Fortune's Favorites (124 page)

“And so,” said Cicero later to his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, “this rare venture into the realm of prosecution has turned out to be a bonus I badly needed. I'll buy my grain at two sesterces the modius, and sell it for three sesterces. The extra sestertius will more than pay for transportation.”

“Sell it for four sesterces the modius,” said Atticus, “and pop a bit of money into your own purse. It needs fattening.”

But Cicero was shocked. “I couldn't do that, Atticus! The censors could say I had enriched myself by illegally taking fees for my services as an advocate.”

Atticus sighed. “Cicero, Cicero! You will never be rich, and it will be entirely your own fault. Though I suppose it's true that you can take the man out of Arpinum, but you can never take Arpinum out of the man. You think like a country squire!”

“I think like an honest man,” said Cicero, “and I'm very proud of that fact.”

“Thereby implying that I am not an honest man?”

“No, no!” cried Cicero irritably. “You're a businessman of exalted rank and Roman station-what rules apply to you are not the rules apply to me. I'm not a Caecilius, but you are!”

Atticus changed the subject. “Are you going to write the case against Verres up for publication?” he asked.

“I had thought of doing so, yes.”

“Including the great speeches of an actio secunda that never happened? Did you compose anything ahead of time?”

“Oh yes, I always have rough notes of my speeches months before their delivery dates. Though I shall modify the actio secunda speeches to incorporate a lot of the things I discussed during the actio prima. Titivated up, naturally.”

“Naturally,” said Atticus gravely.-

“Why do you ask?”

“I'm thinking of establishing a hobby for myself, Cicero. Business is boring, and the men I deal with even more boring than the business I do. So I'm opening a little shop with a big workshop out back-on the Argiletum. Sosius will have some competition, because I intend to become a publisher. And if you don't object, I would like the exclusive right to publish all your future work. In return to you of a payment of one tenth of what I make on every copy of your works I sell.”

Cicero giggled. “How delicious! Done, Atticus, done!”

It was in April, shortly after the newly elected censors had confirmed Mamercus as Princeps Senatus, that Pompey announced he would celebrate votive victory games commencing in Sextilis and ending just before the ludi Romani were due to begin on the fourth day of September. His satisfaction in making this announcement was apparent to all, though not every scrap of it was due to the victory games themselves; Pompey had brought off a marital coup of enormous significance to a man from Picenum. His widowed sister, Pompeia, was to wed none other than the dead Dictator's nephew, Publius Sulla sive Sextus Perquitienus. Yes, the Pompeii of northern Picenum were rising up in the Roman world! His grandfather and father had had to make do with the Lucilii, whereas he had allied himself with the Mucii, the Licinii, and the Cornelii! Tremendously satisfying!

But Crassus didn't care a scrap whom Pompey's sister chose as her second husband; what upset him was the victory games.

“I tell you,” Crassus said to Caesar, “he intends to keep the countryfolk spending up big in Rome for over two months, and right through the worst of summer! The shopkeepers are going to put up statues to him all over the city-not to mention old grannies and daddies who love to take in lodgers during summer and earn a few extra sesterces!”

“It's good for Rome. And good for money.”

“Yes, but where am I in all this?” asked Crassus, squeaking.

“You'll just have to create a place for yourself.”

“Tell me how-and when? Apollo's games last until the Ides of Quinctilis, then there are three sets of elections five days apart-curule, People, Plebs. On the Ides of Quinctilis he intends to hold his wretched parade of the Public Horse. And after the plebeian elections there's an ocean of time for shopping-but not enough time to go home to the country and come back again!-until his victory games begin in the middle of Sextilis. They last for fifteen days! What conceit! And after they end it's straight into the Roman games! Ye gods, Caesar, his public entertainments are going to keep the bumpkins in town for closer to three months than two! And has my name been mentioned? No! I don't exist!”

Caesar looked tranquil. “I have an idea,” he said.

“What?'' demanded Crassus. “Dress me up as Pollux?”

“And Pompeius as Castor? I like it! But let's be serious. Anything you do, my dear Marcus, is going to have to cost more than Pompeius is outlaying for his entertainments. Otherwise whatever you do won't eclipse him. Are you willing to spend a huge fortune?”

“I'd be willing to pay almost anything to go out of office looking better than Pompeius!” Crassus snorted. “After all, I am the richest man in Rome-have been for two years now.”

“Don't delude yourself,” said Caesar. “You just talk about your wealth, and no one has come up with a bigger figure. But our Pompeius is a typical landed rural nobleman- very closemouthed about what he's worth. And he's worth a lot more than you are, Marcus, so much I guarantee. When the Ager Gallicus was officially brought within the boundary of Italy, the price of it soared. He owns-owns, not leases or rents!-several million iugera of the best land in Italy, and not only in Umbria and Picenum. He inherited all that magnificent property the Lucilii used to own on the Gulf of Tarentum, and he came back from Africa in time to pick up some very nice river frontage on the Tiber, the Volturnus, the Liris and the Aternus. You are not the richest man in Rome, Crassus. I assure you that Pompeius is.”

Crassus was staring. “That's not possible!”

“It is, you know. Just because a man doesn't shout to the world how much he's worth doesn't mean he's poor. You shout about your money to everyone because you started out poor. Pompeius has never been poor in his life-and never will be poor. When he gives his land to his veterans he looks glamorous, but I'd be willing to bet that all he really gives them is tenure of it, not title to it. And that everyone pays him a tithe of what their land produces. Pompeius is a kind of king, Crassus! He didn't choose to call himself Magnus for no reason. His people regard him as their king. Now that he's senior consul, he just believes his kingdom has grown.”

“I'm worth ten thousand talents,” said Crassus gruffly.

“Two hundred and fifty million sesterces to an accountant,” said Caesar, smiling and shaking his head. “Would you draw ten percent of that in annual profits?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then would you be willing to forgo this year's profits?”

“You mean spend a thousand talents?”

“I mean exactly that.”

The idea hurt; Crassus registered his pain visibly. “Yes- if in so doing I can eclipse Pompeius. Not otherwise.”

“The day before the Ides of Sextilis-which is four days before Pompeius's victory games begin-is the feast of Hercules Invictus. As you remember, Sulla dedicated a tenth of his fortune to the god by giving a public feast on five thousand tables.”

“Who could forget that day? The black dog drank the first victim's blood. I'd never seen Sulla terrified before. Nor after, for that matter. His Grass Crown fell in the defiled blood.”

“Forget the horrors, Marcus, for I promise you there will be no black dogs anywhere near when you dedicate a tenth of your fortune to Hercules Invictus! You'll give a public banquet on ten thousand tables!” said Caesar. “Those who might otherwise have preferred the comfort of a seaside holiday to watching one spectacle after another will all stay in Rome-a free feast is top of everyone's priorities.”

“Ten thousand tables? If I heaped every last one of them feet high in licker-fish, oysters, freshwater eels and dug-mullets by the cartload, it would still not cost me more than two hundred talents,” said Crassus, who knew the price of everything. “And besides, a full belly today might make a man think he'll never be hungry again, but on the morrow that same man will be hungry. Feasts vanish in a day, Caesar. So does the memory of them.”

“Quite right. However,” Caesar went on dreamily, “those two hundred talents leave eight hundred still to be spent. Let us presume that in Rome between Sextilis and November there will be about three hundred thousand Roman citizens. The normal grain dole provides each citizen with five modii-that is, one medimnus-of wheat per month, at a price of fifty sesterces. A cheap rate, but not as cheap as the actual price of the grain, of course. The Treasury makes at least a little profit, even in the lean years. This year, they tell me, will not be lean. Nor-such is your luck!-was last year a lean one. Because it is out of last year's crop you will have to buy.”

“Buy?” asked Crassus, looking lost.

“Let me finish. Five modii of wheat for three months ... Times three hundred thousand people ... Is four and a half million modii. If you buy now instead of during summer, I imagine you could pick up four and a half million modii of wheat for five sesterces the modius. That is twenty-two and a half million sesterces-approximately eight hundred talents. And that, my dear Marcus,” Caesar ended triumphantly, “is where the other eight hundred talents will go! Because, Marcus Crassus, you are going to distribute five modii of wheat per month for three months to every Roman citizen free of charge. Not at a reduced price, my dear Marcus. Free!”

“Spectacular largesse,” said Crassus, face expressionless.

“I agree, it is. And it has one great advantage over every ploy Pompeius has devised. His entertainments will have finished over two months before your final issue of free grain. If memories are short, then you have to be the last man left on the field. Most of Rome will eat free bread thanks to Marcus Licinius Crassus between the month when the prices soar and the time when the new harvest brings them down again. You'll be a hero! And they'll love you forever!”

“They might stop calling me an arsonist,” grinned Crassus.

“And there you have the difference between your wealth and Pompeius's,” said Caesar, grinning too. “Pompeius's money doesn't float as cinders on Rome's air. It really is high time that you smartened up your public image!”

As Crassus chose to go about purchasing his vast quantity of wheat with stealth and personal anonymity and said not a word about intending to dedicate a tenth of his wealth to Hercules Invictus on the day before the Ides of Sextilis, Pompey proceeded with his own plans in sublime ignorance of the danger that he would find himself eclipsed.

His intention was to make all of Rome-and Italy- aware that the bad times were over; and what better way to do that than to give the whole country over to feasting and holidaymaking? The consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus would live in the memory of the people as a time of prosperity and freedom from anxiety-no more wars, no more famines, no more internal strife. And though the element of self spoiled his intentions, they were genuine enough. The ordinary people, who were not important and therefore did not suffer during the proscriptions, spoke these days with wistful longing for the time when Sulla had been the Dictator; but after the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was over, Sulla's reign would not loom so large in memory.

At the beginning of Quinctilis Rome began to fill up with country people, most of whom were looking for lodgings until after the middle of September. Nor did as many as usual leave for the seashore, even among the upper classes. Aware that crime and disease would both be on the increase, Pompey devoted some of his splendid organizational talents to diminishing crime and disease by hiring ex-gladiators to police the alleys and byways of the city, by making the College of Lictors keep an eye on the shysters and tricksters who frequented the Forum Romanum and other major marketplaces, by enlarging the swimming holes of the Trigarium, and plastering vacant walls with warning notices about good drinking water, urinating and defaecating anywhere but in the public latrines, clean hands and bad food.

Unsure how many of these countryfolk understood how amazing it was that Rome's senior consul had been a knight at the time he was elected (and did not become a senator until he, was inaugurated on New Year's Day), Pompey had resolved to use the parade of the Public Horse to reinforce this fact. Thus had his tame censors Clodianus and Gellius revived the transvectio, as the parade was called, though it had not been held after the time of Gaius Gracchus. Until the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, who wanted to make a public splash with his Public Horse.

It began at dawn on the Ides of Quinctilis in the Circus Flaminius on the Campus Martius, where the eighteen hundred holders of the Public Horse offered to Mars Invictus-Undefeated Mars-whose temple lay within the Circus. The offering made, the knights mounted their Public Horses and rode in solemn procession, century by century, through the gate in the vegetable markets, along the Velabrum into the Vicus Iugarius, and thence into the lower Forum Romanum. They turned to ride up the Forum to where, on a specially erected tribunal in front of the temple of Castor and Pollux, the censors sat to review them. Each man when he drew close to the tribunal was expected to dismount and lead his Public Horse up to the censors, who minutely inspected it and him. Did it or he not measure up to the ancient equestrian standards, then the censors were at liberty to strip the knight of his Public Horse and expel him from the eighteen original Centuries. It had been known to happen in the past; Cato the Censor had been famous for the stringency of his inspections.

So novel was the transvectio that most of Rome tried to jam into the Forum Romanum to watch it, though many had to content themselves with seeing the parade pass by between the Circus Flaminius and the Forum. Every vantage point was solid with people--roofs, plinths, porticoes, steps, hills, cliffs, trees. Vendors of food, fans, sunshades and drinks scrambled through the masses in the most precarious way crying their wares, banging people on the head with the corners of their neck-slung open boxes, giving back as much abuse as they collected, each one with a slave in attendance to replenish the box or keep some sticky-fingered member of the crowd from pilfering the goods or the proceeds. Toddlers were held out to piss on those below them, babies howled, children dived this way and that through the masses, gravy dribbled down tunics in a nice contrast to custard cascades, fights broke out, the susceptible fainted or vomited, and everybody ate nonstop. A typical Roman holiday.

The knights rode in eighteen Centuries, each one preceded by its ancient emblem-wolf, bear, mouse, bird, lion, and so on. Because of the narrowness of some parts of the route they could ride no more than four abreast, which meant that each Century held twenty-five rows, and the whole procession stretched for nearly a mile. Each man was clad in his armor, some suits of incredible antiquity and therefore bizarre appearance; others (like Pompey's, whose family had nudged into the eighteen original Centuries and did not own ancient armor they would have cared to try to pass off as Etruscan or Latin) magnificent with gold and silver. But nothing rivaled the Public Horses, each a splendid example of horseflesh from the rosea rura, and mostly white or dappled grey. They were bedizened with every medallion and trinket imaginable, with ornate saddles and bridles of dyed leather, fabulous blankets, brilliant colors. Some horses had been trained to pick up their feet in high-stepping prances, others had manes and tails braided with silver and gold.

It was beautifully staged, and all to show off Pompey. To have examined every man who rode, no matter how rapid the censors were, was manifestly impossible; the parade would have taken thirty summer hours to ride past the tribunal. But Pompey's Century had been placed as one of the first, so that the censors solemnly went through the ritual of asking each of some three hundred men in turn what his name was, his tribe, his father's name, and whether he had served in his ten campaigns or for six years, after which his financial standing (previously established) was approved, and he led his horse off to obscurity.

When the fourth Century's first row dismounted, Pompey was in its forefront; a hush fell over the Forum specially induced by Pompey's agents in the crowd. His golden armor flashing in the sun, the purple of his consular degree floating from his shoulders mixed with the scarlet of his general's degree, he led his big white horse forward trapped in scarlet leather and golden phalerae, his own person liberally bedewed with knight's brasses and medallions, and the scarlet plumes in his Attic helmet a twinkling mass of dyed egret's feathers.