The Triumph of Caesar (15 page)

As the mood grew even more relaxed, the chants grew more ribald, including one about Caesar's youthful dalliance with King Nicomedes of Bithynia:

All the Gauls did Caesar conquer,
But Nicomedes conquered him.
In Gaul did Caesar find his glory,
In Caesar, Nico found a quim!

The crowd laughed even harder. Caesar's face turned as red as if he had stained it with cinnabar, like the triumphant generals of old. He stepped onto the broken chariot, faced the soldiers, and raised his hands, still clutching the laurel bough and scepter. The men stopped chanting, though they continued to chuckle and grin while Caesar addressed them.

"Soldiers of Rome, I must protest! These songs are amusing, to be sure, and your bravery has earned you the right to indulge in a bit of levity on this day, even at Caesar's expense. But these verses about the king of Bithynia are unfair and unsubstantiated—"

"But not untrue!" shouted someone from the ranks farther back, to a burst of laughter.

"
And
untrue!" insisted Caesar. "Most assuredly, untrue. On my honor as a Roman—"

"Swear by Numa's balls!" shouted someone.

"No, swear by Nicomedes' staff!" shouted someone else.

The laughter was deafening. Caesar's face turned even redder. Did he realize how absurd he looked at that moment, a fifty-two-year-old man resplendent in his laurel crown and toga, perched on a broken chariot, attempting in vain to convince his soldiers that he had not been another man's catamite some thirty years ago?

The soldiers did not believe him. Nor, for that matter, did I. During one of our conversations in Alexandria, Caesar had spoken quite wistfully of his youthful relationship with the older king, despite the fact that his enemies had needled him about it many times over the years. It was not so much the affair itself that caused him embarrassment but the assumption that Caesar had played the receptive role, an unbecoming position for a Roman male, who is required always to dominate and penetrate. Whatever the true details of Caesar's intimacy with the king, the story had acquired a life of its own. The more Caesar denied it, the more it dogged him.

He was at last rescued from further ridicule by the arrival of the replacement chariot. As he climbed from the broken carriage, I could see the relief on his face.

The new chariot was an identical ceremonial model, with the same distinctive round shape, but not quite as splendidly gilded. A group of priests and Vestal virgins arrived to transfer the talismans for averting the evil eye. Among them I saw Calpurnia's uncle Gnaeus, who chanted under his breath and tinkled the bell as he fixed it to the new chariot. His expression of solemn joy was gone, replaced by a stern frown; perhaps he was peeved at having to perform this sacred duty a second time.

Meanwhile, another priest attached the scourge to the chariot, after flicking it in the air a few times. Then, under the supervision of the Virgo Maxima, a young camillus crawled under the broken carriage and removed the fascinum. Before it was placed under the new chariot, some in the crowd caught a glimpse of the phallic amulet, which is usually never seen, and uttered cries of religious awe.

The broken carriage was removed from the roadway. The white horses were attached to the new chariot. The procession recommenced. Caesar disappeared from view, and following him the multitude of soldiers marched by. The men were in high spirits, laughing and smiling.

The collapse of the axle had been a simple accident, it seemed. The outcome had been not only harmless but amusing, as the disruption allowed for some flashes of candor amid the orchestrated pomp and ceremony. The chants had been spontaneous, and Caesar's blustering reaction to them had certainly been unrehearsed.

But I kept thinking of what the man below me had said about the breaking of the axle: "An evil omen, for sure!"

There would be more days of celebration to come, and many more opportunities for the enemies of Caesar to act.

X

At the end of the long procession, Caesar left his chariot and ascended the Capitoline Hill on foot. The winding path, visible to those of us who remained below in the Forum, was flanked by forty elephants in bright regalia stationed on either side.

Before the Temple of Jupiter, he awaited word that Vercingetorix and the other prisoners had been executed in the Tullianum. When a crier arrived bearing the news, a cheer went up, and the sacrifice of the white oxen to Jupiter commenced. Various spoils of war were offered to the god. Caesar himself removed his laurel crown and placed it in the lap of Jupiter's statue inside the temple.

The new bronze statue of Caesar opposite the temple was officially dedicated. It depicted him in a victorious pose standing atop a map of the world. The inscription bearing the long list of his titles and attributes—"Conqueror of Gaul, Arbiter of the Pharaohs, Victor of the Nile," and so forth—ended with the declaration, "Descendant of Venus, Demigod."

A public banquet followed. The entire Forum became an open-air dining room for the people of Rome, who brought their own plates or ate from skewers, standing or leaning against walls or sitting on temple steps.

As darkness fell, Caesar descended from the Capitoline. His way was lit by the elephants that flanked the path, holding aloft bronze torches attached to their trunks. Seen from the Forum below, the vision of those elephants and their flaming lamps, with Caesar in his gold-embroidered toga threading his way between them, was like a strange dream, utterly unexpected, awesome, unforgettable. This final flourish of the Gallic Triumph elicited cries of delight, rapturous applause, and sighs of wonder.

That night, when I finally returned home, a messenger was waiting at my door.

I allowed the man to follow me to my study, where I opened and read the wax tablet he handed me. It was unsigned but obviously from Calpurnia:

Egypt is next, the day after tomorrow. You must question the queen. How you manage an audience with her is up to you, but be quick! As for the queen's sister, I have arranged for you to see her, as I did with the Gaul. No need to reply now to this message, but I will want to know what you discover tomorrow. Wipe these words from the wax after you read them.

I smoothed the wax with the edge of my hand and returned the blank tablet to the messenger. He handed me a small wooden disk with the seal of Calpurnia's ring impressed in green wax—the same sort of pass that had gained my admittance to the Tullianum—and told me when and where I could visit the captive Egyptian princess, Arsinoë, the next day.

For an hour before I slept, I perused Hieronymus's scribblings about Cleopatra and her less fortunate sister. And so my thoughts that day began and ended with Hieronymus, no matter that Caesar dominated the hours between.

The visiting queen of Egypt had been installed in one of Caesar's villas outside the city, located on a slope of the Janiculum Hill above the Tiber. The morning was so hot that I hired a litter in the Forum Boarium to carry me across the bridge and down the river road; I did not want to appear before a living goddess red faced and covered with sweat. The bearers balked at carrying Rupa, and Rupa balked at the idea of being carried, so he walked alongside the litter, flexing his muscles, thrusting out his jaw, and peering this way and that, trying to look like a bodyguard, I imagine, but appearing (to me, at least) more like an inquisitive, overgrown boy.

Was there a possibility, as Calpurnia seemed to think, that Cleopatra was involved in Hieronymus's murder and therefore in some plot against Caesar? To me, it seemed more likely that Calpurnia was confusing her dislike of the queen with a genuine cause for suspicion. And yet, Cleopatra was among those whom Hieronymus had visited. Also, the normal scruples against killing another human being that restrain most people, most of the time, could not be presumed to apply to Cleopatra. What did death, or murder, mean to a woman who believed herself to be the future monarch of the afterlife? To Cleopatra, the killing of a mere mortal like Hieronymus would count for nothing. Even the murder of a demigod—such as Caesar, since he claimed to be descended from Venus—might be contemplated with equanimity, if his death served to advance the interests of Isis's incarnation on earth.

At any rate, I was far from certain that Cleopatra would grant me an audience. Despite the pretty words of her note of condolence, my relationship with the queen in Alexandria had not exactly been friendly.

But, as she had done on previous occasions, Cleopatra surprised me. After giving my name to the guard at the gate, within a very short time a slave arrived to escort me into the queen's presence. Rupa was instructed to stay behind.

The slave did not enter the house but instead conducted me through the terraced gardens. Roses were blooming, scenting the warm air. Exquisite pieces of statuary were placed amid the flowers and shrubs. We came upon the queen taking breakfast beneath the shade of a fig tree, seated on a stone bench facing a spectacular view of the sparkling river and the city skyline beyond.

Cleopatra wore a sleeveless gown of thin, pleated linen, suitable for the hot weather. The line of the gown was simple, but even the plainest garments of the very rich betray their exquisite workmanship to the observant eye. Her supple leather slippers were likewise unostentatious but very finely made. Her jewelry was a matching set of bracelets and a necklace and earrings all made of hammered silver with settings of smoky topaz and black chalcedony. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun, so that my first glimpse was of the profile, as seen on her coins, of a young woman with a very prominent nose and chin.

Her two-year-old son was seated on the grass nearby, dressed in a purple tunic and attended by cooing nursemaids. The queen's longtime bodyguard, Apollodorus, was leaning against the trunk of the fig tree. It was Apollodorus who had delivered her to Caesar rolled up in a carpet. The handsome, long-limbed Sicilian perused me though narrowed eyes and gave me a nod of recognition.

The queen put aside a shallow dish piled with shelled almonds and dates. "Gordianus-called-Finder! I never thought to see you again."

I bowed deeply but did not prostrate myself. We were on Roman soil, after all. "I hope the surprise is a welcome one, Your Majesty."

For an answer, she gave me only a thin smile, then popped a date into her mouth.

To an old survivor like myself, the queen still seemed hardly more than a girl—twenty-three, I calculated—but since I had first seen her, emerging from that carpet to confront Caesar, she had matured considerably. She had been voluptuous before; motherhood had made her even more buxom. Her supreme self-confidence no longer seemed quite so precocious; the attribute seemed earned, not merely inborn. Cleopatra was a full-fledged queen now, the survivor of a bloody civil war, the ruler of the oldest kingdom on earth, and the living inheritor of Alexander the Great, since her distant ancestor Ptolemy had been Alexander's general and successor. She had also given birth to the son of a demigod, if the boy Caesarion was indeed Caesar's child.

It occurred to me that a triumphing general is traditionally accompanied by his sons on the joyous occasion; grown sons ride behind him, while sons in swaddling are carried in the chariot. Yet Caesarion had not accompanied Caesar during the Gallic Triumph. But was it still possible the Egyptian child would take part in Caesar's Egyptian Triumph?

"You found your wife, after all," said Cleopatra, referring to the end of my stay in Egypt.

"Yes, Your Majesty, I did. We're both back in Rome now."

"So she didn't drown in the Nile, as you feared?"

"Apparently not."

Cleopatra laughed. "Are you being ironic, Gordianus? Or do you perhaps have a trace of the mystic in you? Your answer leaves open the possibility that she
did
drown—yet still walks. And why not? The Nile is a god. It takes life, but it also gives life. Perhaps the Nile took both your wife and your life, Gordianus-called-Finder—and then gave them both back to you."

In truth, I had never been quite sure what happened that day I found Bethesda after our long separation. I had waded into the water seeking her, or seeking oblivion, if I could not find her. I entered the Nile, and the Nile entered me, through my open mouth. The water turned black. Then a woman emerged from the darkness and placed her mouth upon mine in a kiss. And then I was lying on the sandy riverbank beside Bethesda, beneath a purple sky shot with streaks of aquamarine and vermilion. . . .

I shivered at the memory, then strove to shake it off. The Nile was far away. The river below us was the Tiber, and this was Rome.

A slight breeze stirred the fig tree. Dappled sunlight played across the queen. Her silver jewelry glittered. Flashes of light reflected off the baubles of topaz and chalcedony. "Did you receive my message of condolence, regarding your friend Hieronymus?"

"I did, Your Majesty."

"Is that why you've come?"

She was making my task easy. I merely needed to nod. There was no need to explain that I had come as the spy of the wife of the man who had fathered her child.

"I'm surprised that my friend Hieronymus was able to make Your Majesty's acquaintance, let alone merit your condolences in death."

"But why not? Your friend Hieronymus and I had more in common than you may realize. He was an outcast; so was I during those wretched months that my brother held the throne and forced me to flee into the desert and hide among camel drivers and nomads. Hieronymus also spoke lovely Greek and was very well-read—qualities not easy to find in this city, despite the Romans' claim to be the guardians of Greek culture. Honestly, when that pompous fool Cicero tried to quote a bit of Aeschylus to me, I had to laugh out loud. His accent is so uncouth!"

No wonder Cicero detests you,
I thought.

"Your friend also had a wonderful sense of humor," she said. "Hieronymus made me laugh, the way Caesar used to do."

"Does Caesar no longer make you laugh?"