Caesar's Women (65 page)

“Quirites,” he began in his most mellifluous voice, “this has been a momentous year for Rome—”

“Veto, veto!” shouted Metellus Nepos from the Comitia well. “I veto any speeches, Cicero! No man who executed Roman citizen men without a trial can be allowed the opportunity to justify what he did! Shut your mouth, Cicero! Take the oath and get off the rostra!”

For a long moment there was absolute silence. Of course the senior consul had hoped that the turnout would be large enough to warrant transferring the venue from the Well of the Comitia to the rostra of Castor's temple, but it was not. Atticus had worked to some effect; all those knightly supporters of Cicero were present, and looked to outnumber the opposition. But that Metellus Nepos would veto something as traditional as the outgoing consul's right to speak had not occurred to Cicero. And there could be no way around it, numbers or not. For the second time in a short period, Cicero wished with all his heart that Sulla's law forbidding the tribunician veto was still in effect. But it was not. How then could he say something? Anything? Everything!

In the end he began to swear his oath according to the age-old formula, then as it concluded: “I also swear that by my single-handed efforts I saved my country, that I, Marcus Tullius Cicero, consul of the Senate and People of Rome, have ensured the maintenance of legal government and preserved Rome from her enemies!”

Whereupon Atticus began to cheer, and his followers took it up resoundingly. Nor were the young men present to boo and bay; it was New Year's Eve, apparently they had better things to do than watch Cicero relinquish office. Some sort of win, thought Marcus Tullius Cicero as he descended the rostral steps and held out his arms to Atticus. The next thing he was shoulder-high, a wreath of laurel sat on his head, and the crowd chaired him all the way to the Kingmakers' Stairs. A pity Caesar wasn't there to witness it. But, like all the incoming magistrates, Caesar could not attend. Tomorrow was his day, when he and the new magistrates would be sworn into office in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and begin what (in Caesar's case, anyway) Cicero very much feared would be a calamitous year for the boni.

The morrow confirmed that foreboding. No sooner was the formal swearing-in ceremony concluded and the calendar adjusted than the new praetor urbanus, Gaius Julius Caesar, left that first meeting of the Senate to hurry to the Well of the Comitia and call the Popular Assembly into session. That it was prearranged was obvious; only those of Popularist view were waiting for him, from the young men to his senatorial adherents and the inevitable throng of men little better than Head Count, relics of all those years in the Subura—skullcapped Jews with the citizenship who with Caesar's connivance had managed to get themselves enrolled in a rural tribe, freedmen, a multitude of small tradesmen and businessmen also inserted into rural tribes, and on the fringes wives and sisters and daughters and aunts.

The naturally deep voice vanished; Caesar adopted that high, clear tenor tone which carried so well as far as the crowd extended. “People of Rome, I have called you here today to witness my protest against an insult to Rome of such magnitude that the Gods are weeping! Over twenty years ago the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus burned down. In my youth I was flamen Dialis, the special priest of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and now in my prime I am the Pontifex Maximus, dedicated to the service of the Great God once again. Today I have had to swear my oath of office inside the new premises Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix commissioned Quintus Lutatius Catulus to build eighteen years ago. And, People of Rome, I was ashamed! Ashamed! I abased myself before the Great God, I wept beneath the shelter of my toga praetexta, I could not look up at the face of the Great God's exquisite new statue— commissioned and paid for by my uncle Lucius Aurelius Cotta and his colleague in the consulship, Lucius Manlius Torquatus! Yes, until scant days ago the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus even lacked its effigy of the Great God!”

Never insignificant even in the midst of the largest crush of people, Caesar now that he was urban praetor seemed nonetheless to have grown both in stature and magnificence; the sheer force which lived within him poured out of him, caught hold of every listener, dominated, enthralled.

“How can this be?” he asked the crowd. “Why is the guiding spirit of Rome so neglected, so insulted, so denigrated! Why are the temple walls devoid of the greatest art our times can offer? Why are there no gorgeous gifts from foreign kings and princes? Why do Minerva and Juno exist as air, as numina, as nothings? No statue of either one, even in cheap baked clay! Where is the gilt? Where are the golden chariots? Where the glorious moldings, the fabulous floors?”

He paused, drew a breath, looked like thunder. “I can tell you, Quirites! The money for them resides in Catulus's purse! All the millions of sesterces the Treasury of Rome has supplied to Quintus Lutatius Catulus have never left his personal bank account! I have been to the Treasury and asked for the records, and there are none! None, that is, describing the fate of the many, many sums paid out to Catulus over the years! Sacrilege! That is what it amounts to! The man entrusted with re-creating the house of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in greater beauty and glory than ever before has scuttled off with the funds!”

The diatribe went on while the audience grew more indignant; what Caesar said was true, hadn't everyone seen it for himself?

Down from the Capitol came Quintus Lutatius Catulus at a run, followed by Cato, Bibulus and the rest of the boni.

“There he is!” shouted Caesar, pointing. “Look at him! Oh, the gall! The temerity of the man! However, Quirites, you have to grant him courage, don't you? Look at the barefaced swindler run! How can he move so fast with all that State money dragging him down? Quintus Lutatius Peculatus the embezzler! Embezzler!”

“What is the meaning of this, praetor urbanus?” Catulus demanded, breathless. “Today is feriae, you can't call a meeting!”

“As Pontifex Maximus I am at perfect liberty to convene the People to discuss a religious topic at any time on any day! And this is definitely a religious topic. I am explaining to the People why Jupiter Optimus Maximus lacks a fit home, Catulus.”

Catulus had heard that derisive “Embezzler!” and needed no further information to draw the correct conclusions. “Caesar, I will have your skin for this!” he cried, shaking a fist.

“Oh!” gasped Caesar, shrinking back in mock alarm. “Do you hear him, Quirites! I expose him as a sacrilegious wolfer-down of Rome's public moneys, and he threatens to flay me! Come, Catulus, why not admit what everyone in Rome knows for a fact? The proof is there for all the world to see—more proof by far than you had to offer when you accused me of treason in the House! All any man has to do is look at the walls, the floors, the empty plinths and the absence of gifts to see what humiliation you have inflicted on Jupiter Optimus Maximus!”

Catulus stood bereft of words, for in truth he had no idea how in an angry public meeting he could possibly explain his position—the position Sulla had put him in! People never had any real concept of the horrifying expense involved in building an edifice as huge and eternal as the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Whatever he tried to say in his own defense would come out sounding like a tissue of laughably feeble lies.

“People of Rome,” said Caesar to the glowering crowd, “I move that we take up in contio the consideration of two laws, one to impeach Quintus Lutatius Catulus for the embezzlement of State funds, and another to try him for sacrilege!”

“I veto any discussion of either matter!” roared Cato.

Whereupon Caesar shrugged, held out his hands in a gesture which clearly asked what any man could do once Cato started to veto, and cried loudly, “I dismiss this meeting! Go home, Quirites, and offer sacrifices to the Great God—pray that he allows Rome to continue standing when men steal his funds and break the sacred contracts!”

He came down from the rostra lightly, gave the boni a happy grin, and walked away up the Sacra Via surrounded by hundreds of indignant people, all obviously pleading with him not to close the matter, to go ahead and prosecute Catulus.

Bibulus became aware that Catulus was breathing jerkily and in great gasps, and moved to support him. “Quickly!” he snapped to Cato and Ahenobarbus, shrugging himself out of his toga. The three of them made a stretcher of it, forced the protesting Catulus to lie down, and with Metellus Scipio on the fourth corner carried Catulus home. His face was more grey than blue, a good sign perhaps, but it was with relief that they got the leader of the boni home and into his bed, wife Hortensia fluttering distractedly. He would be all right—this time.

“But how much more can poor Quintus Catulus take?'' Bibulus asked as they emerged into the Clivus Victoriae.

“Somehow,” said Ahenobarbus between his teeth, “we have to shut that irrumator Caesar up for good! If there's no other way, then let it be murder!”

“Don't you mean fellator?” asked Gaius Piso, so afraid of the look, on Ahenobarbus's face that he groped for anything to lighten the atmosphere. Not normally a prudent man, he sensed disaster now, and had a thought for his own fate.

“Caesar on the giving end?” asked Bibulus scornfully. “Not he! Uncrowned kings don't give, they take!”

“Here we go again,” sighed Metellus Scipio. “Stop Caesar this, and stop Caesar that. But we never do.”

“We can, and we will,” said silvery, diminutive Bibulus. “A little bird told me that very shortly Metellus Nepos is going to propose that we bring Pompeius back from the East to deal with Catilina—and that he should be given imperium maius. Imagine that, if you can! A general inside Italia owning a degree of imperium never before given to anyone save a dictator!”

“How does that help us with Caesar?” asked Metellus Scipio.

“Nepos can't bring a bill like that before the Plebs, he'll have to go to the People. Do you think for a moment that Silanus or Murena would consent to convoke a meeting designed to award Pompeius an imperium maius? No, it will be Caesar.”

“So?”

“So we'll make sure the meeting is a violent one. Then, as Caesar will be responsible at law for any violence, we'll charge him under the lex Plautia de vi. In case you've forgotten, Scipio, I am the praetor in charge of the Violence Court! Not only am I willing to pervert justice in any way I can to get Caesar sent down, I'd even walk up to Cerberus and give each head a pat!”

“Bibulus, that's brilliant!” said Gaius Piso.

“And for once,” said Cato, “there will be no protestations from me that justice is not being done. If Caesar is convicted, justice will be done!”

“Catulus is dying,” said Cicero abruptly. He had hung on the outskirts of the group, painfully aware that no member of it considered him of sufficient moment to include him in their plotting. He, the lodger from Arpinum. Savior of his country, yet forgotten the day after leaving office.

The rest turned to look at him, startled.

“Rubbish!” barked Cato. “He'll recover.”

“I daresay he will this time. But he's dying,” maintained Cicero stubbornly. “Not long ago he said to me that Caesar was fraying his life strand like tough string a gossamer thread.”

“Then we must get rid of Caesar!” cried Ahenobarbus. “The higher he goes, the more insufferable he becomes.”

“The higher he goes, the further he has to fall,” said Cato. “For as long as I am alive and he is alive, I will be shoving at my lever to bring about that fall, and so I solemnly swear it by all our Gods.”

Oblivious to this massive amount of ill will the boni were directing at his person, Caesar went home to a dinner party. Licinia had given up her vows, and Fabia was now the Chief Vestal. The changeover had been marked by ceremonies and an official banquet for all the priestly colleges, but on this New Year's Day the Pontifex Maximus was giving a much smaller dinner: just the five Vestals; Aurelia; Julia; and Fabia's half sister, Cicero's wife, Terentia. Cicero had been invited, but declined. So too did Pompeia Sulla decline; like Cicero, she pleaded a prior commitment. The Clodius Club was celebrating. However, Caesar had good reason to know that she could not imperil her good name. Polyxena and Cardixa were stuck to her more firmly than burrs to an ox.

My little harem, thought Caesar in some amusement, though his mind quailed when his eyes rested on the sour, forbidding Terentia. Impossible to think of Terentia in that context, whimsy or no!

Enough time had gone by for the Vestals to have lost their shyness. This was especially true of the two children, Quinctilia and Junia, who obviously worshiped him. He teased them, laughed and joked with them, was never on his dignity with them, and seemed to understand a great deal of what went on in their girlish minds. Even the two dour ones, Popillia and Arruntia, now had good cause to know that with Gaius Caesar in the other half of the Domus Publica, there would be no lawsuits alleging unchastity.

Astonishing, thought Terentia as the meal progressed merrily, that a man with such a shocking reputation for philandering could handle this clutch of extremely vulnerable women so deftly. On the one hand he was approachable, even affectionate; on the other hand he gave them absolutely no hope. They would all spend the rest of their lives in love with him, no doubt, but not in a tortured sense. He gave them absolutely no hope. And interesting that not even Bibulus had produced a canard about Caesar and his clutch of Vestal women. Not in more than a century had there been a Pontifex Maximus so punctilious, so devoted to the job; he had enjoyed the position for less than a year so far, but already his reputation in it was unassailable. Including his reputation anent Rome's most precious possession, her consecrated virgins.

Naturally Terentia's chief loyalty was to Cicero, and no one had suffered for him more through the Catilina business than his wife. Since the night of the fifth day of December she had woken to listen to his mumbling nightmares, heard him repeat Caesar's name over and over, and never without anger or pain. It was Caesar and no one else who had ruined Cicero's triumph; it was Caesar who had fanned the smoldering resentment of the People. Metellus Nepos was a gnat grown fangs because of Caesar. And yet from Fabia came another view of Caesar, and Terentia was too cool a woman not to appreciate its justice, its authenticity. Cicero was a far nicer man, a more worthy man. Ardent and sincere, he brought boundless enthusiasm and energy into everything he did, and no one could impugn his honesty. However, Terentia decided with a sigh, not even a mind as huge as Cicero's could outthink a mind like Caesar's. Why was it that these incredibly old families could still throw up a Sulla or a Caesar? They ought to have been worn out centuries ago.