Fortune's Favorites (80 page)

But Lepidus was tired of digressions and speculations, and suddenly got down to serious business. “I'm off to Etruria to recruit,” he said, “and I'd like you to join me as soon as possible, Brutus. We had planned to work as a team next year, but I think it behooves us to start now. There's nothing coming up in your court which won't wait until next year and a new judge, so I shall ask that you be seconded to me as my senior legate immediately.”

Servilia looked concerned. “Is it wise to recruit your men in Etruria?” she asked. “Why not go to Campania?”

“Because Catulus got in ahead of me and took Campania for himself. Anyway, my own lands and contacts are in Etruria, not south of Rome. I'm comfortable there, I know many more people.”

“But that's what perturbs me, Lepidus. I suspect Philippus might make much of it, continue to throw doubts into everyone's minds as to your ultimate intentions. It doesn't look good to be recruiting in an area seething with potential revolt.”

“Let Philippus!” said Lepidus scornfully.

The Senate let Philippus. As Quinctilis passed into Sextilis and recruitment proceeded at a great rate, Philippus made it his duty to keep a watchful eye upon Lepidus through, it seemed, an amazingly large and efficient network of agents. No time did he waste upon watching Catulus in Campania; his four legions were filling up rapidly with Sulla's oldest retainers, bored with civilian life and farming, eager for a new campaign not too far from home. The trouble was that the men enlisting in Etruria were not Sulla's veterans. Rather they were green young men of the region, or else veterans who had fought for Carbo and his generals and managed to be missing from the ranks when surrender occurred. Most of Sulla's men resettled in Etruria elected to remain on their allotments to protect them, or else hied themselves off to Campania to enlist in the legions of Catulus.

All through September did Philippus roar in the House while both Catulus and Lepidus, their enlistments filled, bent their energies to training and refining their armies. Then at the very beginning of October, Philippus managed to weary the Senate into demanding that Lepidus return to hold the curule elections in Rome. The summons went north to Lepidus's camp outside Saturnia, and Lepidus's answer came back by the same courier.

“I cannot leave at this juncture,” it said baldly. “You must either wait for me or appoint Quintus Lutatius in my stead.”

Quintus Lutatius Catulus was ordered to return from Campania-but not to hold the elections; it was no part of Philippus's plan to allow Lepidus this grace, and Cethegus had allied himself with Philippus so firmly that whatever Philippus wanted was assented to by three quarters of the House.

In all this no move had yet been made against Faesulae, which had locked its gates and sat back to see what happened, very pleased that Rome could not seem to agree upon what to do.

A second summons was dispatched to Lepidus demanding that he return to Rome at once to hold the elections; again Lepidus refused. Both Philippus and Cethegus now informed the senators that Lepidus must be considered to be in revolt, that they had proof of his dealings and agreements with the refractory elements in Etruria and Umbria-and that his senior legate, the praetor Marcus Junius Brutus, was equally involved.

Said Servilia in a letter to Lepidus:

I believe I have finally managed to work out what is behind Philippus's conduct, though I have been able to find no definite proof of my suspicions. However, you may take it that whatever and whoever is behind Philippus is also behind Cethegus.

I studied the verbatim text of that first speech Philippus made over and over again, and had many a cozy chat with every woman in a position to know something. Except for the loathsome Praecia, who is now queening it in the Cethegus menage, it would appear exclusively. Hortensia knows nothing because I believe Catulus her husband knows nothing. However, I finally obtained the vital clue from Julia, the widow of Gaius Marius-you perceive how far I have extended my net pursuing my enquiries!

Her once-upon-a-time daughter-in-law, Mucia Tertia, is now married to that young upstart from Picenum, Gnaeus Pompeius who has the temerity to call himself Magnus. Not a member of the Senate, but very rich, very brash, very anxious to excel. I had to be extremely careful that I did not give Julia any impression that I might be sniffing for information, but she is a frank person once she reposes her trust in someone, and she was inclined to do so from the outset because of my husband's father's loyalty to Gaius Marius-whom, you might remember, he accompanied into exile during Sulla's first consulship.

It turns out too that Julia has detested Philippus ever since he sold himself to Gaius Marius many years ago; apparently Gaius Marius despised the man even as he used him. So when at my third visit (I thought it wise to establish Julia's full trust before mentioning Philippus in more than a passing fashion) I drew the conversation around to the present situation and Philippus's possible motives in making you his victim, Julia mentioned that she thought from something Mucia Tertia had said to her during her last visit to Rome that Philippus is now in the employ of Pompeius! As is none other than Cethegus!

I enquired no further. It really wasn't necessary. From the time of that initial speech, Philippus has harped tirelessly upon Sulla's special clause authorizing the Senate to look outside its own ranks for a military commander or a governor should a good man not be available within its own ranks. Still puzzled as to what this could have to do with the present situation? I confess I was! Until, that is, I sat and mentally reviewed Philippus's conduct over the past thirty-odd years.

I concluded that Philippus is simply working for his master, if his master be in truth Pompeius. Philippus is not a Gaius Gracchus or a Sulla; he has no grand strategy in mind whereby he will manipulate the Senate into dismissing all of you currently embroiled in this campaign against Faesulae and appointing Pompeius in your stead. He probably knows quite well that the Senate will not do that under any circumstances-there are too many capable military men sitting on the Senate's benches at the moment. If both the consuls should fail-and at this stage it is difficult to see why either of you should-there is none other than Lucullus ready to step into the breach, and he is a praetor this year, so has the imperium already.

No, Philippus is merely making as big a fuss as he can in order to have the opportunity to remind the Senate that Sulla's special commission clause does exist. And presumably Cethegus is willing to support him because he too somehow is caught in Pompeius's toils. Not from want of money, obviously! But there are other reasons than money, and Cethegus's reasons could be anything.

Therefore, my dear Lepidus, it seems to me that you are to some extent an incidental victim, that your courage in speaking up for what you believe even though it runs counter to most of the Senate has presented Philippus with a target he can use to justify whatever colossal amount it is that Pompeius is paying him. He's simply lobbying for a man who is not a senator but deems it worthwhile to have a strong faction within the Senate against the day when hi§ services might be needed.

In fairness, I could be completely wrong. However, I do not think I am.

“It makes a great deal more sense than anything else I've heard,” said Lepidus to his correspondent's husband after he had read her letter out loud for Brutus's benefit.

“And I agree with Servilia,” said Brutus, awed. “I doubt she's wrong. She rarely is.”

“So, my friend, what do I do? Return to Rome like a good boy, hold the curule elections and pass then into obscurity-or do I attempt what the Etrurian leaders want of me and lead them against Rome in open rebellion?”

It was a question Lepidus had asked himself many times since he had reconciled himself to the fact that Rome would never permit him to restore Etruria and Umbria to some semblance of normality and prosperity. Pride was in his dilemma, and a certain driving need to stand out from the crowd, albeit that crowd be composed of Roman consulars. Since the death of his wife the value of his actual life had diminished in his own eyes to the point where he held it of scant moment; he had quite lost sight of the real reason for her suicide, which was that their sons should be freed from political reprisals at any time in the future. Scipio Aemilianus and Lucius were with him wholeheartedly and young Marcus was still a child; he it was who fulfilled the Lepidus family's tradition by being the male child born with a caul over his face, and everyone knew that phenomenon meant he would be one of Fortune's favorites throughout a long life. So why ought Lepidus worry about any of his sons?

For Brutus the dilemma was somewhat different, though he did not fear defeat. No, what attracted Brutus to the Etrurian scheme was the culmination of eight years of marriage to the patrician Servilia: the knowledge that she considered him plain, humdrum, unexciting, spineless, contemptible. He did not love her, but as the years went by and his friends and colleagues esteemed her opinions on political matters more and more, he came to realize that in her woman's shell there resided a unique personage whose approval of him mattered. In this present situation, for instance, she had written not to him but to the consul, Lepidus. Passing him over as unimportant. And that shamed him. As he now understood it shamed her also. If he was to retrieve himself in her eyes, he would have to do something brave, high-principled, distinctive.

Thus it was that Brutus finally answered Lepidus's question instead of evading it. He said, “I think you must attempt what the elders want of you and lead Etruria and Umbria against Rome.”

“All right,” said Lepidus, “I will. But not until the New Year, when I am released from that silly oath.”

When the Kalends of January arrived, Rome had no curule magistrates; the elections had not been held. On the last day of the old year Catulus had convened the Senate and informed it that on the morrow it would have to send the fasces to the temple of Venus Libitina and appoint the first interrex. This temporary supreme magistrate called the interrex held office for five days only as custodian of Rome; he had to be patrician, the leader of his decury of senators, and in the case of the first interrex, the senior patrician in the House. On the sixth day he was succeeded as interrex by the second most senior patrician in the House also leader of his decury; the second interrex was empowered to hold the elections.

So at dawn on New Year's Day the Senate formally appointed Lucius Valerius Flaccus Princeps Senatus the first interrex and those men who intended to stand for election as consuls and praetors went into a flurry of hasty canvassing. The interrex sent a curt message to Lepidus ordering him to leave his army and return to Rome forthwith, and reminding him that he had sworn an oath not to turn his legions upon his colleague.

At noon on the third day of Flaccus Princeps Senatus's term, Lepidus sent back his reply.

I would remind you, Princeps Senatus, that I am now proconsul, not consul. And that I kept my oath, which does not bind me now I am proconsul, not consul. I am happy to give up my consular army, but would remind you that I am now proconsul and was voted a proconsular army, and will not give up this proconsular army. As my consular army consisted of four legions and my proconsular army also consists of four legions, it is obvious that I do not have to give up anything.

However, I am willing to return to Rome under the following circumstances: that I am re-elected consul; that every last iugerum of sequestrated land throughout Italy be returned to its original owner; that the rights and properties of the sons and grandsons of the proscribed be restored to them; and that their full powers be restituted to the tribunes of the plebs.

“And that,” said Philippus to the members of the Senate, “should tell even the densest senatorial dunderhead what Lepidus intends! In order to give him what he demands, we would have to tear down the entire constitution Lucius Cornelius Sulla worked so hard to establish, and Lepidus knows very well we will not do that. This answer of his is tantamount to a declaration of war. I therefore beseech the House to pass its senatus consultant de re publica defendenda.”

But this required impassioned debate, and so the Senate did not pass its Ultimate Decree until the last day of Flaccus's term as first interrex. Once it was passed the authority to defend Rome against Lepidus was formally conferred upon Catulus, who was ordered to return to his army and prepare for war.

On the sixth day of January, Flaccus Princeps Senatus stood down and the Senate appointed its second interrex, who was Appius Claudius Pulcher, still lingering in Rome recovering from his long illness. And since Appius Claudius was actually feeling much better, he flung himself into the task of convening the Centuriate Assembly and holding the curule elections. These would occur, he announced, within the Servian Walls on the Aventine in two days' time, this site being outside the pomerium but adequately protected from any military action by Lepidus.

“It's odd,” said Catulus to Hortensius just before he left for Campania, “that after so many years of not enjoying the privilege of free choice in the matter of our magistrates, we should find it so difficult to hold an election at all. Almost as if we were drifting into the habit of allowing someone to do everything for us, like a mother for her babies.”

“That,” said Hortensius in freezing tones, “is sheer fanciful claptrap, Quintus! The most I am prepared to concede is that it is an extraordinary coincidence that our first year of free choice in the matter of our magistrates should also throw up a consul who ignored the tenets of his office. We are now conducting these elections, I must point out to you, and the governance of Rome will proceed in future years as it was always intended to proceed!”

“Let us hope then,” said Catulus, offended, “that the voters will choose at least as wisely as Sulla always did!”

But it was Hortensius who had the last word. “You are quite forgetting, my dear Quintus, that it was Sulla chose Lepidus!”

On the whole the leaders of the Senate (including Catulus and Hortensius) professed themselves pleased with the wisdom of the electors. The senior consul was an elderly man of sedentary habit but known ability, Decimus Junius Brutus, and the junior consul was none other than Mamercus. Clearly the electors held the same high opinion of the Cottae as Sulla had, for last year Sulla had picked Gaius Aurelius Cotta as one of his praetors, and this year the voters returned his brother Marcus Aurelius Cotta among the praetors; the lots made him praetor peregrinus.