Fortune's Favorites (119 page)

“Without membership in the Senate?”

“Without membership in the Senate.”

“What if you do persuade the Senate to allow you to run for consul, and then lose at the elections?”

Pompey laughed, genuinely amused. “I couldn't lose if I tried!” he said.

“I hear the competition is going to be fierce. Marcus Minucius Thermus, Sextus Peducaeus, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Marcus Fannius, Lucius Manlius-as well as the two leading contenders at this stage, Metellus Little Goat and Marcus Crassus,” said Caesar, looking amused.

None of the names meant much to Pompey except the last one; he sat up straight. “You mean he still intends to run?”

“If, as seems likely, Gnaeus Pompeius, you are going to ask him to withhold the use of his army from the Senate, then he must run for consul-and must be elected,” said Caesar gently. “If he isn't consul next year, he'll be prosecuted for treason before January has run its course. As consul, he cannot be made to answer for any action until his consulship and any proconsulship which follows are over and he is once more a privatus. So what he has to do is to succeed in being elected consul, and then succeed in restoring full powers to the tribunate of the plebs. After that he will have to persuade one tribune of the plebs to pass a law validating his action in withholding his army from the Senate's use-and persuade the other nine not to veto. Then when he does become a privatus again, he can't be prosecuted for the treason you are asking him to commit.”

A whole gamut of expressions chased each other across Pompey's face-puzzlement, enlightenment, bewilderment, total confusion, and finally fear. “What are you trying to say?'' he cried, out of his depth and beginning to feel an awful sense of suffocation.

“I am saying-and very clearly, I think!-that if either of you is to avoid prosecution for treason due to the games you intend to play with the Senate and two armies which actually belong to Rome, both of you will have to be consul next year, and both of you will have to work very hard to restore the tribunate of the plebs to its old form,” said Caesar sternly. “The only way either of you can escape the consequences is by procuring a plebiscite from the Plebeian Assembly absolving both of you from any guilt in the matter of armies and senatorial manipulation. Unless, that is, Gnaeus Pompeius, you have not brought your own army across the Rubico into Italy?”

Pompey shuddered. “I didn't think!” he cried.

“Most of the Senate,” Caesar said in conversational tones, “is composed of sheep. No one is unaware of that fact. But it does blind some people to another fact-that the Senate has a certain number of wolves in its fold. I do not number Philippus among the senatorial wolves. Nor Cethegus, for that matter. But Metellus Little Goat should rightly be cognominated Big Wolf, and Catulus has fangs for tearing, not molars for ruminating. So does Hortensius, who might not be consul yet, but whose clout is colossal and whose knowledge of the law is formidable. Then we have my youngest and brightest uncle, Lucius Cotta. You might say even I am a senatorial wolf! Any one of the men I've named-but more likely all of them combined-is quite capable of prosecuting you and Marcus Crassus for treason. And you will have to stand your trial in a court juried by senators. Having thumbed your nose at a great many senators. Marcus Crassus might get off, but you won't, Gnaeus Pompeius. I'm sure you have a huge following in the Senate, but can you hold it together after you've dangled the threat of civil war in its face and forced it to accede to your wishes? You may hold your faction together while you're consul and then proconsul, but not once you're a privatus again. Not unless you keep your army under its eagles for the rest of your life-and that, since the Treasury won't pay for it, would not be possible, even for a man with your resources.”

So many ramifications! The awful sense of suffocation was increasing; for a moment Pompey felt himself back on the field at Lauro, helpless to prevent Quintus Sertorius from running rings around him. Then he rallied, looked tough and absolutely determined. “How much of what you've said does Marcus Crassus himself understand?”

“Enough,” said Caesar tranquilly. “He's been in the Senate a long time, and in Rome even longer. He's in and out of the law courts, he knows the constitution backward. It's all there in the constitution! Sulla's and Rome's.”

“So what you're saying is that I have to back down.” Pompey drew a breath. “Well, I won't! I want to be consul! I deserve to be consul, and I will be consul!”

“It can be arranged. But only in the way I've outlined,” Caesar maintained steadily. “Both you and Marcus Crassus in the curule chairs, restoration of the tribunate of the plebs and an exculpatory plebiscite, followed by another plebiscite to give land to the men of both armies.” He shrugged lightly. “After all, Gnaeus Pompeius, you have to have a colleague in the consulship! You can't be consul without a colleague. So why not a colleague laboring under the same disadvantages and suffering the same risks? Imagine if Metellus Little Goat were to be voted in as your colleague! His teeth would be fixed in the back of your neck from the first day. And he would marshal every reserve he could to make sure you didn't succeed in your attempts to restore the tribunate of the plebs. Two consuls in a very close collaboration are extremely difficult for the Senate to resist. Especially if they have ten united, rejuvenated tribunes of the plebs to back them up.”

“I see what you're saying,” said Pompey slowly. “Yes, it would be a great advantage to have an amenable colleague. All right. I will be consul with Marcus Crassus.”

“Provided,” said Caesar pleasantly, “that you don't forget the second plebiscite! Marcus Crassus must get that land.”

“No problem! I can get land for my men too, as you say.”

“Then the first step has been taken.”

Until this shattering discussion with Caesar, Pompey had assumed that Philippus would mastermind his candidacy for the consulship, would do whatever was necessary; but now Pompey wondered. Had Philippus seen all the consequences? Why hadn't he said anything about prosecutions for treason and the necessity to restore the tribunate of the plebs? Was Philippus perhaps a little tired of being a paid employee? Or was he past his prime?

“I'm a dunce about politics,” said Pompey with what he tried to make engaging frankness. “The trouble is, politics don't fascinate me. I'm far more interested in command, and I was thinking of the consulship as a sort of huge civilian command. You've made me see it differently. And you make sense, Caesar. So tell me this-how do I go about it? Should I just keep on lodging letters through Philippus?”

“No, you've done that, you've thrown down your challenge,” said Caesar, apparently not averse to acting as Pompey's political adviser. “I presume you've given Philippus orders to delay the curule elections, so I won't go into that. The Senate's next move will be aimed at trying to get the upper hand. It will give you and Marcus Crassus firm dates- you for your triumph, Marcus Crassus for his ovation. And of course the senatorial decree will instruct each of you to disband your army the moment your celebrations are over. That's quite normal.”

He sat there, thought Pompey, not a scrap differently from the way he had the moment he arrived; he displayed no thirst, no discomfort in that vast toga from the heat of the day, no sign of a sore behind from the hard chair or a sore neck from looking at Pompey slightly to one side. And the words which gave voice to the thoughts were as well chosen as the thoughts were well organized. Yes, Caesar definitely bore watching.

Caesar continued. “The first move will have to come from you. When you get the date for your triumph, you must throw up your hands in horror and explain that you've just remembered you can't triumph until Metellus Pius comes home from Further Spain, because you and he agreed to share one triumph between the two of you-no spoils worth speaking of, and so forth. But the moment you give this excuse for not disbanding your army, Marcus Crassus will throw his hands up in horror and protest that he cannot disband his army if that leaves only one fully mobilized army inside Italy- yours. You can keep this farce going until the end of the year. It won't take the Senate many moons to realize that neither of you has any intention of disbanding his army, but that both of you are to some extent legalizing your positions. Provided neither of you makes a militarily aggressive move in Rome's direction, you both look fairly good.”

“I like it!” said Pompey, beaming.

“I'm so glad. It's less strain to preach to the converted. Now where was I?” Caesar frowned, pretended to think. “Oh, yes! Once the Senate understands that neither army is going to be disbanded, it will issue the appropriate consulta to allow both of you to stand for the consulship in absentia-for of course neither of you can enter Rome to lodge your candidacies in person to the election officer. Only the lots will show whether the election officer will be Orestes or Lentulus Sura, but I can't see much difference between them.”

“How do I get around the fact that I'm not in the Senate?” asked Pompey.

“You don't. That's the Senate's problem. It will be solved with a senatus consultum to the Assembly of the People allowing a knight to seek election as consul. I imagine the People will pass it happily-all those knights will consider it a tremendous win!”

“And Marcus Crassus and I can disband our armies when we've won election,” said Pompey, satisfied.

“Oh, no,” said Caesar, shaking his head gently. “You keep your armies under their eagles until the New Year. Therefore you won't celebrate triumph and ovation until the latter half of December. Let Marcus Crassus ovate first. Then you can triumph on the last day of December.”

“It all makes perfect sense,” said Pompey, and frowned. “Why didn't Philippus explain things properly?”

“I haven't any idea,” said Caesar, looking innocent.

“I think I do,” said Pompey grimly.

Caesar rose, pausing to arrange the folds of his toga just so, utterly absorbed in the task. Finished, he walked with his graceful, straight-shouldered gait to the flap of the tent. In the entrance he paused, looked back, smiled. “A tent is a most impermanent structure, Gnaeus Pompeius. It looks good for the general awaiting his triumph to set up an impermanent structure. But I don't think it's quite the impression you should be striving to make from now on. May I suggest that you hire an expensive villa on the Pincian Hill for the rest of the year? Bring your wife down from Picenum? Entertain? Breed a few pretty fish? I will make sure Marcus Crassus does the same. You'll both look as if you're prepared to live on the Campus Martius for the rest of your lives if necessary.”

Then he was gone, leaving Pompey collecting composure and thoughts. The military holiday was over; he would have to sit down with Varro and read law. Caesar seemed to know every nuance, yet he was six years younger. If the Senate had its share of wolves, was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus going to be a sheep? Never! By the time New Year's Day came around, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus would know his law and his Senate!

“Ye gods, Caesar, you're clever!” said Crassus feebly when Caesar had ended his tale of Pompey. “I didn't think of half that! I don't say I wouldn't have worked it all out eventually, but you must have done it between my tent and his. A villa on the Pincian, indeed! I have a perfectly good house on the Palatine I've just spent a fortune redecorating- why spend money on a villa on the Pincian? I'm comfortable in a tent.”

“What an incurable cheeseparer you are, Marcus Crassus!” said Caesar, laughing. “You'll rent a villa on the Pincian at least as expensive as Pompeius's and move Tertulla and the boys into it at once. You can afford it. Look on it as a necessary investment. It is! You and Pompeius are going to have to seem like bitter opponents for the next almost six months.”

“And what are you going to do?'' asked Crassus.

“I'm going to find myself a tribune of the plebs. Preferably a Picentine one. I don't know why, but men from Picenum are attracted to the tribunate of the plebs, and make very good ones. It shouldn't be difficult. There are probably half a dozen members of this year's college who hail from Picenum.”

“Why a Picentine?”

“For one thing, he'll be inclined to favor Pompeius. They're a clannish lot, the Picentines. For another, he'll be a fire-eater. They're born breathing fire in Picenum!”

“Take care you don't end up with burned hands,” said Crassus, already thinking about which of his freedmen would drive the hardest bargain with the agents who rented villas on the Pincian Hill. What a pity he'd never thought of investing in real estate there! An ideal location. All those foreign kings and queens looking for Roman palaces-no, he wouldn't rent! He'd buy! Rent was a disgraceful waste; a man never saw a sestertius's return.

In November the Senate gave in. Marcus Licinius Crassus was informed that he would be allowed to stand in absentia for the consulship. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was informed that the Senate had sent a decree to the Assembly of the People asking that body to waive the usual requirements-membership in the Senate, the quaestorship and praetorship-and legislate to allow him to stand for the consulship. As the Assembly of the People had passed the necessary law, the Senate was pleased to inform Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus that he would be allowed to stand in absentia for the consulship, et cetera, et cetera.

When a candidate stood for office in absentia, canvassing was difficult. He couldn't cross the pomerium into the city to meet the voters, chat to everyone in the Forum, pose modestly nearby when some tribune of the plebs called a contio of the Plebeian Assembly to discuss the merits of this favored candidate-and lambaste his rivals. Because in absentia required special permission from the House, it was rarely encountered, but never before had two candidates for the consulship both stood in absentia. However, as things turned out the usual disadvantages mattered not a bit. Debate in the Senate-even under the threat of those two undischarged armies-had been as feverishly hot as it had been protracted; when the House gave in at last, every other candidate for the consulship had withdrawn from the contest as a protest against the blatant illegality of Pompey's candidature. If there were no other candidates, Pompey and Crassus would look what they were: dictators in disguise.

Many and varied were the threats called down upon Pompey's head and Crassus's head, mostly in the form of prosecution for treason the moment imperium was lost; so when the tribune of the plebs Marcus Lollius Palicanus (a man from Picenum) called a special meeting of the Plebeian Assembly in the Circus Flaminius on the Campus Martius, every senator who had turned his back on Pompey and Crassus sat up with a shock of realization. They were going to wriggle out of treason charges by bringing back the full powers of the tribunate of the plebs and having ten grateful tribunes of the plebs legislate them immunity from the consequences of their actions!

Many in Rome wanted to see the restoration, most people because the tribunate of the plebs was a hallowed institution in proper harmony with the mos maiorum, and not a few people because they missed the vigor and buzz of the old days in the lower Forum Romanum when some militant demagogue fired up the Plebs until fists swung and hired ex-gladiators waded into the fray. So Lollius Palicanus's meeting, widely advertised as being to discuss the restoration of the tribunate of the plebs, was bound to attract crowds. But when the news got round that the consular candidates Pompey and Crassus were going to speak in support of Palicanus, enthusiasm reached heights unknown since Sulla had turned the Plebeian Assembly into a rather attenuated men's club.

Used for the less well patronized games, the Circus Flaminius held a mere fifty thousand people; but on the day of Palicanus's meeting every bleacher was full. Resigned to the fact that no one save those lucky enough to be within a couple of hundred feet would hear a word, most of those who had streamed out along the bank of the Tiber had only come so that they could tell their grandchildren that they had been there on the day two consular candidates who were also military heroes had promised to restore the tribunate of the plebs. Because they would do it! They would!

Palicanus opened the meeting with a rousing speech aimed at procuring the most possible votes for Pompey and Crassus at the curule elections; those close enough to hear were those high enough in the classes to have a worthwhile vote. All Palicanus's nine colleagues were present, and all spoke in support of Pompey and Crassus. Then Crassus appeared to great applause and spoke to great applause. A nice series of preliminary entertainments before the main performance. And here he came, Pompey the Great! Clad in glittering golden armor as bright as the sun, looking absolutely gorgeous. He did not have to be an orator; for all the crowd cared, he might have recited gibberish. The crowd had come to see Pompey the Great, and went home deliriously satisfied. No surprise then that when the curule elections took place on the day before the Nones of December, Pompey was voted in as senior consul and Crassus as his junior. Rome was going to have a consul who had never been a member of the Senate-and Rome had preferred him to his more elderly and orthodox colleague.

“So Rome has her first consul who was never a senator,” said Caesar to Crassus after the election gathering had dispersed. He was sitting with Crassus on the loggia of the Pincian villa where once King Jugurtha of Numidia had sat plotting; Crassus had bought the property after he saw the long list of illustrious foreign names who had rented it over the years. Both of them were looking at the public slaves clearing up the enclosures, bridges and voting platforms from the Saepta.

“For no other reason than that he wanted to be consul,” said Crassus, aping the peevish note Pompey put into his voice whenever he was thwarted. “He's a big baby!”

“In some ways, yes.” Caesar turned his head to glance at Crassus's face, which bore its usual placid expression. “It's you who'll have to do the governing. He doesn't know how.”

“Oh, don't I know! Though he must have absorbed something by now from Varro's handy little instant manual on senatorial and consular conduct,” said Crassus, and grunted. “I ask you! The senior consul having to peruse a manual of behavior! I have these wonderful visions of what Cato the Censor would say.”

“He's asked me to draft the law returning all its powers to the tribunate of the plebs, did he tell you?”

“When does he ever tell me anything?”

“I declined.”

“Why?”

“First of all, because he assumed he'd be senior consul.”

“He knew he'd be senior consul!”

“And secondly, you're perfectly capable of drafting any law the pair of you might want to promulgate-you were urban praetor!”

Crassus shook his huge head, put his hand on Caesar's arm. “Do it, Caesar. It will keep him happy! Like all spoiled big babies, he has a gift for using the right people to achieve his ends. If you decline because you don't care to be used, that's all right by me. But if you'd like the challenge and you think it would add to your legislative experience, then do it. No one is going to know-he'll make sure of that.”

“How right you are!” laughed Caesar, then sobered. “I would like to do it, as a matter of fact. We haven't had decent tribunes of the plebs since I was a boy-Sulpicius was the last. And I can foresee a time when all of us might need tribunician laws. It has been very interesting for a patrician to associate with the tribunes of the plebs the way I have been lately. Palicanus has a replacement ready for me, by the way.”

“Who?”

“A Plautius. Not one of the old family Silvanus. This one is from Picenum and seems to go back to a freedman. A good fellow. He's prepared to do whatever I need done through the newly revitalized Plebeian Assembly.”

“The tribunician elections haven't been held yet. Plautius may not get in,” said Crassus.

“He'll get in,” said Caesar confidently. “He can't lose- he's Pompeius's man.”

“And isn't that an indictment of our times?”

“Pompeius is lucky having you for a colleague, Marcus Crassus. I keep seeing Metellus Little Goat there instead. A disaster! But I am sorry that you haven't the distinction of being senior consul.”

Crassus smiled, it seemed without rancor. “Don't worry, Caesar. I am reconciled.” He sighed. “However, it would be nice to see Rome mourn my passing more than she does Pompeius's passing when we leave office.”

“Well,” said Caesar, rising, “it's time I went home. I have devoted little time to the women of my family since I came back to Rome, and they'll be dying to hear all the election news.”

But one glance at his reception room caused Caesar to rue his decision to go home; it appeared to be full of women! A count of heads reduced full to six-his mother, his wife, his sister Ju-Ju, his Aunt Julia, Pompey's wife, and another woman closer inspection placed as his cousin Julia called Julia Antonia because she was married to Marcus Antonius, the pirate eradicator. Everyone's attention was focused on her, not surprising: she was perched on the edge of a chair with her legs stretched out rigidly before her, and she was bawling.

Before Caesar could move any further, someone gave him a tremendous buffet in the small of the back, and he whipped around to see a big, unmistakably Antonian child standing there grinning. Not for long! Caesar's hand went out to grasp the boy painfully by his nose, dragged him forward. Howls quite as loud as those his mother was producing erupted from his gaping mouth, but he wasn't about to curl into a helpless ball; he lashed out with one big foot at Caesar's shins, doubled his hands into fists and swung with both of them. At the same time two other, smaller boys dived on Caesar too, pummeling his sides and chest, though the immense folds of toga prevented this triple assault from inflicting any real damage.

Then too quickly for anyone to see how it was done, all three boys were rendered hors de combat. The two smaller ones Caesar dealt with by banging their heads together with an audible crack and throwing them heavily against the wall; the biggest boy got a wallop on the side of the face that made his eyes water, and was marched to join his brothers in a jerking progress punctuated by resounding kicks on his backside.

The bawling mother had ceased her plaints when all this had begun, and now leaped from her chair to descend upon the tormentor of her darling precious sons.

“Sit down, woman!'' roared Caesar in a huge voice.

She tottered back to her chair and collapsed, bawling.

He turned back to where the three boys half-lay, half-sat against the wall, blubbering as lustily as their mother.

“If any one of you moves, he'll wish he'd never been born. This is my house, not the Pincian menagerie, and while you're guests in it you'll behave like civilized Romans, not Tingitanian apes. Is that quite clear?”

Holding the crumpled disorder of dirty toga around him, he walked through the midst of the women to the door of his study. “I am going to rectify the damage,” he said in the deceptively quiet tones his mother and wife recognized as temper reined in by an iron hold, “and when I return, I expect to see a beautiful peace descended. Shut that wretched woman up if you have to gag her, and give her sons to Burgundus. Tell Burgundus he has my full permission to strangle them if necessary.”

Caesar was not gone long, but when he returned it was to find the boys vanished and the six women sitting bolt upright in utter silence. Six pairs of enormous eyes followed him as he went to sit between his mother and his wife.

“Well, Mater, what's the trouble?” he asked pleasantly.

“Marcus Antonius is dead,” Aurelia explained, “by his own hand, in Crete. You know that he was defeated by the pirates twice on the water and once on the land, and lost all his ships and men. But you may not know that the pirate strategoi Panares and Lasthenes literally forced him to sign a treaty between Rome and the Cretan people. The treaty has just arrived in Rome, accompanied by poor Marcus Antonius's ashes. Though the Senate hasn't had time to meet about it, they are already saying around the city that Marcus Antonius has disgraced his name forever-people are even beginning to refer to him as Marcus Antonius Creticus! But they don't mean Crete, they mean Man of Chalk.”

Caesar sighed, his face betraying exasperation rather than sorrow. “He wasn't the right man for that job,” he said, not willing to spare the feelings of the widow, a vastly silly woman. “I saw it when I was his tribune in Gytheum. However, I confess I didn't see precisely what the end would be. But there were plenty of signs.” He looked at Julia Antonia. “I'm sorry for you, lady, but I fail to see what I can do for you.”

“Julia Antonia came to see if you would organize Marcus Antonius's funeral rites,” said Aurelia.

“But she has a brother. Why can't Lucius Caesar do it?” asked Caesar blankly.

“Lucius Caesar is in the east with the army of Marcus Cotta, and your cousin Sextus Caesar refuses to have anything to do with it,” said Aunt Julia. “In the absence of Gaius Antonius Hybrida, we are the closest family Julia Antonia has in Rome.”

“In that case I will organize the obsequies. It would be wise, however, to make it a very quiet funeral.”

Julia Antonia rose to go, shedding handkerchiefs, brooches, pins, combs in what seemed an endless cascade; she seemed now to hold no umbrage against Caesar for his summary treatment of her sons-or for his dispassionate appraisal of her late husband's ability. Evidently she liked being roared at and told to behave, reflected Caesar as he escorted her toward the door. No doubt the late Marcus Antonius had obliged her! A pity he hadn't also disciplined his children, as the mother was incapable of it. Her boys were fetched from Burgundus's quarters, where they had undergone a salutary experience; the sons of Cardixa and Burgundus had dwarfed them completely. Like their mother they seemed not to have taken permanent offense. All three eyed Caesar warily.

“There's no need to be afraid of me unless you've stepped over the mark of common decent behavior,” said Caesar cheerfully, his eyes twinkling. “If I catch you doing that- watch out!”

“You're very tall, but you don't look all that strong to me,” said the oldest boy, who was the handsomest of the three, though his eyes were too close together for Caesar's taste. However, they stared at him straightly enough, and their expression did not lack courage or intelligence.

“One day you'll encounter a tiny little fellow who slaps you flat on your back before you can move a finger,” said Caesar. “Now go home and look after your mother. And do your homework instead of prowling through the Subura getting up to mischief and stealing from people who've done you no harm. Homework will benefit you more in the long run.”

Mark Antony blinked. “How do you know about that?”

“I know everything,” said Caesar, shutting the door on them. He returned to the rest of the women and sat down again. “The invasion of the Germans,” he said, smiling. “What a frightful tribe of little boys! Does no one supervise them?”