intact.
I dimly recollected having read the passage long ago. I had no recollection of ever having discussed it with Meto, but I presumed he had read every volume in my small library. Besides that, Sulla’s autobiography was exactly the sort of thing that Caesar would have pored over while composing his own memoirs and dictating them to Meto. The fact that the jar was manufactured in Massilia could hardly be a coincidence.
I returned to the garden. Minerva seemed to smile down sardonically as I struck the jar against the paving stones. It broke neatly in two and fell apart. The bladder within held the shape of the jar. I carefully unwrinkled the creases, then fully inflated it with my breath. The glistening coating of oil made the tiny wax letters appear still warm and pliant, as if Meto had just painted them. The message began at the top of the bladder and wound around it in a spiral. I turned it slowly as I read:
Papa, after you read this message, destroy it at once. I should not be writing to you at all, but I cannot let you go on believing a lie; the truth has always mattered so much to you. I have always been loyal to C. I still am, no matter what you may hear. The plot against C’s life was a fiction. The documents which N obtained were false, contrived with C’s knowledge and at his behest. They were deliberately passed to N through an intermediary whom N trusted. The intent was for N to pass them on to P, believing them to be genuine, so as to convince P that I and some others were hostile to C and could be suborned by the opposition. Thus we could infiltrate the enemy’s higher circles. But instead of passing them on to P, N decided to use them for his own purpose. I never foresaw that he would blackmail you and draw you into the deceit. When I think of what you did, meaning to protect me, I feel hot with shame. I know how deeply that act went against your nature. Yet your confession to P of my part in the fictitious plot may have done more to convince him of my disloyalty to C than my original scheme would have done. Thanks to you, my mission is at last feasible. Excuse these crude sentences. I write in haste. For my sake, destroy this message at once.
There was a crowded postscript added in a corner, in letters so small it made my eyes ache to read them:
The night before C crossed the Rubicon, he dreamed that he committed incest with his mother. I think the dream was a message from the gods: to pursue his destiny, he would be compelled to commit terrible acts of impiety. He chose destiny over conscience. So it is with me, Papa. To follow my duty, I dishonoured the man who freed me from slavery and made me his son. I kept secrets from you. I let you believe a lie. I am an impious son. But I made a choice, as C did, and once the Rubicon is crossed, there can be no turning back. Forgive me, Papa.
I read the entire message again, slowly, to be sure I understood it. Then I took it to the brazier in my study. The burning oil and pig’s flesh gave off a smell that reminded me of Brundisium.
The crime I committed, thinking to save my son, had actually served to thwart his secret plans.
The confession I made to Pompey, thinking to cleanse my own conscience, had actually served to let Meto proceed with his scheme.
The world believed my son had fled to Massilia as a traitor to Caesar. In fact, he was Caesar’s spy, now deep in the enemy’s camp. Was his peril less than I had thought, or greater?
I returned to the garden. I sat and gazed at Minerva. I had prayed for wisdom and received it. But instead of making things simpler, each new piece of knowledge only made the world more mystifying.
From the front of the house, I heard the sounds of Bethesda and Diana returning from the fish market. I called their names. A moment later they appeared in the garden.
‘Daughter, bring Davus. Wife, send for Eco. It’s time for this family to have a meeting. It’s time for me to tell my family . . . the truth.’
Aprilis passed. The month of Maius brought clear skies and mild sunshine. Trees came into leaf. Weeds sprang up and wildflowers bloomed amid gaps in the paving stones. The coming of spring brought a sense of relief, however illusory, from the dreadful uncertainties of war.
From Gaul came word that Massilia had closed her gates to Caesar, who left behind officers to mount a siege while he pressed on to Spain. Old soldiers in the Forum argued over how long the siege would last. The Massilians were stubborn, fiercely proud people. Some thought they could easily fend off any army for however long it took for reinforcements to arrive from Pompey. Others argued that Fortune was with Caesar, and the siege would be over in a matter of days rather than months. Could the Massilians expect the same clemency Caesar had shown in Italy, or would the city be levelled, its defenders slaughtered, and its people sold into slavery? I tried not to imagine what might happen to a spy discovered in such desperate circumstances, or mistaken for the enemy by his own side.
One morning as I headed down the Ramp with Mopsus and Androcles, the sheer perfection of the spring day banished all gloomy thoughts. My spirits rose on a zephyr of warm, sun-drenched air. On a sudden whim, I decided to tend to a task I had been putting off ever since my return.
We walked straight through the Forum without pausing. I wanted no rumours of catastrophe to spoil my mood. The daily dose of fear and mayhem could wait for another hour.
The boys didn’t ask where we were going. They didn’t care. To be out and about in the city on such a glorious morning was its own reward. Vendors hawked their wares. Slaves carried baskets to market. Matrons flung open their shutters to let in the mild, sweet air of spring.
We came to the Carinae district on the lower slopes of the Esquiline Hill, and walked down the quiet street to the blue and yellow house where Maecia lived. The black wreath of mourning still hung on the door. My buoyant mood faltered, but I took a deep breath and gave the door a few polite knocks with the side of my foot.
An eye peered at us through the peephole. Before I had time to state my name, the door swung open.
Mopsus and Androcles emitted squeals of delight. The noise startled me almost as much as the sight of Cicatrix abruptly towering over me.
My heart raced. I braced myself for one last joke from the gods. Had I unwittingly, on a perfect spring morning, delivered myself to Nemesis in the form of one of Pompey’s trained killers? But the thought was irrational, a guilty reflex at the sight of the black wreath. Unless some secret network of messengers had relayed the news directly from Pompey, Ci
catrix knew nothing about my crime. Nor did Maecia.
I cleared my throat. ‘So this is where you ended up.’ It made sense. All of Pompey’s other relatives had left town.
Cicatrix raised an eyebrow, which further contorted the scars on his face. ‘Until the Great One comes home.’
I grunted and made no comment.
Cicatrix glowered at me, then helplessly cracked a grin as he lowered his gaze to Mopsus and Androcles. ‘But I left these two spies behind to take my place.’ He crouched and playfully boxed at the two of them. The boys jabbed back at him and burst out laughing.
‘Cicatrix, who’s there?’ The voice came from within.
He straightened immediately. ‘A visitor, Mistress. Gordianus.’ He stepped aside. Maecia appeared in the foyer.
The light from the atrium silhouetted her slender figure and haloed her sheer blue stola and the great shell-like fan of hair arranged atop her head. With her green eyes and creamy skin, without makeup or adornment, she had been beautiful when I last saw her. Now she took my breath away. More than anything else, it was her smile that transformed her. I had not seen her smile before.
‘Gordianus! I understood from Cicatrix that you sailed to Dyrrhachium with Pompey.’
I looked sidelong at Cicatrix. ‘An untrue rumour,’ I said. ‘There are so many circulating these days.’
‘Come in. As for your slave boys . . .’
‘I think they’d like to visit with Cicatrix – if that won’t compromise his duties.’
‘Of course not. They can help him guard the door.’
We stepped into the atrium. Where previously the corpse of Numerius had been displayed upon its bier, there was only bright sunshine. Through a colonnade I could see into the garden at the heart of the house. I caught a glimpse of another woman, seated amid flowering shrubs.
‘Do you have a visitor, Maecia? If I’m intruding . . .’
‘No, I’m glad you’ve come. We’ll sit and talk in the garden for a while – the day’s too beautiful to do anything else. But I want to speak to you privately first.’ She led me to a little room off the atrium. She lowered her voice. ‘Before he was expelled from your house, Cicatrix overheard your son say that you’d gone with Pompey.’
‘A misunderstanding.’
‘But you did go to Brundisium?’
‘Yes.’
‘You saw Pompey?’
‘I did.’
She hesitated. ‘Did you ever find out why my son was murdered?’
I drew a breath. Perhaps, eventually, Pompey would tell her – if Pompey ever came back to Rome alive – but there was no way I could tell Maecia the whole truth. I could, however, answer this question.
‘Yes, I know why Numerius was killed. He was attempting to blackmail someone, using information that he should have passed directly to Pompey.’
‘And the gold I found?’
‘He may have blackmailed others.’
‘I knew it was something like that. But it wasn’t Pompey who –’
I shook my head. ‘No. Pompey was in no way responsible for Numerius’s death.’
She sighed. ‘Good. That was what I feared most, that Numerius betrayed Pompey, and Pompey found out. If my son had been a traitor, and Pompey put him to death for it – I could endure anything but the shame of that.’
‘Then you must never think of it again, Maecia. I can’t tell you who killed Numerius . . . but I know beyond any doubt that it wasn’t Pompey. Your son wasn’t as loyal to the Great One as he might have been, but he never betrayed him.’
‘Thank you, Gordianus. You comfort me.’ She touched my hand. My face flushed hotly.
Maecia noticed. ‘You need a cool drink, Gordianus. Come into the garden. We’re drinking honeyed wine.’
She led me down a hallway and through a colonnade into bright sunlight. The woman in the garden sat with her back to me. She wore a matronly stola and her hair was styled much like Maecia’s. She looked over her shoulder. For a moment I failed to recognize her smiling face. I sucked in a breath when I realized it was Aemilia.
Maecia sat beside her and the two linked hands. A slave brought another chair and poured me a cup of wine, for which I was grateful. My face was still flushed and my mouth was suddenly dry. I had come prepared to see Numerius’s mother, but not his lover.
The two of them seemed to be in unaccountably high spirits, holding hands and practically beaming. Perhaps it was simply the weather, I thought. Perhaps it was the honeyed wine. But why was Aemilia dressed as a married woman? As I observed the loose folds of her stola, I noticed a telltale swelling at her belly.
Aemilia saw the expression on my face. She grinned.
‘You kept the baby,’ I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
She patted her belly proudly. ‘Yes.’
‘But how? I thought . . .’
‘My mother insisted that I get rid of it, at first. But Maecia wanted me to keep it. It’s Numerius’s child, after all. Maecia went to see my mother. It wasn’t easy, but the three of us found a solution.’
Maecia explained. ‘We devised a little fiction. Numerius and Aemilia were secretly married, you see, behind everyone’s backs – why not? There’s no one to say that they weren’t. I even had the marriage recorded officially; the bribe was ridiculously cheap. As Numerius’s widow, there’s no reason Aemilia shouldn’t have his child. That’s why she’s living with me now, as my daughter-in-law. And when Pompey, and Aemilia’s father, and my brother and sons all come back . . .’ Her eyes misted and there was a catch in her voice. ‘When they come back, they may not be happy with what happened behind their backs, but what can they do but accept it?’ She sighed. ‘These things are so much easier to work out, with all the men out of the way.’
I nodded dumbly. Another conspiracy! More deceits and secrets and schemes – but meant to save life, not destroy it. From the foyer, I heard Mopsus and Androcles burst into giggles, joined by Cicatrix’s braying laughter. The noise was infectious. Maecia patted Aemilia’s belly and the two of them laughed as well.
I sipped my honeyed wine, and heard the echo of gods laughing.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The story of the first days and months of the Roman Civil War comes from many sources. Chief among them are two documents which could hardly be more dissimilar in tone: Caesar’s own account, delivered in cool, self-serving retrospect, and Cicero’s riveting series of letters written as the events occurred, which read like white-hot dispatches from the maelstrom. Where critics of Cicero see weakness and vacillation, sympathizers see Hamlet-like indecision.
We are fortunate to have some of the letters Cicero received during this period, including messages from Caesar and Pompey. We also have a handful of increasingly frustrated letters, preceding the loss of Corfinium, written by Pompey to Lucius Domitius and to the consuls.
Additional details are given by later historians including Appian and Dio Cassius, by Suetonius and Plutarch in their biographies of the principals, and by the poet Lucan in his epic poem of the war, Pharsalia. In the road trip of Gordianus and Tiro, readers may detect echoes of Horace’s Satire I.5, with its itinerary of a journey from Rome to Brundisium (modern Brindisi).
The Vitruvius whom Gordianus meets outside Brundisium is of course Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. From certain passages in his famous treatise on architecture, Vitruvius appears to have served as a military engineer for Caesar in the African campaign. His earlier participation in the siege of Brundisium is a conjecture on my part.
Cicero’s get-well messages addressed to Tiro at Patrae are among the most famous of his letters. The role played by those letters and by Tiro in these pages is another conjecture on my part.
Sulla’s curious method of sending a secret message is known to us from a second-century author, Polyaenus, who compiled a digest of such stratagems for the edification of Marcus Aurelius. It is my conceit that Sulla himself might have bragged of the incident in his (regrettably, lost) memoirs.
I
have not attempted in Rubicon to give a detailed explanation of the fiendishly complicated and much disputed causes of the Roman Civil War. For readers with Machiavellian appetites, two books delve exhaustively into the political minutiae of the Late Republic with strikingly different interpretations: Erich S. Gruen’s The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974) and Arthur D. Kahn’s The Education of Julius Caesar (Schocken Books, 1986). A more succinct (if decidedly pro-Caesar) explanation of events leading up to the conflict can be found in the first nine pages of Jane F. Gardner’s introduction to the Penguin edition of Caesar’s Civil War.
My research for Rubicon was conducted chiefly at Doe Library at the University of California at Berkeley. To Penni Kimmel, for her close reading of the first-draft manuscript, and to Terri Odom, for reading the galleys, my heartfelt thanks. Thanks also, for their steadfast support and encouragement, to my agent, Alan Nevins, and my editor, Keith Kahla. Thanks always to Rick Solomon, with a renewal of the dedication I made at the decade’s outset in Roman Blood:
AUSPICIUM MELIORIS ÆVI
ALSO BY STEVEN SAYLOR
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From the tragedy of Coriolanus, to the Punic Wars and the invasion by Hannibal; the triumph, then murder, of Julius Caesar; and the rise, then decline, of the Roman Republic and the beginnings of Imperial Rome, Saylor’s breathtaking novel brings to vivid life the most famous city of the ancient world.
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