The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

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Cicero was still writing to Brutus in Italian Gaul.

I know I've already told you about Caesar's disgraceful lampooning of the Republican heroes in Africa, but I am still fulminating about it. How can the man have such excellent taste when it comes to things like games and shows, yet make a mockery out of worthy Roman opponents? However, that is not why I write. I have divorced that termagant Terentia at last thirty years of misery! So I am now an eligible sixty-year-old bachelor, a very strange and freeing sensation. So far I have been offered two widows, one the sister of Pompeius Magnus, the other his daughter. You do know that Publius Sulla died very suddenly? It upset the Great Man, who always liked him why escapes me. Anyone whose father was adopted by a man like Sextus Perquitienus Senior and was brought up in that household cannot help but be a cur. So his Pompeia is a widow. However, I prefer the other Pompeia for one thing, she's thirty years younger. For another, she seems to be a fairly sanguine widow, isn't mourning Faustus Sulla overmuch. That's probably because the Great Man permitted her to keep all her property, which is vast. I shall not marry a poor woman, my dear Brutus, but nor, after Terentia, will I marry a woman who is in complete control of her own fortune. So perhaps neither Pompeia Magna is a good choice. We Romans allow women too much autonomy. There has been another divorce in the ranks of the Tullii Cicerones. My darling Tullia has finally severed her union to that rabid boar Dolabella. I requested that her dowry payments be returned, as I am entitled to when the wife is the injured party. To my surprise, Dolabella said yes! I think he's trying to get back into favor with Caesar, hence the promised repayment. Caesar is a stickler for women being treated properly, witness his concern for Antonia Hybrida. Then what happens? Tullia informs me that she is with child by Dolabella! Oh, what is the matter with women? Not only that, but Tullia is so terribly downcast, doesn't seem to be interested in the coming baby, and has the temerity to blame me for the divorce! Says I nagged her into it. I give up. No doubt Gaius Cassius has written to tell you that he is coming home from Asia Province. I rather gather that he and Vatia Isauricus have nothing in common save their wives, your sisters. Well, Vatia hewed to Caesar and cannot be pried loose. From what Cassius tells me in his letter, Vatia is a very strict governor, has regulated the taxes and tithes of Asia Province (not due to be enforced for several more years) to make it impossible for a publicanus or any other sort of Roman businessman to make one sestertius of profit from the Amanus to the Propontis. I ask you, Brutus, what does Rome have provinces for, if not to let Romans make a sestertius or two out of them? Truly, I think Caesar believes Rome should pay her provinces, not the other way around! Gaius Trebonius has arrived in Rome driven out of Further Spain by Labienus and the two Pompeii, it seems. He was struggling after Quintus Cassius's deplorable conduct when he was governor a regular Gaius Verres, they say. The three Republicans landed to hysterical joy, and have been raising legions with marked success. Having moored his many ships in Balearic waters, Gnaeus Pompeius is now living in Corduba as the new Roman governor. Labienus is the commander of military matters. I wonder what Caesar plans to do?

"I think Caesar will be going to Spain as soon as his present legislation is done with," said Calpurnia to Marcia and Porcia. Porcia's eyes lit into a blaze, her face suffused with hope. "This time it will be different!" she cried, smacking her right fist into her left palm jubilantly. "Every day that passes sees Caesar's legions more disaffected, and since the time of Quintus Sertorius, the Spanish have produced legionaries every bit as good as those Italy produces. You wait and see, Spain will be the end of Caesar. I pray for it!" "Come, Porcia," Marcia said, her eyes meeting Calpurnia's ruefully, "remember our company." "Oh, really!" Porcia snapped, her hand going out to clench Calpurnia's. "Why should poor Calpurnia care? Caesar spends all his time across the Tiber with That Woman!" Very true, thought Calpurnia. The only nights he occupies his Domus Publica bed are those before a meeting of the Senate at dawn. Otherwise, he's there with her. I'm jealous and I hate feeling jealous. I hate her too, but I still love Caesar. "I believe," she said with composure, "that the Queen is extremely knowledgeable about government, and that very little of his time with her is devoted to love. From what he says, they talk of his laws. And political matters." "You mean he has the gall to mention her name to his wife?" Porcia demanded incredulously. "Yes, often. That's why I don't worry very much about her. Caesar doesn't act one scrap differently toward me than he ever has. I am his wife. At best, she's his mistress. Though," said Calpurnia wistfully, "I would love to see the little boy." "My father says he's a beautiful child," Marcia offered, then frowned. "The interesting thing is that Atia's boy, Octavius, detests the Queen and refuses to believe that the child is Caesar's. Though my father says the child undoubtedly is Caesar's, he's very like him. Octavius calls her the Queen of Beasts because of her gods, which apparently have the heads of beasts." "Octavius is jealous of her," said Porcia. Calpurnia's eyes widened. "Jealous? But why?" "I don't know, but my Lucius knows him from the drills on the Campus Martius, and says he makes no secret of it." "I didn't know Octavius and Lucius Bibulus were friends," said Marcia. "They're the same age, seventeen, and Lucius is one of the few who doesn't sneer at Octavius when he goes to the drills." "Why should anyone sneer?" asked Calpurnia, puzzled. "Because he wheezes. My father," Porcia went on, transfigured at the mere mention of Cato, "would say that Octavius ought not to be punished for an infliction of the gods. My Lucius agrees." "Poor lad. I didn't know," said Calpurnia. "Living in that house, I do," Marcia said grimly. "There are times when Atia despairs for his life." "I still don't understand why he should be jealous of Queen Cleopatra," Calpurnia said. "Because she's stolen Caesar," Marcia contributed. "Caesar was spending considerable time with Octavius until the Queen came to Rome. Now, he's forgotten Octavius exists." "My father," Porcia brayed, "condemns jealousy. He says that it destroys inner peace." "I don't think we're terribly jealous, yet none of us enjoys inner peace," said Marcia. Calpurnia picked up a kitten wandering around the floor and kissed its sleek, domed little skull. "I have a feeling," she said, cheek against its fat tummy, "that Queen Cleopatra is not at peace either."

A shrewd guess; having learned that Caesar was going to Spain to deal with the Republican rebellion there, Cleopatra was filled with a rather royal dismay. "But I can't live in Rome without you!" she said. "I refuse to let you leave me here alone!" "I'd say, go home, except that autumnal and winter seas are perilous between here and Alexandria," Caesar said, keeping his temper. "Stick it out, my love. The campaign won't be long." "I heard that the Republicans have thirteen legions." "I imagine at least that many." "And you've discharged all but two of your veteran legions." "The Fifth Alauda and the Tenth. But Rabirius Postumus, who has consented to act as my praefectus fabrum again, is recruiting in Italian Gaul, and a lot of the discharged veterans there are bored enough to re-enlist. I'll have eight legions, sufficient to beat Labienus," Caesar said, and leaned to kiss her with lingering enjoyment. She's still miffed. Change the subject. "Have you looked at the census data?" he asked. "I have, and they're brilliant," she said warmly, diverted. "When I return to Egypt, I shall institute a similar kind of census. What fascinates me is how you managed to school thousands of men to take it door-to-door." "Oh, men love to ask nosy questions. The training lies more in teaching them how to deal with people who resent nosy questions." "Your genius staggers me, Caesar. You do everything so efficiently, yet so swiftly. The rest of us toil in your wake." "Keep paying me compliments, and my head won't fit through your door," he said lightly, then scowled. "At least yours smack of sincerity! Do you know what those idiots put on that wretched gold quadriga they erected in Jupiter Optimus Maximus's porticus?" She did know. While she approved of it and agreed with it, she knew Caesar well enough by now to understand why it had so angered him. The Senate and the Eighteen had commissioned a gold sculpture of Caesar in a four-horse chariot atop a globe of the world, another of the honors they heaped upon him against his will. "I am on the horns of a dilemma about these honors," he had said to her some time ago. "When I refuse them, I'm apostrophized as churlish and ungrateful, yet when I accept them, I'm apostrophized as regal and arrogant. I told them I refused to condone this awful construction, but they've gone ahead with it anyway." He hadn't seen the "awful construction" until this morning, when it was unveiled. The sculptor, Arcesilaus, had done well; his four horses were superb. Pleasantly surprised, Caesar had toured around it with equanimity until he noticed the plaque affixed to the front wall of the chariot. It said, in Greek, exactly what the statue of him in the Ephesus agora said GOD MADE MANIFEST and all the rest. "Take that abomination off!" he snapped. No one moved to obey. One of the senators was wearing a dagger on his belt; Caesar snatched it and used it to dig into the chased gold surface until the plaque came off. "Never, never say such things about me!" he said, and walked out, so furious that the plaque, thrown away, was crushed and crumpled into a ball of metal. So now Cleopatra said pacifically, "Yes, I know about it. And I am sorry it offended you." "I do not want to be the King of Rome, and I do not want to be a god! "he snarled. "You are a God," she said simply. "No, I am not! I am a mortal man, and I will suffer the fate of all mortal men, Cleopatra! I will die! Hear that? Die! Gods don't die. If I were to be made a god after my death, that would be different I'd be sleeping the eternal sleep, and not know I was a god. But while I am mortal, I cannot be a god. And why," he demanded, "do I need to be King of Rome? As Dictator, I can do whatever has to be done."

"He's like a bull being tormented by a crowd of little boys safely on the other side of the stall railings," said Servilia to Gaius Cassius with great satisfaction. "Oh, I am enjoying it! So is Pontius Aquila." "How is your devoted lover?" Cassius asked sweetly. "Working for me against Caesar, but very subtly. Of course Caesar doesn't like him, but fair-mindedness is one of Caesar's weaknesses, so if a man shows promise, he's advanced, even if he is a pardoned Republican and Servilia's lover," she purred. "You're such a bitch." "And I always was a bitch. I had to be, to survive Uncle Drusus's household. You know Drusus confined me to the nursery and forbade me to leave the premises until I married Brutus's tata, don't you?" she asked. "No, I didn't. Why would a Livius Drusus do that?" "Because I spied for my father, who was Drusus's enemy." "At what age?" "Nine, ten, eleven." "But why were you living with your mother's brother instead of your own father?" Cassius asked. "My mother committed adultery with Cato's father," she said, her face twisting hideously even at so old a memory, "and my father chose to deem all his own children by her as someone else's." "That would do it," said Cassius clinically. "Yet you spied for him?" "He was a patrician Servilius Caepio," she said, as if that explained it all. Knowing her, Cassius supposed it did. "What happened with Vatia in Africa Province?" she asked. "He wouldn't let me collect my or Brutus's debts." "Oh, I see." "How is Brutus?" Her black brows rose, she looked indifferent. "How would I know? He doesn't write to me any more than he writes to you. He and Cicero dribble words to each other. Well, why not? Both of them are old women." Cassius grinned. "I saw Cicero in Tusculum on my way, stayed with him overnight. He's very busy writing a paean to Cato, if you like that idea. No, I thought you wouldn't. However, the war looming in the Spains had him twittering and fluttering, which surprised me, given his detestation for Caesar. I asked him why, and he said that if the Pompeius boys beat Caesar, he thought they would be far worse masters for Rome than Caesar is." "And what did you reply to that, Cassius dear?" "That, like him, I'd settle for the easygoing old master I know. The Pompeii hail from Picenum, and I've never known a Picentine who wasn't cruel to the marrow. Scratch a Picentine, and you reveal a barbarian." "That's why Picentines make such wonderful tribunes of the plebs. They love to strike when the back is turned, and they're never happier than when they can make mischief. Pah!" Servilia spat. "At least Caesar is a Roman of the Romans." "So much so that he has the blood to be King of Rome." "Just like Sulla," she agreed. "However and also like Sulla! he doesn't want to be the King of Rome." "If you can say that so positively, then why are you and certain others trying very hard to make it seem as if Caesar itches to tie on the diadem?" "It passes the time," Servilia said. "Besides, I must have a tiny bit of Picentine in me. I adore making mischief." "Have you met her majesty?" Cassius asked, feeling his own Romanness expand. Oh, it was good to be home! Tertulla might be half Caesar's, but the other half was pure Servilia, and both halves made for a fascinatingly seductive wife. "My dear, her majesty and I are bosom friends," Servilia cooed. "What fools Roman women can be! Would you believe that most of my female peers have decided to label the Queen of Egypt infra dignitatem? Silly of them, isn't it?" "Why don't you find her beneath your dignity?" "It's more interesting to stand on good terms with her. As soon as Caesar leaves for Spain, I shall bring her into fashion." Cassius frowned. "I'm sure your motives aren't admirable, Mama-in-law, but whatever they are, they elude me. You know so little about her. She might be a wilier snake than you." Servilia lifted her arms above her head and stretched. "Oh, but there you're quite wrong, Cassius. I know a great deal about Cleopatra. You see, her younger sister spent almost two years here in Rome Caesar exhibited her as his captive in his Egyptian triumph. She was put to live with old Caecilia, and as Caecilia is a good friend of mine, I came to know Princess Arsino well. We chatted for hours about Cleopatra." "That triumph's almost three months into the past. Where's Princess Arsino now?" Cassius peered about theatrically. "I'm surprised she isn't living here with you." "She would be, had I had half a chance. Unfortunately Caesar put her on a ship bound for Ephesus the day after his triumph. I hear she's to serve Artemis in the temple there. The moment she escapes, she can be killed for a nice reward. Apparently he gave Cleopatra his word that he'd clip Arsinos wings. Such a pity! I was so looking forward to reuniting the two sisters." He shivered. "There are times, Servilia, when I am profoundly glad that you like me." In answer, she changed the subject. "Do you really prefer Caesar as your master, Cassius?" His face darkened. "I would prefer to have no master. To acknowledge a master is an offense against Quirinus," he snarled.

VII

The Cracks Appear

From INTERCALARIS of 46 B.C. until SEPTEMBER of 45 B.C.

Caesar's nephew Quintus Pedius and Quintus Fabius Maximus had marched four "new" legions from Placentia in western Italian Gaul during November, and arrived in Further Spain a month later. By the seasons it was late summer, very hot; to their delight, they found the province not entirely at the beck and call of the three Republican generals, so were able to make a good camp on the upper Baetis River and buy the harvest of the region. Caesar's orders were to wait for him and use the time laying in supplies, even though he didn't expect a long campaign. Better to be safe than sorry was always Caesar's motto when it came to logistics. Then at the beginning of the sixty-seven days of Intercalaris which followed the end of December, this comfortable situation changed; Labienus appeared with two legions of well-trained Roman men and four legions of raw local troops, and proceeded to besiege the camp. In a pitched battle Caesar's legates Pedius and Fabius Maximus would have fared well, but in a siege situation Labienus could use his superior strength to best advantage, and did. Safe was definitely preferable to sorry; besieged or no, Caesar's troops could still eat. Unsure of the water from the stream that ran through the camp, the four penned-up legions dug wells for groundwater and settled down to wait for Caesar and rescue. With the Tenth, the Fifth Alauda and two fresh legions largely made up of bored veterans, Caesar set out from Placentia at the same moment as his two legates in Further Spain came under siege. The distance to Corduba on the Via Domitia was one thousand miles, and it was a typically Caesarean march: it took twenty-seven days at an average of thirty-seven miles a day, assisted by the fact that it was no longer necessary to build a camp each night. Gaul of the Via Domitia was so pacified that even Caesar could see no need for a camp with walls, ditches and palisades. That changed when they came down through the pass from Laminium in Nearer Spain to Oretum in Further Spain, but by then there were only a hundred and fifty miles to go. The moment Caesar appeared, Labienus vanished.

Sextus Pompey was holding the heavily fortified capital of Corduba while older brother Gnaeus took the bulk of the army and went to besiege the town of Ulia, defiantly anti-Republican. But the moment Labienus sent word that Caesar was already marching to take Corduba before Sextus could bring up reinforcements, Gnaeus Pompey packed up his siege to return to Corduba. Just in time! "We have thirteen legions, Caesar eight," said Gnaeus Pompey to Labienus, Attius Varus and Sextus Pompey. "I say we face him now and beat him for once and for all!" "Yes!" cried Sextus. "Yes," said Attius Varus, though less eagerly. "Absolutely not," said Labienus. "Why?" asked Gnaeus Pompey. "Let's finish it, please!" "At the moment Caesar can eat, but winter's on the way, and according to the locals, it's going to be a hard one," Labienus said, tones reasonable. "Leave Caesar to face that winter. Harry him, prevent his foraging, make him use up his supplies." "We outnumber him by five legions," Gnaeus said, unconvinced. "Four of our thirteen are veteran Roman troops, another five are almost as good, which leaves four only of recruits, and they're not all that bad I've heard you say so yourself, Labienus." "What you don't know and I do, Gnaeus Pompeius, is that Caesar also has eight thousand Gallic cavalry. They were some days behind him through the pass, but they're here now. The year's been dry, the grazing isn't wonderful, and if the upper Baetis gets snow this winter, Caesar will lose them. You know Gallic cavalry " He stopped, grunted, looked wry. "No, of course you don't. Well, I do. I worked with them for eight years. Why do you think that Caesar came to prefer Germans? When their precious horses start to suffer, Gallic cavalry ride home. Therefore we leave Caesar alone until spring. Once the horses begin starving, it's goodbye to Caesar's cavalry." The news broke on the two Pompeys as a bitter disappointment, but they were their father's sons; Pompey the Great had never fought unless his forces heavily outnumbered the enemy's. Eight thousand horse meant Caesar outnumbered them. Gnaeus Pompey sighed, banged a frustrated fist on the table. "All right, Labienus, I see your point. We spend the winter denying Caesar any chance to work down out of the Baetis foothills to find snowless grazing."

"Labienus is learning," Caesar remarked to his legates, now augmented by Dolabella, Calvinus, Messala Rufus, Pollio, and his admiral, Gaius Didius. Inevitably, he also had Tiberius Claudius Nero, whose only value was his name; Caesar needed all the old patricians he could find to dignify his cause. "It's going to be hard finding sufficient fodder for the horses. They're such a wretched nuisance on any campaign, but with Labienus in the field, we're going to need them. His Spanish cavalry are excellent, and he has several thousand at least. He can also get more." "What do you intend to do, Caesar?" Quintus Pedius asked. "Sit tight here in the upper Baetis for the moment. Once winter really cracks down, I have a few ideas. First, we have to convince Labienus that his tactics are working." Caesar looked at Quintus Fabius Maximus. "Quintus, I want your junior legates to fill in their idle moments by finding trustworthy men among my centurions, and use them to monitor feelings in my legions. I've sensed no mutinous rumbles, but the days when I believed in my troops are over. Most of the men Ventidius enlisted in Placentia are veterans, and he sifted them thoroughly for malcontents, I know. Be that as it may, everyone keep his ear to the ground." An uncomfortable silence fell. How terrible to realize that Caesar, the soldier's general, thought that way these days! Yet he was right to think that way. Mutiny was insidious. Once the men who manipulated the ranks learned that it was possible, it became a way to control the general. Things military had been in a state of flux since Gaius Marius admitted the propertyless Head Count to the legions, and mutiny was just a new symptom of that state of flux. Caesar would find a solution.

At the beginning of January, calendar and seasons now in perfect step, Caesar implemented one of his ideas when he moved to besiege the town of Ategua, a day's march south of Corduba on the river Salsum. Right into the lion's jaws. Ategua contained a huge amount of food, but more important, it held Labienus's winter fodder for his horses. The weather was bitter, Caesar's march as secret as unexpected; by the time that Gnaeus Pompey found out and moved his troops from Corduba to prevent Ategua's capture, Caesar had circumvallated the town in the style of Alesia: a double ring of fortifications, the inner one surrounding the town, the outer one keeping Gnaeus Pompey's relief force at bay. Caesar's eight legions sat within the ring, while his eight thousand Gallic cavalry harassed Gnaeus Pompey continuously. Titus Labienus, who had been absent on a mission, arrived and looked dourly at Caesar's circumvallation. "You can't assist Ategua or break into the ring, Gnaeus," Labienus said. "All you're doing is losing men to Caesar's cavalry. Withdraw to Corduba. Ategua's a lost cause." When the town fell despite heroic resistance, it was a blow to the Republicans in more ways than one. Not only did Caesar feed his horses, but Labienus now had to move closer to the coast to graze his, and the Spanish locals began to lose faith. Desertions in the Spanish levies increased dramatically.

For Caesar, what ought to have been a great satisfaction was blighted by a letter and a book bucket from Servilia.

I thought you'd get as big a kick out of the enclosed, Caesar, as I did. After all, you're the only other person I know whose loathing of Cato rears as high as Mount Ararat. This gem has been authored by that utter peasant, Cicero, and published, naturally, by Atticus. When I chanced to meet the hypocritical plutocrat who manages to stay on good terms with you and your enemies, I served him a tongue-lashing he won't forget in a hurry. "You're a parasite as well as a hypocrite, Atticus!" I said. "The quintessential middleman who makes all the profits without owning any personal talents. Well, I'm delighted that Caesar's put one of his biggest colonies for the Roman Head Count on your latifundium in Epirus that will teach you to start a business on public land! I hope you rot while you're still alive, and I hope Caesar's poor wreck your latifundium!" I couldn't have found a better way to alarm him than that. Apparently he and Cicero thought they'd deflected your colony to somewhere farther from Atticus's cattle and tanneries than Buthrotum. Now they find out that it's still Buthrotum. Caesar, don't you dare let Atticus talk you out of that site for your colony! Atticus doesn't own the land, he doesn't pay rent on the land, and he deserves everything he gets from you and the Head Count! Publishing this revolting paean of praise for the worst man who ever sat in the Senate! I am livid! When you read Cicero's "Cato," you'll be livid too. Of course my idiot son thinks it's just wonderful it seems he'd written a little pamphlet extolling Uncle Cato, but tore it up after he read Cicero's panegyric. Brutus says he's coming back to Rome as soon as Vibius Pansa arrives to govern Italian Gaul in his place. Honestly, Caesar, where do you find these nobodies? Still, Pansa's rich enough to have married Fufiius Calenus's daughter, so I daresay Pansa will go far. There are a number of your old legates from Gaul in Rome at the moment, from praetor Decimus Brutus to ex-governor Gaius Trebonius. I know that Cleopatra writes to you about four times a day, but I thought you might like a more dispassionate tone from someone else. She's managing to survive, but she's so utterly miserable without you. How dared you tell her it would be a short campaign? Rome won't see you for a year, is my estimate. And why on earth did you put her in that marble mausoleum? The poor creature is permanently frozen! This winter is cold and early ice on the Tiber, snow in Rome already. I gather that the Alexandrian winter is about like late spring in Rome. The little boy fares better, thinks that playing in the snow is the best fun ever invented. Now to gossip. Fulvia is with child by Antonius, looks her usual glowing self. Imagine it! Issue, probably male, for the third of her bully-boy rowdies! Clodius, Curio, and now Antonius. Cicero oh, I cannot get away from that man! married his seventeen-year-old ward, Publilia, the other day. What do you think about that? Disgusting. Read the "Cato." Cicero badly wanted to dedicate it to Brutus, by the by, but Brutus declined this signal honor. Why? Because he knew that if he accepted, I'd murder him.

He read the "Cato" with at least as much rage and indignation as Servilia, his fury white-hot by the time he finished it. Cato, said Cicero, was the noblest Roman who ever lived, the loyalest and most unswerving servant of the extinct Republic, the enemy of all tyrants like Caesar, the constant protector of the mos maiorum, the hero even in his death, the perfect husband and father, the brilliant orator, the frugal master of his bodily appetites, the true Stoic to the end, and more, and more, and more. Perhaps had Cicero gone no further, Caesar might have stomached the "Cato." But Cicero had gone much further. The entire emphasis of the work was on the contrast between the superlative virtues of Marcus Porcius Cato and the unspeakable villainies of Caesar Dictator. Trembling with anger, Caesar sat stiffly in his chair and bit his lips until they bled. So that is what you think, Cicero, is it? Well, Cicero, your day is done. Caesar will never ask anything of you ever again. Nor will you ever sit in Caesar's Senate, even if you beg on your knees. As for you, Atticus, the publisher of this unjust piece of malice, Caesar will do as Servilia suggests. The immigrant poor will flock into Buthrotum! Caesar had whiled away the time on his march to Further Spain by writing a poem. It was titled "Iter" "The Journey" and, on rereading it, he had found it far better than he had originally thought. The best thing he'd written in years. Good enough to warrant publication. Of course he had intended to send it to Atticus, whose small army of copy scribes did beautiful work. But now "Iter" would go to the Brothers Sosius for publication. Nor would Atticus receive any dictatorial favors in future. It wasn't necessary to be King of Rome to exact reprisals. Dictator of Rome was quite sufficient. Rage not cooled but rather gone to icy determination, Caesar began to write a refutation of Cicero's "Cato" that would take every point Cicero made and turn it on its head. Couched in prose that would have Cicero squirming at his own inadequate talents. The "Cato" could not be ignored. Those who read it would deem Caesar worse than any Greek tyrant, yet it was a warped, one-sided piece of rubbish. It must be answered!

Usually it was Caesar who looked for a pitched battle to end a war quickly, but in Spain it was the Republicans; Caesar was too involved in his "Anti-Cato" to think about battles. Sextus Pompey had hugely relished Cicero's "Cato," though he was very disappointed that it had nothing to say about Cato's march, which to Sextus Pompey represented the last time he had been truly happy. Africa Province had been detestable, and Spain was worse. He couldn't like Titus Labienus, and found Attius Varus a venal nonentity. Only poor Gnaeus was worth fighting for, yet Gnaeus seemed to have lost his old zest for the Republican struggle. "I'm no good on land, Sextus, and that's the truth," Gnaeus said gloomily as they walked to a meeting with Labienus and Attius Varus. It was the first day of March; Corduba was thawing, the Spanish sun had some warmth again. "I'm an admiral." "I find I'm more comfortable on the sea too," Sextus said. "What's going to happen?" "Oh, we'll try to force a battle with Caesar as soon as we possibly can." Gnaeus stopped, grasped his young brother's wrist strongly. "Sextus, make me a promise?" "Anything, you know that." "If I should fall on the field, or meet some other sticky end, will you marry Scribonia?" Skin tight and prickling, Sextus broke free of the grip and reversed it. "Ny-Ny!" he cried, a small child again. "That's absolutely ridiculous! Nothing is going to happen to you!" "I have a premonition." "You and every other man going into battle!" "I agree that it may be a fancy, but what if it isn't? I don't want my darling Scribonia to fall captive to Caesar, she has no money and no relatives on Caesar's side." Gnaeus's blue eyes held a desperate and convinced sincerity that Sextus had seen before, in his father's eyes when he had spoken of fleeing to far-off Serica. "Somehow, Sextus, I don't have any premonition about you. Whether we win or lose the fight with Caesar, you'll live and escape. Please, I beg of you, take Scribonia with you! Have our father's grandchildren by her, for I haven't managed to. Say you will! Promise!" Not wanting Gnaeus to see his tears, Sextus embraced him, a convulsion of love and sorrow. "I promise, Ny-Ny." "Good. Now let's see what Labienus has to say." The war council agreed that the army should leave the vicinity of Corduba and move south to lure Caesar farther away from his bases and his supplies. To Gnaeus Pompey, the profoundest shock came from Labienus, who refused to take field command. "I don't have Caesar's luck," he said simply. "It's taken me two battles to see it, but I do now. Every time the strategy has been left up to me, we go down. So now it's your turn, Gnaeus Pompeius. I'll command the cavalry and do whatever you order." Pompey the Great's elder son stared at the greying Labienus in horror; if this battered, aging eagle of a man could say that, what was going to happen? Well, he knew what was going to happen. Labienus might blame it on Caesar's luck, but Gnaeus Pompey thought it was more Caesar's ability. An assumption confirmed five days into March, when the battle came on near a town called Soricaria. Gnaeus Pompey discovered that he didn't have his father's skills or instincts when it came to war on land. He and his infantry went down badly, but the engagement wasn't decisive despite the Republican losses. Gnaeus Pompey drew off to lick his wounds, his confidence further eroded when a slave reported to him that his Spanish tribunes and soldiers were sneaking away. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, he had the would-be deserters detained overnight; in the morning, shrugging his shoulders, he let them go. If men weren't willing to fight, why keep them? "There are too few of us dedicated to the cause," he said to Sextus, eyes shining with tears. "There's no one on the face of the globe has the genius to beat Caesar, and I'm tired." His hand went out, gave Sextus a small paper. "This arrived from Caesar at dawn. I haven't shown it to Labienus or Attius Varus yet, but I must."

To Gnaeus Pompeius, Titus Labienus, the legates and men of the Republican army: Caesar's clemency is no more. Let this communication serve notice of that fact upon you. There will be no more pardons, even for men who have never been pardoned. The Spanish levies will be considered equally culpable and will suffer accordingly, as will all the towns that have assisted the Republican cause. Any men of an age to fight who are found in any towns will be executed without trial.

"Caesar's terribly angry!" said Sextus in a whisper. "Oh, Gnaeus, I feel as if we've kicked a hornet's nest like a toy ball! Why is he so angry? Why?" "I have no idea," said Gnaeus, and went to show the note to Labienus and Attius Varus. Labienus knew. Brow glistening with sweat, he looked at the two Pompeys out of stony black eyes. "He's reached the end of his tether. The last time he did that was at Uxellodunum, where he amputated the hands of four thousand Gauls and sent them to beg from one end of Gaul to the other." "Ye gods, why?" asked Sextus, appalled. "To show Gaul that if it continued to resist, there would be no more mercy. Eight years, he thought, was enough mercy. You're of an age to remember Caesar's temper, Gnaeus. When he reaches the end of his tether, he breaks it. Nothing can break him." "What should I do?" asked Gnaeus. "Read it out to the army just before we fight." Labienus squared his shoulders. "Tomorrow we look for the right place to give battle. We fight to the death, and I for one will make it the hardest battle of Caesar's unparalleled career."

They found their ground near the town of Munda, on the road from Astigi to the coast at Calpe, the Pillar of Hercules on the Spanish side of the straits. A low mountain pass, Munda offered the Republicans excellent downhill terrain; for Caesar, who ran up the battle flag joyously when he arrived, an uphill fight. It was Caesar's plan to hold his position with infantry until his huge cavalry force, massed on his left wing, could roll up the Republican right and come around behind the whole Republican army. Not easy with uphill terrain and an enemy served formal notice that there would be no quarter during battle, no clemency after battle. The two sides met shortly after dawn, and what fell out was a grim, interminably long, bloody engagement of the most basic kind. There were no opportunities for brilliant or innovative tactics at Munda, perhaps the most straightforward battle Caesar had ever fought. It was also the one he came closest to losing, for the Republicans refused to yield ground and wouldn't permit Caesar to deploy his cavalry. Munda was a slugging match, toe-to-toe, with Caesar, fighting uphill with four fewer legions of foot, severely disadvantaged. Gnaeus Pompey's troops had taken Caesar's message to heart and fought doggedly, desperately. Eight hours later and Munda was still not decided. Sitting Toes atop a good observation mound, Caesar saw his front line begin to waver and break; he was down off Toes in an instant, took his shield, drew his sword and pushed his way through the ranks to the front line, where the Tenth wasn't holding. "Come on, you mutinous cunni, they're mere children!" he shrieked, laying about him. "If you can't do better than this, then it's the last day of life for you and me both, because I'll die alongside you!" The Tenth responded, closed ranks, and struggled on with Caesar in their midst. Thus, with sunset imminent and no decision in sight, it was Quintus Pedius on the observation mound. Caesar-trained, he saw the cavalry's chance and ordered it to charge Gnaeus Pompey's right, a young tribune named Salvidienus Rufus in the lead. The Gauls, strengthened by a thousand Germans, followed Salvidienus, crashed into Labienus's horse, rolled the flank up, and fell on Gnaeus Pompey's rear. As darkness fell, the bodies of 30,000 Republicans and their Spanish allies littered the field. Of Caesar's Tenth Legion, hardly a man survived. They had finally expiated mutiny. Titus Labienus and Publius Attius Varus fell in battle, quite deliberately, whereas the two Pompeys got away.

Gnaeus fled to Hispalis and tried to find shelter there, but Caesennius Lento, a minor legate of Caesar's, pursued him, killed him, cut off his head and nailed it up in the marketplace. Gaius Didius, mopping up, found it and sent it to Caesar, who he knew would not be pleased at this barbarity; Caesennius Lento was going to experience a rapid fall from Caesar's favor for this deed.

Almost blinded by fatigue, Sextus scrambled on to a riderless horse and instinctively headed for Corduba, where Gnaeus had left Scribonia. Obliged to slink from place to place because the Spanish were heartily ruing their choice of the Republicans, Sextus had ridden over a hundred circuitous miles before he saw Corduba in the distance; it was the second night after Munda. The noise of a party trotting down the road sent him into a grove of trees, from which he peered into the moonlit expanse as the men passed him by. There, high on a spear, he saw the head of his brother, glaucous eyes rolled upward at the sky, mouth drawn into a grimace of pain. Ny-Ny, Ny-Ny! Gnaeus's premonition had been a true one. My father, now my brother. Both headless. Is decapitation to be my fate too? If so, then I swear by Sol Indiges, Tellus and Liber Pater that I will outlive Caesar and be a merciless enemy to his successors. For the Republic will never return, I know it in my bones. My father was right to think of fleeing to Serica, but it is too late for that. I am going to remain in the world of Our Sea but on it. Gnaeus still has his fleets in the Baleares. Picus, our own Picentine deity, preserve his fleets for me! Outside the gates of Corduba he found Gnaeus Pompeius Philip, the same freedman retainer who had burned his father's body on the beach at Pelusium, and left Cornelia Metella's service to be with the two sons in Spain. Armed with a lamp, walking up and down, too elderly to attract any notice. "Philip!" Sextus whispered. The freedman fell upon his shoulder and wept. "Domine, they have killed your brother!" "Yes, I know. I saw him. Philip, I promised Gnaeus that I would take care of Scribonia. Have they detained her yet?" "No, domine. I have hidden her." "Can you smuggle her out to me? With a little food? I'll try to find a second horse." "There is a conduit through the walls, domine. I will bring her within an hour." Philip turned and vanished. Sextus used the time to prowl in search of horses; like most cities, Corduba was not equipped with much stabling within its walls, and he knew exactly where Corduban mounts were kept. When Philip returned with Scribonia and her maidservant, Sextus was ready. The poor, pretty little girl was rocked by grief and clung to him in a frenzy. "No, Scribonia, there's no time for that! Nor can I take your maid. It's you and I alone. Now dry your eyes. I've found you a gentle old horse, all you have to do is sit astride it and hang on. Come, be brave for Gnaeus's sake." Philip had brought him the kind of clothing a Spanish man would wear, and had made Scribonia wear something unremarkable. The two of them tried to put her on the horse, but she refused oh, no, it was too immodest to sit astride anything! Women! So Sextus had to find her a donkey, which took time. Eventually he was able to kiss Philip goodbye, take the halter of Scribonia's donkey, and ride off into the last of the darkness. Just as well Gnaeus's wife was pretty; her mind was about the size of a pea. They hid by day and rode by night on local tracks, passed to the coast well above New Carthage, and headed into Nearer Spain, Pompey the Great's old fief. Philip had given Sextus a bag of money, so when the food ran out they bought more from lonely farmhouses as they worked their way the hundreds of miles north, skirting around Caesar's occupation forces. Once they crossed the Iberus River, Sextus sighed with relief; he knew exactly where he was going. To the Laccetani, among whom his father had kept his horses for years. He and Scribonia would be safe there until Caesar and his minions left the Spains. Then he would go to Maior, the big Balearic isle. Take command of Gnaeus's fleets, and marry Scribonia.

"I think we may safely conclude that Munda was the end of all Republican resistance," Caesar said to Calvinus as they rode for Corduba. "Labienus dead at last. Still, it was a good battle. I would never ask for a better. I fought on the field among my men, and they're the ones I remember." He stretched, winced in pain. "However, I confess that at fifty-four, I feel it." His voice grew colder. "Munda also solved my problem with the Tenth. What very few are left will be in no mood to dispute whereabouts I choose to settle them." "Where will you settle them?" Calvinus asked. "Around Narbo." "Word of Munda will reach Rome by the end of March," Calvinus said with some pleasure. "When you return, you'll find Rome has accepted the inevitable. The Senate will probably vote you in as dictator for life." "They can vote me whatever they like," Caesar said, sounding indifferent. "This time next year, I'll be on my way to Syria." "Syria?" "With Bassus occupying Apameia, Cornificius occupying Antioch, and Antistius Vetus on his way to govern and see what he can do to sort the mess out, the answer is obvious. The Parthians are bound to invade within two years. Therefore I must invade the Kingdom of the Parthians first. I have a desire to emulate Alexander the Great, conquer from Armenia to Bactria and Sogdiana, Gedrosia and Carmania to Mesopotamia, and throw India in for good measure," said Caesar calmly. "The Parthians have learned to covet territory west of the Euphrates, therefore we must learn to covet territory east of the Euphrates." "Ye gods, you're talking a minimum of five years away!" gasped Calvinus. "Can you afford to leave Rome to her own devices for so long, Caesar? Look what happened when you disappeared in Egypt, and that was for a matter of months, not years. Caesar, you can't expect Rome to thrive while you gad off conquering!" "I am not," said Caesar through his teeth, "gadding off! I am surprised, Calvinus, that you haven't yet grasped the fact that civil wars cost money money Rome doesn't have! Money that I must find in the Kingdom of the Parthians!"

They entered Corduba without a fight; the city opened its gates and begged for mercy, some of Caesar's famous clemency. It did not receive any. Caesar rounded up every man of military age within it and executed them on the spot, then ordered the city to pay a fine as big as the one levied on Utica.

2

A severe lung inflammation had struck Gaius Octavius the day before he was due to leave for Spain to serve as Caesar's personal contubernalis, so it was not until midway through February that he was well enough to quit Rome, and then under strong protest from his mother. The calendar was in perfect step with the seasons for the first time in a hundred years, so setting forth in February meant snowy mountain passes and bitter winds. "You won't get there alive!" Atia cried despairingly. "Yes, Mama, I will. What harm can I come to in a good mule carriage with hot bricks and plenty of rugs?" Thus, over her protests, the young man set off, discovering as he progressed that a journey at this time of year (provided he kept warm) did not provoke the asthma, as he had learned to call his malady. Caesar had sent Hapd'efan'e to see him, and he had been given a mine of sensible advice to follow. With snow on the roads, there was no dust or pollen in the air, the mule hair didn't fly, and the cold was crisp rather than damp. He found to his pleasure that when the carriage became stuck in snow halfway through the Mons Genava Pass on the Via Domitia, he was able to take a shovel and help clear a way for it, and that he felt better for the exercise. The only respiratory distress he suffered came as he negotiated the causeway through the marshes at the mouth of the Rhodanus River, but that lasted a mere hundred miles. At the top of the pass through the coastal Pyrenees he paused to look at Pompey the Great's trophies, growing battered and tattered by the weather, then descended into Nearer Spain of the Laccetani to find an early spring. Even so, he experienced no asthma attack; the spring was fairly wet and windless. At Castulo he learned that there had been a decisive battle at Munda and that Caesar was in Corduba, so to Corduba he went. He arrived on the twenty-third day of March to find the city a reeking mess of blood and the smoke from dozens of multiple funeral pyres, but luckily the governor's palace sat in a citadel above the aftermath of what he assumed had been mass executions. Surprised at his own sinew, he found that he could view what he saw with equanimity; at least in that respect he didn't seem to be less than other men, a fact that pleased him very much. Very conscious that his looks branded him a pretty weakling, he had been terrified that the sight and smell of slaughter would unman him. Inside the palace foyer sat a young man in military dress, apparently doing duty as a kind of reception or filtration unit; the sentries outside, observing the richness of Octavius's small entourage and private carriage, had let him through unchallenged, but this youth was obviously not prepared to be so obliging. "Yes?" he barked, looking up from beneath bushy brows. Octavius stared at him wordlessly. Here was a soldier in the making! Exactly what Octavius himself yearned to be, yet never would be. As he rose to his feet he revealed that his height was up there with Caesar's, that his shoulders were like twin hills and his neck as thick and corded as a bull's. But all that was as nothing compared to his face, strikingly handsome yet absolutely manly; a thatch of fairish hair, bushy dark brows, stern and deeply set hazel eyes, a fine nose, a strong firm mouth and chin. His bare arms were muscular, his hands the kind of big, well-shaped members that suggested he was capable of doing forceful or sensitive work with them. "Yes?" he asked again, more mildly, a trace of amusement in his eyes. An Alexander type, he was thinking of the stranger ("beauty" was not a word in his vocabulary for describing males), but very delicate and precious looking. "I beg your pardon," the visitor said courteously, yet with a faint trace of kingliness. "I am to report to Gaius Julius Caesar. I am his contubernalis." "What great aristocrat sent you?" the reception committee asked. "You'll have a hard time of it once he sets eyes on you." Octavius smiled, which removed the touch of royalty from his expression. "Oh, he already knows what I look like. He asked for me himself." "Oh, family! Which one are you?" "My name is Gaius Octavius." "Doesn't mean a thing to me." "What's your name?" Octavius asked, very drawn to him. "Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Quintus Pedius's contubernalis." "Vipsanius?" Octavius asked, brows knitted. "What a peculiar nomen. Whereabouts do you come from?" "Samnite Apulia, but the name's Messapian. I'm usually just called by my cognomen, Agrippa." " 'Born feet first.' You don't look as if you limp." "My feet are perfect. What's your cognomen?" "I have none. I'm simply Octavius." "Up the stairs, down the corridor to the left, third door." "Will you watch my stuff until I can collect it?" The "stuff" was coming in; Agrippa eyed the new contubernalis ironically. He had enough "stuff" to be a senior legate. Which member of the family was he? Some sort of remote cousin-by-marriage, no doubt. Seemed nice enough not conceited, yet in an odd way he had a high opinion of himself. A potential military man he was certainly not! If he reminded Agrippa of anyone, it was of the fellow in the story about Gaius Marius a cousin-by-marriage of Marius's who had been killed by a ranker soldier for making homosexual advances. Instead of executing the soldier, Marius had decorated him! Not that this young fellow quite suggested that. Gaius Octavius . . . Latium, for sure. There were plenty of Octavii in the Senate, even among the consuls. Agrippa shrugged and went back to checking his list of the executed.

"Come," said Caesar's voice when Octavius knocked. The face Caesar turned to the door was flinty, but softened when its eyes took in who stood there. The pen went down, he rose. "My dear nephew, you lasted the distance. I'm very glad." "I'm glad too, Caesar. I'm just sorry I missed the battle." "Don't be. It wasn't one of my tactical finest, and I lost too many men. Therefore I hope it isn't my last battle. You seem well, but I'll have Hapd'efan'e see you to make sure. Much snow in the passes?" "Mons Genava, yes, but the Pyreneae Pass was fairly good." Octavius sat down. "You were looking particularly grim when I came in, Uncle." "Have you read Cicero's 'Cato'?" "That piece of spiteful twaddle? Yes, it enlivened my sickbed in Rome. I hope you're answering it?" "That was what I was doing when you knocked." Caesar sighed. "People like Calvinus and Messala Rufus don't think I should deign to answer. They believe anything I write will be called petty." "They're probably right, but it still has to be answered. To ignore it is to admit there's truth in it. The people who will call it petty won't want to believe your side anyway. Cicero has charged you with permanently killing the democratic process a Roman's right to run his own life without interference of any kind and Cato's death. Later on, when I have the money, I'll deal with it by buying up every copy of the 'Cato' in existence and burning the lot," said Octavius. "What an interesting ploy! I could do that myself." "No, people would guess who was behind it. Let me do it at some time in the future, after the sensation has died down. How are you approaching your refutation?" "With a few well-aimed barbs at Cicero to begin with. From them, I pass to assassinating Cato's character better than Gaius Cassius did Marcus Crassus's. From the stinginess to the wine to the tame philosophers to the disgraceful way he treated his wives, it will all be there," said Caesar, a purr in his voice. "I am sure that Servilia will be happy to furnish me with the less well-known incidents that have dotted Cato's life."

Which was the commencement of a cadetship for Gaius Octavius that was far removed from the usual. Hoping that he would have an opportunity to further his acquaintance with the fascinating Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavius discovered the day after he arrived that Caesar had other ideas than permitting this contubernalis to associate with his fellows. Once Fortuna landed Caesar in a place, he refused to quit it until it was properly organized. In the case of Further Spain, long a Roman province, the work Caesar undertook was mostly the establishment of Roman colonies. Save for the Fifth Alauda and the Tenth, all the legions he had brought with him to Spain were to be settled in the Further province on generous allotments of very good land taken from Spanish owners who had sided with the Republicans. A colony for Rome's urban poor was to be founded at Urso, rejoicing in the name Colonia Genetiva Julia Urbanorum, but the rest were for veteran soldiers. One was near Hispalis, one near Fidentia, two near Ucubi, and three near New Carthage. Four more were to the west in the lands of the Lusitani. Every colony was to have the full Roman citizenship, and freedmen were to be allowed to sit on the governing council, the latter provision very rare. It became Octavius's job to accompany Caesar in his galloping gig as he went from one site to the next, supervising the division of land, making sure that those who would carry on with the work knew how to do it, issuing the charters outlining colonial laws, bylaws and ordinances, and personally choosing the first lot of citizens who would sit on each governing council. Octavius understood that he was on trial: not only was his competence under review, so too was his health. "I hope," he said to Caesar as they returned from Hispalis, "that I'm of some help to you, Uncle." "Remarkably so," said Caesar, sounding a little surprised. "You have a mind for minutiae, Octavius, and a genuine pleasure in what many men would deem the more boring aspects of this work. If you were lethargic, I'd call you an ideal bureaucrat, but you aren't a scrap slothful. In ten years' time, you'll be able to run Rome for me while I do the things I'm better suited for than running Rome. I don't mind drafting the laws to make her a more functional and functioning place, but I fear I'm not really very suited for staying in one place for years at a time, even if the place is Rome. She rules my heart, but not my feet." By this time they stood on very comfortable terms, and had quite forgotten that more than thirty years lay between them. So Octavius's luminous grey eyes lit with laughter, and he said, "I know, Caesar. Your feet have to march. Can't you postpone the Parthian expedition until I'm a little further along the way to being of real use to you? Rome wouldn't lie down under a mere youth, but I doubt that those you'll have to depute to govern in your absence will lie down either." "Marcus Antonius," said Caesar. "Quite so. Or Dolabella. Calvinus perhaps, but he's not an ambitious enough man to want the job. And Hirtius, Pansa, Pollio and the rest don't have good enough ancestors to keep Antonius or Dolabella in their place. Must you cross the Euphrates so soon?" "There are only two places with the wealth to drag Rome out of her present precarious financial position, nephew Egypt and the Kingdom of the Parthians. For obvious reasons I can't touch Egypt, therefore it has to be the Kingdom of the Parthians." Octavius put his head back against the seat and turned his face toward the flying countryside, unwilling to let Caesar see it in case it betrayed his inner thoughts. "In that respect, I understand why it has to be the Kingdom of the Parthians. After all, Egypt's wealth can't possibly compete." A statement which caused Caesar to laugh until he wiped away tears of mirth. "If you'd seen what I've seen, Octavius, you couldn't say that." "What have you seen?" Octavius asked, looking like a boy. "The treasure vaults," said Caesar, still chuckling. And that would do for the moment. Hasten slowly.

"What a weird job you've got," said Marcus Agrippa to Octavius later that day. "More a secretary's than a cadet's, isn't it?" "To each his own," said Octavius, not resenting the comment. "My talents aren't military, but I think I do have some gifts for government, and working with Caesar so closely is an education in that respect. He talks to me about everything he does, and I why, I listen very hard." "You never told me he's your real uncle." "Strictly speaking, he isn't. He's my great-uncle." "Quintus Pedius says you're his favorite of favorites." "Then Quintus Pedius is indiscreet!" "I daresay he's your first cousin or something. He mutters to himself sometimes," Agrippa said, trying to patch up his own indiscretion. "Are you here for a while?" "Yes, for two nights." "Then come and mess with us tomorrow. We don't have any money, so the food's not much good, but you're welcome." "Us" turned out to be Agrippa and a military tribune named Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, a red-haired Picentine in his middle to late twenties. Salvidienus eyed Octavius curiously. "Everybody talks about you," he said, making room for the guest by shoving various bits of military impedimenta off a bench on to the floor. "Talks about me? Why?" asked Octavius, perching on the bench, an item of furniture he had had little acquaintance with before. "You're Caesar's favorite, for one thing. For another, our boss Pedius says you're delicate can't ride a horse or do proper military duty," Salvidienus explained. A noncombatant brought in the food, which consisted of a tough boiled fowl, a mush of chickpea and bacon, some reasonable bread and oil, and a big dish of superb Spanish olives. "You don't eat much," Salvidienus observed, wolfing food. "I'm delicate," said Octavius, a little waspishly. Agrippa grinned, slopped wine into Octavius's beaker. When the guest sipped it, then abandoned it, his grin grew wider. "No taste for our wine?" he asked. "I have no taste for wine at all. Nor does Caesar." "You're awfully like him in a funny way," Agrippa said. Octavius's face lit up. "Am I? Am I really?" "Yes. There's something of him in your face, which is more than I can say for Quintus Pedius. And you're slightly regal." "I've had a different upbringing," Octavius explained. "Old Pedius's father was a Campanian knight, so he grew up down there. Whereas I've been brought up in Rome. My father died some years ago. My stepfather is Lucius Marcius Philippus." A very well-known name; the other two looked impressed. "An Epicure," said Salvidienus, more knowledgeable than young Agrippa. "Consular too. No wonder you have enough gear for a senior legate." Octavius looked embarrassed. "Oh, that's my mother," he said. "She's always convinced I'm going to die, especially when I'm away from her. I don't honestly need it or use it. Philippus may be an Epicure of the Epicures, but I'm not." He gazed about at the untidy, impoverished room. "I envy you," he said simply, then sighed. "It's no fun being delicate."

"Did you have an enjoyable time?" Caesar asked when his contubernalis returned, aware that he gave the lad little chance to mingle with his fellows. "Yes, I did, but it made me realize how privileged I am." "In what way, Octavius?" "Oh, plenty of money in my purse, everything I need, your favor," said Octavius frankly. "Agrippa and Salvidienus have neither money nor favor, yet they're two very good men, I think." "If they are, then they'll rise under Caesar, rest assured. Ought I to take them on the Parthian campaign?" "Definitely. But on your own staff, Caesar. With me, since I won't be old enough to run Rome in your absence." "You really want to come? The dust will be frightful." "I still have much to learn from you, so I'd like to try." "Salvidienus I know. He led the cavalry charge at Munda, and won nine gold phalerae. A typical Picentine, I suspect very brave, a superior military mind, capable of plotting. Whereas Agrippa I can't place. Tell him to be present when we leave in the morning, Octavius," said Caesar, curious to see what kind of confrere Octavius would choose as a friend. Meeting Agrippa was a revelation. Privately Caesar thought him one of the most impressive young men he had ever seen. Had he been homelier, there was a great deal of Quintus Sertorius in him, but the good looks put him in a category all his own. If he had gone to a big Roman school for the sons of knights, he would inevitably have been the head prefect. The sort you could trust always to give of his best infinitely reliable, utterly devoid of fear, athletic, and extremely intelligent. A stalwart. A pity his education hadn't been better. Also his blood, very mediocre. Both would retard any hope of a public career in Rome. One reason why Caesar was determined to change Rome's social structure sufficiently to permit the rise of men as eminently capable as the seventeen-year-old Agrippa promised to be. For he wasn't a prodigy like Cicero, nor did he have the ruthlessness of a Gaius Marius, two New Men who had gotten there. What he would need was a patron, and that Caesar himself would be. His great-nephew had an eye for choosing good men, a comfort. While Agrippa stood stiffly to attention and answered Caesar's pleasant but probing questions, Octavius, observed Caesar out of the corner of his eye, stood and stared at Agrippa adoringly. Not the same kind of adoring looks he gave Caesar by any means. Hmmm. Sometimes a secretary traveled with them in their gig, but this morning Caesar elected that he and Octavius should be alone. Time for that talk, postponed because Caesar wasn't looking at all forward to it. "You like Marcus Agrippa very much," Caesar commenced. "Better than anyone I've ever met," said Octavius instantly. When you have to lance a boil, cut deep and cruelly. "You're a very pretty fellow, Octavius." The startled Octavius didn't take that as a compliment. "I hope to grow out of it, Caesar," he said in a small voice. "I see no evidence that you ever will, because you can't exercise long enough and hard enough to develop Agrippa's kind of physique or mine, for that matter. You're always going to be much as you look now a very pretty fellow, and rather willowy." Octavius's face was growing red. "Do you mean what I think you mean, Caesar? That I appear effeminate?" "Yes," Caesar said flatly. "So that's why men like Lucius Caesar and Gnaeus Calvinus eye me the way they do." "Quite so. Do you cherish any tender feelings toward your own sex, Octavius?" The red was fading, the skin now too pale. "Not that I have noticed, Caesar. I admit that I might look at Marcus Agrippa like a ninny, but I I I admire him so." "If you cherish no tender feelings, then I suggest that the ninny looks cease. Make sure you never do develop tender feelings. Nothing can retard a man's public career more effectively than that particular failing, take it from one who knows," said Caesar. "The accusation about King Nicomedes of Bithynia?" "Precisely. An unjustified accusation, but unfortunately I hadn't endeared myself to my commanding officer, Lucullus, or to my colleague Marcus Bibulus. They took great delight in using it as a political slur, and it was still haunting me at my triumph." "The Tenth's song." "Yes," said Caesar, lips thin. "They have paid." "How did you counter the accusation?" Octavius asked, curious. "My mother a remarkable woman! advised me to cuckold my political rivals, the more publicly, the better. And never to befriend any among my colleagues with that rumor around them. Never, she said, give anyone the tiniest particle of evidence that the accusation was more than spite," said Caesar, looking straight ahead. "And don't, she said, spend time in Athens." "I remember her very well." Octavius grinned. "She terrified the life out of me." "And out of me too, from time to time!" Caesar reached to take Octavius's hands, clasp them strongly. "I am passing her advice on to you, though in a different vein, as we are very, very different sorts of men. You don't have the kind of appeal to women that I did when I was young. I made them yearn to tame me, to capture my heart, while making it all too plain to everyone that I could not be tamed and had no heart. That you can't do, you don't have the arrogance or self-assurance. Deservedly or not, you do exude a slight air of effeminacy. I blame it on your illness, which has worried your mother into cosseting you. It has also prevented your attending the boys' drills regularly enough to permit your peers to know you well. In every generation there are individuals like your cousin Marcus Antonius, who deem all men effeminate if they can't lift anvils and sire a bastard every nundinum. Thus Antonius actually got away with kissing his boon companion Gaius Curio in public no one could ever credit that Antonius and Curio were genuine lovers." "And were they?" Octavius asked, fascinated. "No. They just liked to scandalize the stuffy. Whereas if you did that, the response would be very different, and Antonius would be your first accusator." Caesar drew a breath. "Since I doubt you have the stamina or the physical presence to make a reputation as a great philanderer, I recommend a different ploy. You should marry young, and build a reputation as a faithful husband. Some may deem you a dull dog, but it works, Octavius. The worst that will be said of you is that you are un-adventurous and under the cat's foot. Therefore choose a wife with whom you can enjoy domestic peace, yet a woman who gives onlookers the impression that she rules the roost." He laughed. "That's a tall order and one you may not be able to fill, but keep it in mind. You're far from stupid, and I've noticed that you usually manage to get your own way. Are you following me? Do you understand what I'm saying?" "Oh, yes," said Octavius. "Oh, yes." Caesar released his hands. "So no looking at Marcus Agrippa with naked adoration. I realize why you do, but others won't be so perceptive. Cultivate his friendship, by all means, but always remain a little aloof. I say cultivate his friendship because he is exactly your own age, and one day you'll need adherents like him. He shows great promise, and if he owes his advancement to you, he'll give you his complete loyalty because that's the kind of man he is. I say remain at a slight distance from him because he should never gain the impression that he is an intimate of yours on equal terms with you. Make him fides Achates to your Aeneas. After all, you have the blood of Venus and Mars in your veins, whereas Agrippa is a Messapian Oscan of no ancestry. All men should be able to aspire to be great and do great things, and I would build a Rome that allowed them to fulfill their destinies. But some of us have the additional gift of birth, which endows us with an additional burden we must prove ourselves worthy of our ancestors, rather than found an ancestry." The countryside was rolling by; shortly they would cross the Baetis River on their long journey to the Tagus River. Octavius stared out the window, not seeing a thing. Then he licked his lips, swallowed, and turned to look directly into Caesar's eyes, which were kind, sympathetic, caring. "I understand everything you've said, Caesar, and I thank you I more than you can ever know. It is absolutely sensible advice, and I will follow it to the letter." "Then, young man, you will survive." Caesar's eyes twinkled. "I've noticed, by the way, that though we've flown around all of Further Spain throughout this spring, you haven't suffered one attack of asthma." "Hapd'efan'e explained it," said Octavius, who felt lighter, more confident, shriven. "When I'm with you, Caesar, I feel safe. Your approval and protection wrap around me like a blanket, and I experience no anxieties." "Even when I speak on distasteful subjects?" "The more I know you, Caesar, the more I regard you as my father. My own died before I needed him to talk about men's cares and difficulties, and Lucius Philippus Lucius Philippus " "Lucius Philippus gave up the duties of fatherhood at around the time that you were born," said Caesar, absurdly delighted at the result of a conversation he had dreaded. "I too lacked a father, but I was better served with my particular mother. Atia is all a mother. Mine was as much a father. So if I can be of help in paternal matters, I'm pleased to be of help." It isn't fair, Octavius was thinking, that I should get to know Caesar so late. If I had known him like this when I was a child, perhaps I wouldn't suffer the asthma at all. My love for him is boundless, I would do anything for him. Soon we will be done in the Spains, and he'll go back to Rome. Back to that awful woman across the Tiber, with her ugly face and her beast-gods. Because of her and the little boy, he won't touch Egypt's wealth. How clever women are. She has enslaved the ruler of the world and ensured the survival of her kingdom. She will keep its wealth for her son, who is not a Roman. "Tell me about the treasure vaults, Caesar," he said aloud, and turned big grey eyes, filled with innocence, to his idol. Relieved to have a new subject, Caesar obliged. It was a subject he couldn't air to any Roman save this one, a mere lad who thought of him as a father.

3

To Cicero, that first properly calated year went from one sorrow and misery to another. Tullia gave birth to a sickly, too-premature child early in January; baby Publius Cornelius received the cognomen of his grandmother's branch of the Cornelii Lentulus. It was Cicero who suggested it; as Dolabella had skipped off to Further Spain to join Caesar, he wasn't present to insist that his son bear his own cognomen. A way of getting back at Dolabella, who had gone without paying Tullia's dowry back. She ailed, wasn't interested in her baby, refused to eat or exercise; midway through February she quietly died, it seemed to all who knew her of unrequited love for Dolabella. For Cicero, a terrible grief made worse by the indifference of her mother and the rather pettish behavior of his new wife, Publilia, who could not begin to understand why Cicero wept, mourned, ignored her. Publilia was, besides, quite disillusioned with this marriage to such a famous man, as she was quick to tell her mother and her underage brother whenever they came to visit. Visits that the wildly grief-stricken Cicero came to dread so much that he found reasons to be elsewhere the moment his in-laws arrived. The letters of condolence came flooding in, one from Brutus in Italian Gaul written just before he left to return to Rome; Cicero had opened it eagerly, sure that this man, so close to him in philosophy and political leanings, would find exactly the right words to heal his battered animus. Instead, he found a cold, passionless, stereotyped expression of sympathy that in effect informed him that his grief was too florid, too excessive, too intemperate. A blow rendered more telling when Caesar's letter came and held all the exquisite comfort Cicero lad wanted from Brutus. Oh, why had the wrong man written the right letter? The wrong man, the wrong man, the wrong man! A viewpoint reinforced when he received a curt communication from Lepidus, who, is senior patrician in the Senate, was its leader, the Princeps Senatus. It demanded to know why Cicero wasn't attending meetings of the house, and reminded him that under Caesar's new laws, a man had to attend on pain of forfeiting his seat. Since the founding of the Republic, the oligarchs of the Senate had enjoyed the title of senator without ever needing to sit in the House or serve on a jury unless they wanted to. Now it was different. Senators had to serve on juries when they were told, and had to be physically present in the House. If illness were Cicero's reason for absenting himself, then he would have to obtain three affidavits from three senators to that effect. Illness was the only valid excuse for absence if a senator was in Italy. Further, a senator now had to petition the House to leave Italy! Everywhere a man looked, there were rules and regulations that insulted his entitlements as a member of Rome's most august governing body oh, it was intolerable! Half dazed by grief, half fuming with anger, Cicero was forced to seek out three fellow senators and ask them to swear to Lepidus that Marcus Tullius Cicero was incapable of assuming his seat in the House due to severe illness of long-standing duration. To add insult to injury, having decided that Tullia must have a glorious monument set in public gardens, Cicero discovered that the ten-talent tomb designed by Cluatius the architect would cost him twenty talents; Caesar's sumptuary laws stipulated that whatever a tomb cost must also be paid to the Treasury. That one, the lawyer found a way to avoid: all he had to do was call Tullia's tomb a shrine, and it became tax-free. Therefore Tullia would have a shrine, not a tomb. Sometimes those thirty years of marriage to Terentia paid off she knew how to avoid any tax even a Caesar could dream up. Of course there were palliatives for his misery, particularly the very favorable reception his "Cato" had received. A letter from Aulus Hirtius, governing Narbonese Gaul for Caesar, told Cicero that Caesar was planning to write an "Anti-Cato" oh, do, Caesar, please do! It will damage your dignitas immeasurably.

News from Further Spain trickled in; so slow was it that Hirtius, writing from Narbo on the eighteenth day of April, did not know that Gnaeus Pompey had been found and his head severed. But Munda was known, and it was a fact that all of Rome had to accept. Republican resistance was permanently over, there was nothing to stop Caesar enacting his disgraceful laws aimed at the First Class. Even Atticus, so long fair-minded about Caesar, was worried. Though he was still working to make sure that the Head Count poor were not going to be shipped to Buthrotum, he could get no absolute assurances that they would go elsewhere. Caesar's staff refused to commit themselves. "We'll have to wait until Caesar comes home," said Cicero. "One thing is certain shipping the Head Count overseas isn't done in an hour, no one will sail before Caesar comes home." He paused. "You'll have to know, Titus, so better now. I'm going to divorce Publilia. I can't stand her or her family a moment longer." Titus Pomponius Atticus eyed his friend with wry sympathy, A great aristocrat of the gens Caecilia, he could have had an illustrious public career, risen to the consulship, but the love of his heart was commerce, and a senator could not indulge in business unconnected to land ownership. A discreet lover of young boys, he had earned the nickname "Atticus" because of his devotion to Athens, a place which found no fault with this kind of love; he had made it his second home, and limited his activities to his time there. Four years older than Cicero, he had married late, to a cousin, Caecilia Pilia, and had produced his heir, his much-loved daughter, Caecilia Attica. His ties to Cicero went deeper than friendship, for his sister, Pomponia, was married to Quintus Cicero. That union, a stormy one, teetered perpetually on the brink of divorce. All in all, he reflected, the two Cicerones had not had happy marriages; they had been obliged to marry for money, to heiresses. What neither brother had counted on was the tendency of Roman heiresses to control their own money, which the law did not stipulate they had to share with their husbands. The pity of it was that both women loved their Cicerones; they just didn't know how to show it, and were, besides, frugal women who deplored the Ciceronian tendency to spend money. "I think it's wise to divorce Publilia," Atticus said gently. "Publilia was so unkind to Tullia when she was sick." Atticus sighed. "Well, Marcus, it's very difficult to be more than ten years younger than your stepdaughter. Not to mention how hard it is to live with a legend older than your grandfather."

Baby Publius Cornelius Lentulus died at the beginning of June, just six months into his tenuous life. Born on the cusp between seven and eight months in utero, he had sufficient of Dolabella's strength to try to live, but his wet nurses found his scrawny, red little person repulsive, couldn't love him the way his mother might have, had she not loved his father to the exclusion of all else. So he gave up the fight as quietly as Tullia had, passing from a nightmare to a dream. Cicero mingled his ashes with his mother's and resolved to inter them in the shrine together if he could only find the right piece of land for this monument. In an odd way the child's death sealed the chapter of Tullia in Cicero's mind; he began to recover, a process accelerated when he finally got his hands on a copy of Caesar's "Anti-Cato." It had not yet been published, but he knew the Sosius Brothers were about to do so. Cicero found it malicious, spiteful, plain nasty. Where had Caesar obtained some of his information? It contained juicy tales of Cato's unrequited love for Metellus Scipio's wife, Aemilia Lepida, snippets of the abysmally bad poetry he had written following her rejection of him, excerpts from his (never filed) lawsuit against Aemilia Lepida for breach of promise, a highly evocative recounting of Cato's telling his two young children that they would never be allowed to see their mother again. Even Cato's most intimate secrets were revealed! As Caesar was the man with whom Cato's first wife had committed adultery, it was the height of impropriety for him to divulge the sordid details of Cato's lovemaking techniques! The man was dead! Oh, but the prose! Why, Cicero asked himself miserably, am I incapable of prose half that good? And Caesar's poem, "Her," was being hailed as a masterpiece by everyone from Varro to Lucius Piso, a great literary connoisseur. It isn't fair that one man should be so gifted, so I am glad that his hatred for Cato has gotten the better of him. Then Cicero found himself having to side with Caesar, not a comfortable position. One, however, that justice demanded. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, whom Caesar had pardoned after his brother, Gaius Marcellus Minor, went down on his knees and begged, had left Lesbos and gone to Athens, where he was murdered in the Piraeus. Certain persons who were well known to detest Caesar began to bruit it abroad that Caesar had paid to have Marcus Marcellus murdered. A calumny that Cicero could not condone, for all his own detestation of Caesar. Hating having to do it, he announced publicly to all and sundry that Caesar could not have had anything to do with the murder. Caesar was a murderer of character, witness his "Anti-Cato," but never one who murdered in mean back alleys. Cicero's stand went a long way toward scotching the rumor. By now the tale of Gnaeus Pompey's severed head was all over Rome, complete with its sequel. The decapitator, Caesennius Lento, had been an up-and-coming man on Caesar's staff, but when Caesar had received the head from the disgusted Gaius Didius, Caesennius Lento was immediately stripped of his share of the booty and sent back to Rome with Caesar's caustic dressing down still ringing in his ears. There would be no advancement up the cursus honorum for such a gross barbarian; in fact, Caesennius Lento would find himself expelled from the Senate when Caesar had time for the censor's duties he had inherited along with many other honors. So there you had Caesar, thought Cicero: on the one hand, scrupulously civilized; on the other, a deliberate traducer of virtue. But a man who would pay to murder? Never. Thus Cicero displayed some understanding of Caesar; just not enough. What Cicero could never be brought to see was that it was his own impulsive and thoughtless gyrations that antagonized Caesar most. Had he refrained from traducing Caesar in his "Cato," Caesar would not have traduced Cato in his "Anti-Cato." Cause and effect.

4

Where did the money go? Though Mark Antony's share of the Gallic booty had amounted to a thousand silver talents, when he set out to pay his creditors he discovered that he owed more than twice that much. His debts amounted to seventy million sesterces, and Fulvia didn't have the cash reserves to pay them, having already outlaid thirty million before they married. The trouble was that Caesar's confiscated property auctions had reduced the price of prime land for the time being, and to sell prime land was the only way she could raise cash until more income flowed in. This third husband was an expensive one. Fulvia's massive fortune had originally been set up by her great-grandmother, Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi, a Roman woman of the old kind. Her granddaughter, who was Fulvia's mother, had seen no reason to change the arrangements. Thus Fulvia's many properties and businesses were buried in sleeping partnerships or nominally held by someone else. So selling capital assets wasn't easy, took a lot of time, and was opposed by her banker, Gaius Oppius, who knew perfectly well where the cash was going.

"The trouble is that I didn't get to Gaul soon enough," said Antony gloomily to Decimus Brutus and Gaius Trebonius. The three of them were sitting in Murcius's tavern atop the Via Nova, having encountered each other on the Vestal Steps. "That's right, you didn't arrive until after Vercingetorix rose," said Trebonius, who had been with Caesar for five years, and had received ten thousand talents. "Even then," he added with a grin, "you were late, as I remember." "Oh, the pair of you should talk!" Antony growled. "You were Caesar's marshals, I was a mere quaestor. I'm always just a bit too young to come into the real money." "Age has nothing to do with it," Decimus Brutus drawled, one fair brow flying upward. Antony frowned. "What does that mean?" he asked. "I mean that our age no longer gives us a fighting chance at being elected consul. My election as a praetor this year was as big a farce as Trebonius's was three years ago. We have to wait on the Dictator's dictate to see when we'll be allowed to be consuls. Not the electors' choice, Caesar's choice. I've been promised the consulship in two years' time, but look at Trebonius he should have been consul last year, but he isn't consul yet. People like Vatia Isauricus and Lepidus have more clout and have to be placated first," said Decimus Brutus, the drawl lessening as his temper built. "I didn't know you felt so strongly," Antony said slowly. "All real men do, Antonius. I'll grant Caesar anything you like when it comes to competence, brilliance, a gigantic appetite for work yes, yes, the man's a total genius! But you must know how it feels to be overshadowed when your birth says you ought not to be. You're half Antonius and half Julius, I'm half Junius Brutus and half Sempronius Tuditanus we both have the blood, we should both have a fighting chance to get to the top. Out there in our chalk-whitened togas smarming to the voters, promising them the world, lying and smiling. Instead, we wait on Caesar Rex, the King of Rome. What we receive is by his grace and favor, not by our own endeavors. I hate it! I hate it!" "So I see," Antony said dryly. Trebonius sat and listened, wondering if Antonius and Decimus Brutus had any idea what they were actually saying. As far as he, Trebonius, was concerned, it didn't matter a rush what a man's ancestors entitled him a fighting chance to do, because he didn't have any ancestors. He was wholly Caesar's creature, could never have gotten a tenth so high without Caesar there to push him. It had been Caesar who bought his services as a tribune of the plebs and bribed him into that office; it had been Caesar who spotted his military potential; it had been Caesar who trusted him with independent maneuvers during the Gallic War; it had been Caesar who gave him his praetorship; it had been Caesar who awarded him the governorship of Further Spain. I, Gaius Trebonius, am Caesar's man, bought and paid for a thousand times over. My riches I owe to him, my pre-eminence I owe to him. Had Caesar not noticed me, I would be an absolute nobody. Which makes my resentment of Caesar all the greater, for every time I put my foot forward on a venture, I am aware that the moment that foot takes a wrong step, it is in Caesar's power to strike me down to nothing. High aristocrats like this pair can be forgiven an occasional slip, but nobodies like me have no redress. I failed Caesar in Further Spain, he thinks I didn't try hard enough to eject Labienus and the two Pompeii. So when he and I met in Rome, I had to throw myself on his mercy, beg him for forgiveness. As if I were one of his women. He chose to be gracious, to chide me for begging, to say forgiveness wasn't an issue, but I know, I could tell. He will have no further use for me, I'll never be a full consul, just a suffect. "Did you really try to murder Caesar, Antonius?" he asked now. Antony blinked, turned his head Trebonius's way. "Um yes, as a matter of fact," he said, and shrugged. "What inspired you?" Trebonius asked, intrigued. Antony grinned. "Money, what else? I was with Poplicola, Cotyla and Cimber. One of them I don't remember which reminded me that I'm Caesar's heir, so it seemed like a good idea to come into Caesar's money then and there. Didn't come to anything the old boy had guards posted everywhere around the Domus Publica, so I couldn't get in." He snarled. "What I want to know is who gave me away, because someone did. Caesar said in the House that I was seen, but I know I wasn't. My guess is Poplicola." "Caesar's your close kinsman, Antonius," said Decimus Brutus. "I know that! At the time I didn't care, but Fulvia wormed the story out of me after Caesar mentioned it in the House, and made me promise that I'd never lift a hand against him again." He grimaced. "She made me swear on my ancestor Hercules." "Caesar's my kinsman too," Decimus Brutus mused, "but I've not sworn any oaths." Gaius Trebonius had a naturally mournful countenance, rather ordinary to look at, and a pair of sad grey eyes. They lifted to Antony's face. "The thing is," he said, "would you do a Poplicola and tattle to Caesar if you heard of a plot to murder him?" A silence fell. Arrested, Antony stared at Trebonius; so too did Decimus Brutus. "I don't tattle, Trebonius, even about murder plots." "I didn't think you would. Just making sure," said Trebonius. Decimus slapped his hand loudly on the table. "This isn't getting us anywhere, so I suggest we change the subject," he said. "To what?" asked Trebonius. "We're none of us enjoying Caesar's esteem at the moment, for one reason or another. He made me praetor this year, but not for anything decent, so why didn't he ask me to go to Further Spain with him? I'd have commanded better than logs like Quintus Pedius! But I can't please Caesar. Instead of patting my back for putting down the Bellovaci uprising, he said I was too hard on them." His face, so blond that it was curiously featureless, twisted. "Whether we like it or not, we utterly depend on the Great Man's favor, and I have ground to make up. I want that consulship, even if it is by his grace and favor. You, Trebonius, deserve a consulship. And you, Antonius, have a lot of crawling and smarming to do if you're ever going to get ahead." "Where is this going?" Antony demanded impatiently. "To the fact that we daren't remain in Rome like three cringing bitches," Decimus said, returning to his habitual drawl. "We have to go to meet him on his way home the sooner, the better. Once he reaches Rome, he'll be buried under such a landslide of sycophancy that we'll never get his ear. We're all men he's worked with for years, men he knows can general troops. It's common knowledge that he intends to invade the Kingdom of the Parthians well, we have to get to him quickly enough to secure senior legateships in that campaign. After Asia, Africa and Spain, he has dozens of men he knows can general troops, from Calvinus to Fabius Maximus. To some extent we're has-beens, amici Gaul is years in the past. So we have to reach him and remind him that we're better than Calvinus or Fabius Maximus." The other two were listening avidly. "I did very well out of Gaul," Decimus Brutus continued, "but Parthian plunder would make me as rich as Pompeius Magnus used to be. Like you, Antonius, I have very expensive tastes. And since it's the height of bad manners to murder a kinsman, we'll have to find another source of money than Caesar's will. I don't know what you plan to do, but tomorrow I'm leaving to meet Caesar." "I'll come with you," Antony said instantly. "And I," said Trebonius, leaning back contentedly. The subject had been broached, and the reaction of Caesar's two kinsmen not unsatisfactory by any means. Just when Trebonius had decided that Caesar must die he wasn't sure, for it had stolen up out of some layer of his mind where things went on beneath the level of thought, and it had nothing to do with noble intentions. It was founded in pure, unadulterated hatred: the hatred of the man with nothing for the man with everything.

5

When Brutus had finally returned from Italian Gaul he seemed, to his mother at any rate, in a very strange mood. That he had much enjoyed the work Caesar had given him was patent, yet he was more than usually absentminded, didn't notice when Servilia picked and carped, wasn't pierced by her barbs. Most fascinating of all the changes in him was his skin. It had cleared up so dramatically that he was able to shave closely, and only the pockmarks remained to testify to that noisome affliction that had plagued him for almost twenty-five years. He and Gaius Cassius would be forty next year, ought to be candidates for the praetorship this year. A gift that now lay in Caesar's purlieu. Caesar! Caesar, who was inarguably the ruler of the world, as Servilia's lover, Lucius Pontius Aquila, said to her at least once every time they met. A tribune of the plebs at the moment, Aquila chafed unbearably at his impotence; with a dictator in office, he could veto nothing the Dictator promulgated as a law, and burned to find something he could do to indicate his loathing of all that Caesar was and stood for. As for Gaius Cassius, he grumbled around Rome with nothing much to do and little hope of that praetorship, frittered away his time with men like Cicero and Philippus. Much to Rome's surprise, Cassius had suddenly abrogated Stoicism and espoused Epicureanism, for no reason Servilia could see beyond the fact that it devastated Brutus so much that Brutus was avoiding him. Not easy, when both of them visited Cicero interminably! So Servilia devoted most of her own time to congress with Queen Cleopatra, desperately lonely in her marble mausoleum. Of course the Queen knew very well that Servilia had been Caesar's mistress for years, but had made it plain that this did not affect their friendship. Rather, she seemed to regard it as a bond. An attitude of mind Servilia understood. "Do you think he'll ever come home?" she asked Servilia as May drew toward its end. "I agree with Cicero he has to," Servilia stated firmly. "If he's planning on going off to fight the Parthians, he has a great deal to do in Rome first." "Oh, Cicero!" said Cleopatra with a moue of distaste. "I don't know when I've met a bigger poseur than Cicero." "He doesn't like you either," said Servilia. "Mama," cried Caesarion, galloping in astride a hobbyhorse, "Philomena says I can't go outside!" "If Philomena says you can't go outside, my son, then you can't go outside," said Cleopatra. "I can't believe how like Caesar he is," said Servilia with a hard lump in her throat. Oh, why wasn't it I to give him a son? Mine would have been Roman, and patrician through and through. The little boy galloped off with his usual sunny acceptance of Mama's authority. "To look at, yes," said Cleopatra, smiling tenderly, "but can you imagine Caesar so obedient, even at that age?" "Actually, no. Why can't he go outside? It's a perfect day for playing in the sun, and sunlight's good for him." Cleopatra's face clouded. "Yet another reason why I wish his father would return. The Transtiberini have been eluding my guards, and they prowl the grounds bent on mischief. They carry knives, and use them to slice up the nostrils or cut off ears. Some of our children Caesarion's age have suffered, as well as my women servants." "My dear Cleopatra, what do you have guards for? Send the boy out under guard, don't coop him up inside!" "He'd insist on playing with the guards." "Why not?" asked Servilia, astonished. "He can only play with his equals." Servilia pursed her lips. "My ancestry, Cleopatra, is very much better than yours, but even I can see no sense in that. He will soon learn to distinguish his equals, but in the meantime he will have sun, air and exercise." "I have a different solution," said Cleopatra, looking stubborn. "I can't wait to hear it." "I'm going to have a high wall built all around my estate." "That won't keep the Transtiberini out." "Yes, it will. I'll have every cubit of it patrolled." Eyes rolling, Servilia gave up. Some months of Cleopatra's company had shown her how different Roman women were from eastern ones. The Queen of Egypt might rule millions, but she didn't have a particle of common sense. First meeting had demonstrated one very soothing fact: that whatever he felt for her, Caesar was not fathoms deep in love with Cleopatra. Probably, knowing him, he was intrigued at the thought of fathering a king he was acknowledged the father of; Caesar had bedded several queens, but they were all the wives of someone else. Whereas this queen was his, and his alone. Oh, she had her attractions. Though she had no common sense, she understood laws and government. But the longer Servilia knew her, the less she worried about Queen Cleopatra.

Brutus was visiting a far different woman from Cleopatra; his first port of call upon returning to Rome had been Porcia, who had welcomed him ecstatically, but not offered her lips or one of those bear hugs that lifted Brutus clean off his feet. The reason was not lack of love, or second thoughts: the reason had a name. Statyllus. Though he had originally been going to Brutus in Placentia, Statyllus ended in getting no farther than Rome, where he presented himself at Bibulus's house and beseeched young Lucius Bibulus to take him in. As Lucius never thought to ask his stepmama what she thought, Porcia found herself back in an odd facsimile of Cato's house during her childhood, taking a back seat to an eternally tippling philosopher, and watching Statyllus insidiously persuading Lucius to tipple as well. Oh, it wasn't fair! Why hadn't she pushed harder to send young Lucius off to Gnaeus Pompeius in Spain? He was old enough to be a contubernalis now, but he had been so disconsolate at Cato's death that she had not felt it right to push. Once Statyllus arrived, she rued that. Thus, her eyes drinking Brutus in but very aware of Statyllus in the background, Porcia held aloof. "Dear Brutus, your skin has cleared up," she said, dying to reach out and stroke his smooth, clean-shaven jaw. "I think it's you," he said, a smile lighting his eyes. "Your mother must be pleased." He snorted. "Her? She's too busy huddling heads with that revolting foreigner across the Tiber." "Cleopatra? You do mean Cleopatra?" "I certainly do. Servilia practically lives there." "I would have thought she'd be the last one Servilia wanted to stand on good terms with, Porcia said, flabbergasted. "I also, but apparently we're wrong. Oh, I have no doubt that she has something nasty up her sleeve, but I have no idea what. She simply says that Cleopatra entertains her." Thus that first meeting got no further than a meeting of eyes, a shy exchange of glances; nor did any of the other meetings that followed progress beyond visual caresses. Sometimes it was just Statyllus standing watch, at other times Statyllus and Lucius. In June, Brutus drew Porcia out of earshot and spoke with painful directness. "Porcia, will you marry me?" he asked. She turned into a pillar of flame, alight from head to foot. "Yes, yes, yes!" she cried.

Brutus went home to send Claudia packing on the spot, so eager to divorce her that it never occurred to him to cite proper grounds, like childlessness. He just summoned her, handed her the bill of divorcement, and had her conveyed in a litter to her older brother, who roared loudly enough to be heard on the far side of the city, then came around to see the unfeeling husband. "You can't do this!" Appius Claudius shouted, striding up and down the atrium, too angry to wait until Brutus could shoo him into a more private environment. Curious to see who was making such a fuss, Servilia appeared immediately; Brutus found himself facing an irate brother-in-law and an even more irate mother. "You can't do this!" Servilia echoed. Perhaps it was his suddenly respectable face endowed Brutus with courage, or perhaps it was his love for Porcia; he himself wasn't sure. Whatever the basis, he confronted both of them with chin up and eyes hard. "I have already done it," he said, "and that is the end of it. I do not like my wife. I have never liked my wife." "Then give her dowry back!" Appius Claudius Pulcher yelled. Brutus raised his brows. "What dowry?" he asked. "Your late father never provided one. Now go away!" He turned on his heel, marched to his study, and bolted himself in. "Nine years of marriage!" he could hear Appius Claudius saying to Servilia. "Nine years of marriage! I'll have him in court!" An hour later Servilia started pounding on the study door in a way that told the listening Brutus that she was prepared to go on pounding forever if necessary. Best get it over and done with well, some of it, anyway. News of his plans for Porcia could wait. He opened the door with a resolute gesture and stood back. "You fool!" Servilia snapped, black eyes flashing. "What did you do that for? You can't divorce a woman as well liked and nice as Claudia for no reason!" "I don't care if all Rome likes her, I don't like her." "You won't earn any friends for this." "I don't expect to, or want to." "This will set Rome by the ears! Brutus, she's a Claudian of the highest rank! And dowryless! At least settle something on her so she has some financial independence," Servilia said, her mood calming a little. Her eyes narrowed suddenly. "Just what are you up to?" "I'm putting my house in order," said Brutus. "Settle some money on her." "Not a sestertius." Servilia ground her teeth, a sound which in the old days had reduced him to a shivering wreck. Now he endured it without any change in expression. "Two hundred talents," said Servilia. "Not one sestertius, Mama." "You odious skinflint! Do you want all Rome to condemn you?" "Go away," said the worm, turned at last. Which meant that it was Servilia who sent Claudia two hundred talents in an attempt to silence the clacking tongues. Lentulus Spinther the younger had just divorced his wife in scandalous circumstances too, but the sensation that had caused paled to insignificance beside the hitherto inoffensive Brutus's coldhearted rejection of his poor, blameless, sweet little wife. And though he was universally condemned for it, Brutus went about unconcerned. Very much aware that she had lost her ascendancy over her son, Servilia retired to the shadows to watch and wait. He was up to something, and time would reveal exactly what. His skin had quite healed; so, it seemed, had the spirit within him. But if he was under the illusion that his mother had no tricks left, he would soon learn otherwise. Oh, what was the matter with her life? One disappointment after another for as long as she could remember.

Servilia might have been pardoned for presuming that when her son left Rome the next day for his villa in Tusculum, he did so to avoid her, but such was not the case. There was no room in his mind for his mother. Traveling the fifteen miles in a comfortable hired carpentum, Brutus had more agreeable things to think about: his new wife, Porcia, sat beside him. With none but Lucius Caesar's freedmen for witnesses, they had been married by the Chief Augur and flamen Quirinalis at his house; judging by his calm reception of their request that he marry them, Lucius Caesar might conduct unexpected weddings every day. He bound their hands together with his red leather strap, told them that they were now husband and wife, and wished them well at his front door. Though there was no one in Rome with whom he wished to share this fascinating piece of news, no sooner was the happy couple gone than he was at his desk writing to Cousin Gaius, en route from Spain to Rome. Because it was so close to Rome, Tusculum was not possessed of those massive villas Rome's mighty or wealthy owned in places like Misenum, Baiae and Herculaneum; Tusculan villas tended to be smallish and old, fairly close to the neighbors. On one boundary Brutus's villa had Livius Drusus Nero's place, on another Cato's place (now the property of a decorated ex-centurion senator), the Via Tusculana on its third side, and Cicero's villa on the fourth. This last was a nuisance, as Cicero was always popping around when he knew Brutus was in occupation, but when Brutus and Porcia arrived late in the afternoon, Brutus knew that Cicero's schedule would not bring him knocking on their door that evening, even were he aware that Brutus was in residence. The servants had prepared a meal which neither of the diners had the appetite to eat; as soon as it was proper to abandon the wedding feast, Brutus took Porcia on a tour of the house, then, quite terrified, led his new wife to her marriage bed. He knew from those talks with Porcia after she had married Bibulus that her opinion of connubial intimacy was not high, and he knew that his own sexual prowess was minimal. The flesh had never plagued Brutus during adolescence and young manhood the way it seemed to plague most men; what natural urges he had experienced had been channeled into intellectual pursuits. A great deal of this had been Cato's fault, for Cato believed that a man should go to his wife quite as virginal as she; that was the old Roman way, as well as a part of Cato's interpretation of Stoicism. But some of it had been due to Servilia, whose contempt for his lack of masculinity had stripped him of confidence in all the avenues of his life. And then there had been Julia, whom he had loved so ardently for so long. Nine years younger than he, Julia was never the recipient of anything more than a chaste kiss; then, when she was seventeen and Brutus's wait almost over, Caesar had married her to Pompey the Great. A terrible business, made worse because Servilia had taken huge pleasure in telling him that Julia was ardently in love with her old man, that she had found Brutus boring and ugly. Despite marriage to Bibulus, Porcia was hardly better prepared for this wedding night than Brutus, for Bibulus had been married twice before, to two Domitias of the Ahenobarbi, both of whom that arch-predator, Caesar, had seduced. Eighteen years old, she had been given to Bibulus by her father arbitrarily, and found herself the bride of an embittered man in his late forties, a man who already had two sons by his first Domitia, and then Lucius by his second Domitia. Enormously flattered though Bibulus was by Cato's gift of his only daughter, she didn't exactly suit his tastes. For one thing, she was six feet tall to his five feet four; for another, Porcia was not every man's idea of a beautiful woman. Bibulus had done his duty in a rather indifferent way, made no attempt to please her, and then sat back to revel in the fact that his third wife was Cato's daughter: that this was one wife Caesar could never plunder. Only the gods knew what might have happened had Bibulus returned to Rome after governing Syria; his two elder sons were murdered in Alexandria, which left him Lucius. Had he returned, he may well have decided to sire children by Porcia. But he didn't, of course. Caesar had crossed the Rubicon while Bibulus lingered in Ephesus, and Rome never saw him again. Porcia became a widow without ever being a well-used wife. So they sat side by side on the edge of the bed, wordless and afraid. Very much in love with each other, but having no idea how intimacy would affect that love. The light outside was still high and bright, for this was midsummer; finally Brutus turned his head and took in that wealth of brilliant red hair, experienced a desire she would surely not find repugnant. "May I let down your hair?" he asked. Her grey eyes, Cato's except for the fright, widened. "If you like," she said. "Just don't lose the pins because I think I forgot to pack any." Not to lose the pins was a facet of Brutus's careful nature anyway; he plucked them out one by one and put them in a heap on the bedside table, going about his task with burgeoning delight. It really did feel alive, such masses of it, and never once cut; his finger's ran through it, then shook it out into a cascade of fire that puddled on the bed. "Oh, it's so beautiful!" he whispered. No one had ever called anything about her beautiful; Porcia shivered with pleasure. Then his hands were plucking at her awful homespun dress, pulled its sash off, unbuttoned the placket up its back and tugged it down over her shoulders, tried to work her arms out of its sleeves. She helped him until she realized her breasts were bared, and clutched its folds across her chest. "Please let me look," he begged. "Please!" This was so new why would anyone want to look? Still, when his hands covered hers and gently persuaded them downward, she let him, gritted her teeth and stared straight ahead. Brutus gazed enraptured. Who would ever have guessed that her ghastly tentlike dresses contained these exquisite, small and firm breasts with such deliciously pink little nipples? "Oh, they're beautiful!" he breathed, and kissed one. Her skin leaped, a warmth kindled and spread through her. "Stand up, let me see all of you," he commanded in a voice he hadn't known he possessed strong, rich, throaty. Amazed at it, amazed at herself, she obeyed; the dress fell around her feet, leaving her clad only in her coarse linen undergarment. He disposed of that too, but so reverently that she felt no urge to hide that part of herself that Bibulus had never bothered to inspect. Well, both his Domitias had been red-haired. "You're fire everywhere!" said Brutus, awed. Then he reached out his arms and gathered her to him, she still standing, he with his face on her belly, and he began to move it back and forth against her skin, pressing kisses on her, his hands moving over her back, stroking her flanks. She fell forward on to the bed as he struggled with his tunic; now it was her turn to help. Gasping at the shock of it, they felt the wonder of true contact, couldn't get enough, wrapped their arms about each other and kissed hungrily, passionately. He slipped inside her smoothly, filling Porcia with joy, with strange feeling she had never known, sensations that worked up and up and up until she cried out even as he cried out. "I love you," he said, still erect. "And I have always loved you, always!" "Again?" "Yes, yes! Forever again!"

With no Brutus to pick at, Servilia went to visit Cleopatra after her son departed for Tusculum. She found Lucius Caesar there, a real pleasure; he was one of the most cultivated men in Rome. The three of them settled to a lively discussion of the "Cato" and the "Anti-Cato," all on Caesar's side, of course, though Servilia and Lucius Caesar were dubious of the wisdom of the "Anti-Cato." "Especially, said Servilia, "because of its literary merit. That has guaranteed it a wide audience." "Lucius Piso says he doesn't care what it says, the prose is superb Caesar at his best," said Cleopatra. "Yes, but that's Piso, who'd read a book about a beetle if the prose were superb," Lucius Caesar objected. He raised a brow at Servilia "Was it you who supplied Caesar with the anecdotes no one knew about?" he asked. "Naturally," purred Servilia, "though I don't have Caesar's gift for picking the eyes out of, for instance, Cato's poetry. I just sent him the lot. There were drawers full of it, you know." "It tempts the gods to speak ill of the dead," Lucius remarked. The two women stared at him in astonishment. "I fail to see that," Cleopatra said. "If people are horrible while they're alive, why should the Gods oblige one to be mealymouthed about them just because they've had the consideration to die? I can assure you that when my father died, I offered thanks to the Gods. I certainly didn't change my opinion of him or of my elder brother. And after Arsino dies, I won't be saying any nice things about her." "I agree," said Servilia. "Hypocrisy is detestable." Lucius Caesar retreated, hands up in surrender. "Ladies, ladies! I'm merely echoing most of Rome!" "Including my stupid son," Servilia snarled. "He actually had the temerity to write an 'Anti-Anti-Cato,' or whatever one calls a refutation of a refutation." "I can understand that," said Lucius. "He's very tied to Cato, after all." "Not anymore," said Servilia grimly. "Cato's dead." "You don't think Brutus's marriage to Porcia constitutes a continuing tie to Cato?" Lucius asked in all innocence. How could a large, airy, light-filled room suddenly darken as if the sun outside was totally eclipsed? For the room did darken, its atmosphere fizzing with sparks of invisible lightning that emanated from Servilia, who had gone absolutely rigid. Cleopatra and Lucius Caesar sat gaping for a moment, then Cleopatra moved to her friend's side. "Servilia! Servilia! What is it?" she asked, picking up a hand to chafe it. The hand was snatched away. "Marriage to Porcia?" "Surely you know," Lucius floundered. The air was now suffused with blackness. "I do not know! How do you know?" "I married them this morning." Servilia got up jerkily and walked out, screaming for her litter, her servants. "I was sure she knew!" said Lucius to Cleopatra. Cleopatra drew a breath. "I am not famous for my pity, Lucius, but I pity Brutus and Porcia."

By the time that Servilia arrived home it was too late to set out for Tusculum. One look at her face had the servants shaking in fear; that cloud of darkness surrounded her impenetrably. "Bring me an axe, Epaphroditus," she said to the steward, whom she never addressed by his unabbreviated name unless there was huge trouble. Alone among the staff, Epaphroditus was a veteran of the crucifixion of the nursery maid who had dropped baby Brutus; he raced to find that axe. Servilia stalked to Brutus's study and proceeded to destroy it, hacking at the desk, couches and chairs, sending the wine and water flagons flying with one blow, smashing the Alexandrian glass goblets to fragments. She tore every scroll out of the pigeonholes, emptied the book buckets, piled them in a heap on the floor. Then she marched to a multiple lamp, shook the oil out of it on to the pile, and set fire to it. Epaphroditus smelled the smoke and hunted the petrified servants to fetch buckets of sand from the kitchen, buckets of water from the peristyle fountain and the atrium impluvium, praying that the mistress would quit the room before the fire caught hold too strongly to be put out. The moment she erupted from the study he went to work, more afraid of fire than of the Klytemnestra dragging her axe. Only when Brutus's sleeping cubicle and all his favorite statues were demolished did Servilia pause, still so consumed by rage that she just wished there was more of his to destroy. Ah! The bronze bust of a boy by Strongylion! His pride and delight! In the atrium! Off she went, seized the piece it was so heavy that only her fury enabled her to lift it and lugged it to her own sitting room, where she sat it on a table and stared at it. How did one ruin solid bronze without a furnace? "Ditus!" she roared. Epaphroditus was there in an instant. "Yes, domina?" "See this?" "Yes, domina." "Take it down to the river and drop it in at once." "But it's Strongylion!" he bleated. "I don't care if it's Phidias or Praxiteles! Do as I say!" The black eyes, cold as obsidian, wormed into him. "Do as I say, Epaphroditus. Hermione!" she roared. Her personal maid appeared instantly out of nowhere. "Accompany Epaphroditus to the river and make sure he throws this this thing into it. Otherwise, it's crucifixion." It took the two old retainers to pick the bust up and totter away carrying it between them. "What has happened?" Hermione whispered. "I haven't seen her like this since Caesar told her he wouldn't marry her!" "I don't know what's happened, but I do know she'll crucify us unless we obey her," said Epaphroditus, giving the bust to a young, strong slave. "Down to the Tiber, Phormion. Quickly!"

A hired carriage was at the door as dawn broke; Servilia entered it without a change of clothes or a servant. "Gallop the whole way," she told the carpentarius curtly. "Domina, I can't do that! You'd be jolted to death!" "Listen, you moron," she said between her teeth, "when I say gallop, I mean gallop. I don't care how often you have to change mules when I say gallop, I mean gallop!"

Having risen disgracefully late, Brutus and Porcia were at breakfast when Servilia walked through the door. "You cunnus! You slimy, slithering snake!" Servilia hissed. Without breaking stride, she marched straight up to Porcia, drew back her arm, and punched her new daughter-in-law over the temple with her clenched fist. Stunned, Porcia fell to the floor, where Servilia began systematically to kick her from head to feet, paying particular attention to groin and breasts. It took Brutus and two male slaves to pull her away. "How could you do this, you ingrate?" Servilia screamed at her son, struggling, lashing out with her feet, trying to bite. Apparently not much injured, Porcia got up unaided, leaped at Servilia, grabbed her hair, held her by it with one hand and used the other to strike her repeatedly across the face. "Don't you use gutter language to me, you stuck-up patrician monster!" Porcia shouted. "And don't you dare touch me! Or Brutus! I am Cato's daughter, and every bit your equal! Touch me again, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born! Go suck up to your foreign queen and leave us alone!" By the end of this speech three other servants had managed to haul Porcia out of striking distance; bruised and disheveled, the two women glared at each other with teeth bared. "Cunnus!" Servilia snarled. Brutus put himself between them. "Mama, Porcia, I am the master here, and I will be obeyed! It is not in your province to choose my wife, Mama, and as you can see, I have chosen one for myself. You will be civil to her, and you will welcome her to my house, or I will evict you. I mean what I say! It is a man's duty to house his mother, but I will not go on housing you if you won't be civil to my wife. Porcia, I apologize for my mother's conduct, and can only beg that you forgive her." He stepped aside. "Is all that understood? If it is, then these men will release you." Servilia shrugged her captors off, put her hands up to her hair. "Grown a backbone, have we, Brutus?" she asked mockingly. "As you see, yes," he said stiffly. "How did you trap him, you harpy?" she asked Porcia. "You're the harpy, Servilia. Brutus and I," said Porcia, moving to him, "were made for each other." Handfast, they looked at Servilia defiantly. "Think you have the situation under control, do you, Brutus? Well, you haven't," said Servilia. "If you think for one moment that I'll be civil to the descendant of a Celtiberian slave and a dirty old Tusculan peasant, you've got another think coming! Evict me, and I'll smear you with so much mud your career will be over Brutus the coward who avoided the boys' drills and dropped his sword at Pharsalus! Brutus the moneylender who starves old men to death! Brutus who divorced his blameless wife of nine years and refused to compensate her! I still have Caesar's ear, and I still have influence in the Senate! As for you, you great hulking lump, you're not fit to clean my son's shoes!" "And you're not fit to lick Cato's excrement, you malicious adulterer!" yelled Porcia. "Ave, Ave, Ave!" caroled a voice from the open doorway; in walked Cicero blithely, glistening eyes going from one to another of the players in this delicious drama. Brutus handled it very well, smiled broadly, brushed past his wife and his mother to shake Cicero warmly by the hand. "My dear Cicero, what a pleasure," he said. "Actually, I'm glad to see you, because I find I need your advice on one or two points. I've started an epitome of Fannius's rather odd history of Rome, and Strato of Epirus says it's a futile exercise ..." His voice ceased when he shut his study door. "You won't live to be old, Porcia!" Servilia howled. "I'm not afraid of you!" Porcia answered at a shout. "You're all bluff!" "I don't bluff! I survived the Livius Drusus household without anyone to shield me or hold my hand, but your father couldn't say the same. He clung to our brother Caepio. My mother was a whore, Porcia with your grandfather, so don't come the moralist with me! At least my adultery was with a man who has the blood to be the King of Rome, but no one could say that of a turd named Cato. You'd better not plan a family, my dear. Any brats Brutus might sire on you won't live long enough to be weaned." "Threats, idle threats! You're hollow as a reed, Servilia!"

"Actually it isn't Fannius I want to talk about," Brutus said while the women's voices ripped through the wood of the door. "I didn't think it was," Cicero said, ears cocked. "Oh, by the way, congratulations on your marriage." "News gets around rapidly." "News like that gets around faster than lightning, Brutus. I heard it from Dolabella this morning." "Dolabella? Isn't he with Caesar?" "He was with Caesar, but having obtained what he wanted, he came back to pacify his creditors." "What did he want?" Brutus asked. "The consulship and a good province. Caesar promised that he would be consul next year, and then go to Syria," said Cicero, and sighed. "Try though I may, I can't ever manage to dislike Dolabella, even now that he refuses to pay back Tullia's dowry. He says her death nullifies any agreement. I fear he's right." "No Roman should have the power to promise a consulship," Brutus said, face puckering. "I couldn't agree more. What did you want to discuss?" "A subject I've touched on before. That I think it behooves me to go to meet Caesar on his way home." "Oh, Brutus, I wish you wouldn't!" Cicero cried. "There's a cloud of dust a mile high from all those hurrying out of Rome to meet the Great Man. Don't demean yourself by joining the herd." "I think I must. Cassius too. But what ought I to say to him, Cicero? How can I discover what he intends?" Cicero looked blank. "There's no use asking me, my dear Brutus. Nor will I be a part of the herd. I'm staying here." "What I plan," said Brutus, "is to talk about you as well as about myself make it plain to Caesar that I've discussed things with you, and that you think as I do." "No, no, no!" Cicero yelled, appalled. "Absolutely not! My name Won't do your cause any good, especially after the 'Cato.' If it angered him enough to write that imprudent reply, then I am definitely persona non grata with Caesar Rex." He brightened. "I've begun to call him 'Rex.' Well, he acts like a king, doesn't he? Gaius Julius Caesar Rex has a marvelous ring to it." "I am sorry you feel that way, Cicero, but it can't alter my decision to meet Caesar in Placentia," said Brutus. "Well, you must do as you see fit." Cicero rose. "Time I strolled back to my own place. Such a parade of visitors these days. I don't think there's anyone doesn't pop in to see me." He bustled to the door, relieved to hear silence on its far side. "Did I tell you that I had a very strange letter a little while ago? From some fellow who claims to be Gaius Marius's grandson. Begging assistance from me, if you please. I wrote back and said that I thought, with Caesar for a relative, he didn't need my poor help." He was still talking at the front door. "My dear son is in Athens yes, you know that, of course and wants to buy a carriage. I ask you, a carriage! What were we provided with feet for, my dear Brutus, if not to get from place to place, especially at that age?" He giggled. "I wrote back and told him to ask his mother for the money. Fat chance!" No sooner had Cicero disappeared than Servilia appeared. "I'm going back to Rome," she said shortly. "An excellent idea, Mama. I hope that by the time I bring Porcia to her new home, you will be more reconciled." He handed her into the carpentum. "I am quite serious, you know. If you offend me, I will evict you." "I have every intention of offending, but you won't evict me. Try to, and you'll find how much control I still have over your fortune. The only man who has ever bested me is Caesar, and you, my son, are not Caesar's little finger." Stomach roiling, he went to find Porcia, profoundly glad that the two least welcome of the day's potential visitors were already in the past. Mama and my fortune? But how? Through whom? My banker, Flavius Hemicillus? No. My director Matinius? No. It's my director Scaptius. He was always her creature. His wife was sitting in the garden, contemplating the peaches ripening on a tree. When she heard him she turned, face alight with pleasure, and held out her hands. Oh, Porcia, I do love you so much! My pillar of fire.

* * *

"What do you think about it?" Servilia demanded of Cassius. "I can certainly understand why you object, Servilia, but in many ways Brutus and Porcia suit each other," said Cassius. "Yes, I know you hate to admit there are similarities, but that doesn't mean to say they don't exist. They're a rather humorless pair, very earnest, boringly narrow. That's the real reason why I've given up Stoicism. I just couldn't stand the narrowness." Servilia eyed her favorite male relative with complete love. He was so martial, so manly, so crisp and decisive. How glad she was to have him in the family! Vatia Isauricus, married to Junia Major, and Lepidus, married to Junia Minor, were a pair of stiff, punctilious aristocrats who never seemed to be able to reconcile their adherence to Caesar with their mother-in-law's adultery with Caesar. Whereas Cassius, more immediately affected thanks to Tertulla's paternity, didn't let it interfere with his liking. "Tertulla says you're off to see Caesar," she said. "Yes, I am. With Brutus, I hope, if Porcia doesn't change his mind." Cassius grinned. "I can't credit that she'll approve of Brutus's smarming to Caesar." "Oh, he'll just go without telling her," said Servilia. "But why exactly is it necessary?" "Munda," he said simply. "I was so relieved when Caesar won. I've always detested the uncrowned King of Rome, but at least he forced a final decision. The Republican cause is now too dead to be resurrected. As a pardoned man who has never put a foot wrong since Caesar implied that pardon he was far too clever to speak the actual words I intend to have my share of the perquisites, much though it sticks in my throat to be civil to him. I want to be praetor next year, so does Brutus, but by the time the Great Man reaches Rome, all the jobs will be gone." He eyed Servilia ironically; they had no secrets. "As er Caesar's unofficial son-in-law, I think I deserve a good job. In fact, I think that I deserve Syria more than Dolabella does. Don't you agree?" "Absolutely," she said. "Go with my blessing."

6

While Caesar and Octavius, talking incessantly, made their way up the coast of Nearer Spain to cross the Pyrenees, the seaport of Narbo was experiencing more excitement than it had since Lucius Caesar had used it as his base while Cousin Gaius fought the Long-haired Gauls. An attractive city at the mouth of the Atax River, it was famous for its seafood, particularly the world's most succulent fish, a very flat creature that lived on the estuary sea floor and had to be dug out of hiding: hence its name, dug-mullet. However, Narbo didn't really think that the sixty-odd Roman senators who descended upon it at the end of June were visiting in order to dine on dug-mullets. Narbo knew that Caesar was coming, and that these important men were there to see him. That they had chosen Narbo lay in the fact that there was no other place of sufficient size to accommodate so many in a proper degree of comfort. Senators like Decimus Brutus, Gaius Trebonius, Marcus Antonius and Lucius Minucius Basilus were well known from the days of Caesar's Gallic War; arriving first, the four promptly moved into Lucius Caesar's mansion, which he had kept in the hope that one day he would have a chance to return to a place he loved dearly. The rest distributed themselves around the better inns or begged shelter with some prosperous Roman merchant; Narbo had a good many, as it served as the port for a lush hinterland that stretched as far as Tolosa, a fine inland city downstream from the headwaters of the Garumna River. Recently Narbo's status had risen even higher; Caesar had created a new province, Narbonese Gaul, which extended from west of the Rhodanus River to the Pyrenees, and from Our Sea to Oceanus Atlanticus where the Duranius and the Garumna met at the Gallic oppidum of Burdigala. It thus incorporated the lands of the Volcae Tectosages and the Aquitani. As the capital, Narbo had a fine new governor's palace where Caesar and his staff would stay after they arrived. Its first incumbent, already in residence, was Caesar's brave and scholarly legate, Aulus Hirtius.

Mark Antony slept in Lucius Caesar's house only the one night before Hirtius invited him to the governor's palace. Which left Gaius Trebonius, Decimus Brutus and Basilus in Lucius Caesar's house, a state of affairs that suited Trebonius, relieved him. He had decided that it was time to start feeling out certain men on the subject of an untimely death for Caesar. He started with Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, sustained by that little chat in Murcius's tavern. "The only way we're ever going to have that fighting chance in the elections you talked of, Decimus, is if Caesar no longer rules Rome," he said as they walked the busy quayside. "I am aware of that, Trebonius." "If you are, then how do you think we can end Caesar's rule?" "There's only one way. Kill him." "Once upon a time," Trebonius said in his mournful voice, staring at a ship anchoring in the roads, "Caesar prosecuted Antonius's uncle Hybrida for atrocities he committed in Greece. It created a bit of an uproar because of Caesar's connection to the Antonii, but the Great Man not so great in those days said it didn't infringe the unwritten tenets of families because the connection was through marriage only." "I remember the case. Hybrida invoked tribunician protection and halted proceedings, but Caesar had rendered him so odious that he had to go into exile anyway," Decimus said. "My connection to the Julii is by blood, but it's quite remote through a Popillia who was the mother of Catulus Caesar's father." "Is that remote enough to consider joining a group of men dedicated to killing Caesar?" "Oh, yes," said Decimus Brutus without hesitation. He walked on, wrinkling his nose at the smell of fish, seaweed and ships. "However, Trebonius, why do you need a group of men?" "Because I have no intention of sacrificing my own life and career in the cause," Trebonius said frankly. "I want enough very important men involved to make it seem a patriotic act, one that the Senate won't have the courage to punish." "So you're not thinking of doing it here in Narbo?" "All I intend to do in Narbo is sound people out but only after a lot of listening and observation. I'm asking you here and now because that makes two of us to listen and observe." "Ask Basilus, and there will be three of us." "I had thought of him. Do you think he'll be in it?" "In a flash," said Decimus. His lip curled, but not from the smells. "He's another Hybrida, he tortures his slaves. I heard that his activities have come to Caesar's ears, and that he'll have no further advancement. Caesar paid him out instead." Trebonius frowned. "A history like that won't add any distinction to our group." "Very few know. To senatorial sheep, he's important." Which was true enough. Lucius Minucius Basilus was a Picentine landowner who claimed that his family could trace its origins back to the days of Cincinnatus, though he could offer no proof beyond a flat statement. Having discovered that a flat statement was all that most of his fellow First Class required as proof, he had gone far. A Caesar-appointed praetor this year, he had looked forward to the consulship until word leaked back to him that his secret vice had been reported to Caesar. With a tortured slave to testify. When he had received Caesar's curt letter informing him that his public career was over, Basilus turned from a Caesar worshiper to a Caesar hater. After four years as one of Caesar's legates in Gaul, a rude shock to find himself excluded from the inner circle. He had come to Narbo to plead his case, but with little hope. When Trebonius and Decimus Brutus sounded him out, he agreed to join what Decimus had nicknamed the Kill Caesar Club with alacrity, even jubilation. Three. Now who else? Lucius Staius Murcus had come to Narbo confidently, for he knew he stood high in Caesar's favor; his talents lay on the sea, and he had admiraled fleets for Caesar with flair. However, he had sided with Caesar for the most basic of reasons: he knew that Caesar would win, and he wanted to be on the winning side. The trouble was that he disliked Caesar intensely, and sensed that the emotion was reciprocated. Therefore standing high in Caesar's favor was a state of being that could change, especially now that there were no more battles to be fought. He had been praetor, he wanted to be consul, yet was edgily aware that, with only two consuls each year, and many men high in Caesar's favor, his own chances were slender. Basilus suggested him, but they agreed not to approach Staius Murcus in Narbo. Narbo was for noting names, not approaching. Certain others in Narbo went on the list of potential Kill Caesar Club members, but all mere pedarii senators, backbenchers with little clout. Decimus Turullius, the brothers Caecilius Metellus and Caecilius Buciolanus, the brothers Publius and Gaius Servilius Casca were noted down. So was a very angry Caesennius Lento, the beheader of Gnaeus Pompey.

On the third day of Quinctilis, Caesar's party descended on Narbo at last, accompanied by the remnants of the Tenth Legion and the somewhat plumper Fifth Alauda. Caesar, noted Mark Antony, was looking in the pink of health. "My dear Antonius," said Caesar cordially, kissing his cheek, "what a pleasure to see you. And Aulus Hirtius, of course." Antony didn't notice what Caesar went on to say, his eyes on the slender figure emerging from Caesar's gig. Young Gaius Octavius? Yes, it was! But there had been big changes. He'd never really taken any notice of his second cousin, dismissed him as a future bum-boy who'd be one of the family disgraces, but the lad, though as precious and pretty as ever, now exuded a quiet confidence that said he was doing very well as Caesar's cadet. Caesar turned to Octavius with a smile and drew him forward. "As you see, I have just about the entire family with me. All we needed to be complete was Marcus Antonius." Caesar slipped an arm about Octavius's shoulders and gave him a slight hug. "Go inside, Gaius, and see where they've put me." Octavius smiled at Antony unselfconsciously and did as he was told. Quintus Pedius was approaching; Antony had to act fast, and did. "I'm here to apologize, Caesar. And beg forgiveness." "I accept the one and grant the other, Antonius." The next thing they were all there, from Quintus Pedius to young Lucius Pinarius, Caesar's other great-nephew, a contubernalis with his cousin, Pedius. Plus Quintus Fabius Maximus, Calvinus, Messala Rufus, and Pollio. "I'd better move out," said Antony to Hirtius, counting the entourage. "I can stay at Uncle Lucius's place." "There's no need," said Caesar genially. "We'll put Agrippa, Pinarius and Octavius together in a cupboard somewhere." "Agrippa?" asked Antony. "There," said Caesar, pointing. "Did you ever see a more promising military man in all your life, Antonius?" "Quintus Sertorius with a face," Antony said instantly. "Exactly what I thought. He's a contubernalis with Pedius, but I'm transferring him to my own staff when I leave for the East. And one of Pedius's military tribunes, Salvidienus Rufus. He led the cavalry charge at Munda, and did brilliantly." "Nice to know that Rome's still producing good men." "Not Rome, Antonius. Italy! Think more broadly, do!" "I've counted sixty-two senators come to bow and scrape," said Antony as they went indoors together. "Most of them are your own appointees, pedarii lobby fodder, but Trebonius and Decimus Brutus are here, so are Basilus and Staius Murcus." He stopped to look at Caesar quizzically. "You seem mighty fond of that young saltatrix tonsa, Octavius," he said abruptly. "Don't let appearances fool you, Antonius. Octavius is far from a barbered dancing girl. He has more political acumen in his little finger than you have in your entire hulking body. He's been my constant companion since shortly after Munda, and I don't remember when I've enjoyed a young fellow so much. He's sickly and he'll never be a military man, but the head on his shoulders is old and wise. A pity his name's Octavius, really." A stab of alarm pierced Antony; he stiffened. "Thinking of making his name Julius Caesar by adoption, are you?" he asked. "Alas, no. I told you, he's sickly. Too sickly to make old bones," Caesar said lightly. Octavius appeared. "Up the stairs, the suite right at the end of the corridor, Caesar," he said. "You won't need me now, so if you don't mind, I'll see where Agrippa and Pinarius are stowing their gear. Is it all right if I stay with them?" "I had planned it thus. Enjoy Narbo, and don't get into any trouble. You're on leave." The large, beautiful grey eyes rested on Caesar's face with patent adoration, then the lad nodded and vanished. "He thinks the sun shines out of your arse," said Antony. "It's very pleasant to know that someone does, Antonius. Particularly a member of my own family." "Go on! Pedius doesn't fart unless you tell him to." "What of your farts, cousin?" "Treat me well, Caesar, and I'll treat you well." "I've accepted your apology, but you're on probation, and it would be wise to remember that. Are you out of debt?" "No," said Antony gruffly, "but I was able to pay the usurers enough to shut them up. Once Fulvia's flush again, they'll get more, and I'm counting on a share of the Parthian booty to finish the business." They had reached Caesar's suite, where Hapd'efan'e was paring some fruit. Antony eyed the Egyptian physician with revulsion. "I have other plans for you," Caesar said, swallowing a peach. Antony stopped dead and glared at Caesar furiously. "Oh, no, not again!" he snapped. "Don't expect me to sit on Rome for you for five years, because I won't! I want a decent campaign with some decent booty!" "You will have it, Antonius, but not with me," Caesar said, keeping his voice level. "Next year you will be consul, and after that you'll go to Macedonia with six good legions. Vatinius will remain in Illyricum, and the two of you will fight a joint campaign north into the lands of the Danubius and Dacia. I have no desire to see Rome's frontiers threatened by King Burebistas while I'm absent. You and Vatinius will conquer from the Savus and Dravus all the way to the Euxine Sea. And your share of the booty will be the general's, not a legate's." "But it won't be Parthian booty," Antony growled. "If the puny campaigns of the previous governors of Macedonia are anything to go by, Antonius," said Caesar, keeping his temper, "I predict you'll emerge from the campaign as rich as Croesus. The Danubian tribes are gold-rich peoples." "I'll still have to share with Vatinius, said Antony. "You'd have to share the Parthian spoils with two dozen men of equal rank. And have you forgotten that as the general, you take all the proceeds from the sale of slaves? Do you know how much I made out of the sale of Gallic slaves? Thirty thousand talents!" Caesar eyed him mockingly. "You, Antonius, are a glaring example of a Roman boy who never did his homework and never mastered arithmetic. You're also a born glutton."

Caesar remained in Narbo for two nundinae, setting up the new province of Narbonese Gaul and allocating generous, fertile portions of land to the few survivors of the Tenth Legion; the Fifth Alauda was to march east with him to the Rhodanus valley, where he intended to settle its men on equally good land. They were a priceless gift for Gaul, these matchless legionaries, who would marry Gallic women and commingle the blood of two superlative warrior peoples. "He's always been royal," said Gaius Trebonius to Decimus Brutus as they watched Caesar move among the fawning senators, "but it grows in leaps and bounds. Caesar Rex! If we convince all the Romans who matter that he intends to crown himself King of Rome, we'll get away free, Decimus. Rome has never punished regicides." "We need someone closer to him to convince the Romans who matter that he will crown himself King of Rome," Decimus said thoughtfully. "Someone like Antonius, who I hear is to be one of next year's consuls. I know Antonius won't do the deed, but I always have a feeling that he'll not condemn the deed either. Perhaps he'd go as far as making the deed look respectable?" "Perhaps," said Trebonius, smiling. "Shall I ask him?" As Antony was making a huge effort to stay sober and be of some use to Caesar, it wasn't easy to get him on his own, but on their last evening in Narbo, Trebonius managed by inviting Antony to look at a particularly beautiful horse. "The beast's up to your weight, Antonius, and well worth what the owner's asking. I know you're in to the bloodsuckers for millions, but the consul needs a better Public Horse than your old fellow, which must be due for retirement. The Treasury pays for a Public Horse, don't forget." Antony took the bait, and was delighted when he saw the animal, tall and strong without being lumbering, and a striking mixture of light and dark grey dapples. The deal concluded, he and Trebonius walked back to the town. "I'm going to do some talking," said Trebonius, "but I don't want you to answer me. All I ask is that you listen. Nor do you need to tell me that I'm putting my life in your hands by broaching this particular subject. However, whether you agree with me or not, I refuse to believe that you'll tattle to Caesar. Of course you know what the subject is. Killing Caesar. There are now a number of us who are convinced that the deed must be done if Rome is ever to be free again. But we can't hurry, because we have to appear to the First Class as the champions of liberty as truly patriotic men doing Rome a great service." He paused while two senators passed. "The oath you swore to Fulvia can't be broken, so I'm not asking you to belong to the Kill Caesar Club. Decimus thought of the name, which could be a joke as easily as a conspiracy walls have ears? What I'm going to do is to ask you to help in ways that don't affect your oath. Namely, by making it seem as if Caesar is about to don the diadem. There are people already saying that, but it's generally held to be spite invented by Caesar's avowed enemies, so it hasn't impressed people like Flavius Hemicillus and Atticus, any of the other real plutocrats. As Decimus says, someone close to Caesar has to make the King of Rome option look a foregone conclusion." Two more senators passed by; Trebonius was overheard talking eagerly about Antony's new Public Horse. "Now, the rumor is out that next year you will be consul," Trebonius resumed, "and that when Caesar leaves Rome for the war against the Parthians, you're to stay in Rome to govern until the end of the year, then start a campaign into Dacia with Vatinius don't ask me how I know, just believe I do. I imagine you're not as pleased as maybe Caesar thinks you are, and I understand why. Booty will be hard to come by. There's no German treasure like the one in Atuatuca, nor is there a Druid center of worship full of gold votives. You'll have to force the barbarians to reveal the sites of their burial mounds, and you're not a Labienus, are you? As for the sale of slaves, who's going to buy them? The biggest market is the Kingdom of the Parthians, and they're not going to be buying any slaves while Caesar's breathing down their necks. But if Caesar is dead, all that changes, doesn't it?" Antony stopped, bent to tie his boot; his fingers, Trebonius noted, were trembling. Yes, the message was being absorbed. "Anyway, as consul-elect for the rump of this year and consul in fact next year, you're in a perfect position to perform little acts that will make it appear as if Caesar intends to be Caesar Rex. There's talk of putting a statue of Caesar in Quirinus's, but what if the Senate voted to give Caesar a palace on the Quirinal alongside Quirinus's, and put a temple pediment on it? What if there was to be a cult to Caesar's clemency, only it looked more like a god cult? If you were the flamen, people would have to take it seriously, wouldn't they?" Trebonius paused to draw breath, then went on. "I have a great many ideas along those lines, and I'm sure you're capable of thinking of plenty for yourself. What we have to do is make it seem as if Caesar will never step down, never abrogate his power, and is aiming at being a god on earth. The first step to that is to be a king, so the two can be worked together. You see, none of the members of the Kill Caesar Club wants to be tried for perduellio treason, or even to be castigated for the deed. We aim to be heroes. But that requires the generation of a mood in the First Class, which is the only Class that matters. Anyone lower than that thinks Caesar is a god and a king already, and they love it and love him. He gives them work, opportunities, prosperity do they care who rules them, or how? No, they don't. Even the Second Class. What we have to do is turn the First Class implacably against Caesar Rex." They were approaching Lucius Caesar's mansion. "Don't say a word, Antonius. Your actions are all the answer we need." Trebonius nodded and smiled as if they had just enjoyed a meaningless conversation, and slipped inside. Mark Antony walked on to the governor's palace. He too was smiling.

When the huge cavalcade departed from Narbo the next day at dawn, Caesar invited Antony to share his gig. Not at all put out, Gaius Octavius joined Decimus Brutus in another gig. "We're remote relatives, young Octavius," Decimus Brutus said, settling himself into his seat with a sigh of weariness. The time in Narbo had been a strain, and the strain was going to continue until he could be sure that Antony had not tattled. "Indeed we are," said Octavius sunnily. The exchange constituted the prelude to a journey of innocuous talk that ended three days later in Arelate, where Caesar stayed a nundinum to get the Fifth Alauda organized. When the gigs commenced the haul up the Via Domitia to the Mons Genava Pass, Octavius was back in Caesar's gig, and Mark Antony traveled with Decimus Brutus. No, he hadn't tattled. The relief! "Out of favor already?" Decimus asked. "Truly, Antonius, you need a muzzle." Antony grinned. "No, I'm standing well with the Great Man. The trouble is that I'm too big for him to have a secretary there too. The pretty little pansy bum-boy doesn't take up much room. He's something, isn't he?" "Oh, yes," said Decimus instantly, "but not in the way you mean it. Gaius Octavius is very dangerous." "You're joking! The strain of waiting to see if I'd tattle has warped your thinking, Decimus." "Far from it, Antonius. Do you remember the tale of Sulla's remark to Aurelia when she begged for Caesar's life? He wasn't much older then than Octavius is now. 'Very well, have it your own way! I will spare him! But be warned! In this young man I see many Mariuses.' Well, in this boy I see many Mariuses." "You're definitely touched in the head," said Antony with a rude noise, and changed the subject. "Our next stop's Cularo." "What happens there?" "A gathering of the Vocontii. The Great Man is bestowing the traditional Vocontii lands on them for their absolute own in honor of old Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus." "That's one thing I have to grant Caesar," said Decimus Brutus. "He never forgets a good turn. Trogus was a wonderful help to us through all the years in Gaul, and the Vocontii have earned Friend and Ally status. After Trogus joined the staff, they stopped those awful raids on us. Never joined Vercingetorix either." "I'm going ahead when we reach Taurasia," Antony announced. "Why's that?" "Fulvia's due and I'd like to be there." Decimus Brutus burst out laughing. "Antonius! You're under the cat's foot at last! How many children have you got already?" "Only the one in wedlock, and she's a dolt. All Fadia's died with her in that epidemic, don't forget. Not that they were any loss, with a Fadia for a mother. Fulvia's different. This sprog will be able to say he's the great-grandson of Gaius Gracchus." "What if it's a girl?" "Fulvia says she's carrying a boy, and she'd know." "Two boys and two girls by Clodius, a boy by Curio you're right, she'd know."

The Via Domitia came down to the vast river plain of the Padus at Placentia, which was the capital of Italian Gaul and the seat of the governor, Gaius Vibius Pansa, one of Caesar's loyalest clients. He had succeeded Brutus, so when Brutus and Cassius arrived in Placentia, he hailed them delightedly. "My dear Brutus, you did a brilliant job," he said warmly. "To succeed you has left me with practically nothing to do beyond follow your edicta. Here to see Caesar?" "Yes, as a matter of fact, which means you'll be crowded out with boarders," Brutus said, a little astonished at so much praise. "Gaius Cassius and I will stay at Tigellius's inn." "Nothing of the kind! No, no, I won't hear of it! I've had a message from Caesar that says his party will consist of himself, Quintus Pedius, Calvinus, and three contubernales. Decimus Brutus and Gaius Trebonius are traveling straight on to Rome, so are the others who've managed to keep up with Caesar," said Pansa. "Then thank you, Pansa," Cassius said briskly. "I hope," he said to Brutus when they took possession of a suite of four rooms, "that we don't have a long wait. Pansa is tedious." "Um," said Brutus absently; his mind was on Porcia, whom he was missing badly. Not to mention that he was suffering from guilt because he hadn't dared tell her whereabouts he was going.

The wait was minimal; Caesar turned up the next day in time for dinner. His reaction to their presence was perhaps a little too imperious for Cassius's taste, but his gladness was genuine. Seven of them reclined to take the meal: Caesar, Calvinus, Quintus Pedius, Pansa, Brutus, Cassius and Gaius Octavius. In accordance with tradition, Pansa's wife, Fufia Calena, had not accompanied him to his province, so there were no women present to slow the conversation down with small talk. "Where's Quintus Fabius Maximus?" Pansa asked Caesar. "Gone ahead with Antonius. He did very well in Spain, so he will be triumphing. As will Quintus Pedius." Cassius's lips tightened, but he said nothing. The idea of holding triumphs for victories over purely Roman foes had not occurred to him surely Caesar wasn't going to call it a Spanish revolt! Not enough of the Further province had risen for that, and the Nearer one hadn't participated at all. "You'll be triumphing yourself?" Pansa asked. "Naturally," said Caesar with a slightly malicious smile. He's not even going to bother trying to disguise the fact that the enemy was Roman, thought Cassius. He's going to revel in this pathetic victory! I wonder did he pickle Gnaeus Pompey's head so he can display it in his parade? A silence fell while everybody concentrated upon the food; Cassius was not the only one rendered uncomfortable by the fact that the enemy had been Roman. "Been writing anything lately, Brutus?" Caesar asked. Brutus's sad brown eyes lifted to Caesar's face, startled out of his reverie about Porcia. "Why, yes," he said. "No less than three dissertations, as a matter of fact." "Three." "Yes, I like to keep several projects going at once. As luck would have it," he went on before his mind could stop him, "the manuscripts were at Tusculum, so didn't perish in the fire." "Fire?" Brutus went scarlet, bit his lip. "Er yes. There was a fire in my study in Rome. All my books and papers were burned." "Edepol! Is your house in ashes?" "No, the house is intact. Our steward acted very promptly." "Epaphroditus. Yes, a gem, as I remember. You say that all your books and papers perished? I mean, a man's books and papers are scattered around the four walls of his study, not to mention the tables and desk," said Caesar, munching on nuts. "True," said Brutus, his misery visibly increasing. The intelligence behind the pale eyes had clearly grasped at a mystery may even, Cassius decided, have divined what really happened. But Brutus was unworthy prey for this big cat, so the subject was dropped with a lordly command: "Do tell us about the manuscripts at Tusculum." "Well, one dissertation is on virtue, one is on submissive endurance, and one on duty," said Brutus, recovering. "What do you have to say about virtue, Brutus?" "Oh, that virtue alone is sufficient to ensure a happy life. If a man be truly virtuous, then poverty, sickness or exile cannot destroy his happiness, Caesar." "Do tell! You amaze me, considering the wealth of your experience. A Stoic's argument that should please Porcia. My most sincere congratulations on your marriage," said Caesar gravely. "Oh, thank you. Thank you." "Submissive endurance is it a virtue?" Caesar asked, then answered his own question. "Absolutely not!" Calvinus laughed. "A Caesarean answer." "A man's answer," said a voice from the end of the far couch. "Endurance is a genuine virtue, but submissiveness is a quality admirable only in women," Octavius declared. Cassius's eyes went from Brutus's discomfiture to the lad, their brown depths surprised. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he didn't consider anyone as womanish as this presumptuous sprig an authority on men's answers, but again he suppressed his impulse. What stopped him was Caesar's face. Ye gods, our ruler is proud of this pansy ninny! What's more, respects his opinion! The last course was carried out; only the wine and water remained. What a curious dinner, how fraught with hidden tensions. Cassius found it difficult to decide exactly where the source of these stresses was located. At first, inevitably, he had blamed Caesar, but the longer the meal went on, the more he thought that young Gaius Octavius was the guilty party. He stood on incredibly good terms with his great-uncle, so much was evident. What he said when he said anything was listened to as if he were a legate, not a lowly cadet. Nor was it Caesar alone; Calvinus and Pedius hung upon Octavius's lips too. Yet Cassius couldn't call the youth impudent, rude, forward, even conceited. Most of the time he lay among the shadows, left the conversation to his elders. Except for those sudden, uncannily prescient, occasionally barbative, remarks. Uttered quietly but firmly. You, Gaius Octavius, said Cassius to himself, are a deep one. "Now to business," said Caesar, so unexpectedly that Cassius was jerked out of his ruminations about Gaius Octavius. "Business?" Pansa asked, startled. "Yes, but not provincial business, Pansa, so relax. Marcus Brutus Gaius Cassius I have praetorships going begging next year," Caesar said. "Brutus, I'm offering you praetor urbanus. Cassius, I'm offering you praetor peregrinus. Will you accept?" "Yes, please!" cried Brutus, lighting up. "Yes, I accept," said Cassius, less joyfully. "I believe that urban praetor best suits your talents, Brutus, whereas foreign praetor suits Cassius better. With your love of meticulous work, you'll issue the right kind of edicta and stick to them," said Caesar to Brutus. He turned then to Cassius. "As for you, Cassius, you've had a great deal of experience with non-citizens, you travel hard and fast, and you think on your feet. Therefore, foreign praetor." Ah! thought Cassius, lying back limply. It has been worth the trip. So Dolabella thinks to have Syria, does he? Brutus was in a state of exaltation. Urban praetor! The top job! Oh, Porcia will understand, I know she will! They look, thought Octavius, like cats in a lake of cream.

7

When Caesar left Placentia, he traveled alone; even Gaius Octavius was told that he would have to make his own way back to Rome. Thus the little clutch of gigs which galloped off down the Via Aemilia Scauri to the coast and the Via Aurelia of Etruria contained Caesar's secretaries, servants, and Hapd'efan'e. Well into Sextilis already, which meant less than seven months before he departed for Syria and a decent war. That meant two lots of work: what still had to be done for Rome and Italy, as well as the myriad preparations that went into planning a five-year campaign involving fifteen legions of infantry and ten thousand German, Gallic and Galatian cavalry. Gaius Rabirius Postumus was acting as praefectus fabrum, and the trusty old muleteer, Publius Ventidius, was busy recruiting and training. This campaign would see no raw troops; luckily a year of retirement was about as much peace and quiet as any old legionary could stomach, so the re-enlistment ratio was very high. With Ventidius supervising, the re-enlisting veterans would be carefully culled and juggled so that the very best of them went into making six crack legions, while the rest were apportioned to make the other nine legions uniformly experienced. Artillery. A hundred pieces per legion, not counting the small stuff. Artificers and skilled noncombatants of all kinds ... The time on the road passed swiftly, spent in dictating to shuffled arrays of secretaries, now about military matters, now about Rome, now about Italy, now about public works crying out to be done, from that canal through the Isthmus of Corinth to a new harbor at Ostia. Drain the Pomptine marshes, build more aqueducts into Rome, divert the Tiber so that the Campus Martius and the Campus Vaticanus were both on Rome's side of the river. Italy owned no Via Julia Caesaris, so one must be constructed between Rome and Firmum Picenum to open up the least accessible parts of the Apennines . . . Get those wretched land commissioners off their arses so that those of his veterans being settled in Italy weren't kept around waiting years for their land. He had legislated to protect them from the depredations of greedy wives, confidence tricksters and gobbling landowners by forbidding them to sell their portions for twenty years. Something Brutus had said to him in Placentia had annoyed him, for Brutus knew so little of human nature ("submissive endurance" indeed!) that he actually believed Caesar had instituted the twenty-year prohibition to stop the soldiers selling their land to buy wine and whores. That's how Brutus thought the lower classes behaved. Brutus, who knew nothing of poverty, sickness or exile, yet could dismiss them as incapable of destroying happiness! The entire Palatine ought to grow up amid poverty, as Caesar had. Not desperately poor himself, as Sulla had been, but witness to the suffering poverty brought in its train, the lives it blighted . . . Fascinating, that a year governing Italian Gaul had cured Brutus's pimples. Authority had freed him from his own miseries and freed him from Servilia at last. So much so that upon his return he had divorced his Claudia and married Cato's daughter. Caesar knew as surely as if he had been present how that fire in Brutus's study had started . . . It was time that Italian Gaul was made a part of Italy, ceased to be governed as a province. Every inhabitant was now a full citizen, so why was there an artificial barrier in existence? Why did Rome send it a governor, instead of governing it directly? Sicilians ought to be granted the full citizenship, though that would be bitterly opposed, even by his own creatures. Too many of Greek descent but wasn't that equally true of Italy south of Rome? Smaller and darker ... It wasn't right that Alexandria had a library of close to a million copies, while Rome had no public library at all. Varro! The perfect job for Marcus Terentius Varro, to collect multiple copies of all the books extant and put them under one roof...

The problem he didn't share with his secretaries through the medium of dictation was the fate of Rome in his absence. It had plagued him from the moment the situation in Syria had informed him that, if the world of Our Sea was to remain Occidental, the Kingdom of the Parthians would have to be eliminated. The fact that he knew he was the only man capable of invading and crushing the Parthian empire was not evidence of overweening conceit, but simple knowledge of himself of his will, abilities, genius. The truth was not conceit. If Caesar did not conquer the Parthians, they would remain a threat that one day would invade the western world. Few political men were gifted with foresight, but Caesar had it in huge measure; the coming centuries unfolded within his mind, and he cared more about them than he did about the centuries already written down in the history books. The Parthians were warlike, a disparate collection of remotely related peoples united by a king and a central government. Rather like Rome, really, save that Rome had no king. But should one man with one idea unite the peoples of that vast empire into a whole that thought the same way, then all other civilizations would be overrun. Only Caesar could prevent that happening, for no one else owned the vision to see what was coming. The trouble was that Rome wasn't an indissoluble whole, so Rome in his absence was a ghastly problem. He had decided that the only way to prevent the disintegration of what he had thus far achieved was to give the heart of his universe a system of checks and balances aimed at preventing another man from doing what he had done. Sulla had tried by establishing a new constitution, but it had toppled within fifteen years because it wasn't new, it was an attempt to revert to the past. Caesar's solution was more complex. The res publica was in much better condition now than it had been when he had taken up his first dictatorship. The laws were settling into place, and they were good laws, even if some of the First Class didn't think so. Business had recovered so well that no one agitated for a general cancellation of debts anymore; his solution of Rome's financial woes had benefited both debtors and creditors, was hailed by both sides as brilliant. The courts were functioning properly for the first time in decades, juries were no difficulty, privilege was harder to defend, the Assemblies were finally coming to understand their role in Rome's government, and the Senate was less liable to be dominated by a tiny group like the boni. The real heart of the problem didn't lie in any group; if Caesar had failed anywhere, it was in the fact that he had done what he did virtually single-handedly. As an autocrat. And there were other men who believed that they could do the same. In keeping the dictatorship for so long, Caesar had created a changed climate, and he knew it very well. Nor had he found a solution, save to continue as Dictator for the rest of his life, and hope that after he died, Rome would have learned enough to move onward rather than backward. But onward to what? That, he didn't know. All he could do was demonstrate the excellence of his changes, and trust that those who followed him would see their excellence clearly enough to preserve them. Which didn't solve the problem of his five-year absence. At first he had thought that the best way was to take Marcus Antonius with him. Antonius was an instinctive abuser of power. But he had made trouble with the legions, had wanted control of the army in order to make himself the First Man in Rome, if not Dictator. Therefore to take Antonius with him was to run the risk of massive troop mutinies the moment the going got hard. His expedition might turn out to be Lucullus and Clodius in eastern Anatolia all over again. No, Antonius would have to be left behind, which meant giving him the consulship, followed by a proconsular command that saw him the general of his own army far enough away from Italy to keep his thoughts away from Italy. Only how to control Antonius the consul? First, by keeping his dictatorship, thus leaving whatever forces remaining in Italy under the control of a Master of the Horse. Who would never again be Marcus Antonius. Lepidus would do nicely, save that Lepidus would insist on going to govern a province. Calvinus would have to replace him as Master of the Horse. Secondly, make sure that Antonius was the junior consul. Caesar himself would be the senior consul until he left for the East; after that, the senior consul would have to be a man who didn't like Antonius a man who would take great pleasure in keeping Antonius in his place until he went to his proconsular command in Macedonia. There was really only one candidate for this job: Publius Cornelius Dolabella. Nor would there be any experienced legions in Italy or Italian Gaul. Caesar would garrison the provinces with the professional legions he didn't take with him, confine military presence within the semi-circle of the Alps to recruitment and training. Sextus Pompeius was abroad in Spain and Carrinas was contending with him, but Sextus wouldn't submit tamely. Alone as he was, he didn't present a major threat, but nonetheless it was necessary to put strong governors in the Spains and the Gauls. Men he could trust, men who didn't like Marcus Antonius.

The time flew so fast that he arrived at his villa outside Lanuvium before he had concluded his deliberations. For one more task still had to be done, a task he didn't dare postpone any longer: the making of his will. Which was why he had elected to bypass Rome, only twenty miles away. He needed isolation to wrestle with the matter. The Caesars had always owned estates in Latium, but this villa he had bought from Fulvia after she began selling property to pay Antony's debts. She had inherited it from Publius Clodius, an architectural marvel left uncompleted because his murder had occurred as he returned from visiting its construction site. Fulvia had hated it ever after, refused to do any further work on it. But Caesar, its new owner, had finished it. It lay in the Alban Hills some way out of Lanuvium and well off the Via Appia, and was suspended over a cliff on hundred-foot-high piers. From its loggia the view was breathtaking, for it looked out over rugged country to the Latin plain and the dreamy reaches of the Tuscan Sea, saw wonderful sunsets every time Aetna or the Vulcaniae Isles erupted and poured smoke into the air, a frequent occurrence. Varro, an expert on natural phenomena, insisted that some huge cataclysm was brewing in Italy's chain of volcanoes, for the Fields of Fire behind Puteoli and Neapolis were becoming more violent.

Who, who, who? Who would be Caesar's heir?

* * *

Oddly, he had abandoned all ideas of Antonius the moment he saw that familiar figure waiting in the courtyard of the governor's palace in Narbo. Though his remorseless physical excesses had never had the power to destroy Antonius's body, with its barrel chest, huge shoulders and arms, its flat belly, bulging thighs and calves, when Caesar laid eyes on him illuminated by a westering sun, he saw terrible signs of inner decay, of moral erosion and impoverished emotions. Too much high living, yes, but also too much worry over debts, too much brute ambition allied to too little common sense. Quintus Pedius, excellent man though he was, would always remain a Campanian knight, and that blood was throwing true; his sons were in his mode, neither looked nor behaved like Julians, for all that their mother was a patrician Valeria Messala. Nor was young Lucius Pinarius promising. The Pinarii, once powerful patricians, had foundered long ago. His sister Julia Major had married Pinarius's grandfather, a wastrel who died soon after; fed up with women choosing poor husbands, Caesar had married her to Quintus Pedius's father, to whom she had objected at first, then discovered how nice it was to be a rich old man's darling. His younger sister, Julia Minor, hadn't been allowed to pick her own husband. Caesar the youthful paterfamilias had found her a very wealthy Latin knight from Aricia, Marcus Atius Balbus, by whom she had had a son and a daughter, that Atia who first married Gaius Octavius from Velitrae in the Latin heartlands, then the eminent Philippus. Atia's brother had died without issue.

The choice finally came down to Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus or Gaius Octavius.

Decimus Brutus was in his prime, and had never put a foot wrong. Generaled brilliantly in Long-haired Gaul on land and on sea, and had been a distinguished praetor in the murder court. The one thing Caesar condemned in him was his ruthlessness after the Bellovaci rose while he was governing Long-haired Gaul, but he had accepted Decimus's explanation that the Bellovaci alone had conserved their strength until after Caesar was long gone, thinking that whoever governed would not have Caesar's strength of purpose. Decimus would have to be given the consulship soon. Yet another he had no intention of taking east with him, for very different reasons than Antonius. He needed Decimus Brutus, whom he trusted implicitly, to keep an eye on Rome and Italy. After he had been consul he would go to govern Italian Gaul, the most strategic of all the provinces when it came to keeping an eye on Rome and Italy. Gaius Octavius would turn eighteen in latish September, and he loved the lad dearly. But he was too young and too sick. A long talk with Hapd'efan'e hadn't allayed his fears about Octavius's asthma though he had hoped it would, given that there had been almost no asthma during those months in Spain, on the way home. That, said Hapd'efan'e, was because Octavius felt so secure in Caesar's vicinity. While ever Caesar was a part of Octavius's world, he would thrive, including on this expedition to the East. But Caesar's heir would come into his inheritance after Caesar's death. Caesar's heir would be stripped of Caesar's presence. And death, thought Caesar, cannot be too far away, if Cathbad the Chief Druid was right. He had promised Caesar that Caesar would not live to be a crabbed old man, that he would die in his prime. Caesar has turned fifty-five and has perhaps ten years left of his prime ...

He closed his eyes and conjured up their faces. Decimus Brutus, so blond that he looked bland. Yet on close examination the eyes were steely and intelligent, the mouth firm and strong, the facial planes those of a man to be reckoned with. What told against him was his mother's fellatrix blood. Yes, the Sempronii Tuditani were dissolute, and he had heard tales about Decimus Brutus. The Alexandrine face of Gaius Octavius. Faintly womanish, rather too graceful, the over-long hair not a help save to hide those jug-handle ears. Yet on close examination the eyes showed a formidable and subtle person, the mouth and chin were strong, firm. What told against him was the asthma.

Caesar, Caesar, make up your mind!

What was it that Lucius had said? Something to the effect that Caesar's luck went with Caesar's name, that Caesar's luck was all Caesar needed to trust in. "Let the dice fly high!" he said in Greek, for the second time in his life. The first had been just before he crossed the Rubicon. He drew a sheet of paper forward, dipped his reed pen in the inkwell, and commenced to write.

VIII

Fall Of A Titan

From OCTOBER of 45 B.C. until the end of MARCH of 44 B.C.

Ensconced in the Domus Publica and with preparations for his triumph over Further Spain going nicely, Caesar took a trip out of the city to see Cleopatra, who greeted him with frantic joy. "My poor girl, I haven't treated you very well," he said to her ruefully after a night of love that hadn't seen the slightest chance of a sister or brother for Caesarion. Her eyes filled with dismay. "Did I complain so much in my letters?" she asked anxiously. "I tried not to worry you." "You never have worried me," he said, kissing her hand. "I have other sources of information than your own letters, you know. You have a great champion." "Servilia," she said instantly. "Servilia," he agreed. "It doesn't anger you that I've made a friend of her?" "Why should it?" His face lit with his beautiful smile. "In fact, it was very clever of you to befriend her." "She befriended me, I think." "Whatever. The lady is a dangerous enemy, even for a queen. As it is, she genuinely likes you, and she'd certainly far rather that I intrigued with foreign queens than Roman rivals." "Like Queen Euno of Mauretania?" she asked demurely. He burst out laughing. "I do love gossip! How on earth was I supposed to bed her? I didn't even get as far as Gades while I was in Spain, let alone cross the straits to see Bogud." "I worked that out for myself, actually." She frowned, put a hand on his arm. "Caesar, I'm trying to work something else out for myself too." "What?" "You're a very secretive man, and it shows in all sorts of ways. I never know when you finish yourself patratio?" She looked hunted, but determined. "I produced Caesarion, so I know you must, but it would be nice if I knew when." "That, my dear," he drawled, "would give you too much power." "Oh, you and your mistrust!" she cried. The exchange might have proceeded to a quarrel, but Caesarion saved the day by trotting in with his arms held wide. "Tata!" Caesar scooped him up, tossed him into the air amid shrill whoops of bliss, kissed him, cuddled him. "He's grown like a weed, Mama." "Hasn't he? I can't see a thing of myself in him, for which I thank Isis." "I love the way you look, Pharaoh, and I love you, even if I am secretive," he said, eyes quizzing her. Sighing, she abandoned that contentious subject. "When do you plan to set out on your Parthian campaign?" "Tata, may I go with you as your contubernalis?" "Not this time, my son. It's your job to protect Mama." He rubbed the child's back, looking at Cleopatra. "I plan to leave three days after the Ides of March next year. It's time you were thinking of going home to Alexandria anyway." "It will be easier to see you from Alexandria," she said. "Indeed." "Then I shall stay here until after you go. It's time we celebrated your being in Rome for six months, Caesar. I've settled in a little, and made a few friends above and beyond dear Servilia. I have such plans!" she went on artlessly. "I want Philostratus to give lectures, and I've succeeded in hiring the services of your favorite singer, Marcus Tigellius Hermogenes. Do say we can entertain!" "Happily." Still holding Caesarion, he strode across the room to the colonnade outside, and gazed at the topiary garden Gaius Matius had created. "I'm glad you didn't put up that wall, my love. It would have broken Matius's heart." "It's odd," she said, looking puzzled. "The Transtiberini were such a nuisance for the longest time, then, just as I was about to put up the wall, they disappeared. I was so afraid for our son! Did Servilia tell you, for I swear I didn't?" "Yes, she told me. There's no need to fret anymore. The Transtiberini are gone." He smiled, but not pleasantly. "I've wished them on Atticus in Buthrotum. They can carve the noses and ears of his cattle for a change." As Cleopatra liked Atticus, she stared at Caesar in consternation. "Oh, is that fair?" she asked. "Extremely," he said. "He and Cicero have already been to see me about my colony for the Head Count I ordered the Transtiberini shipped months ago, and of course they've now arrived." "What did you say to Atticus?" "That my migrants thought they were remaining at Buthrotum, but are being moved on," said Caesar, ruffling Caesarion's hair. "And what's the truth?" "They stay at Buthrotum. Next month I'm sending another two thousand to join them. Atticus won't be a happy man." "Did publishing Cicero's 'Cato' offend you so much?" "So much and more," Caesar said grimly.

* * *

The Spanish triumph was held on the fifth day of October; the First Class loathed it, the rest of Rome loved it. Caesar made no attempt whatsoever to play down the fact that the defeated enemy was Roman, though he committed no solecisms like displaying Gnaeus Pompey's head. When he passed his new rostra in the lower Forum Romanum, all the magistrates seated upon it rose to their feet to honor the triumphator except for Lucius Pontius Aquila, who had finally found a way to distinguish his tribunate of the plebs. Aquila's gesture of contempt angered Caesar greatly; so did the feast laid out in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus afterward. Stingy and unworthy, was his verdict. He gave another feast at his own expense on the next religiously proper day, but Pontius Aquila was told not to attend. Caesar was making it plain that Servilia's lover would receive no further public advancement. Gaius Trebonius promptly strolled around to Aquila's house and added another member to the Kill Caesar Club but made him take an oath not to say a word about it to Servilia. "I'm not a fool, Trebonius," said Aquila, one auburn brow flying up. "She's a marvel in bed, but do you think I don't know that she's still in love with Caesar?" Some other men had also joined: Decimus Turullius, whom Caesar disliked intensely; the brothers Caecilius Metellus and Caecilius Buciolanus; the brothers Publius and Gaius Servilius Casca of a plebeian sept of the gens Servilia; Caesennius Lento, the murderer of Gnaeus Pompey; and, most interestingly, Lucius Tillius Cimber, a praetor in this year along with several other praetors Lucius Minucius Basilus, Decimus Brutus, and Lucius Staius Murcus all members of the club. In October another man was accepted into the Kill Caesar Club: Quintus Ligarius, whom Caesar loathed so much that he had forbidden Ligarius to return to Rome from Africa, though he had cried pardon. Pressure from many influential friends caused Caesar to relent and recall him, but Ligarius, successfully defended in court on charges of treason by Cicero, knew that he was another doomed not to advance in public life. Yes, the collection of would-be assassins was growing, but it still lacked men of real clout, names that the entire First Class knew well enough to respect wholeheartedly. Trebonius had little choice other than to bide his time. Nor had Mark Antony made it appear as if Caesar were aiming for kingship and godhead; he was too delighted at the birth of his son by Fulvia, Marcus Antonius Junior, whom the besotted pair addressed as Antyllus.

* * *

On the day after his triumph Caesar stepped down as consul but not as Dictator and had Quintus Fabius Maximus and Gaius Trebonius appointed the suffect consuls for the rump of the year, less than three months. Calling them "suffect" dispensed with the need for an election; a senatorial decree was enough. He announced his governors for the following year: Trebonius was to replace Vatia Isauricus in Asia Province; Decimus Brutus was to go to Italian Gaul; another Kill Caesar Club member, Staius Murcus was to succeed Antistius Vetus in Syria; and yet another, Tillius Cimber, was to govern Bithynia combined with Pontus. The strong array of governors in the western provinces went from Pollio in Further Spain through Lepidus in Nearer Spain and Narbonese Gaul to Lucius Munatius Plancus in Gaul of the Long-hairs and Gaul of the Rhodanus, and ended with Decimus Brutus in Italian Gaul. "However," said Caesar to the House, "I cannot step down as Dictator yet, which means I must replace my present Master of the Horse, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, governing next year. His successor will be Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus." Antony, listening smugly and expecting to hear his own name he was behaving himself perfectly, after all! felt the rebuff like a plunge into icy water. Calvinus! A far harder man to bully and baffle than Lepidus, and a man who made no effort to conceal his dislike of Marcus Antonius. Damn Caesar! Was nothing to come easily? It appeared not. Caesar then proceeded to announce next year's consuls. Himself as senior consul until he departed for the East, and Marcus Antonius as junior consul for the entire year. The senior consul after Caesar left would be Publius Cornelius Dolabella. "Oh, no, you don't!" roared Antony, on his feet. "Be junior to Dolabella? I'd rather be dead!" "Let us see what the elections bring, Antonius," said Caesar, quite unruffled. "If the voters wish to return you ahead of Dolabella in the polls, well and good. Otherwise, lump it." Dolabella, a handsome man quite as tall and almost as heavily built as Antony, leaned back on his stool, folded his hands behind his head and grinned complacently. He knew as well as Antony did that his own activities in Rome were a great deal harder to prove than those of a man who had killed eight hundred Roman civilians in the Forum Romanum with armed troops. "Your deeds will come back to haunt you, Antonius," he said, and began to whistle. "It won't happen!" said Antony through his teeth. Cassius listened keenly, on anybody's side rather than that brute Antonius at least Caesar had some sense! Dolabella was venal and could behave like a fool, but he'd grown up somewhat during the past year, and he wasn't about to be cowed by Antonius, so much was sure, perhaps Rome would survive. Cassius was, besides, still glowing; he had been notified that he was to be inducted into the College of Augurs, a significant honor. Brutus listened with growing hope; as he reported to the absent Cicero later, Caesar's dispositions made him think that eventually Caesar intended to restore the full Republic. "Sometimes, Brutus," Cicero snapped, "you talk utter rubbish! Just because Caesar has made you urban praetor, you suddenly think the man is a wonder. Well, he's not. He's an ulcer!"

It was after this meeting of the Senate that the honors given to Caesar suddenly began to multiply. Many of them had been mooted, even legalized by senatorial consulta, yet nothing had been done to implement them. Now all that changed; the statue of Caesar currently being made to go into the temple of Quirinus was to bear a plaque that said TO THE UNCONQUERABLE GOD a reference, said Antony during a meeting of the Senate that Caesar didn't attend, to Quirinus, not to Caesar. At the same meeting funding was granted for an ivory statue of Caesar riding in a golden car to appear at all state parades; yet another statue of him was to be put alongside the ones of the Kings of Rome and the Founder of the Republic, Lucius Junius Brutus. Caesar's palace on the Quirinal, with its temple pediment, also received a vote of money. With the Parthian invasion looming, Caesar in fact didn't have the time to attend many meetings of the Senate, and at the beginning of December he was obliged to spend some time in Campania dealing with the allocation of veterans' land. Antony and Trebonius seized their chance immediately, though they were astute enough to have other, lesser men propose their decrees. In future, the month of Quinctilis would be called the month of Julius. A thirty-sixth tribe of Roman citizens was to be created and called the Tribus Julia. A third college of luperci was to come into being as the Luperci Julii, and Mark Antony, already a lupercus, was to be its prefect. A temple was to be built to Caesar's Clemency, and Mark Antony was to be flamen of the new cult of Caesar's Clemency. Caesar was to sit on a curule chair made of gold and wear a golden wreath adorned with gems at the games. His ivory statue was to be carried in the parade of the gods and have an identical pulvinar base. All these decrees were to be inscribed in gold letters on pure silver tablets, to show how Caesar had filled the Treasury to overflowing. "I object!" Cassius cried when Trebonius, now consul with the fasces, moved for a division of the House on the proposals. "I say again, I object! Caesar is not a god, but you're behaving as if he were! Did he vanish down to Campania so that he wouldn't be present to look bashful and be obliged for form's sake to protest? It certainly looks that way to me! Strike these motions, consul! They are sacrilegious!" "If you object, Gaius Cassius, then stand to the left of the curule dais" was Trebonius's response. Fuming, Cassius went to the left, traditionally the direction that was more likely to lose in a division: ill-omened. That day it was. Only a handful of men, including Cassius, Brutus, Lucius Caesar, Lucius Piso, Calvinus and Philippus, stood to the left. But almost the entire House, Antony in its lead, went right. "I don't think the price of my praetorship is worth it, if I am to bear these godlike honors," said Cassius to Brutus, Porcia and Tertulla over dinner. "Nor do I!" Porcia declared in ringing tones. "Give Caesar time, Cassius, please!" Brutus begged. "I don't believe that any of these honors were proposed at his instigation, I really don't. I think he's going to be appalled." "They shame him," said Tertulla, who hovered perpetually between pleasure at knowing she was Caesar's daughter and pure pain that he never acknowledged her, however informally. "Of course they were passed at Caesar's instigation!" cried Porcia, flicking Brutus an exasperated glance. "No, my love, you're wrong," Brutus insisted. "They were proposed by men trying to curry favor with him, and passed by a House that probably does think he wants them. But there are two significant things. One, that Marcus Antonius is up to his eyes in whatever is going on, and the other, that the proposers waited until Caesar definitely couldn't be present." But it was to be some time before Caesar became aware of the new honors, for the simplest of reasons: the amount of work he had to do was so great that he pushed the minutes of senatorial meetings held in his absence to one side, unread. As it was, he irritated Cleopatra by reading all through her dazzling receptions, eating hardly anything because he was too busy. "You try to do too much!" she snapped. "Hapd'efan'e tells me you're neglecting to drink your syrup now that it isn't made of fruit juice. Caesar, even if you do dislike it, you must drink it! Do you want to fall over in a fit in public?" "I'll be all right," he said absently, eyes on a paper. She snatched it away and held a glass of liquid under his nose. "Drink!" she snarled. The ruler of the world meekly obeyed, but then insisted on going back to his paperwork, lifting his head only when Marcus Tigellius Hermogenes began a series of arias he had composed to the words of Sappho, accompanying himself on a lyre. "Music is the one thing that can divert his attention from work," Cleopatra whispered to Lucius Caesar. Lucius squeezed her hand. "At least something does."

The honors went on. Mark Antony's youngest brother, Lucius, became a tribune of the plebs on the tenth day of December, and distinguished himself by proposing to the Plebeian Assembly that Caesar be given the right to recommend half the candidates for every election except that for the consuls and the right to appoint all the magistrates, including the consuls, while he was away in the East. It went into law at first contio, which was unconstitutional, but sanctioned by the consul Trebonius. "For Caesar, nothing is unconstitutional," said Trebonius, a statement that only men like Cicero, informed of it later, found a little peculiar coming from so stout a Caesarean. Midway through December, Caesar named the consuls for the year after next Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa and the year after that Decimus Junius Brutus and Lucius Munatius Plancus. None a man who would support Antony. Then the Senate appointed Caesar Dictator for the fourth time, though his third term had not yet elapsed. The tribune of the plebs Lucius Cassius apparently had little knowledge of the law; he put a plebiscite before the Plebeian Assembly that allowed Caesar to appoint new patricians. Quite illegal, as the Patriciate had absolutely nothing to do with the Plebs. Caesar appointed one new patrician, and one only: his great-nephew, Gaius Octavius, busy getting ready to accompany him abroad as his contubernalis. Patrician he might now be, but his military rank had not been elevated, as Philippus rather snappishly informed him. Octavius accepted the reprimand with equanimity, more concerned with dissuading his mother from loading him down with comforts and luxuries he now knew branded him a lightweight.

* * *

On the first day of January the new consuls and praetors entered office, and all went well. The night watches for omens were unremarkable, the sacrificial white bulls went to the knife properly drugged, and the feast held in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus atop the Capitol was a good one. Now junior consul, Mark Antony strutted around importantly and managed to ignore Dolabella, smirking in the background because he would be Antony's senior after Caesar left for the East. One of the duties of the senior consul on New Year's Day was to set the date of the Latin Festival, the feast of Jupiter Latiaris held upon the Alban Mount. Usually it was held in March, just before the start of the campaigning season, but Caesar, who wanted to preside himself, announced that this year it would take place on the Nones of January. The Julii were the hereditary priests of Alba Longa, a town older by far than the founding of Rome; when the senior consul happened to be a Julian, as this year, he could wear the regalia of the King of Alba Longa to celebrate the Latin Festival. Of course there had been no King of Alba Longa since infant Rome had leveled the town to the ground, for it had never been rebuilt. But it had been founded by Iulus, the son of Aeneas, and the Julii, his direct descendants, had been its kings, who also were its high priests. When Caesar obtained the clothing of the King of Alba Longa and opened the redolent cedar chest to inspect the robes, he found them in perfect condition. They had last been worn fifteen years ago, when he had been consul for the first time. A very tall man, he had been obliged then to have a new pair of the high, bright scarlet boots made. Now they looked a little warped. Best try them on, he thought, and did so. Walking about in them, he noticed that the pain he had been experiencing in his lower legs for some time magically vanished, and went to see Hapd'efan'e. "Why didn't I think of that?" the priest-physician asked, sounding chagrined. "Think of what?" "Caesar, you have varicose veins, and Roman boots are too short to give the distended blood vessels proper support. These boots lace up tightly to just below the knee. That's why the pain in your legs has eased. You must wear high boots." "Edepol!" Caesar exclaimed, and laughed. "I'll send for my bootmaker at once, but, since my family are the priests of Alba Longa, there's no reason why I can't wear these until I have a few pairs made in ordinary brown. Well done, Hapd'efan'e!" Off went Caesar to seat himself on the rostra, where he was dealing with complaints relating to the fiscus. Here junior consul Mark Antony, ex-junior consul Trebonius, ex-praetor Lucius Tillius Cimber, ex-praetor Decimus Brutus, and twenty carefully chosen pedarii senators came in solemn procession to see him. Six of the junior men each carried a glittering silver tablet about the size of a sheet of paper. Irritated at the interruption, Caesar glanced up with mouth open to banish them, but Antony got in first, going down reverently on one knee. "Caesar," he hollered, "as your Senate decreed, we present you with six new honors, each inscribed in gold on silver!" Ooohs and aaahs from the gathering crowd. Decimus Turullius, new quaestor, came forward and presented his tablet on one knee the month of Julius. Caecilius Metellus presented the new tribe, Julia. Caecilius Buciolanus presented the Luperci Julii. Marcus Rubrius Ruga presented Caesar's Clemency. Cassius Parmensis presented the gold curule chair and wreath. Petronius presented the ivory statue in the parade of gods. Through all of it, witnessed by the rapidly growing crowd, Caesar sat as if graven from stone, so confounded that he could neither speak nor move, his lips still parted. Finally, when all six tablets had been presented and the group stood around him expectantly, each face beaming with pride at its owner's cleverness, Caesar shut his mouth. Try though he did, he could not manage to rise to his feet, felt the weakness and dizziness of his affliction. "I cannot accept these," he said, "they're honors that ought not to be paid to a man. Take them away, melt them down and put the metal back where it belongs in the Treasury." The delegation's members drew themselves up in outrage. "You insult us!" Turullius cried. Ignoring him, Caesar turned to Antony, who looked quite as put out as the rest. "Marcus Antonius, you should know better. As consul with the fasces, I am convoking the Senate to meet in the Curia Hostilia in one hour." He beckoned to his syrup slave, took the beaker and drained it. A close thing. The new Curia Hostilia owned a far less pretentious interior than Pompey's Curia on the Campus Martius, but it was, a peeking Cicero had admitted with a twinge of regret that he wouldn't be sitting there, in exquisite taste. Just simple white marble tiers and curule dais, plastered walls painted white with a few decorative curliques, and a black-and-white tesselated marble floor; the roof, just like the old one, was naked cedar rafters with the bellies of the terra-cotta tiles showing through. Save for age, it was a twin of the old Curia Hostilia, thus no one objected to its having the same name. Summoned at such short notice, the House was by no means full, but when Caesar entered behind his twenty-four lictors, he counted a comfortable quorum. As it was a court day, all the praetors were there; most of the tribunes of the plebs; a few quaestors besides that worm Turullius; two hundred backbenchers; Dolabella, Calvinus, Lepidus, Lucius Caesar, Torquatus, Piso. It was obvious that word of his rejection of the silver tablets had gotten around, for the buzz when he entered increased rather than diminished. I am getting old indeed, he thought; I am not even in a temper over this, I am just very tired. They're wearing me down. Caesar distinguished the new pontifex, Brutus, by having him take the prayers, and the new augur, Cassius, by having him take the auspices. Then he moved to the front of the curule dais and stood in his corona civica while the House applauded. He waited until his three crowned ex-centurion senators were applauded in turn, then began to speak. "Honored junior consul, consulars, praetors, aediles, tribunes of the plebs and conscript fathers of the Senate, I have summoned you to inform you that these honors you insist upon showering on me must cease forthwith. It is fitting that the Dictator of Rome should receive some honors, but only those honors appropriate for a man. A man! An ordinary member of the gens humana, neither a king nor a god. Today some of you presented me with honors that infringe our mos maiorum, and in a public manner I found extremely distasteful. Our laws are inscribed on bronze, not on silver, and bronze all laws must be. These were silver inscribed in gold, two precious metals with more useful purpose than as law tablets. I ordered them destroyed and the metal returned to the Treasury." He paused, his eyes meeting Lucius Caesar's. Lucius tilted his head infinitesimally toward Antony, behind Caesar on the dais. His own head nodded: yes, I understand your message. "Conscript fathers, I give you notice that these ridiculous, sycophantic gestures must stop. I have not asked for them, I do not crave them, and I will not accept them. That is my dictate, and will be obeyed. I will have no decrees passed in this House that may be interpreted as an attempt to crown me King of Rome! That is a title we abrogated when the Republic came into being, and it is a title I abhor. I have no need to be the King of Rome! I am Rome's legally appointed Dictator, which is all I need to be." There was a stir as Quintus Ligarius got to his feet. "If you have no wish to be the King of Rome," he shouted, pointing at Caesar's right leg, "why are you wearing the high scarlet boots of a king?" Caesar's mouth went thin, two red spots flaring in his cheeks. Admit to this lot that he had varicose veins? Never! "As priest of Jupiter Latiaris, it is my right to wear the priestly boots, and I'll have no false assumptions made on that sort of premise, Ligarius! Are you finished? If so, sit down." Ligarius subsided, scowling. "That's all I have to say to you on the subject of honors," he said. "However, to further make my point, to demonstrate to all of you conclusively that I am no more than a Roman man and have no wish to be more than my rank entitles me to be, I hereby dismiss my twenty-four lictors. Kings must have bodyguards, and a curule magistrate's lictors represent the republican equivalent of a bodyguard. Therefore I will go about my official business without them while ever I am within one mile of Rome." He turned to Fabius, sitting with his fellows on the side steps to the right of the curule dais. "Take your men back to the College of Lictors, Fabius. I will notify you when I need you." Horrified, Fabius put out a hand in protest, let it drop. Caesar's lictors rose and left the chamber in a profound silence. "To dismiss one's lictors is legal," Caesar said. "It is not the fasces or their bearers who empower a curule magistrate. His power resides in the lex curiata. As this is a busy day, go about your affairs. Just remember what I have said. Under no possible circumstances will I entertain the thought of ruling Rome as her king. Rex is a word, nothing more. Caesar does not need to be Rex. To be Caesar is enough."

Not all the tribunes of the plebs were bent on sucking up to Caesar. One, Gaius Servilius Casca, was already a member of the Kill Caesar Club, and two others had come under review by the club's founders: Lucius Caesetius Flavus and Gaius Epidius Marullus. However, Trebonius and Decimus Brutus had decided not to invite Flavus and Marullus to join the club, much though they both hated Caesar. They were notorious blabbers, and neither had an ounce of genuine clout with the First Class. On the day after Caesar let the Senate know how he felt about becoming the King of Rome, Flavus and Marullus just happened to be in the vicinity of the new rostra, which, as Caesar had built it at his own expense, held a bust of the Great Man on a high, hermed pedestal. Though the day was dull and cold, the Forum frequenters were out and about, wandering to see if there was an interesting court case going on inside the Basilica Julia such a comfort to be under shelter if one was! eating snacks from the stalls and booths tucked in out-of-the-way corners, hoping that some new orator would decide to mount a vacant set of steps or tribunal and declaim in other words, an ordinary early January day. Suddenly Flavus and Marullus started shouting and yelling, making such a fuss that they quickly drew a large crowd. "Look! Look!" Marullus was screaming, pointing. "A disgrace! A crime!" Flavus was screaming, pointing. Both jabbing fingers were leveled at the bust of Caesar, a good one painted to lifelike verisimilitude; around its pale brow and thinning blond hair someone had tied a broad white ribbon, knotted it on the nape of the neck and strayed the two ends over the bust's vestigial shoulders. "He wants to be the King of Rome!" Marullus shrieked. "A diadem! A diadem!" Flavus shrieked. After a great deal more of the same, the two tribunes of the plebs tore the ribbon off the bust and trampled it showily beneath their feet, then ostentatiously ripped it into several pieces. One day later, the Nones, the Latin Festival was held on the Alban Mount with Caesar officiating, clad in the ancient regalia of the Alban priest-kings, as was his Julian right. It was a relatively brief affair, over and done with in short enough time for the celebrants to ride out of Rome at dawn and return to Rome by sunset. Riding Toes, Caesar led the procession of magistrates back to the city, where, for the second time, the new young patrician Gaius Octavius had acted as Praefectus urbi in the absence of the consuls and praetors. For the ordinary people it was a popular occasion; those who lived adjacent to the Alban Mount went there and afterward attended a public feast, while those in Rome contented themselves with lining the Via Appia to watch the magistrates return. "Ave, Rex!" someone called from the roadside crowd as Caesar rode by. "Ave, Rex! Ave, Rex!" Caesar threw back his head and laughed. "No, you have the cognomen wrong! I'm Caesar, not Rex!" Marullus and Flavus spurred their horses down the line from where the tribunes of the plebs rode to where Caesar was; mounts rearing and plunging spectacularly, they started to yell, pointing into the throng. "Lictors, remove the man who called Caesar a king!" Marullus shouted several times. When Antony's lictors started to move, Caesar held up his hand to halt them. "Stay where you are," he ordered curtly. "Marullus, Flavus, go back to your places." "He called you a king! If you don't do something about it, Caesar, then you want to be king!" Marullus screamed. By now the entire parade had come to a stop, horses milling, lictors and magistrates watching fascinated. "Remove the man and prosecute him!" Flavus was shouting. "Caesar wants to be king!" Marullus was shouting. "Antonius, have your lictors put Flavus and Marullus where they belong!" Caesar snapped, red kindling in his cheeks. Antony sat his horse, looking contemplative. "Do it, Antonius, or tomorrow you'll be a privatus!" "Hear that? Hear that? Caesar is a king, he orders the consul around like a servant!" Marullus yelled as Antony's lictors took hold of his horse's bridle and led him back down the line. "Rex! Rex! Rex! Caesar Rex!" Flavus was howling. "Call the Senate into session tomorrow at dawn" was Caesar's parting remark to Antony as he reached the Domus Publica. This time his temper was up. The prayers and auspices were over in a trice, the applause for the crown winners cut ruthlessly short. "Lucius Caesetius Flavus, Gaius Epidius Marullus, come out!" he rapped. "Front and center of the floor, now!" The two tribunes of the plebs lifted their buttocks off the tribunician bench in front of the curule dais and marched to face Caesar, chins up, eyes hard. "I am fed up with being put in the wrong! Do you hear me? Do you understand me?" Caesar thundered. "I am fed up! I will have no more of it! Flavus, Marullus, you disgrace your office!" "Rex! Rex! Rex! Rex!" they began to bark. "Tacete, ineptes!" Caesar roared. How he did it, no one ever knew when they thought about it afterward; simply that when Caesar got a certain look on his face and roared in a certain tone, the whole world quailed. He wasn't a king. He was nemesis. All of a sudden every senator started remembering what a dictator could do without needing to be a king. Like flog. Decapitate. "What has the tribunate of the plebs descended to, when a pair like you think you can behave worse than two scruffy schoolboys?" Caesar demanded. "If someone ties a white ribbon on my image, then take it off, by all means! That would win my approbation! But to make such a business out of it that a thousand people collect to hear you scream and shout that is unacceptable conduct for any Roman magistrate, even the most unabashed demagogue who ever called himself a tribune of the plebs! And if some fellow in a crowd makes a smart remark, then let him! A soft answer and a joke turn him off, he's rendered ridiculous! What the pair of you did on the Via Appia was unconscionable you transformed some scurra in the crowd into a circus! What did you want to prosecute him for? High treason? Minor treason? Impiety? Murder? Theft? Embezzlement? Bribery? Extortion? Violence? Inciting violence? Bankruptcy? Witchcraft? Sacrilege? To the best of my knowledge, they are the sum total of crimes under Roman law! It is not a crime for a man to come out with a provocative remark! It is not a crime for a man to slander other men! It is not a crime for a man to calumniate other men! If it were, then Marcus Cicero would be in permanent exile for calling Lucius Piso a sucking whirlpool of greed, among many other things! Along with every other member of this House for calling some other member of this House anything from an eater of feces to a violator of his own children! How dare you blow trivial incidents up into major crimes? How dare you traduce me by making much out of nothing? I'll have an end to it! Hear me? Do you hear me? If one single member of this body ever again implies let alone says outright! that I want to be King of Rome, let him beware! Rex is a word! It has connotations, but no reality in our Roman sphere! Rex? Rex? If I did want to be your absolute ruler in perpetuity, why should I bother to call myself Rex? Why not plain Caesar? Caesar is a word too! It could as easily mean king as rex does! So beware! As Dictator, I can strip any one of you of your citizenship and your property! I can flog and behead you! I do not need to be Rex! And believe me, conscript fathers, you tempt me! You tempt me! That is all. You are dismissed. Go!" The silence was more thunderous than the sound of that huge voice booming off the rafters, echoing around the walls. Gaius Helvius Cinna rose from the tribunician bench and went to a place from which he could see both Caesar and the miscreants, who stood shivering in their senatorial shoes. "Conscript fathers, as president of the College of Tribunes of the Plebs," he said, "I move that Lucius Caesetius Flavus and Gaius Epidius Marullus cease forthwith to be tribunes of the plebs. I further move that they be expelled from the Senate." The House broke into tumult, fists waving. "Expel! Expel!" "You can't do this!" cried Lucius Caesetius Flavus Senior, rising to his feet. "My son doesn't deserve this!" "If you had any sense, Caesetius, you'd disinherit your son for sheer stupidity!" Caesar snapped. "Now go, all of you! Go! Go! I don't want to see your faces again until you can start to behave like responsible Roman men!" Helvius Cinna promptly marched outside, convened the Plebeian Assembly and enacted the dismissal of Flavus and Marullus from the College of Tribunes of the Plebs and the Senate. He then conducted a brisk election: Lucius Decidius Saxa and Publius Hostilius Saserna became tribunes of the plebs. "I hope you realize, Cinna," said Caesar gently to Helvius Cinna when the meeting was over, "that today is feriae. You'll have to do it all again tomorrow, when the comitia can meet. Still, I appreciate the gesture. Come and have a goblet of wine at my house, and tell me about the new poetry." The "King of Rome" campaign suddenly died as if it had never been. Those who had not heard Caesar explain that there was no reason why "Rex" and "Caesar" couldn't mean the same were apprised of his remark, and swallowed convulsively. As Cicero said to Atticus (they were still getting nowhere with the Buthrotum immigrants), the trouble was that people tended to forget what kind of man Caesar actually was until he lost his temper. Perhaps as a result of that memorable meeting, on the Kalends of February the House met under Mark Antony's auspices, and voted Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator Perpetuus. Dictator for life. No one, from Brutus and Cassius to Decimus Brutus and Trebonius, had the courage to stand to the left of the curule dais when the division was called. The decree passed unanimously.