Caesar's Women (45 page)

He was of course one of the custodians of Rome's prophetic books and a mine of information for the College of Augurs, no member of which was an authority on the subject of augury, as augurs were no more and no less than elected religious officials who were legally obliged to consult a chart before pronouncing the omens auspicious or inauspicious. It was Cicero's most ardent wish to be elected an augur (he was not fool enough to think he stood a chance of being elected a pontifex); when he was, he had vowed, he would know more about augury than any of the fellows who, whether elected or co-opted, calmly rode into religious office because their families were entitled.

Having first cultivated Nigidius Figulus because of his knowledge, Cicero soon succumbed to the charm of his nature, unruffled and sweet, humble and sensitive. No snob despite his social pre-eminence, he enjoyed quick wit and lively company, and thought it wonderful to spend an evening with Cicero, famous for wit and always lively company. Like Atticus, Nigidius Figulus was a bachelor, but unlike Atticus, he had chosen this state for religious reasons; he firmly believed that to introduce a woman into his household would destroy his mystical connections to the world of invisible forces and powers. Women were earth people. Nigidius Figulus was a sky person. And air and earth never mixed, never enhanced each other any more than they consumed each other. He also had a horror of blood save in a holy place, and women bled. Thus all his slaves were male, and he had put his mother to live with his sister and her husband.

Cicero had intended to see Atticus and Atticus only on the day following the curule elections, but family matters intruded. Brother Quintus had been elected a praetor. Naturally that called for a celebration, especially as Quintus had followed his older brother's example and got himself elected in suo anno, exactly the right age (he was thirty-nine). This second son of a humble squire from Arpinum lived in the house on the Carinae which the old man had bought when he first moved his family to Rome in order to give the prodigy Marcus all the advantages his intellect demanded. So it was that Cicero and his family trudged from the Palatine to the Carinae shortly before the dinner hour, though this fraternal obligation did not negate a talk with Atticus—he would be there because Quintus was married to Atticus's sister, Pomponia.

There was a strong likeness between Cicero and his brother, but Cicero himself was inarguably the more attractive of the two. For one thing, he was physically much taller and better built; Quintus was tiny and sticklike. For another, Cicero had kept his hair, whereas Quintus was very bald on top. Quintus's ears seemed to protrude more than Cicero's, though that was actually a visual illusion due to the massive size of Cicero's skull, which dwarfed these appendages. They were both brown-eyed and brown-haired, and had good brown skins.

In one other respect they had much in common: both men had married wealthy termagants whose near relations had despaired of ever giving them away in wedlock. Terentia had been justly famous for being impossible to please as well as such a difficult person that no one, however needy, could summon up the steel to ask for her in marriage even if she had been willing. It had been she who chose Cicero, rather than the other way around. As for Pomponia–well, Atticus had twice thrown up his hands in exasperation over her! She was ugly, she was fierce, she was rude, she was bitter, she was truculent, she was vengeful, and she could be cruel. His feet firmly on the commercial ladder thanks to Atticus's support, her first husband had divorced her the moment he could do without Atticus, leaving her back on Atticus's doorstep. Though the ground for divorce was barrenness, all of Rome assumed (correctly) that the real ground was lack of desire to cohabit. It was Cicero who suggested that brother Quintus might be prevailed upon to marry her, and he and Atticus between them had done the persuading. The union had taken place thirteen years before, the groom being considerably younger than the bride. Then ten years after the wedding Pomponia gave the lie to barrenness by producing a son, also Quintus.

They fought constantly, and were already using their poor little boy as ammunition in their never-ending struggle for psychic supremacy, pushing and pulling the hapless child from one side to the other and back again. It worried Atticus (this son of his sister's was his heir) and it worried Cicero, but neither man succeeded in convincing the antagonists that the real sufferer was little Quintus. Had brother Quintus only owned the sense to be a doormat like Cicero, bent over backward to placate his wife and strive never to draw her attention toward himself, the marriage might have worked better than that of Cicero and Terentia, for what Pomponia wanted was simple dominance, whereas what Terentia wanted was political clout. But, alas, brother Quintus was far more like their father than Cicero was; he would be master in his own house no matter what.

The war was going well, so much was plain when Cicero, Terentia, Tullia and two-year-old Marcus entered the house. It was the steward bore Tullia and baby Marcus off to the nursery; Pomponia was too busy screaming at Quintus, and Quintus equally engrossed in shouting her down.

“Just as well,” roared Cicero in his loudest Forum voice, “that the temple of Tellus is right next door! Otherwise there'd be yet more neighbors complaining.”

Did that stop them? Not at all! They continued as if the newcomers didn't exist, until Atticus too arrived. His technique to terminate the battle was as direct as it was elementary: he simply strode forward, grabbed his sister by the shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled.

“Go away, Pomponia!” he snapped. “Go on, take Terentia somewhere and pour your troubles out in her ear!”

“I shake her too,” said brother Quintus plaintively, “but it doesn't work. She just knees me in the you-know-whats.”

“If she kneed me,” said Atticus grimly, “I'd kill her.”

“If I killed her, you'd see me tried for murder.”

“True,” said Atticus, grinning. “Poor Quintus! I'll have another talk with her and see what I can do.”

Cicero did not participate in this exchange, as he had beaten a retreat before Atticus's advent, and emerged now from the direction of the study with a scroll opened between his hands.

“Writing again, brother?” he asked, looking up.

“A tragedy in the style of Sophocles.”

“You're improving, it's quite good.”

“I hope I'm improving! You've usurped the family reputation for speeches and poetry, which leaves me to choose from history, comedy and tragedy. I haven't the time for the research history demands, and tragedy comes easier to me than comedy, given the kind of atmosphere I live in.”

“I would have thought that called for farce,” said Cicero demurely.

“Oh, shut up!”

“There are always philosophy and natural science.”

“My philosophy is simple and natural science baffling, so it still comes down to history, comedy or tragedy.”

Atticus had wandered off, and spoke now from the far end of the atrium. “What's this, Quintus?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Oh, bother, you found it before I could show it to you!” cried Quintus, hurrying to join him, Cicero in his wake. “Now I'm a praetor, it's permitted.”

“Indeed it is,” said Atticus gravely, only his eyes betraying his mirth.

Cicero shoved between them and stood at the proper distance to absorb its glory fully, face solemn. What he gazed at was a gigantic bust of Quintus, so much larger than life that it could never be displayed in a public place, for only the gods might exceed the actual stature of a man. Whoever had done it had worked in clay, then baked it before applying the colors, which made it both good and bad. Good because the likeness was speaking and the colors beautifully tinted, bad because clay-work was cheap and the chances of breakage into shards considerable. None knew better than Cicero and Atticus that Quintus's purse would not run to a bust in marble or bronze.

“Of course it isn't permanent,” said Quintus, beaming, “but it will do until I can afford to use it as the mold for a really splendid bronze. I had the man who is making my imago do it—it always seems such a shame to have one's wax likeness shut up in a cupboard for none to see.” He glanced sideways at Cicero, still staring raptly. “What do you think, Marcus?” he asked.

“I think,” said Cicero deliberately, “that this is the first time in my life that I've ever seen the half manage to be bigger than the whole.”

Too much for Atticus, who laughed until he had to sit down on the floor, where Cicero joined him. Which left poor Quintus with only two choices: fly into a monumental huff or join the mockers in their amusement. Since he was not Cicero's brother for nothing, he selected merriment.

After that it was time for dinner, which a mollified Pomponia attended together with Terentia and the peacemaker Tullia, who dealt with her aunt-by-marriage better than anyone else could.

“So when's the wedding?” asked Atticus, who hadn't seen Tullia in so long that her grown-up appearance had come as quite a surprise. Such a pretty girl! Soft brown hair, soft brown eyes, a great look of her father, and a lot of his wit. She had been engaged to young Gaius Calpurnius Piso Frugi for some years, and it was a good match in more ways than merely money and clout; Piso Frugi was by far the most appealing member of a clan more famous for nastiness than niceness, hardness than gentleness.

“Two more years,” Tullia answered with a sigh.

“A long wait,” said Atticus sympathetically.

“Too long,” said Tullia, sighing again.

“Well, well,” from Cicero jovially, “we shall see, Tullia. Perhaps we can move it forward a bit.”

Which reply sent all three ladies back to Pomponia's sitting room in a fever of anticipation, already planning the wedding.

“Nothing like nuptials to keep women happy,” said Cicero.

“She's in love, Marcus, and that's rare in arranged unions. As I rather gather Piso Frugi feels the same way, why not let them set up house together before Tullia turns eighteen?'' Atticus asked, smiling. “What is she now, sixteen?”

“Almost.

“Then let them marry at the end of this year.”

“I agree,” said brother Quintus gruffly. “It's nice to see them together. They get on so well that they're friends.”

Neither of his listeners commented on this remark, but to Cicero it represented the perfect opportunity to change the subject from marriage and women to Catilina—not only more interesting, but also easier to deal with.

“Do you believe that he intended to cancel debts?” he asked Atticus anxiously.

“I'm not sure I believed it, Marcus, but I certainly could not afford to ignore it,” said Atticus frankly. “The accusation is enough to frighten most men in business, especially at the moment, with credit so hard to get and interest rates so high. Oh, there are plenty who would welcome it, but they're never in the majority, and they're rarely at the top of the business heap. A general cancellation of debt is most appealing to little men and men without enough liquid assets to maintain a good cash flow.”

“What you're saying is that the First Class turned away from Catilina and Lucius Cassius from prudence,” said Cicero.

“Absolutely.”

“Then Caesar was right,” Quintus butted in to say. “You virtually impeached Catilina in the House on the slenderest of pretexts. In other words, you started a rumor.”

“No, I did not!” Cicero yelled, pounding the bolster beneath his left elbow. “I did not! I wouldn't be so irresponsible! Why are you being so dense, Quintus? That pair were planning to overthrow good government, whether they planned to do it as consuls or as revolutionaries! As Terentia correctly said, men do not plan a general cancellation of debt unless they're wooing the men of Classes lower than the First. It's the typical ploy of men who want to set up a dictatorship.”

“Sulla was Dictator, but he didn't cancel debts,” said Quintus stubbornly.

“No, all he did was cancel the lives of two thousand knights!” cried Atticus. “The confiscation of their estates filled the Treasury, and enough newcomers got fat on the proceeds to make other economic measures unnecessary.”

“He didn't proscribe you,” said Quintus, bristling.

“I should hope not! Sulla was feral, but never a fool.”

“Meaning I am?”

“Yes, Quintus, you are a fool,” said Cicero, saving Atticus the trouble of finding a tactful answer. “Why do you always have to be so aggressive? No wonder you and Pomponia can't get on—you're as like as two peas in a pod!”

“Grrr!” snarled Quintus, subsiding.

“Well, Marcus, the damage is done,” said Atticus pacifically, “and there's every chance that you were right to act before the elections. I think your source of information is suspect because I know the lady a little—but on the other hand, I'd be willing to bet that what she knows about economics could be easily written on the head of a pin. Pluck a phrase like a general cancellation of debt out of thin air? Impossible! No, insofar as it goes, I believe you had sufficient reason to act.”

“Whatever you do,” cried Cicero, suddenly aware that both his companions knew too much about Fulvia Nobilioris, “do not ever mention her name to anyone! Or even hint that I have a spy in Catilina's camp! I want to go on using her.”

Even Quintus could see the sense in this appeal, and agreed to keep Fulvia Nobilioris to himself. As for Atticus, that eminently logical man was fully in favor of a continued watch on the activities of those around Catilina.

“It may be that Catilina himself isn't involved” was the last comment from Atticus, “but certainly his circle warrants our attention. Etruria and Samnium have been constantly boiling since the Italian War, and the fall of Gaius Marius only exacerbated the situation. Not to mention Sulla's measures.”

Thus it was that Quintus Cicero escorted the various ladies of both households to the seaside with their offspring in Sextilis, while Marcus Cicero himself remained in Rome to monitor events; the Curius ménage did not have the money for vacations at Cumae or Misenum, so Fulvia Nobilioris had to suffer the summer heat. A burden for Cicero too, but one he suspected would be well worth it.