Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic (40 page)

Some tried desperately to open his eyes. Back in 55
BC
, while Crassus was preparing for his expedition to the East and Caesar, far away in Gaul, was turning his thoughts to Britain, an unexpected visitor had come knocking on Pompey’s door. Cato had just been through a bruising few months. In January, attempting to block the second consulship of Pompey and Crassus, he had been badly beaten up by Pompey’s heavies. Since then, he had campaigned tirelessly and courageously against the granting of five-year commands to the two consuls, but again to no avail. Now Pompey wanted Caesar to have an identical command. Cato, swallowing his pride, had come to beg his adversary to reconsider. Could he not see that he was raising up a monster on his shoulders? The time would come when he would no longer have the strength to throw off Caesar, or to bear his weight. When that happened both men would totter, locked in a death-clinch, and collapse. And the Republic? Beneath the weight of two such colossi, the Republic would surely be flattened into dust.

Pompey rejected the appeal. In 55, of all years, he could feel sublimely confident of his power and good fortune. On the Campus Martius, where workmen had been labouring for years at his great theatre, the scaffolding had finally come down. Revealed to the astonished eyes of the Roman people was the most stupendous complex of buildings in their city’s history. Set within a beautiful park, it comprised not only an auditorium, but a public portico, a chamber for the Senate and a new house for Pompey himself. Surmounting it all was the temple to Venus, the device by which Pompey had been able to justify its construction in the first place, and that he trusted would serve to protect it for ever from the levelling instincts of jealous rivals.

This was a sensible precaution, for the entire complex stood as an exercise in provoking jealousy. No expense had been spared. In the gardens rare plants bore upon their aromas a soothing reminder of Pompey’s conquest of the East. In the portico gold-woven curtains hung between the columns, while in the background streams ran gently murmuring from countless fountains. Diaphanously draped goddesses, posing coyly in the shade, added to the ambience of what established itself overnight as the most romantic spot in Rome. All the statues and paintings were celebrated masterpieces, carefully selected by Atticus, that knowledgeable connoisseur, and a board of other experts, for Pompey had wished his displays to have the imprimatur of absolute quality. The most imposing piece of all, however, was not an antique, but a specially commissioned statue of Pompey himself. Strategically placed in the new Senate House, it ensured that even when the great man was absent his shadow would fall across the proceedings.

What need was there for the sponsor of such magnificence to go haring after barbarians in order to prove himself ? True, in the north of his allocated province of Spain there were savages still waiting to be tamed, but these were small fry, hardly worthy of a
world conqueror’s attention. Not that Pompey wished to forfeit his command, or the legions that came with it. Rather, he planned to govern Spain from a distance, through the agency of lieutenants. Let Crassus go and fight the Parthians, and Caesar the Gauls – Pompey had already triumphed over three continents. Now, with his theatre completed, his many victories on behalf of the Republic could be restaged as spectacular entertainments. No travelling to the limits of the globe for Pompey the Great. Rather, at his command, the limits of the globe would meet in Rome.

And they would take on bestial form. Back in his twenties, as a precocious young general, Pompey had taken time out from pulverising Libyans to go lion-hunting. ‘Even the wild animals that live in Africa’, he had pronounced, ‘should be taught to respect the strength and courage of the Roman people.’
¹⁹
Along the frontiers of the Republic’s empire, beyond the light of the legionary’s flickering campfire, lions stalked the night as they had done since the creation of the world, primordial symbols of terror, preying on man’s ease of mind. Yet now, in his fifties, wishing to celebrate the dedication of his theatre, Pompey could order them brought to his theatre – and it was done. And not only lions. A century later, fleets weighed down with ravening exotica would be seen as the perfect symbol of the Republic’s new global reach. ‘The padding tiger, shipped in a golden cage, lapping at human blood, applauded by the crowds.’
²⁰
So wrote Petronius, Nero’s master of ceremonies, summing up an age.

It was important to Pompey’s purpose that the savagery of his imports serve to edify as well as entertain. This was why animals were rarely kept in zoos. Only by displaying them in combat, the monstrous matched with the human, could Pompey instruct his fellow citizens in what it took to be the rulers of the world. Sometimes the lesson was too much for the citizenry to bear. When twenty elephants, an unprecedented number, were attacked by
spearmen, their trumpetings of distress so harrowed the spectators that everyone in the theatre began to weep. Cicero, who had been in the audience, puzzled over this. How was it possible, he wondered, that a spectacle so impressive had afforded so little delight?

He analysed his own feelings. The violence, rather than thrilling him, had left him numb. Prisoners being savaged by lions, proud and magnificent wild creatures being skewered on spears: neither seemed the kind of entertainment to afford a cultured man much pleasure. Yet if one thing had depressed Cicero about the entertainments above all others, it had been their scale. The slaughter of the twenty elephants had been merely the climax of what he freely acknowledged to have been ‘the most lavish and magnificent show of all time’
²¹
– an unparalleled display of the Republic’s greatness. Pompey had filled his theatre with wonders from every corner of the empire: not only lions, tigers and elephants, but leopards, lynxes, rhinoceroses and stag-wolves, to say nothing of the mysterious cephos,
*
a creature from Ethiopia with the hands and feet of a man, so rare that it was never seen in Rome again. And yet Cicero, a citizen passionately proud of his city’s achievements, the most articulate spokesman for Rome’s global destiny that the Republic had ever produced, was left bored and oppressed by his hero’s games: ‘If these are sights which must be seen, then you have seen them many times.’
²²
Pleasure and excitement had both been dulled by excess. Cicero could no longer identify with the emotions that Pompey wished him to feel. Games designed to glorify the Republic served to glorify only the sponsor himself. Gazing humbly down upon the carnage, spaced around the theatre, were fourteen statues, each one representing a nation conquered by Pompey.
²³
Marble and blood combined to create an extravaganza of
self-promotion unmatched in the Republic’s history. Never before had the Romans been made to feel quite so inferior to a man who was, after all, a citizen just like them. Was this why the distress of the elephants had moved them more deeply than the mastery of the spearmen? At the end of the games, rather than cheering ‘the general and the lavish display which he had laid on especially to honour them, they rose to their feet, and, through their tears, called down curses upon his head’.
²⁴

Of course, the Roman people were fickle: their anger with Pompey rarely lasted for long. Yet their suspicions – of his greatness, of his generosity – remained. Pompey’s games had been staged in September 55
BC
; weeks later his fellow citizens went to the polls. Despite – or perhaps because of – the new theatre complex looming massively in the background, they delivered its sponsor a pointed rebuff. The previous year Pompey had blocked the candidacies of Domitius Ahenobarbus and Cato; now, for the year 54, both men were elected – Domitius as consul and Cato as praetor. True, there was one candidate backed by Pompey who did secure election, and to the consulship, no less – but Appius Claudius, despite his role as one of the conspirators at Lucca, was hardly a reliable ally. Imperturbable and self-serving, he did no one’s bidding but his own. He might not have built a theatre, but he had breeding, and that, in his own opinion, counted for much more.

The results brought home to Pompey the full ambiguity of his position. By any reckoning he was the first citizen in the Republic. He had just completed his second consulship; he was the governor of Spain, the commander and general of its army; his generosity was the wonder of Rome. Yet the more he sought to consolidate his power, the more it seemed to slip through his fingers. Every effort that he made to secure pre-eminence brought a matching defeat. Increasingly criminal in his methods, Pompey remained conformist in his dreams. The consulships of Appius and Domitius, both of
them notorious for their arrogance, mocked the insecurities of the arriviste. So too, and even more cruelly, did the praetorship of Cato. This infuriating, obdurate, extraordinary man had no legions, no great wealth with which to bribe his fellow citizens. In rank he was not even the equal of a consul, let alone of Caesar or Pompey. Yet he wielded an authority hardly less than that of either. Even as senators took their seats in Pompey’s theatre, or surreptitiously accepted presents from Gaul, they still identified themselves with Cato, with his principles and beliefs. Over the years he seemed to have become the embodiment of legitimacy – almost of the Republic itself. Caesar, far away in Gaul, could afford to scoff at such pretensions. But Pompey, who in his heart of hearts still yearned for Cato’s approval, could not.

Such approval now appeared as remote as ever. The brutality of Pompey’s actions in seizing the consulship would not lightly be forgiven. His army remained a standing menace. Nor did Pompey have the slightest intention of giving up so much as a single legionary. Yet even as he persisted in intimidating the establishment he clung to his hope of winning its heart. For the citizens of a republic such as Rome, loneliness was a bewildering, almost incomprehensible state. Only outlaws – or kings – could truly know it. This was why Pompey, no matter how violently he offended his peers, still wooed them. He had been loved too long, too ardently, not to crave and need love still.

It was a cruel irony, then, that even as he returned to his improbable courtship of the Senate his personal life, which had been so happy and such a comfort to him, should suddenly have darkened. In August 54
BC
his adored wife Julia went into labour. Again she miscarried, but this time she did not survive the loss of her baby. Her husband and father were left equally devastated. For Caesar, however, grief was compounded by alarm. The love that both he and Pompey had felt for Julia had provided the two men with a
bond strong enough to survive any number of political tensions. Now that bond was gone. Caesar, preoccupied with rebellions in Gaul, was desperate not to have his position back in the capital weakened. He needed Pompey more than Pompey needed him, and both men knew it. For a while their shared bereavement would continue to unite them, but not for ever. How long would Pompey stay single? His eligibility was a valuable asset – far too valuable not to be exploited. His return to the marriage market would give him unanticipated room for manoeuvre. And that, of course, was precisely what unsettled his partner so much.

Yet Pompey was still hemmed in by obligations. For as long as the menacing figure of Crassus remained on the horizon, he would remain nervous of offending Caesar. Mutual fear, not affection, was what had provided the triumvirate with its cement. No one partner could stand up to the other two. This was why, in carving up the Republic’s empire, the three conspirators had been so careful to interlock their power bases. By doing so they aimed to defend themselves from one another as much as from their common foes. But then, a year after Julia’s death, midway through 53
BC
, the news arrived from Carrhae that Crassus was dead. For Caesar this was a second devastating blow, but it is unlikely that Pompey shed many tears. After all, what sweeter measure of success could there be than the failure of a rival? Let the Roman people shudder – the Parthian victory would serve to remind them that victories against Eastern barbarians could never be taken for granted. Should the situation on the frontier turn really ugly, then Pompey’s fellow citizens would know where to turn. But even if – as happened – the Parthians did not press their advantage into Syria, Pompey could still stretch his limbs and exult in a novel feeling. A malign presence had been exorcised from his life. Never again would it shadow him, cabin him, torment him. Crassus was no more.

Now, suddenly, everything seemed to be moving Pompey’s way. Sleaze had begun to corrode the moral authority of the Senate. The consulship of Appius and Domitius had ended amid high outrage when the two men were accused of accepting bribes to fix the forthcoming consular elections. Four candidates had been standing and all four were indicted. Amid escalating rumours of ever more shady deals, the elections had to be postponed for six months. For Domitius, and the cause of senatorial respectability for which he had been the spokesman, the scandal was a particular calamity. As Cicero cattily pointed out, Appius had no reputation to lose, ‘but his colleague is left a broken reed, utterly discredited’.
²⁵
Such was the turmoil that it seemed only one man could restore order. Pompey’s lapdogs began to mutter that he should be made dictator. When Cato, to no one’s surprise, exploded at the suggestion, Pompey ostentatiously turned down the offer. But still the whisperings would not be silenced. They could be heard throughout the feverish, troubled capital: in the Senate House, the Forum, the slums. The Republic was collapsing. A strongman was needed. Only Pompey would do. Pompey himself kept his peace, looked modest, and bided his time.