Roma.The novel of ancient Rome

CAESAR’S HEIR

44 B.C.

It was the Ides of Februarius. Since the time of King Romulus, this was the day set aside for the ritual called the Lupercalia.

The origin of the Lupercalia-the boisterous occasion when young Romulus and Remus and their friend Potitius ran about the hills of Roma naked with their faces disguised by wolfskins-was long forgotten, as were the origins of many Roman holidays. But above all else, the Romans honored the traditions that had been handed down by their ancestors. Paying scrupulous attention to the most minute details, they continued to observe many arcane rituals, sacrifices, feasts, holidays, and propitiations to the gods, long after the origins of these rites were lost.

The Roman calendar was filled with such enigmatic observances, and numerous priesthoods had been established to maintain them. Because religion determined, or at least justified, the actions of the state, senatorial committees studied lists of precedents to determine the days when certain legislative procedures could and could not be performed.

Why did the Romans adhere so faithfully to tradition? There was sound reasoning behind such devotion. The ancestors had performed certain rituals, and in return had been favored by the gods above all other people. It only made sense that living Romans, the inheritors of their predecessors’ greatness, should continue to perform those rituals precisely as handed down to them, whether they understood them or not. To do otherwise was to tempt the Fates. This logic was the bedrock of Roman conservatism.

And so, as their ancestors had done for many hundreds of years, on the day of the Lupercalia the magistrates of the city, along with the youths of noble families, stripped naked and ran through the streets of the city. They carried thongs of goat hide and cracked them in the air like whips. Young women who were pregnant or desired to become so would purposely run toward them and offer their hands to be slapped by the thongs, believing that this act would magically enhance their fertility and grant them an easy birth. Where this belief came from, no one knew, but it was part of the great compendium of beliefs that had come down to them and thus was worthy of observance.

Presiding over the festivities, seated on the Rostra upon a golden throne, arrayed in magnificent purple robes, and attended by a devoted retinue of scribes, bodyguards, military officers, and assorted sycophants, sat Gaius Julius Caesar.

At the age of fifty-six, Caesar was a handsome man. He had a trim figure, but-ironically, given his cognoman-he had lost much of his hair, especially at the crown and the temples; the remainder he combed over his forehead in a vain attempt to hide his baldness. The men around him hung on his every word. The citizens, gathered to watch the Lupercalia, gazed up at him with fear, awe, respect, hatred, and even love, but never with indifference. To all appearances, Caesar might have been a king presiding over his subjects, except for the fact that he did not wear a crown.

A lifetime of political maneuvering and military conquests had brought Caesar to this point. Early in his career, he proved to be a master of political procedure; no man could manipulate the Senate’s convoluted rules as deftly as Caesar, and many were the occasions he thwarted his rivals by invoking some obscure point of order. He had proven to be a military genius as well; in less than ten years he had conquered all of Gaul, enslaving millions and accumulating a huge fortune for himself. When his envious, fearful enemies in the Senate attempted to deprive him of his legions and his power, Caesar marched on Roma itself. A second civil war, the great fear of every Roman since the days of Sulla, commenced.

Pompeius Magnus, who had sometimes been Caesar’s ally, led the coalition against him. At the battle of Pharsalus in Greece, Pompeius’s forces were destroyed. Pompeius fled to Egypt, where the minions of the boy-king Ptolemy killed him. They presented his head to Caesar as a gift.

Caesar had circled the Mediterranean, destroying all vestiges of opposition. He set Roma’s subject states in order, confirming the loyalty of their rulers and making them accountable to him alone. Egypt, the great grain producer of the world, remained independent, but Caesar disposed of King Ptolemy and put the boy’s slightly older sister Cleopatra on the throne. Caesar’s relationship with the young queen was both political and personal; Cleopatra was said to have borne him a son. At present, she and the child were residing just outside Roma, on the far side of the Tiber, in a grand house suitable for a visiting head of state.

Caesar’s authority was absolute. Like Sulla before him, he proudly assumed the title of dictator. Unlike Sulla, he showed no inclination ever to lay down his power. To the contrary, he publicly announced his intention to reign as dictator for life. “King” was a forbidden word in Roma, but Caesar was a king in everything but name. He had done away with elections and appointed magistrates for several years to come; his right-hand man Marcus Antonius was serving as consul. The ranks of the Senate, thinned by civil war, had been filled with new members handpicked by Caesar. These new senators included, to the outrage of many, some Gauls, whose loyalty was more to Caesar than to Roma. It was not clear what function the Senate would serve from this time forward, except to approve the decisions of Caesar. He had assigned control of the mint and the public treasury to his own slaves and freedmen. All legislation and all currency were under his control. His personal fortune, acquired over many years of conquest, was immense beyond imagining. Beside him, Roma’s richest men were paupers.

Whatever his title, it had become clear to everyone that Caesar’s triumph signaled the death of the Republic. Roma would no longer be ruled by a Senate of competing equals, but by one man with absolute power over all others, including the power of life and death.

The long civil war had disrupted many traditions. As all power now attached to the dictator-for-life, it was up to him to oversee a return to normalcy. And so, on the Ides of Februarius, Caesar sat on a throne on the Rostra and presided over the Lupercalia.

Among the runners assembled in the Forum, stretching their legs and getting ready, was Lucius Pinarius. His grandmother had been the late Julia, one of Caesar’s sisters. His grandfather had been Lucius Pinarius Infelix-“the Unlucky”-so-called, young Lucius had been told, because of his untimely death due to a fall on an icy street. Lucius was seventeen and had run in the Lupercalia before, but he was especially excited to be doing so on this day, with his grand-uncle Gaius presiding.

A burly man with a broad, hairy chest and powerful limbs came swaggering up to him. Some men, by the age of thirty-six, begin to soften and turn fat, but not Marcus Antonius. He carried himself with immense confidence; he appeared completely comfortable, even pleased, to be seen naked in public. Lucius still had a boy’s body, slender and smooth, and felt envious of Antonius’s athletic physique; Lucius thought the man looked quite magnificent. Lucius was also fascinated by the consul’s reputation for high living; nobody could out-gamble, out-drink, out-brawl, or out-whore Antonius. But Antonius was such a friendly fellow that Lucius never felt self-conscious or shy around him, as he often did with his uncle.

“What’s that?” Antonius tapped the pendant that hung from a chain around Lucius’s neck.

“A good-luck charm, Consul,” said Lucius.

Antonius snorted. “Call me Marcus, please. If I ever become so puffed up that my friends must call me by a title, stick a pin in me.”

Lucius smiled. “Very well, Marcus.”

“Where did you get it?” said Antonius, referring to the pendant. “A gift from Caesar?”

“Oh, no, it’s an heirloom from my father’s side of the family. He gave it to me on my toga day last year.”

Antonius peered at the amulet. His eyes were a bit bloodshot from carousing the night before. “I can’t make out the shape.”

“Nobody can. We’re not quite sure what it was. Father says it’s been worn away by time. He says it’s very, very old, maybe from the time of the kings, or even before.”

Antonius nodded. “‘From the time of the kings’-that’s what people say when they mean something is so far in the past it’s beyond imagining. As if a time of kings could never come again.” He looked up at the Rostra and nodded to Caesar. Caesar nodded back, then stood to address the crowd.

“Citizens!” cried Caesar. The single utterance hushed the crowd and gained him everyone’s attention. Among his other accomplishments, Caesar was one of the best orators in Roma, able to project his voice a great distance and to speak extemporaneously and with great eloquence on any subject. On this occasion his speech was short and to the point.

“Citizens, we are gathered to observe one of the most ancient and revered of all rituals, the running of the Lupercalia. The highest servants of the state and the youths of our most ancient families will take part. The Lupercalia returns us to the pastoral days of our ancestors, when Romans lived close to the earth, close to their flocks, and close to the gods, who gave to Roma the gifts of fertility and abundance.

“Citizens, in recent years, because of the interruptions of war, many rituals have been neglected or performed in a perfunctory manner. The Lupercalia has been run with a very scant contingent and with little joy. But to neglect our religious obligations is to neglect our ancestors. To perform our vital rituals with bare adequacy is to give merely adequate worship to the gods. Today, I am pleased to say, we have a very full and very robust gathering to run the Lupercalia. Our beloved city has been depopulated by the misfortunes of war; many fine men have been lost. But with the snapping of their sacred thongs, let these runners set in motion the repopulation of Roma! Let every woman of childbearing age offer her wrist! Let there be rejoicing and abundance!

“Citizens, the priests have observed the auspices for this day. The auspices are good. Therefore, with the raising of my hand, I, Gaius Julius Caesar, your dictator, declare that the Lupercalia may begin!”

To a burst of applause from the crowd, the runners set off. Their course would take them to various points all over the city, and they would run the circuit three times in all.

Lucius stayed close to Antonius. He liked the familiar way the man treated him, as if they were old drinking companions or fellow warriors, leaning in close to crack a joke about the sagging backside of one of the participating magistrates or to make lewd comments about the women gathered along the way. At the sight of Antonius, women whispered and giggled, teasing one another to step forward and present their wrists to be slapped. How effortless it was for Antonius to flirt with them!

When Antonius saw that Lucius hung back, he encouraged him to put himself forward. “Growl at them-they love that! Run a circle around them. Don’t be afraid to look them straight in the eye, and up and down. Imagine you’re a wolf picking out the plumpest of the sheep.”

“But Marcus, I’m not sure I have the-”

“Nonsense! You heard your uncle, young man-this is your religious duty! Just follow me and do as I do. Call for some courage from that amulet you wear!”

Lucius took a deep breath and did as he was told. With Antonius leading the way, it was easy. He felt the power of his legs as they carried him forward, and the rush of breath in his lungs. He saw the grinning faces of the girls gathered along the course, and he grinned back at them. He snapped his thong in the air, threw back his head, and howled.

A sense of euphoria came over him, and the sacred nature of the ritual became manifest to him. When he had run the Lupercalia before, he had performed his duty by rote, without abandoning himself to the spirit of the occasion. What was different about this day? He was a man, for one thing, and Antonius was beside him, and his great-uncle Gaius was the undisputed ruler of Roma, presiding over the world’s rebirth. The great fountainhead of the earth’s fecundity, which found expression in the Lupercalia, surged through Lucius. When he slapped the wrist of a giddy, laughing girl with his thong, he felt a connection to something divine such as he had never experienced before. The sensation manifested itself physically, as well. From time to time he felt a pleasant stirring and a heaviness between his legs. He stole a glance at Antonius’s sex, and saw that his friend was mildly excited as well.

Antonius saw the change in Lucius and laughed. “There you go, young man! That’s the spirit!”

They finished the first circuit and ran back through the Forum, where an even larger crowd had gathered before the Rostra. People wanted to be present for the end of the run, and the public feast that would follow. As the runners passed the Rostra, Caesar remained seated on his throne but raised his arm in salute.

“Wait here for me,” said Antonius to Lucius. He broke from the pack and mounted the Rostra, taking giant steps. From somewhere-he had not been carrying it before-he produced a diadem made of gold and wrapped with laurel leaves. He held the diadem aloft so that everyone in the crowd could see. He knelt before Caesar, then rose and held the crown above Caesar’s head.

The crowd reacted with surprise. This was not a part of the ritual of Lupercalia. Some laughed, some cheered. A few dared to jeer and groan with disapproval. Caesar suppressed a smile. Managing to look very grave, he raised his hand and prevented Antonius from placing the crown on his head.

The crowd applauded and cheered. Caesar sat motionless. Only his eyes moved, scanning the crowd, closely observing their reaction. With his upraised hand, he made a dismissive gesture, indicating that Antonius should continue the run.

“What was that about?” said Lucius, when Antonius rejoined the pack.

In one hand Antonius still held the diadem, in the other his goat-hide thong. He shrugged. “The glare off your great-uncle’s bald spot was blinding me. I thought it needed something to cover it.”

“Marcus, be serious.”

“To a man of Caesar’s years, there is nothing more serious than a bald spot.”

“Marcus!”

But Antonius would say no more. He growled and howled and leaped toward a group of young women who screamed with excitement. Lucius followed him, anxious to regain the euphoria he had experienced during the first circuit.

When they ran through the Forum to make the second pass before the Rostra, the crowd had grown even larger. Again, Antonius broke away and ran onto the platform. Again, he displayed the diadem to the crowd. A number of people began to chant, “Crown him! Crown him!” Others chanted, “Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”

Like a mime on a stage, Antonius made a great show of trying to place the diadem on Caesar’s brow. Again, Caesar gently refused it, waving his hand as if to ward off a buzzing insect. The crowd’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than before. They cheered and stamped their feet.

Antonius withdrew and rejoined the pack.

“Marcus, what is going on?” said Lucius.

Antonius grunted. “Caesar is my commander. I was thinking that vulnerable bald spot could use a bit of strategic cover.”

“Marcus, this isn’t funny!”

Antonius shook his head and laughed. “There is nothing as funny as your great-uncle’s bald spot!” He would say no more.

They completed the third and final circuit. An immense crowd had gathered before the Rostra, made up not only of the pious and those who wished to take advantage of the feast, but of many others, for word of Caesar’s refusal of a crown had spread through the city. When Antonius mounted the Rostra, the competing chants were deafening.

“Crown him! Crown him!”

“Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”

A third time Antonius moved to place the diadem on Caesar’s head. A third time Caesar refused it.

The applause was thunderous.

Caesar rose to his feet. He raised his hands for silence. He took the diadem from Antonius and held it high above his head. The crowd watched in suspense. For a moment it appeared that Caesar might crown himself.

“Citizens!” he cried. “We Romans know only one king-Jupiter, king of the gods. Marcus Antonius, take back this diadem and carry it to the Temple of Jupiter. Offer it to the god on behalf of Gaius Julius Caesar and the people of Roma.”

The applause of the crowd was deafening. Caesar again raised his hands for silence. “I declare that the Lupercalia has been well and truly run. Let the feasting begin!”

Amid the surging throng, Lucius stood before the Rostra and looked up at his great-uncle. He did not know what to think of the performance he had just witnessed, nor what to make of the crowd’s reaction to it. It seemed to him that those who chanted “Crown him!” had cheered the loudest when Caesar refused the crown, as if the very act of rejecting the symbol entitled him to the power it represented. Those who had chanted “Never a king, never a crown!” had cheered as well; were they so foolish as to believe that because Caesar refused a diadem, he was not in fact their king? “In politics, appearance is everything,” Antonius had once told him. Still, it was all very confusing.

Lucius was also not sure what to make of Caesar. Every man, woman, and child in Roma seemed either to revere or despise the man with great intensity, but to Lucius, Caesar had always been Uncle Gaius, a bit larger than life, to be sure, yet all too human, with his preoccupied air, his combed-over hair, and his slightly absurd habit of speaking of himself in the third person. Caesar had loomed over Lucius all his life, yet he always seemed a bit distant and aloof. Indeed, whenever the two of them had been alone together, Lucius had sensed an uneasiness in his great-uncle’s manner. Sometimes Caesar averted his eyes rather than look Lucius in the face. Why was that?

A few times, Lucius’s father had made veiled references to a debt owed to the family by Caesar, but he had never explained. Lucius sensed that something tragic or shameful had occurred in the past, the sort of thing that grownups never discuss in front of children. He had an idea, though he could not say why, that it involved his grandparents, Julia and Lucius the Unlucky. What had Caesar done to them, or failed to do? Probably money was involved, or an insult to someone’s dignity, or both. Whatever the lapse or transgression, it was surely a very small matter when compared to the enslavement of Gaul or the carnage of the civil war. Still, Lucius was curious. Now that he was a man, would he be told what had happened in those mysterious, long-ago days before he was born?

A month later-on the day before the Ides of Martius-Lucius Pinarius attended a dinner party at the house of Marcus Lepidus on the Palatine. Lepidus had fought under Caesar and was now serving as the dictator’s Master of the Horse. Caesar himself was in attendance, as were Marcus Antonius and several other of Caesar’s most trusted officers.

Antonius drank more than anyone else. He showed no obvious signs of inebriation-his speech was not slurred, his gestures were controlled-but his eyes shone with a mischievous glimmer. “So, commander, what is this grand announcement you’ve assembled us to hear tonight?”

Caesar smiled. He had kept them in suspense through the fish course and the game course, but it seemed that Antonius would not submit to eating the custard course without hearing what Caesar had to say. “You become bored and impatient so quickly, Antonius. Well, I suppose I’ve become a bit bored myself lately. That’s why I asked Lepidus to invite this particular group for dinner. Some of you served me in Gaul, and saw the surrender of Vercingetorix. Some of you served me at Pharsalus, where we took down Pompeius. Some of you were in Alexandria, where we made peace among the bickering Egyptians, despite their treachery and their wiles. And some of you were at Thapsus, where Cato met his end. You’ve all been tested by battle-or you soon will be.” He smiled and glanced at Lucius. “You are a select band, the cream of Roma’s warriors. You are my most trusted men at arms. That’s why I wanted to meet with you all tonight, ahead of the official announcement I shall make tomorrow.”

“Yes!” whispered Antonius. “This is about-”

“Parthia,” said Caesar, who refused to let even Antonius utter the word before him. “I’ve reached my decision regarding the feasibility of an invasion of Parthia.”

There was a stir of movement around the room. Everyone knew what Caesar must be about to say, but the magnitude of it was so great that it could not seem entirely real until the words were actually said aloud.

“And?” said Antonius, fidgeting like a boy.

Caesar laughed. “Patience, Antonius! Patience! The custard course is on its way. We shall be enjoying tender bits of fowl and pork in an egg custard spiced with garum-isn’t that right, Lepidus? Lepidus has one of the finest cooks on the Palatine-”

“Commander, please!”

“Very well, the custard will have to wait.” Caesar cleared his throat. “I suppose I should stand up for this, and all of you should reach for your cups. My good friends: Tomorrow, Caesar shall put forward a request to the Senate-and the Senate, I feel certain, will consent.” This elicited mild laughter. “Caesar shall request a new command. The specific purpose of this command will be a military campaign against…Antonius, you look fit to burst.” There was more laughter, until at last Caesar said the word they were waiting to hear: “Parthia!”

“Parthia!” they shouted, raising their cups.

So the rumor was true, thought Lucius, draining his cup with the rest. His great-uncle, not satisfied to have mastered the whole of the Mediterranean world, had set his sights on yet another conquest: the land of the ancient Persians, which, since its conquest by Alexander, had become the kingdom of Parthia.

In all the known world, Parthia was the only power that could possibly rival Roma. When Lucius was nine years old, a man named Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was famous for putting down the great slave revolt led by Spartacus, led a Roman army to engage the Parthians, using Syria as his base of operations. Crassus had been the richest man in Roma and the political equal of Pompeius and Caesar; for a while the three of them formed the so-called Triumvirate, which temporarily stabilized the rivalry between them even as each plotted for a greater share of power. Crassus’s bid for fortune had been his invasion of Parthia. He had hoped to accomplish there what Caesar was already accomplishing in Gaul, reaping wealth and glory-except that the fabulous spoils of Parthia would far exceed anything to be taken in Gaul.

Instead, Crassus met Nemesis. At the battle of Carrhae his army was surrounded and subjected to a relentless barrage of armor-piercing Parthian arrows. Leading a cavalry unit to try to break through the Parthian lines, Crassus’s son Publius was killed; his head was cut off and used to taunt his beleaguered father. After the loss of twenty thousand Roman soldiers and the capture of ten thousand more, the Parthians offered Crassus a truce, then betrayed him and killed him, and beheaded him as they had his son. The Parthians celebrated their triumph over the invading Romans with great pomp, and presented the head of the Crassus as a gift to their ally, the king of Armenia, who reputedly used it in a production of Euripides’ play The Bacchae. Crassus had hoped to be head of the world; instead, his head became a stage prop.

The shadow of Crassus’s defeat had haunted the Romans ever since. The Parthians loomed as the great, unconquered enemy to the east. Now that civil war had settled the power struggle within the fractured Republic, it seemed only natural that the master of Roma should turn his attention to Parthia.

“Let me say outright that the military prowess of the Parthians must not be discounted,” said Caesar. “But nor should it be overestimated. We must not be put off by the defeat of Crassus. To be candid, as a commander he was not the equal of any man here-and I include you, Lucius, untested as you are. As a junior officer, Crassus served Sulla well, but he was always overshadowed by Pompeius. True, he put down the slave revolt of Spartacus, but afterward the Senate refused to reward him with a triumph, and for good reason; it would have been unseemly for a Roman to celebrate a victory over an army of slaves. The Parthian campaign was Crassus’s desperate attempt to make his mark as a military man. He overreached.”

“Even so,” said Antonius, “if we’re taking on the Parthians, I intend to make sure my will is in order.” The grim joke was typical of his humor, especially when he was drinking.

Antonius’s remark was greeted by good-natured booing from the others, but Caesar dismissed their objections. “Antonius speaks wisely. My own will is kept safe by the Vestal virgins. A man must think ahead to the day when all that remains of him is his name. As long as men speak his name, his glory lives. As for worldly possessions, great or small, a man should take steps to see that they are disbursed as he sees fit.” Caesar glanced at Lucius, and then at Antonius, but the significance of his glances was hard to read.

What provisions might Caesar’s will contain? No one knew. Caesar was king in all but name, but he was a king with no clear heir. He had never acknowledged the son of Cleopatra as his own. Rumors attested that Marcus Junius Brutus, who had fought against Caesar and been pardoned by him, was Caesar’s bastard, but Caesar himself had never acknowledged the possibility. Caesar’s closest male relations were the offspring of his two sisters-his nephew Quintus Pedius, who had served him in Gaul, and his young grand-nephews, Gaius Octavius and Lucius Pinarius. Of the three, only Lucius was present at the dinner; the other two were away from Roma on military duties.

Antonius took note of their absence. “A pity that your other two nephews couldn’t be here tonight.”

“Yes. But all three shall have the opportunity to cover themselves with glory in the Parthian campaign. Quintus is already battle-tested. As for Gaius…” Caesar’s eyes lit up; he was very fond of Gaius Octavius. “He’s only eighteen, but full of spirit; he reminds me of myself at that age. Despite his misfortunes in the last year-illness and shipwreck-he managed to take part in the final push against the Pompeian remnants in Spain, and he acquitted himself well. He lost his father when he was only four. I, too, lost my father when I was young, so I’ve done my best to look after him. He’s not a bad orator, either.”

“He had the best possible teacher,” said Antonius.

Caesar shook his head. “Not I. It comes to him naturally. I still remember the eulogy he delivered at the funeral of his grandmother, when he was only twelve.”

“And what of this fellow?” said Antonius, smiling at Lucius. For a moment Lucius was afraid that the man would reach over and muss his hair, as if he were still a boy. Listening to Caesar praise his cousin Gaius made Lucius feel acutely aware of his own lack of accomplishments.

“Lucius is only beginning his career,” said Caesar. “But I have my eye on him. Parthia will give him the chance to show the world what he’s made of.”

“To the Parthian campaign, then!” said Lucius, impulsively seizing his cup and lifting it high.

“To the Parthian campaign!” said Antonius. He and the others joined the toast. Caesar nodded approvingly.

There was more food and more wine. The conversation shifted. Lepidus remarked on the fact that Caesar had seen fit to restore the statues of Sulla and of Pompeius, which had been pulled down and smashed by the mob in the wake of Caesar’s victory. Why had Caesar put his enemies back on their pedestals?

“Lepidus, you know that it has always been Caesar’s policy to show clemency; vindictiveness gains a man nothing in the long run. Sulla, despite his crimes, and Pompeius, despite his fatal mistakes, were both great Romans. They deserve to be remembered. And so, by Caesar’s order, the gilded statue of Sulla on horseback will soon be back on its pedestal near the Rostra. Already the statue of Pompeius has returned to its place of honor, in the assembly room at the theater Pompeius built on the Field of Mars. That’s where the Senate will meet tomorrow. The statue of Pompeius shall witness my request for the Parthian command.”

He took a bite of custard, and smiled. “It was good of Pompeius, to provide Roma with its first permanent theater. We shall remember him for that, if for nothing else. As for Sulla, he was a political dunce to give up his dictatorship. But if he hadn’t done so, where would Caesar be today?”

“Where would we all be?” asked Antonius, who saw the occasion for another toast.

Lucius at last felt sufficiently emboldened by wine and by the camaraderie of the others to join in the conversation. “Uncle,” he said, “may one be so bold as to ask your intentions for Roma?”

“What do you mean, young man?”

“I mean, your intentions for the city itself. There’s a rumor that you may move the capital to the ancient site of Troy, or even to Alexandria.”

Caesar looked at him archly. “However do such rumors get started? Why Troy, I wonder?”

Lucius shrugged. “My tutors claim there’s an ancient link between Troy and Roma. Long ago, even before the days of Romulus and Remus, the Trojan warrior Aeneas survived the fall of his city, fled across the sea, and settled near the Tiber. His bloodline flows in the blood of the Romans.”

“And for that reason I should abandon the city of my birth and make my capital at Troy?” said Caesar. “To be sure, its location on the coast of Asia makes it a central point between East and West, especially if our possessions are expanded into Parthia and beyond. But no, I won’t build a new capital at Troy. And why would I move the capital to Alexandria? The reason for that rumor is obvious, I suppose. Between Roma and Egypt there now exists, shall we say, a special relationship.”

“You did place a statue of Queen Cleopatra in your new Temple of Venus, right beside the goddess herself,” noted Antonius.

“I did. It seemed to me an appropriate gesture to commemorate her state visit. As for Alexandria, it’s a very old, very sophisticated city-”

“A city founded by a conqueror, and accustomed to the rule of kings,” said Antonius.

“Nonetheless, I have no intention of making it the world’s capital.”

“But you can see, Uncle,” said Lucius, “why people become so upset by such rumors. They’re afraid that if you take the treasury and the state bureaucracy elsewhere, Roma will be reduced to a provincial backwater, and the Senate will become little more than a city council.”

Caesar laughed. “Amusing as that notion may be, I have no intention of moving the capital. I suppose I should make that clear in my address to the senators tomorrow, to allay their worries. The gods themselves decreed that Roma should be the center of the world; so it always shall be. Far from abandoning the city, I have plans to enlarge and enrich it. My engineers are working on a scheme to divert the course of the Tiber and to build breakwaters along the coast, so as to make Ostia as great a harbor as Carthage was. Think what a boon that will be for Roma’s commerce!”

“And speaking of Carthage…,” said Antonius.

Caesar nodded. “Yes, already I’ve begun to build new colonies at Carthage and at Corinth, the two great cities that our forefathers destroyed in a single year. The Greeks will praise the rebirth of Corinth, and the colony at Carthage fulfills the old, thwarted dream of Gaius Gracchus. Yes, great plans are afoot. Great plans…”

The conversation became looser as more wine flowed. Lucius noticed that Caesar imbibed considerably less than the others, and Antonius considerably more.

It was Lepidus who brought up the subject of death.

“We all know how Sulla died, in bed of a horrible disease; but to the very end, he behaved like a cruel tyrant, ordering the death of another. Crassus too met a wretched end. After Pharsalus, Pompeius sailed to Egypt hoping to make a final stand, but the minions of King Ptolemy stabbed him to death before he could set foot on shore, then delivered his head as a trophy to Caesar. After the battle of Thapsus, Cato fell on his sword, but his loyal servants found him and stitched him up; he had to wait until they slept to tear out the stitches with his fingers and finish his own disembowelment.”

“And your point in recounting this grisly catalogue, Lepidus?” asked Antonius.

“Death comes in many forms. If a man could choose, what would be the best death?”

Caesar spoke at once. “Sudden and unexpected, even if bloody and painful. That would be much preferable to a lingering death. Of all the episodes you mention, Lepidus, the death of Pompeius was best. The others all saw the shadow of death long before it reached them, and must have contemplated it with dread, but up to the very last, Pompeius still possessed hope, however fragile, and his end came as a surprise, however shocking. To be sure, his body was defiled, but when I came into possession of his remains I saw to it that they were purified and given the proper rites. His ghost is at peace.”

The dinner drew to an end. The guests took their leave. Caesar declared his intention to walk alone with Lucius to the house of his parents. “There’s a private matter which I should like to discuss with my nephew,” he said, looking at Lucius and then averting his eyes.

“Alone? Just the two of you?” said Antonius.

“Why not?”

“At least a few of us should go with you,” said Antonius. “For your protection. If you need privacy, we can stay a few paces behind.”

Caesar shook his head. “Toward what end has Caesar done so much to please the people of Roma, with great public feasts and entertainments, if not to make it safe for himself to walk across the city without a bodyguard?”

“That’s a fine notion,” said Antonius, “but in reality-”

“No, Antonius. I won’t walk the streets of my city in fear of my life. A man dies only once. The dread of death causes far more misery than the thing itself, and I shall not submit to it. It’s only a short walk from here to the house of Lucius, and an even shorter walk from there to my house. I shall be perfectly safe.”

Antonius began to protest, but Caesar silenced him with a look.

As the two of them crossed the Palatine Hill alone under moonlight, Lucius as always felt a bit uncomfortable in his great-uncle’s presence, and sensed that Caesar felt uneasy, as well. Several times Caesar began to speak, then fell silent. The world’s greatest general and second-greatest orator-for even Caesar ceded the highest place to the eloquent Cicero-seemed unable to express himself.

“To Hades with this!” he finally muttered. “I shall say it as plainly as I can. Lucius, your grandfather…”

“The one they call Unlucky?”

“Yes. He did me a very great favor once. He saved my life.”

“How did he do that, Uncle?”

“This is very difficult to talk about. In fact, I’ve never told this story to anyone. But you deserve to know the truth about your grandparents, Lucius, and the sacrifice they made for my sake. This was during Sulla’s dictatorship, at the height of the proscriptions. I was very young, only a year or so older than you are now. I was in great danger. I was also very ill, suffering from the quartan ague.” He looked up at the moon. By its soft light Lucius caught a glimpse of the youth Caesar once had been. “Maybe that’s why I refuse to fear death now; I had enough of fearing death when I was young. Anyway, I was skulking from house to house, hiding from Sulla’s henchmen, but at the home of your grandparents a fellow named Phagites caught up with me…”

He proceeded to tell Lucius about the bribe that Lucius’s grandfather paid to save his life, and later, in the presence of Sulla himself, the extraordinary sacrifice that was required of Julia and Lucius the Unlucky-the dissolution of their marriage when Caesar refused to divorce his wife at Sulla’s whim.

“Your grandmother was heartbroken, but she adapted swiftly; that was her nature. But your grandfather was never the same. He was a broken man. He had acted honorably, yet he felt dishonored. He saw no way to right the wrong that had been done to him. If he had lived, eventually I might have found some way to make recompense, some means to help him regain his self-respect. But he died while he was still quite young, and before I could make my mark on the world.”

They had been strolling at a slow pace. Caesar abruptly halted. “Do you know how he died?”

“He fell on a patch of ice.”

“Yes. Do you know where?”

Lucius shrugged. “Somewhere here on the Palatine, I think.”

“It was on the very spot where we now stand.”

Under the silver moonlight, it was not hard to imagine the paving stones glazed with ice. Lucius shivered. “By your reckoning, Uncle, his was a good death-swift and without warning. Perhaps the gods granted him an early death as a kind of mercy.”

“Perhaps. But the debt I owed to your grandfather has weighed upon me ever since. Not even the gods can change the past, and the dead are beyond our reach. But I can make certain that you, Lucius, will have every opportunity to earn your own place of honor. I would have done so anyway, because you’re my kin; but I wanted you to know of your grandfather’s sacrifice, so that between the two of us there is an understanding of what came before. I should be gratified to see you attain the dignity that your grandfather believed he had lost.”

Lucius considered this. “Thank you for telling me, Uncle. I’m not sure what else I can say.” Silently, he wondered about the words Caesar had spoken with such gravity. What did “dignity” and “honor” mean now? In a world ruled by a king, the ancient Course of Honor, with each man competing against equals to become first man in the state, had become meaningless.

Caesar seemed to read his thoughts. “In the future, the Course of Honor will not have quite the same significance as it did for our ancestors. But ambitious men will still be able to earn Roma’s gratitude, along with personal wealth and glory, on the battlefield. Shall I confide a secret to you, Lucius? Something I haven’t shared even with Antonius?”

He commenced walking again, in the direction of Lucius’s house. “My military ambitions-my ambitions for Roma-are even greater than Antonius and the others assume. The idea of conquering Parthia greatly excites them, as you saw, but that is as far as their imaginations can reach. Caesar’s plans extend far beyond the conquest of Parthia. My dream is to take Parthia, yes-and then to traverse the far side of the Euxine Sea and circle back, conquer Scythia and Germania and all the lands that border them, cross the channel to Britannia, and then return to Italy by way of Gaul, ending where I began. When Caesar is finished, Roma’s dominion will comprise a true world empire, bounded on every side by ocean.”

Lucius was awed by the grandeur of this vision. He was flattered that Caesar should confide in him. But Caesar was not finished.

“No such empire has ever existed before; even Alexander’s empire was not as far-flung. And of course, upon his death, the lands Alexander conquered did not remain unified but were divided among his heirs, with a great deal of confusion and bloodshed. Alexander’s general Ptolemy did the best, when he took Egypt; Queen Cleopatra is his direct descendent. But what will happen to Roma’s empire when I die, Lucius? Will it be a single kingdom with a single ruler? Will it be carefully divided into many kingdoms, all closely allied? Or will it be splintered into rival kingdoms, each at war with the other?”

“Might it not become a republic again, Uncle?”

Caesar smiled, as if at a whimsical notion. “Anything is possible, I suppose-even that! No man of my generation could find a way to make the Republic work, but perhaps men of a later day will be able to do so. Meanwhile, I think ahead. I do my best to shape the course of the future. It may be that I will live to be very old and that I will work out a means to pass on my legacy intact; or I may die tonight, as my father and his father died, struck down by the gods without warning. At present, my will provides for my heirs, and of course you are among them, Lucius. But if my power endures and if my plans come to fruition, more complicated arrangements will be required.

“I tell you all this, Lucius, because it may be that the gods have in mind for you a very special destiny. Through your descent from the Julii, you are the offspring of Venus, no less than I myself. Through your father’s line, you carry one of the oldest names in Roma’s history. The Pinarii are very ancient-but you, Lucius, are very young. You’ve accomplished nothing, as yet; but neither have you made mistakes. Prepare yourself. Be loyal to me. Prove yourself in battle. Observe the conduct of other men; adopt their virtues and avoid their vices. I’m thinking specifically of Antonius. I know you feel close to him. But you have it in you to become a far better man than he is.”

Lucius frowned. “You place great trust in Antonius.”

“I do. But I’m not blind to his faults.”

Having been taken so deeply into Caesar’s confidence, Lucius felt emboldened to ask him about the incident a month earlier, when Antonius had three times offered Caesar the diadem during the Lupercalia.

“You were there,” said Caesar. “You saw all that took place. What did you think?”

“I think you staged the incident, like a play, to test the citizen’s reaction to a crown. When you saw that so many disapproved, you reassured them that you had no desire to be their king.”

Caesar nodded. “In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be. It’s a tricky business, this matter of crowns and titles. Shall I tell you another secret?”

Lucius nodded.

“Tomorrow, before the debate regarding the Parthian command, one of my loyal senators will make an announcement regarding the Sibylline Books. It appears that the priests in charge of interpreting the verses have discovered a most remarkable passage, which indicates that the Parthians can be conquered only by a king. I refused the diadem that was offered to me by Antonius at the Lupercalia, to the applause of the people. But what if the Senate should implore Caesar to accept a royal title, to ensure the conquest of Parthia?”

“You will become a king, then?” said Lucius. “And this will happen tomorrow?”

Caesar smiled wryly. “This is the plan: The Senate will declare that Caesar is king of all Roman provinces outside Italy, with the right to wear a crown in any place other than Italy, on land or sea. This technicality will satisfy both Caesar’s need for authority and the need of the Senate and the citizens to believe themselves free of a king. Caesar will be king of the rest of the world, on Roma’s behalf.”

Lucius frowned. “Auguries and omens, and the Sibylline Books-are they merely tools for men to use? Do they not truly express the will of the gods?”

“Perhaps both propositions are true. Auguries and the rest are tools, yes; and the man who masters those tools does so because he is favored by the gods. It is a remarkable thing, how frequently divine will coincides with the designs of successful men.” Caesar smiled. “Of course, not every omen is favorable. If I listened to every warning I receive from every soothsayer on every street corner in Roma, I might never leave my house, and I certainly would not venture out to address the Senate tomorrow!”

“Have you received a specific warning?”

“Too many to relate! Shooting stars, goats born two-headed, tears from statues, letters mysteriously formed in the sand-all sorts of portents have been brought to my attention in the last month. Some of these warnings specifically cite the Ides of Martius as a day of ill omen. That’s one reason Antonius has been playing mother hen lately. He thinks I should be surrounded by a bodyguard at all times. But Caesar has decided to ignore these so-called omens and do as he wishes.”

Their quiet conversation was abruptly interrupted by loud voices from a side street. A group of men was heading straight toward them. Caesar seized Lucius’s arm and pulled him into a doorway.

The men began to sing, loudly and badly out of tune. They were obviously drunk. One of them spotted the two figures in the shadows of the doorway and stepped closer, peering at them.

“Numa’s balls! If it isn’t the spawn of Venus himself-our beloved dictator!”

“Who?” shouted one of his companions.

“Gaius Julius Caesar!”

“You liar!”

“No, I swear! Come see for yourselves.”

The men crowded around the doorway. Recognizing Caesar, they were briefly awed, then began a buffoonish mime of bowing and prostrating themselves. “King Caesar!” they cried. “All hail the king!”

Caesar showed no fear. He smiled and graciously acknowledged their gestures with a nod.

One of them staggered back and flung out his arms, miming a crucifixion. “Look at me! I’m a pirate! Oh, great Caesar, have mercy on me!”

Another pulled his tunic up to hide his head. “Look at me! I’m Pompeius after he landed in Egypt! Merciful Caesar, give me back my head!”

“And I’m the Queen of the Nile!” said another, mincing about and putting his fists inside his tunic to mime enormous breasts. “Ravish me, great Caesar! Our baby will be the next king of Egypt!”

They continued with their buffoonery for a while, then seemed to forget what they were doing. Waving good-bye, they moved on and broke into another song. Only when they were out of sight did Caesar relax his grip on Lucius’s arm.

Lucius looked at his great-uncle’s face in the moonlight. Caesar’s eyes glittered with a peculiar excitement. However briefly, Caesar had felt a moment of genuine fear. Its passing seemed to have left him neither angry nor shaken, but exhilarated.

The next day was the Ides of Martius.

Lucius awoke drenched with sweat. His room was dark. The faint blue light that precedes the dawn silhouetted the shutters drawn across his window. Somewhere in the distance a cock was crowing.

He had been experiencing one of those strange dreams in which the dreamer is both participant and observer, aware that he is dreaming and yet unable to stop the dream. In it, Caesar had died. A great multitude had gathered to hear the reading of his will. On the steps of a temple, a Vestal virgin produced a scroll and handed it to Marcus Antonius. Antonius unrolled the document and proceeded to read. Lucius stood at the front of the crowd, but strain as he might, he could not hear the names being read. The roar of the crowd was too great. He wanted to tell the others to be quiet, but he could not open his mouth to speak. He could not move at all. Antonius continued to read, but Lucius could not hear, speak, or move.

The dream was not exactly a nightmare, yet he awoke feeling shaken and covered with sweat. He staggered from his bed and opened the shutters. The cock crowed again. The view from his window showed a jumble of rooftops, the irregular spires of cypress trees, and a glimpse of the Temple of Jupiter atop the Capitoline, rebuilt since its destruction by fire in Sulla’s time. All was bathed in soft light; the world might have been made of ancient, weathered marble, without color or sharp edges.

Lucius filled his lungs with cool, bracing air. The glaze of sweat evaporated from his flesh and left him covered with goosebumps. The dream had been oppressive and disturbing, but now he was awake. The world was just as he had left it, and the first glimmer of sunlight across the rooftops marked the beginning of a day like any other.

And yet, in a matter of hours, Caesar would receive the Senate’s command to begin the conquest of Parthia. He would be declared king of all provinces beyond Italy. The age of the Republic would end, and a new age would begin.

Anxious to leave his room and his uneasy dream behind, Lucius quickly dressed. He put on his best tunic, which was bright blue with a yellow hem, and strapped on his best pair of shoes. When the people began cheering Caesar’s decision to wage war against Parthia, it would not do for Caesar’s young kinsman to be seen wearing his second-best.

He left the house and wandered aimlessly for a while, watching the city awaken. At the great houses on the Palatine, slaves opened front doors to air the vestibules, extinguished the lamps that had burned all night, and swept the thresholds. Between two houses, Lucius caught a distant view of the Forum Boarium and the Tiber waterfront. Down in the marketplace, merchants were setting up shop. Many had special displays of baskets stuffed with food. Customers were already lining up to buy the baskets. Lucius had forgotten that this was the feast day of Anna Perenna, a holiday celebrated only by the plebeians.

Anna Perenna was the crone goddess, always portrayed with gray hair, a wrinkled face, and a stooped back; she wore a traveling cloak and carried baskets stuffed with food. Her legend dated to the early days of the Republic, when the plebeians staged their first so-called secession, withdrawing en masse from the city to protest the special privileges of the patricians and to demand tribunes for their protection. When the plebeians ran low on provisions, an old woman calling herself Anna Perenna appeared among them with baskets of food. No matter how much food people took from the baskets, the baskets remained miraculously full, and so the plebs never went hungry.

After the secession, Anna Perenna vanished, never to be seen again. On the day sacred to her, the Ides of Martius, plebeian families left the city to picnic on the banks of the Tiber. They gathered their own baskets of food, or bought ready-made baskets at the market. They pitched small tents and laid out blankets. Children played games with balls and sticks in the grass. Young couples courted in leafy bowers. Everyone ate and drank their fill, then dozed on the banks of the river. At sundown, the plebeian families would stream back into the city in an informal procession, singing songs of praise to Anna Perenna.

The holiday meant little to Lucius. Being a patrician, he had never taken part. Still, strolling across the Forum, passing families on their way to the river carrying food baskets, blankets, and toys, he found their festive mood infectious. It further amused him to think that among all these carefree revelers, he alone knew what a momentous and memorable day this would turn out to be, thanks to the special requests that Caesar would put before the Senate.

Thinking of Caesar, Lucius walked to the area directly north of the ancient Forum, where a large tract of land had in recent years been cleared and rebuilt by his great-uncle and named after him. The Julian Forum was surrounded by a vast rectangular portico of gleaming marble columns. At one end stood the new temple dedicated to Venus, constructed of solid marble, the fulfillment of a vow Caesar had made to the goddess before his victory at Pharsalus. In front of the temple was a fountain adorned with nymphs. Dominating the open square was a magnificent statue of Caesar armored for battle and sitting atop a white charger.

Work on the forum was not finished. When it was done, the portico would open onto courtrooms and legal offices. The comings and goings of scribes, secretaries, judges, and advocates would make the Julian Forum one of the busiest spots in Roma. As it was, on this morning, Lucius was the only person present. He walked under the statue of Caesar, amused to see the very grave look on his great-uncle’s face, then past the fountain, which was full of water but not splashing. Its still face reflected the perfect proportions and dazzling marble facade of the Temple of Venus.

Lucius mounted the steps. A temple slave dozing beside the doorway stirred at his approach. Recognizing Lucius-the dictator’s kinsmen were frequent visitors to the temple of their ancestress-the slave hastily opened the doors for him.

In Lucius’s opinion, the inside of the temple was the most beautiful interior space in all of Roma, perhaps in all the world. The floors, walls, ceiling, and columns were made of solid marble in a staggering array of colors, and newly finished, so that every surface gleamed with a mirror-like polish. The facing walls of the short vestibule were decorated by two of the most famous paintings in the world, the Ajax and the Medea by the renowned artist Timomachus. Within the sanctuary, displayed in six cabinets, were the extraordinary collections of jewels and gemstones which Caesar had acquired in his travels. To Lucius, the most fascinating item was a savage-looking breastplate strung with tiny pearls from the island of Britannia.

At the far end of the chamber, magnificent upon her pedestal, stood Venus herself, as captured in marble by Arcesilaus, the most highly paid sculptor in the world. The goddess stood with one arm bent back to touch her shoulder and her other arm slightly extended; one of her breasts was bare. The molding of her serene features and the folds of her thin gown were extraordinarily delicate.

Next to Venus stood an equally impressive statue of Cleopatra, executed in bronze and covered with gold. The queen was portrayed not in the outlandish garb of the Pharaohs, which the Ptolemies had appropriated when they assumed the rule of Egypt, but in elegant Greek dress, more chastely covered than Venus and wearing a simple diadem on her brow. To Lucius’s eye, Cleopatra was not a particularly beautiful woman-certainly not as beautiful as the idealized image of Venus beside her-but the sculptor had nonetheless managed to capture that indefinable quality that had so captivated a man like Caesar. Caesar’s decision to place her statue in the new Temple of Venus had sparked intense speculation about his intentions. If the purpose of the temple was to honor his ancestress, what place did the queen of Egypt have there, unless Caesar intended to make her the mother of his own descendents?

Lucius had met the queen only once, when she first arrived in Roma for her state visit. During the feasting and entertainments, Lucius had been briefly introduced to her as one of Caesar’s young relatives. The queen had been gracious but aloof; Lucius had been completely tongue-tied. Since then, Caesar had installed Cleopatra at a sumptuous garden estate on the farther bank of the Tiber, where the queen had hosted a number of lavish dinners to introduce herself to the city’s elite.

Staring up at her statue, Lucius felt a sudden impulse to pay her a visit. Why not? Caesar’s overtures to him the previous night emboldened him. Lucius was not just one of the great man’s heirs; he was Caesar’s confidante. He had as much right to pay a social call on the queen of Egypt as any other Roman. To be sure, he was not formally outfitted in his toga, but he was wearing his best tunic. He turned about, left the temple, and headed for the bridge across the Tiber.

Passing through the marketplace in the Forum Boarium, he was surrounded by plebeians on their way to celebrate the Feast of Anna Perenna. There were so many of them heading out of the city that there was a queue to cross the bridge. On the other side, the picnickers drifted toward the public grounds along the riverbank, but Lucius pressed further on, toward the grand private estates that fronted the most desirable stretch of the Tiber. Here the wealthy of Roma had their second homes outside the city, where they could relax in their gardens, pursue the fashionable hobby of beekeeping, and go boating and swimming in the river.

At one of the grandest of these houses, owned by Caesar, Cleopatra had taken up residence. When Lucius knocked at the gate, an Egyptian slave, his eyes outlined with kohl, peered at him through the peephole. Lucius announced himself-“Lucius Pinarius, great-nephew of Gaius Julius Caesar”-and a few moments later the slave opened the gate.

The big man peered beyond him. “Only you?” he said in Greek.

Lucius laughed. “I suppose the queen has very few visitors who arrive without an entourage, and on foot. But yes, it’s only me. My uncle is otherwise engaged today, as the queen probably knows.”

He was conducted to a sunny garden with a view of the river. The garden was formally laid out, with manicured shrubs, gravel paths, and carefully pruned rose bushes. Tucked amid the shrubbery were quaint pieces of Greek statuary. Lucius noticed one of a winged Eros kneeling down to touch a butterfly, and another of a young boy absorbed in pulling a thorn from his foot. Lucius sat on a stone bench and gazed at the sparkles of morning sunlight on the river.

“You’re as pretty as a statue.”

Lucius stood and turned to see the queen standing nearby.

“Please, remain seated,” she said. “I was enjoying the sight of you. You looked like another statue in the garden: Roman Boy Contemplating the Tiber.”

“I’m not a boy, Your Majesty,” said Lucius, bristling slightly. “I would have worn my toga, but-”

“Roman men and their togas! I’m afraid they always look slightly ridiculous to me.”

“The men or the togas?”

Cleopatra smiled. “You’re a sharp one,” she said. “And of course you’re not a boy. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know how vexing it can be, when one is young but determined to be taken seriously.”

Cleopatra herself was no more than twenty-five. Her statue in the temple made her look older, Lucius thought, as had her royal raiment when he first met her. On this day she wore a simple, sleeveless linen gown tied at the waist with a gold-threaded sash. Her hair, usually pinned atop her head, hung down on either side of her face. She wore no diadem. The day was early, and the queen was not yet dressed for formal visitors.

“It’s good of you to receive me,” said Lucius.

“I could hardly turn away Caesar’s kinsman. Is there a celebration? My sentinels tell me that all sorts of people are out enjoying themselves along the river. Does it have something to do with Caesar’s pronouncement to the Senate?”

Lucius smiled at her mistake. “The Feast of Anna Perenna is an ancient plebeian holiday. It has nothing to do with me or with Caesar. He won’t be speaking to the Senate until later this morning.”

“I see. I have a great deal to learn about Roman customs. Perhaps you could instruct me.”

“I, Your Majesty?”

“By rights, the task should fall to Caesar. When he was in Alexandria, I educated him about Egyptian court protocol. But Caesar is much too busy. And there are so few people in the city I can trust.”

“But you’ve met many people since you arrived. All the best people come to the dinner parties here at your villa.”

“Yes, and they all go away utterly charmed by the queen of Egypt-or pretending to be so, to curry favor with Caesar. Occasionally, I receive word of their true reaction. That fellow Cicero, for example. To my face, the famous advocate was all smiles and flattery. Behind my back, he wrote a letter to a friend, complaining that he could hardly stand to be in the same room with me.”

“How do you know this?”

She shrugged. “One didn’t survive as a princess in Alexandria without learning how to discover the truth. Frankly, I don’t see why Caesar allows that man to keep his head. Didn’t Cicero oppose him in the civil war and fight for Pompeius?”

“Yes. Brutus opposed him, as well, but after Pharsalus, Caesar forgave them both. Caesar is famous for his clemency.”

The queen narrowed her eyes. “I suppose, operating in a republic, clemency was a tool of statecraft. Caesar will learn new ways to deal with his enemies when he finally puts the last vestiges of this primitive form of government behind him.”

“Primitive?” Lucius drew back his shoulders. More than ever he wished he had worn his toga; it gave a man a sense of authority. “Roma is much, much older than Alexandria. And I believe the Roman Republic predates the establishment of your dynasty by almost two hundred years.”

“Perhaps. But when my ancestor Ptolemy inherited control of Egypt from Alexander, he assumed the title, the royal insignia, and the divine status of the Pharaohs who preceded him. Their dynasties can be traced back thousands of years, to the very beginning of time. By comparison, the civilization of the Romans is very young; infantile, in fact. The great pyramids were built many centuries before the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Roma was founded hundreds of years after Troy fell.”

She frowned. “The other day I hosted a group of Roman scholars, to discuss the holdings of the Library of Alexandria. We fell to talking about the origins of Roma, and they put forward a very novel theory. They said that a Trojan warrior, Aeneas, escaped the sack of the city, sailed to the shores of Italy, and settled near the Tiber, and thus the blood of Troy survives in the Romans. But when I asked for evidence, they had none. I have to wonder whether your scholars are taking a bit of license when they speak of this link between Roma and Troy.”

“There are those,” admitted Lucius, “who say that historians invent the past.”

Cleopatra smiled. “I would rather invent the future.”

She strolled to a place which afforded a better view of the water. Downriver, tiny in the distance, figures could be seen lounging on the bank. “We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. I suppose the Pinarii are an ancient family?”

“There was a Pinarius in Roma when Hercules appeared and killed the monster Cacus. And the Julii must be just as ancient. Caesar says the line was begun by a union with Venus.”

“Which makes Caesar almost as divine as myself. He certainly behaves like a god.” She smiled, then frowned. “While they are on earth, the gods do great things; but after they leave the earth, they fall as silent as dead mortals. I frequently pray to the first Ptolemy, who was most certainly a god; I speak, but he never speaks back. He fought beside Alexander, bathed beside him, ate beside him. There are a thousand questions I would like to ask him-What did Alexander’s laughter sound like? Did he snore? What did he smell like? — but to those questions there are no answers, and there never will be. The dead are all dust. The past is as unknowable as the future. When Caesar and I are dust, will men of the future know only our names, and nothing else about us?”

Lucius could think of nothing to say. He had never heard a woman, or a man for that matter, speak in such a fashion. Even Caesar tended to ruminate more about troop movements than about matters of eternity.

Cleopatra smiled. “It’s curious that I’m so young, and Caesar is so old-more than twice my age-while the relative ages of our kingdoms are reversed. Egypt is like a mature queen, wealthy, worldly, covered with jewels, sophisticated to her fingertips. Roma is a brawny, brash, brawling upstart. The two need not be at odds. In some ways they’re natural allies, as Caesar and I are natural allies.”

“Is that what you are? Allies?”

“To conquer Parthia, Caesar will need the assistance of Egypt.”

“But surely there’s more between you than that.” Watching her graceful movements, listening to her speak, Lucius had begun to see the attraction Cleopatra must hold for Caesar. He had also glimpsed the qualities that must have been so repellent to a man like Cicero, who believed in the staid, silent, matronly virtues of Roman womanhood.

For the first time, it seemed possible to Lucius, even likely, that Caesar intended to divorce his Roman wife. Caesar had a viable excuse: Calpurnia had failed to give him a son. If the king of Roma married the queen of Egypt, would Parthia be a gift to their son? What would become of Caesar’s other heirs?

A childish squeal erupted from the far side of the garden. Two handmaidens appeared, looking slightly chagrinned. Between them stood a tiny boy with upraised arms. The women held him by his hands, or more precisely restrained him, for he was eager to break from them and run to his mother.

Cleopatra laughed and clapped her hands. “Come to me, Caesarion!”

The child ran toward her. A few times Lucius thought he would fall, but Caesarion remained upright for the entire distance. He threw himself against his mother and clutched her legs, then looked up at Lucius shyly. He seemed no different from any other child.

“How old is he?” said Lucius.

“Three years.”

“He looks big for his age.”

“Good. He needs to grow up fast.” The queen gestured to the handmaidens, who came to fetch Caesarion and then set about amusing him in the garden. “Now you must excuse me, Lucius Pinarius. Caesar will call on me later today, after his pronouncement to the Senate. I must prepare myself. I’m glad you came to visit. You and I should know one another better.”

Lucius headed back to the city.

He chose a path that led him through the Grove of the Furies. The secluded holy place was deserted and quiet except for the distant singing of revelers along the riverbank. Passing by the altar, Lucius recalled the story of Gaius Gracchus and the terrible fate he had met in this very spot, chased to ground by his enemies and killed by a trusted slave, who then slew himself. Lucius’s great-great-grandfather had been a friend of Gaius Gracchus, or so Lucius had been told; of the two men’s actual dealings with one another, Lucius knew nothing.

He recalled something that Cleopatra had said: We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. It was true. What did Lucius know about those who had come before him? He knew their names, from the lists kept by his family of marriages and offspring, and from the official records that listed the magistrates of the Republic. About some of them he had heard an anecdote or two, although the details often differed depending upon who told the story. In the vestibule of his father’s house there were wax images of some of the ancestors, so that Lucius had an idea of what they had looked like. But of the men and women themselves-their dreams and passions, their failures and triumphs-he knew virtually nothing. His ancestors were strangers to him.

Until the previous night, he had not even known of the terrible sacrifice made by his grandparents to save Caesar’s life. How much more did he not know? The magnitude of this ignorance overwhelmed him-so many lives, so full of incident and feeling, lost to his knowledge completely and forever. What had Cleopatra said? The past is as unknowable as the future. He suddenly perceived his existence as a tiny point illuminated by the thinnest crack of light-the now-poised between two infinities of darkness-before and after.

He left the grove, crossed the bridge, and wandered across the Forum Boarium. Close by the Temple of Hercules stood the Ara Maxima, the most ancient altar in all of Roma, dedicated to Hercules, who had saved the people from Cacus. Had there really been a Hercules and a Cacus, a hero and a monster? So the priests declared, and the historians agreed; so the monument attested. If the story was true, there had been a Pinarius among the Romans even then, and the Pinarii, up until the early days of the Republic, had been assigned the sacred duty of maintaining the Ara Maxima and celebrating the Feast of Hercules. They had shared this duty with a family called the Potitii, which no longer existed. Why had the Pinarii abandoned the duty? What had become of the Potitii? Lucius did not know.

From the Temple of Hercules he heard a man calling, “Shoo! Shoo!” A temple slave appeared at the open doorway, wielding a horsetail whisk to drive a fly from the sanctuary. Everyone knew that flies were forbidden to enter the temple, because flies had swarmed about Hercules and confounded him when he fought against Cacus. Nor could dogs come near, because the dog of Hercules had failed to warn him of the monster’s approach. These things must have occurred, or else why did rituals exist to commemorate them, many lifetimes later?

Lucius recalled the story of the Romans trapped by the Gauls atop the Capitoline; the geese raised the alarm, while the dogs failed to bark. To commemorate that event, each year a dog was impaled on a stake and paraded through the city, along with one of Juno’s sacred geese carried in a litter. The first time Lucius had witnessed this spectacle as a child, he had been puzzled and revolted by it, until his father had explained its meaning. Now when he saw the ritual each year, Lucius found it reassuring, a reminder both of the city’s past and of his own childhood and the first time he had seen the procession.

Thinking of all the many rituals that took place during the year, and all the traditions of the ancestors which had been so scrupulously preserved over the centuries, Lucius felt comforted. Religion existed to honor and placate the gods, but did it not also make the past and the future a little less mysterious, and therefore less frightening?

Lost in thought, Lucius wandered homeward. Turning a corner, he realized that he was very near the house of Brutus. An impulse had caused Lucius to call upon Cleopatra. An equally spontaneous impulse now prompted him to pay a visit to Brutus, who, according to rumor, was another of Caesar’s possible heirs.

Everyone knew that Caesar had been the lover of Brutus’s mother, Servilia. The fact had come out before Lucius was born, and on the floor of the Senate, of all places. Servilia was the half-sister of Cato, grandson of the famous Cato who had called for the destruction of Carthage. Cato had been one of Caesar’s bitterest enemies. Twenty years ago, during a heated debate in the Senate regarding an alleged conspiracy by the populist Catilina, Caesar had been seen to receive a note from a messenger. Cato, suspecting it might implicate Caesar in the plot, insisted that he read the note aloud. Caesar refused. Cato grew more suspicious and more vehement, until finally Caesar relented and read the message aloud. It was a love note from Servilia, Cato’s sister. Cato was humiliated. Caesar was much amused. From that day, his affair with Servilia was public knowledge, and the speculation began that he might be the father of her son, Marcus Junius Brutus. The special regard in which Caesar had always held Brutus, even when Brutus sided with Pompeius, had further fueled this speculation.

Whatever their relationship, Brutus was among the men whom Caesar had chosen to fill various posts when he began rebuilding the government. Currently Brutus was praetor in charge of the city, but in the coming year he would leave for Macedonia to serve as provincial governor. Because Caesar’s Parthian campaign might keep the dictator from Roma for an indefinite period, all such appointments had been made not for the usual one year but for five years.

Brutus was also a key member of the Senate, and it occurred to Lucius that he might already have left home, heading for the Field of Mars and the meeting of the Senate at the assembly hall in the Theater of Pompeius. But evidently Brutus was still at home, for as Lucius drew nearer to Brutus’s house, he saw several men in red-bordered senatorial togas being admitted at the front door. Lucius assumed they must be gathering before heading off in a group to the assembly hall. Clearly, it was not a good time for Lucius to pay a visit. Nonetheless, he continued in the same direction, toward Brutus’s house.

Suddenly he heard the sound of many footsteps behind him. A large group of men caught up with him and swept past him. Lucius saw a blur of togas, and glimpsed several familiar faces. Some of the senators must surely have recognized him, but not one of them uttered a greeting. They averted their eyes from him. As they hurried on, whispering among themselves, he thought he heard them speak his name. It was very strange.

The senators reached the house of Brutus, rapped on the door, and disappeared inside.

Lucius arrived at the threshold and stared dumbly at the door. What was going on in the house of Brutus? Something was not right. It occurred to him that the senators might have been bringing bad news-something to do with Caesar, perhaps? Lucius gathered his nerve and rapped on the door.

A peephole opened. Lucius gave his name. He was perused by a pair of unblinking eyes. The peephole closed. Lucius was left waiting for so long that he decided he had been forgotten, and was about to leave. Then the door opened. A grim-looking slave admitted him to the vestibule.

“Wait here,” said the slave, and disappeared.

Lucius slowly paced back and forth. He looked at the busts of the ancestors in their niches, paying only scant attention until he saw one that was clearly honored above all the others, placed in a special niche with votive candles in sconces at either side. The mask looked very, very old. It was a famous face, known to every Roman from public statues all over the city.

“That’s only a copy, of course,” said a voice. “Wax masks don’t last forever, and more than one branch of the family lay claim to him, so there had to be duplicates. Still, that mask is very ancient, and very sacred, as you can imagine. The candles are kept lit always, day and night.”

Brutus stood before him. Curious to see if he could detect a resemblance, Lucius looked from the face of Brutus to the face of his famous ancestor and namesake-the man who had been the nephew of the last king, Tarquinius, who had revenged the rape of Lucretia, who had helped to overthrow the monarchy and had become first consul, who had watched his own sons be put to death for betraying the Republic.

Lucius frowned. “You don’t look anything alike, as far as I can see.”

“No? Even so, I think we may share a similar destiny. At any rate, his example inspires me, especially today.”

Was Brutus feverish? It seemed to Lucius that the man’s eyes glittered unnaturally.

“Why have you come?” said Brutus.

“I’m not sure. I happened to be passing. I saw your visitors arriving. It seemed to me that something…that perhaps something was wrong…”

His voice trailed away as another man appeared behind Brutus. Gaius Cassius Longinus was Brutus’s brother-in-law, married to his sister. He was one of the senators who had swept past Lucius in the street. Lucius nodded to him. “Good day to you, Cassius.”

Cassius did not return the greeting. He whispered in Brutus’s ear. He looked tense and pale.

The two exchanged more whispers, and cast furtive glances at Lucius. They appeared to be arguing and trying to come to some decision. Lucius began to find their scrutiny unnerving.

Brutus gripped Cassius’s arm and pulled him to the far side of the room, but his whisper was so loud that Lucius overheard. “No! We agreed already-Caesar and only Caesar. No one else! Otherwise, we show ourselves to be no better than-”

Cassius cast a cold gaze at Lucius, silenced Brutus with a hiss, and pulled him into the next room.

If they were still whispering, Lucius could not hear; his heartbeat was suddenly so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. He looked toward the front door. It was blocked by the grim-faced slave. From the atrium, more slaves appeared, followed by Brutus.

“Don’t harm him!” Brutus shouted. “I only want him restrained. We’ll hold him here until-”

There was no time to think. A thrill of panic ran through Lucius and he acted purely by instinct. He bolted toward the door, but hands on his arms and shoulders held him back. He tried to shrug them off, but the hands gripped him more firmly. With all his strength he pulled free, turned around, and swung his fists. His knuckles connected with the hard jaw of one of the slaves and sent a painful shock through his arm. The slave took a swing at him in return and struck a glancing blow across his shoulder. Lucius struck the man square in the face. The slave staggered back, blood pouring from his nose.

Now only the slave barring the door stood in his way. Lucius ran toward him, lowered his head, and butted the man in the stomach. The slave cried out in pain and bent forward, clutching his belly. Lucius pushed him out of the way and managed to slip through the doorway, into the street.

He meant to run in the direction of Caesar’s house, but there were already men in the street, blocking his way. He turned about and ran in opposite direction, away from the Forum, away from the Field of Mars and the Theater of Pompeius.

Lucius was young and quick, and he knew the streets of the Palatine well. He gained a good lead on his pursuers. He rounded a corner, and then another, and could not see them behind him at all. But he was growing weary; he needed refuge. He realized that he was near the house of Publius Servilius Casca. Surely he could trust Casca, who was deeply indebted to Caesar. The rotund, red-cheeked, bumbling Casca was something of a buffoon. It was impossible to imagine him as a menace to anyone.

Lucius paused for a moment to get his bearings, then sprinted to the end of the street and rounded a corner. There was Casca’s house-and Casca himself standing in the open doorway, evidently on his way out but pausing to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He was reaching into the folds of his voluminous toga, searching for something and looking befuddled.

Exhilarated by the run and by his narrow escape, Lucius drew a deep lungful of air. Casca, startled by his sudden approach, gave a jerk and stumbled against the doorjamb.

“Casca! What are you looking for?” said Lucius, gasping. “If you can hide me half as well-”

Even as Lucius spoke, Casca produced the thing he had been searching for. In his fist he held a short but very sharp dagger. The look in his eyes raised the hackles on Lucius’s neck.

Lucius heard shouts behind him. He had not escaped his pursuers after all. He bolted, but Casca grabbed his arm. The man was stronger than he looked. He called for slaves to come and help him. Lucius struggled. As he sprang free, he felt a searing pain across one forearm. Casca’s blade had scraped him, just deeply enough to drawn a line of blood. Lucius felt sick, but he did not dare to stop running.

The flight continued across the valley of the Circus Maximus and up the winding streets of the Aventine. Near the Temple of Juno, Lucius was sure he had lost them. He hid in a doorway, his heart pounding and his lungs on fire. The trail of blood had thickened on his forearm. The shallow wound burned as if he had been seared by a brand.

Where was Caesar? He must be on his way to the meeting of the Senate by now. Antonius would be with him, surely, along with others who would defend him. But could even Antonius be trusted? And what if Caesar insisted on leaving his bodyguards behind? Lucius thought of the risk the two of them had taken the previous night, walking alone across the Palatine, and trembled.

He must reach Caesar and warn him, but how? Lucius was a fast runner, but even if he sprouted wings and flew, Caesar would almost certainly arrive at the Theater of Pompeius ahead of him, and if Brutus and the rest were already waiting for him…

Lucius had to try. He took a deep breath and began to run again.

Down the Aventine he ran, around the fountain of the Appian Aqueduct and past the Ara Maxima. He was suddenly very weary. His legs turned to lead and his chest seemed to have a tight band of iron across it. There were blisters on his feet. The shoes he had put on that morning were not good for running.

Still he ran, faster than he had thought possible.

At last, the massive facade of the theater loomed before him. To avoid accusations of decadence, Pompeius had dedicated the complex not as a theater but as a temple. By a clever architectural trick, the rows of theater seats also served as steps leading up to a sanctuary of Venus at the summit. Branching off from the theater itself were several porticos decorated with hundreds of statues. These arcades housed shrines, gardens, shops, and public chambers, including the large assembly room where the Senate was to meet.

The public square and the broad steps leading up to the main portico were empty. Lucius had hoped to see the area awash with red and white; here the senators in their crimson-bordered togas were accustomed to mill about before going inside. They had gone inside already.

But no-not quite all of them were inside yet. Lucius spied two figures on the steps, near the top. They stood close together, apparently engaged in a serious conversation. Lucius hurried across the square and reached the bottom of the steps. Looking up, he could see that one of the men was Antonius. The other was a senator he vaguely recognized, a man named Trebonius.

Lucius bounded up the steps. The men saw him approaching and broke off their conversation. Lucius drew near, dizzy and gasping for breath. He staggered. Antonius seized his arm to steady him.

“By Hercules, you look a fright!” Antonius smiled. He seemed more amused than alarmed by Lucius’s appearance. “What’s the matter, young man?”

Lucius was so out of breath it was difficult to speak. “Caesar…” he managed to say.

“Inside, along with everyone else,” said Antonius.

“But why-why are you not with him?”

Antonius raised an eyebrow. “Trebonius here drew me aside-”

“To discuss an important matter-privately.” Trebonius gave Lucius a stern, threatening look.

“But we’re done with that, aren’t we, Trebonius? We really should go in. They haven’t shut the doors yet, have they?” Antonius looked over his shoulder, toward the entrance to the assembly hall. In front of the massive bronze doors, which stood open, priests were clearing blood and organs from the stone altar where auspices were taken before the start of each day’s business. Antonius, whose buoyant mood seemed unshakable, smiled and laughed.

“You wouldn’t believe the slaughter that just went on over there,” he said to Lucius. “One poor creature after another sacrificed and cut open, to take the omens. The first chicken had no heart, which rather alarmed the priests. Caesar ordered another sacrifice, and another, but the priests kept telling him that the entrails were twisted and all the omens were contrary. He finally told them, ‘To Hades with this nonsense, the omens before the battle of Pharsalus were just as bad. Let the Senate get on with its business!’”

Antonius grinned. Why was he in such a jovial mood? Lucius stepped back from the two men. Could even Antonius be trusted?

Lucius felt faint. Spots swam before his eyes. The moment seemed unreal and dreamlike. He stared at the nearby altar, where a priest was mopping up remains. The sight of the rag, saturated with blood and dripping gore, sent a thrill of panic through him. He pushed past the two men and raced toward the entrance.

The hall was an oval-shaped well, with seats on either side descending in tiers to the main floor. The session had not yet commenced. There was a low hubbub of conversation. Most of the senators had taken their seats, but others were milling about on the main floor in front of the chair of state-no one yet dared to call it a throne-on which Caesar was seated. How serene Caesar looked, how confident! In one hand he held a stylus, for marking documents. He turned the stylus this way and that with nimble fingers, the only sign of the nervous excitement he must be feeling on such a momentous day.

One of the senators, Tillius Cimber, stepped toward him, bowing slightly as if importuning Caesar for a favor. Caesar apparently found the request inappropriate. He shook his head and waved his stylus dismissively. Instead of withdrawing, Cimber stepped closer and clutched Caesar’s toga near his shoulder.

“No!” Lucius shouted. His voice rang out high and shrill, like a boy’s. Heads turned toward him. Caesar looked up, saw him and frowned, then immediately returned his attention to Cimber.

Caesar spoke through clenched teeth. “Take your hand off me, Cimber!”

Instead, Cimber yanked at the toga, so forcefully that Caesar was almost pulled from his chair. His toga was askew. The naked flesh of his shoulder was bared.

Holding fast to Caesar’s toga, Cimber looked at the others nearby. As Caesar tried to pull free, Cimber’s expression became frantic.

“What are you all waiting for?” cried Cimber. “Do it! Do it now!”

The portly Casca stepped forward. His forehead was beaded with sweat. A grimace bared his gums. He raised his dagger high in the air.

The sight elicited gasps and exclamations from all over the hall. Only Caesar appeared not to realize what was about to happen; he was still staring at Cimber, looking angry and confused. He turned his head just as Casca plunged the dagger downward. His face registered shock as the blade struck the exposed skin below his neck. There was a sickening sound of metal cutting into flesh.

Caesar let out a roar. He seized Casca’s wrist with one hand. With the other he stabbed his stylus deep into Casca’s forearm. Casca bleated in pain, withdrew his bloody dagger and scurried back.

Others stepped forward, baring their daggers.

Caesar jerked free from Cimber’s grip. His toga was in such disarray that he tripped on it. He was bleeding profusely from the wound at his neck. The look on his face was of outrage and disbelief.

Even then, Lucius thought that disaster might be averted. Caesar was wounded, but on his feet. He had a weapon of sorts-his stylus. If he could hold the would-be assassins at bay long enough for the other senators to rush to his assistance, all might be well. If only Lucius had a weapon!

And where was Antonius?

Lucius looked back toward the entrance. Antonius had just appeared. He stood in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face, realizing from the sudden uproar that something was terribly wrong.

Lucius called to him. “Antonius! Hurry! Come quickly!”

But when Lucius looked back toward Caesar, he lost all hope. The assassins had converged on their victim. Caesar had dropped his stylus. He held up both arms, desperately trying to fend off his attackers. They stabbed him again and again. In all the confusion, a few of them appeared to have stabbed one another by accident.

Blood was everywhere. Caesar’s toga was drenched with it, and the togas of the assassins were spotted with red. There was so much blood on the floor that Casca slipped and fell.

Amid the flashing daggers, Lucius caught a glimpse of Caesar. His face was barely recognizable, contorted with agony. He let out a scream that seemed to come from an animal, not a man. The sound chilled Lucius to the marrow.

Caesar broke free from the men surrounding him. He reeled backward, tripping on his toga and stamping his feet as he staggered past the chair of state, toward the wall, where a statue of the hall’s founder stood in a place of honor. Caesar fell against the pedestal of Pompeius’s statue. He slid downward, smearing the inscription with blood. He ended up slumped on the floor, his back against the pedestal, his legs outstretched.

His disarray was indecent; his undertunic was twisted and pulled aside so as to bare a patch of flesh where his thigh met his groin. Jerking like a spastic, flailing grotesquely, he seemed to be trying with one hand to cover his face with a fold of his toga, and with the other to cover his nakedness. Caesar was dying, yet he still sought to preserve his dignity.

Some of the assassins looked horrified at what they had done. Others looked exhilarated, even jubilant. Among the latter was Cassius, who was covered with blood. He strode toward Brutus, who stood at the edge of the group and had not a drop of blood on him. Nor was there any blood on the dagger in his hand.

“You, too, Brutus!” said Cassius.

Brutus looked numb. He seemed unable to move.

“You have to do it,” insisted Cassius. “Each of us must strike a blow. Twenty-three brave men; twenty-three blows for freedom. Do it!”

Brutus stepped slowly toward the twitching, bloody figure at the base of Pompeius’s statue. He seemed horrified by Caesar’s appearance. He swallowed hard, clutched his dagger, and knelt beside him.

With blood spilling from his mouth and running over his chin, Caesar managed one last utterance. “You, too…my child?”

Brutus appeared emboldened by the words. He gritted his teeth, pulled back his dagger, and plunged it into the exposed place where Caesar’s thigh met his groin. Caesar thrashed and convulsed. Blood bubbled from his lips. He stiffened, uttered a final grunt, and did not move again.

Lucius, watching from a distance, saw everything. He was transfixed with horror, oblivious to the stampede of senators rushing to the exit. He felt a hand on his shoulder and gave a start. It was Antonius. The man’s face was ashen. His voice trembled.

“Come with me, Lucius. You’re not safe here.”

Lucius shook his head. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move. He had come to warn Caesar. He had failed.

Brutus walked slowly and calmly toward them. The feverish glimmer had left his eyes. His held his shoulders back, his chin up. He had the look of a man who had done a difficult thing and done it well.

“No one will harm you, Lucius Pinarius. You have nothing to fear. Neither do you, Antonius, as long as you don’t raise your sword against us.”

The chamber was almost empty. The only senators who remained were those too old to run.

Brutus shook his head in disgust. “This wasn’t the reaction we anticipated. I meant to give a speech after it was done, to explain ourselves to the others. But they’ve all run off, like frightened geese.”

“A speech?” said Antonius, incredulous.

Brutus reached into his toga and produced a scrap of parchment. His fingers smudged the document with blood. He frowned, displeased that he had marred it. “I was up all night working on it. Well, if not today, then I’ll deliver it tomorrow, when the Senate resumes normal business.”

“Normal business?” Antonius shook his head in disbelief.

“Yes. The normal business of the Senate of Roma, freed from the rule of a tyrant. The Republic has been restored. The people will rejoice. Five hundred years ago, my ancestor Brutus freed Roma from a wicked king. Today we followed his example-”

“Give your speech to somebody else!” shouted Lucius. He shoved Brutus aside and ran toward the exit, weeping.

Antonius caught up with him. “Come with me, Lucius. No matter what Brutus says, we’re not safe. My house has strong doors, high walls…”

They were on the steps, descending to the public square. There was not a person in sight.

“But…his body,” said Lucius. “What if they throw him in the Tiber, as they did the Gracchi?”

“That will not happen,” said Antonius grimly. “I won’t let such a thing happen. Caesar will have a proper funeral. On my honor as a Roman, I promise you that!”

When he was annoyed, Gaius Octavius’s voice could become quite shrill. He needed oratorical training to overcome the defect, thought Lucius. In the days since Caesar’s assassination and Gaius Octavius’s return to Roma, Lucius had grown very tired of hearing that shrill note in his cousin’s voice.

“From this day forward, Antonius, you will address me as Caesar,” said Octavius, sounding even more shrill and annoyed than usual. “I don’t ask it of you. I demand it!”

“Demand it? You make a demand of me?” Antonius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He wrinkled his nose. “In the first place, young man, this is my house; here, I give the orders. I used to take orders from Caesar, because he was my commander, but Caesar is dead. He was the last man I’ll ever take orders from. I certainly won’t take orders from his niece’s brat-and I won’t call you by his name! As long as we’re discussing titles, perhaps you should address me as Consul, as I’m the only one of the three of us here in this room who actually holds a magistracy.”

“Only because Caesar saw fit to appoint you-as he saw fit to name me his son and heir!” snapped Octavius.

Antonius bristled. “This is my house, Octavius. You are my guest-”

Lucius rose to his feet. “Marcus! Cousin Gaius! Does this meeting have to be so contentious? The whole city is a viper’s nest. If I want to be subjected to vicious arguments and hateful words, I have only to step outside the door. Can the three of us not speak to one another with some degree of decorum?”

“A good idea, cousin,” said Octavius. “Decorum begins with addressing a man by his rightful name. Caesar’s will made me his son by adoption, and I have taken his name. I am now Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.”

“I understand,” said Lucius. “But if Antonius happens to address you by your old name, why not allow it? Octavius an honorable name, a patrician name, and he honors you and your ancestors when he speaks it. Antonius is our friend, cousin. We need him. He is the shield between us and the men who murdered our uncle. Are we not allies? Do we not share a common purpose? Are the three of us not close enough to call each other by first name, or family name, or whatever name we wish? Can you not simply drop the point for now, cousin Gaius? The question at hand isn’t what we call each other, or yet another discussion of Caesar’s will, but how to keep our heads!”

For the moment, Octavius was silenced, and so was Antonius. It still surprised Lucius that he could command their attention and argue with such self-confidence. Almost overnight, after the initial shock of Caesar’s assassination had passed, Lucius had felt himself transformed. He was no longer a callow youth who hesitated to assert himself in conversation with his elders. He was one of Caesar’s heirs, engaged in a desperate struggle for the future.

When it came down to it, Octavius was only a couple of years older and only slightly more experienced than himself. True, Octavius had seen a bit of battle, but not enough to prove himself a gifted strategist, much less a hero. His overbearing pride sprang from vanity, not accomplishments. In some ways, at least in Lucius’s opinion, his cousin was quite deficient. To begin with, Octavius’s oratorical skills were not at all impressive, no matter what Caesar had thought.

Antonius was a far more polished and persuasive speaker, as he had shown when he delivered Caesar’s funeral oration before a huge crowd. The speech had been intensely dramatic yet remarkably subtle. Antonius never said a word against the killers, but by praising Caesar he moved his listeners to tears of grief and cries of outrage. Without directly saying so, he made the case that Roma had been defiled by the murder of a great leader, not liberated by the assassination of a tyrant. Antonius had also revealed one of the terms of Caesar’s will: From his vast personal fortune, Caesar had decreed a generous disbursement of seventy-five Attic drachmas to every citizen living in Roma. This had done much to sway the crowd against Caesar’s assassins.

But Antonius, too, had his faults, as Lucius had become all too aware in recent days. For one thing, he drank too much. In happier times, the man’s appetite for debauchery had impressed and even awed Lucius. Now it struck him as foolhardy; the jeopardy in which they found themselves demanded clear thinking. Antonius also had a streak of pettiness. His refusal to address Octavius as Caesar was perhaps understandable, because it raised a sore point: Octavius was the chief benefactor of Caesar’s will, while Antonius, to everyone’s surprise, had been left out of the will entirely. Nonetheless, Antonius’s repeated and deliberate baiting of Octavius served no one’s purpose.

The will was the crux of the matter. In it, Caesar posthumously adopted Octavius as his son, and bequeathed to him half his estate. The other half he divided equally between his nephew Quintus Pedius, who was still away from the city, and his great-nephew, Lucius Pinarius. So much for the special debt that Caesar had owed to Lucius on account of his grandfather’s sacrifice; Octavius had merited adoption, but not Lucius! Lucius had his own reasons to be resentful of Octavius, but he was determined to move past them.

The will had made no mention of Caesarion, Cleopatra’s son. Immediately after the assassination, the Egyptian queen vacated Caesar’s villa and sailed back to Alexandria.

Politically, it was left to Caesar’s long-time subordinates, Antonius and Lepidus, to uphold his edicts and maintain the order he had imposed on the state, but without the benefit of his dictatorial powers. The cooperation of Caesar’s heirs was vital to their cause. Each of the three cousins had inherited an enormous fortune, and each could exert a tremendous sentimental appeal to those who had supported Caesar and now mourned him. In return, the heirs needed the protection and experienced advice that Lepidus and, especially, Antonius could provide. Driven by necessity, this alliance had been uneasy from the start, rife with mutual suspicions and resentments, especially between Octavius and Antonius.

In the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, Roma had become a cauldron of intrigue. The conspirators against Caesar numbered at least sixty men; some had taken part in the actual killing while others had only lent support. Should those men be declared criminals and brought to trial, or applauded as saviors of the Republic? Three days after the Ides of Martius, the Senate voted an amnesty for the assassins, drafted in careful language that neither acknowledged their guilt nor praised their patriotism.

Despite the Senate’s amnesty, fierce partisans on both sides had resorted to violence. An innocent tribune named Cinna, unlucky enough to be mistaken for one of the conspirators, had literally been torn apart by an angry mob; pieces of his body were scattered across the Forum. After gangs threatened to burn down the houses of Cassius and Brutus, both men left Roma to prematurely claim the provincial governorships that Caesar had scheduled for them.

This raised a further question: Were Caesar’s appointments still valid? Brutus and Cassius argued that Caesar was a tyrant and usurper. If that were so, how could any of his decrees be legally valid, including their own provincial appointments?

The legitimacy of every act by every magistrate was now routinely called into question by partisans of one side or the other. Who possessed legal authority, and by what right? Those who had hoped that Caesar’s death would result in a quick and harmonious restoration of senatorial power were bitterly disappointed. Roma was poised on a sword’s edge, ready to fall into chaos. After so many years of death and destruction, the outbreak of another civil war was an almost unbearable prospect, yet increasingly it seemed inevitable.

The future was fraught with uncertainty. The future was what Lucius and his cousin had come to the house of Antonius to discuss. Yet the discussion seemed to circle back endlessly to recriminations about things already past.

It was Octavius who broke the strained silence. “The conspirators should have been dealt with at once, immediately following the murder. You, Antonius, as consul, had the power to arrest them. You could have invoked the Ultimate Decree-”

“There were no senators left in the chamber to vote on such a proposal!”

“Even so, if, instead of fleeing to your house, you had taken immediate action against the men who killed my father-”

“If you think it would have been as easy as that, young man, then you’re even more naive than I thought, and you are certainly not Caesar’s son!”

“Enough!” said Lucius. “You both need to stop this squabbling and return to the matter at hand. Namely, the need to deal with Cassius and Brutus. It may or may not be possible to convince the Senate to declare that Caesar’s murder was a criminal act. Most of the senators seem inclined to mimic Cicero. They’ll avoid taking sides as long as possible, until they see how things fall out. For now, the Senate’s amnesty protects the assassins.

“However, it seems to me that the premature seizures by Cassius and Brutus of their provinces were unquestionably illegal. Those actions could be construed as hostile acts against the state, and thus lay them open to military action by you, Antonius, acting as consul.”

“If any military action is taken, Caesar must take part as well,” said Octavius, adopting his great-uncle’s habit of referring to himself in the third person-to Antonius’s disgust, as evidenced by the gritting of his teeth. “It’s Caesar’s fortune that can raise the troops. It’s Caesar’s name to which his veterans will swear loyalty. And if I am to command troops in the field, I must be given full consular authority.”

“Impossible!” said Antonius. “You’re far too young.”

“By what reckoning? My great-uncle appointed men to magistracies who were under the required age. Thus there is legal precedent-”

“An important point, cousin,” said Lucius. “We must be seen to follow the law. Any military action must be perceived as just and necessary. There must be no grounds for anyone to assert that we have initiated”-he hesitated even to say the words-“that we have initiated a civil war for personal gain or private revenge. We must win the support of the Senate, the legions, and the people. But how? It’s the sort of challenge at which Uncle Gaius excelled so brilliantly.”

Lucius took a deep breath. He looked from one man to the other. He had no illusions that he could assume Caesar’s mantle of leadership, but increasingly it seemed to him that neither Antonius nor Octavius was fit to do so either, no matter that one had been Caesar’s right-hand man and the other was his adopted son. They were barely able to keep peace between themselves.

As if to prove him right, both men began to speak at the same time. Neither would yield. Instead they raised their voices. Lucius clapped his hands over his ears.

“Marcus! Cousin Gaius! Be quiet and listen to what I have to say. You’re both ambitious men. You both have a craving to rule the state. Good for you! The gods admire ambition, especially in a Roman. But my ambition-my only ambition-is to avenge Caesar’s death. All the assassins must be declared outlaws. They must be hunted down. They must be killed. Brutus and Cassius are our foremost concern. I’m eager to take up arms against them. Put a sword in my hand, and I’ll readily serve under either of you-you, Gaius, or you, Marcus, I don’t care which! But I don’t believe either of you can see the task to completion without the other. I beg of you, stop this bickering and bend your wills to the common purpose!”

He stared at Antonius, who finally shrugged and nodded.

He stared at Octavius. His cousin raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, cousin Lucius. Such a clear-sighted sense of purpose is just what we need to keep us on course. Well, Antonius? Shall we get back to business?”

The discussion that followed was fruitful. Lucius was glad to have spoken out. But as he looked from Octavius to Antonius, he knew his words had not been entirely truthful. He had said he didn’t care which man he served under, but in his heart, there was no question which of them he preferred: the hot-blooded, plain-spoken, pleasure-loving, sometimes crude Antonius. Partly this was because of the affection the man had shown him. Partly it was because his cousin Gaius was so vain and cold-blooded. Antonius he could serve with enthusiasm. Octavius he would serve if he must.

Lucius prayed to the gods he would never be forced to choose between them.

1 B.C.

Lucius Pinarius dreamed an old, recurring dream. It was a nightmare he had first experienced on the Ides of Martius long ago, when he was young.

In the dream he was both participant and observer, aware he was dreaming and yet unable to stop the dream. Caesar had died. A great multitude had gathered to hear the reading of his will. A Vestal virgin produced a scroll. Marcus Antonius unrolled the document and proceeded to read. Though Lucius stood at the front of the crowd, he could not hear the names being read. He heard only the roar of the crowd in his ears, like the crashing of waves. He wanted to tell the others to be quiet, but he could not open his mouth to speak. He could not move at all. Antonius continued to read, but Lucius could not hear, speak, or move.

With a start and a shiver, he woke from the dream. He was trembling and covered with sweat. The dream was like an old enemy, still hounding him after all these years, taunting him with memories of his youth and of the bright promises that had been shattered by Caesar’s death. But the dream had been visiting him for so many years it had almost become an old friend. Where else but in the dream could he see again the face of Antonius, alive and in his prime?

Lucius wiped the sleep from his eyes. Slowly, he came to his senses. The dream faded.

Against all odds, Lucius Pinarius had become an old man. He was sixty.

So many men of his generation had died in the civil wars that followed Caesar’s death. If they survived the wars, accident or illness had eventually taken them off to Hades. But Lucius was still alive.

He rose from his bed, relieved himself in the chamber pot, and slipped into a tunic. Later he would put on his senatorial toga, for this was an important day, but for now a tunic would do.

The cook prepared for him a simple breakfast of farina cooked with a little milk and water and sweetened with a dab of honey. Lucius still had strong teeth, but his digestion was not what it used to be. Nowadays, the blander the food, the better. Chewing a mouthful of mush, he thought back to the days of endless feasting in Alexandria. Wines from Greece, dates from Parthia, crocodile eggs from the Nile; serving girls from Nubia, dancers from Ethiopia, courtesans from Antioch! Whatever else people said about Antonius and Cleopatra, no one could deny that those two had known how to mount a banquet-especially in their final months and days, as the end drew near for them.

It was the dream’s fault, that he should be thinking of Antonius. Remembering made Lucius sad. The mush turned bitter in his mouth.

But today was not about the past. Today was about the future. His grandson was coming.

Even as he thought about the boy, the door slave announced that young Lucius Pinarius had just arrived and was waiting in the vestibule.

“Already?” said Lucius. “He’s early. Ah, well, he can spend a few minutes contemplating the effigies of his ancestors while I force a bit more of this mush down my gullet. Meanwhile, order the bearers to bring a litter around to the front door.”

“Which litter, master?”

“Oh, the fancy one, I should think, with the yellow curtains and embroidered pillows and all those brass baubles hanging off it. Today is a special day!”

“Once upon a time-before this blasted stiffness in my knees-I’d have walked to the Baths of Agrippa, no matter that they’re all the way out on the Field of Mars. But here we are, two Roman males, taking a litter through the streets. I blush to think of what our ancestors would have thought of such an indulgence!” Lucius smiled at his grandson, who sat beside him and seemed to be enjoying the ride. The boy leaned forward and turned his head this way and that, peering at the passing sights with the insatiable curiosity of a ten-year-old. Ideally, Lucius would have waited until his grandson’s toga day for this occasion, but that was years away. Lucius might not live to see it. Better to tend to his duty now, while he still had his wits and a pulse.

“Why do they call this the Field of Mars, Grandfather?”

“Let me think. Very, very long ago, I believe it must have been called the Field of Mavors, because that was the ancient name for Mars. I suppose someone built an altar to the god, so naturally they named the whole area for Mars-”

“Yes, but why is it called a field? There’s no field here. All I can see are streets and buildings.”

“Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, it’s all built up now. But it wasn’t always so. I can remember a time when the Field of Mars, or at least a large portion of it, was still open to the sky, a place for soldiers to drill and for large groups to assemble. Now the city’s spread outward to fill up every patch of land between the ancient walls and the Tiber. I see we’re passing by Pompeius’s theater now. I was about your age when that opened.”

Lucius’s eyes followed the steps leading to the main portico. He never passed the theater without remembering what he had witnessed there, but he was not in a mood to speak of it and was grateful that the boy did not question him about it. “Up ahead is the Pantheon, of course, which was built by the emperor’s right-hand man, Marcus Agrippa. And near the Pantheon are the baths, which Agrippa built at the same time. When the baths opened, twenty years ago, it was quite an event, because there had never been anything like them in Roma before. Once the baths were open, all sorts of shops and arcades were built in the vicinity.”

The boy furrowed his brow. “If the Baths of Agrippa were the first baths built in Roma, did no one ever bathe before that?”

Lucius smiled. At least the boy was curious about the past. So many people nowadays seemed oblivious of all that had come before, as if Roma had always been at peace and ruled by an emperor-as if there had never been a republic, or a series of civil wars, or a man named Antonius.

There he went, thinking of Antonius again…

“The Baths of Agrippa weren’t the first baths in Roma, but they were much bigger and much more beautiful than any of the previous baths. They were also the first to be open to everyone and free of charge-a gift from the emperor to the people-which made them very popular. Half the reason for going to the baths is to see and be seen, and to mingle outside one’s class. Economic and social disparities between citizens tend to dissolve when everyone is naked and wet.”

Young Lucius laughed. “You say the funniest things, Grandfather.”

“I try. Speaking of the baths, here we are.”

Lucius enjoyed the morning immensely. Time spent with his grandson was always precious, and the diversions offered by the baths were among the greatest pleasures of city life. The day began with a shave from his most trusted slave. Young Lucius watched the procedure with great interest. His father wore a beard these days, so the boy was not used to seeing the skillful application of a sharp blade to a man’s face.

After the shave, they went outside to the open-air pool-a man-made lake, some called it, on account of its size-where the two of them swam a few laps side by side. The boy’s stroke was choppy, but his breathing technique was good. Wherever life might take him, young Lucius would surely have occasion to travel by ship, and it would behoove him to know how to swim. How many of Antonius’s soldiers had drowned at the decisive naval battle at Actium, not because their armor pulled them under, but because they simply did not know how to swim?

Again, he found himself thinking of Antonius…

A gymnasiarch organized a series of competitions on the long racing track beside the pool. Lucius encouraged his grandson to take part. He was delighted to see the boy win his first two heats. Young Lucius was beaten in the third race, but only by a nose. His grandson was a strong runner.

Another gymnasiarch organized a series of wrestling matches. The competitors were all older and bigger than young Lucius, who sat with his grandfather among the spectators. The wrestlers competed in Greek fashion, naked and with their bodies oiled. Such a diversion, like being carried in a litter, struck Lucius as slightly decadent. What would his ancestors think? True Romans preferred to watch gladiators fight to the death.

Lucius recalled how the emperor, in his heated propaganda war against Antonius and Cleopatra, had railed against the dangerous influx of foreign vices, saying the Greek-blooded queen had corrupted Antonius with the appetites of the luxurious East. Yet, once he triumphed over his rivals, the emperor had made Roma a more cosmopolitan city than ever before. He allowed Agrippa to build the baths. He imported the worship of exotic gods. He catered at every turn to the citizens’ appetite for entertainment and pleasure.

Finished with their morning exercise, Lucius and the boy bathed. They began by scraping the sweat from their bodies, using strigils. They did so in the shadow of the famous statue by Lysippus which depicted a naked athlete doing exactly the same thing, bending back one muscular arm to run his strigil over the other arm, which was extended before him. Agrippa had installed the statue at the baths with great fanfare. Lysippus had been the court sculptor to Alexander the Great. Though many copies had been made of the Apoxyomenos, as The Scraper was known in Greek, the original bronze was of incalculable value. The statue was yet another lavish gift from the emperor to the people of Roma.

Lucius and the boy went back and forth between pools of varying temperature. The coolest was quite bracing after their exercise. The hottest was obscured by a curtain of steam and required a gradual process of immersion. Even the floors were heated, by water piped beneath the tiles. The walls were of marble, and even in the wettest areas Agrippa’s decorators had found means to adorn them with paintings, infusing dyes into beeswax, then fixing and hardening the images with heat. The paintings depicted gods, goddesses, and heroes. Scenes of legend appeared to hover in the mist.

After bathing, they wrapped themselves in linen cloths and took a light meal in an adjoining arcade. The boy ate pieces of bread slathered with garum. Lucius abstained from the spicy garum and ate fig-paste instead.

They discussed the boy’s studies. He was currently reading The Aeneid by the late Virgil, who had been the emperor’s favorite poet. When the emperor asked Virgil to create a Roman epic to match The Iliad and The Odyssey of the Greeks, The Aeneid was the result. The long poem about the adventures of Aeneas celebrated the Trojan warrior as the son of Venus and the founder of the Roman race. Aeneas, it turned out, was the ancestor not only of the emperor and his uncle, the Divine Julius, but also of Romulus and Remus. If Lucius had doubts about the historical validity of The Aeneid, he did not express them to the boy. There was no denying that Virgil had created a work of art that greatly pleased the emperor.

After eating, they rested. A few old friends and colleagues stopped to say hello, and Lucius was delighted to introduce his grandson. The talk turned to foreign imports, the cost of slaves, the advantages and disadvantages of transport by land or by sea, and who had been awarded contracts for various construction projects in the city. “As you can see, my boy,” remarked Lucius, “these days, more business is done here in the baths than in the Forum.”

In the old days, of course, all the talk would have been about politics and war. Nowadays, war was an activity on the distant frontier that might or might not affect trade, and politics-true politics, as their forefathers had understood the word, with everyone freely arguing and shouting to make themselves heard-no longer existed. One might speculate about intrigues within the imperial family, or conjecture about the relative influence wielded by members of the emperor’s immediate circle-but only in whispers.

Exercised, bathed, and fed, the two retired to the dressing room. Young Lucius slipped into the tunic he had worn earlier, but his grandfather, assisted by the slave who had shaved him, put on his toga. While the boy watched, he pontificated on the proper wearing of the toga.

“A man isn’t simply wrapped in his toga,” he explained. “He carries it, as he carries himself, with a show of dignity and pride. Shoulders back, head up. And the drapes should fall just so. Too few folds, and you look as if someone threw a sheet over you. Too many folds, and you look as if you’re carrying a bundle of laundry to the fuller.”

The boy’s laughter delighted Lucius. It meant that his grandson was paying attention. He was watching, listening, learning.

The slave handed his master a shiny trinket on a golden chain. Lucius slipped the necklace over his head and tucked it beneath his toga.

“What’s that, Grandfather? An amulet of some sort?”

“Not just any amulet, my boy. It’s very old, and very important, and today is the very last day I shall ever wear it. But we’ll talk of it later. For now, I want to show you a bit of the city. There are some places I should like you to see through my eyes.”

“Shall I summon the litter?” asked the slave.

“Actually, I think not. The hot plunge has so loosened my knees that I think I might be up for a bit of walking. But you must be patient, young Lucius, and not run ahead of me.”

“I shall stay by your side, Grandfather.”

Lucius nodded. How polite the boy was, always respectful and well-mannered. He was studious, as well, and very clean and neat. The boy was a product of his times. The world had become a much more orderly, peaceful, settled place than it was in the old days of the civil wars. His ancestors would be proud of young Lucius. They would be proud of the harmonious world that their descendents, through much bloodshed and toil, had finally achieved.

As they headed out from the baths, a flash of excitement crossed young Lucius’s face, then he bit his lower lip nervously.

“What is it, my boy?”

“I was thinking, Grandfather, as long as we’re taking a walk, and we’re so close-but father says it’s something you don’t like to talk about. Only, he says you were actually there, when it happened…”

“Ah, yes. I think I know what you’re trying to say. Yes, that will be our first stop. But I have to warn you, there’s nothing to see.”

“Nothing?”

“As you shall observe.”

They strolled to the Theater of Pompeius. Lucius took the steps slowly, but not on account of his knees. As they reached the top, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His skin prickled and his breath grew short. Even after all these years, he felt a sense of dread as they drew near to the spot.

They came to a brick wall. “It was here,” he said. “This is the place where the Divine Julius, your great-great-granduncle, met the end of his mortal life.”

The boy frowned. “I thought it happened in some sort of assembly hall, at the foot of Pompeius’s statue.”

“Yes. The entrance to the hall was here, and the place where Caesar fell was perhaps fifty paces from this spot. But the hall has been sealed. Some years ago the emperor decreed-or rather, the Senate voted, at the emperor’s behest-that this place should be declared an accursed site, never to be seen or set foot upon. The statue of Pompeius was removed and placed elsewhere in the theater complex. The entrance to the hall was walled up, like a tomb. The Ides of Martius was declared a day of infamy, and it was forbidden that the Senate should ever again meet on that date. As I told you, there’s nothing to see.”

“But it’s true, Grandfather, that you were here? That you saw it happen?”

“Yes. I saw the assassins strike. I saw Caesar fall. I heard his final words to the infamous Brutus. Antonius was here, too, though he arrived after I did. They purposely detained him outside, partly to prevent him from shielding Caesar, but also, I think, because they didn’t wish to kill him. The assassins did possess a certain sense of honor. They truly believed that what they were doing was for the good of Roma.”

“But how can that be? They were bloodthirsty killers.”

“Yes, they were that, as well.”

The boy frowned. “And Antonius; I thought he was-”

“But let us speak no more of this,” said Lucius. “There’s so much more I want to show you.”

They walked toward the older parts of the city. In the Forum Boarium, Lucius showed the boy the Ara Maxima, and informed him of the role once played by the Pinarii in maintaining the cult of Hercules. Long ago, that religious role had been abandoned by the family, but it marked the first appearance of the Pinarii in history, and so was never to be forgotten. They had shared the duty with another family, but the Potitii were long extinct, as were a number of the original patrician families, whose names now existed only in annals and inscriptions.

They ascended the Palatine, walking slowly up the ancient Stairs of Cacus, which took them by a recess in the stone reputed to have been the very cave where the monster once dwelled. They paused beneath the shade of the fig tree said to be a descendent of the legendary ruminalis, beneath which Acca Larentia had suckled the infants Romulus and Remus. They visited the Hut of Romulus, which even the boy could see was too new to be the actual hut where the founder had lived; the civic landmark had been rebuilt many times over the centuries.

They descended to the Forum, which in recent years had become even more crowded with monuments and temples.

“Once upon a time, all of this was a lake, or so they say,” remarked Lucius. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? The first temples were made of wood.”

“Everything I can see is made of marble,” said the boy.

Lucius nodded. “The emperor’s proud boast: ‘I found Roma a city of bricks, but I shall leave it a city of marble.’ During his reign, a great many buildings have been restored, refurbished, even rebuilt from the foundations up. The quaint shrines have been dusted, the ancient glories have been burnished; everything has been made bigger and more beautiful than before. The emperor has given us peace and prosperity. The emperor has made Roma the most resplendent of all the cities that ever existed, the undisputed center of the world.”

They came to a statue of the emperor, one of many in the city. This one depicted him as a young warrior, handsome and virile and armed for battle. The inscription referred to his great victory at Philippi, in Macedonia, when he was only twenty-one years old: “I sent into exile the murderers of my father, and when they made war on the Republic, I defeated them in battle.” It seemed to Lucius that the statue flattered his cousin. Octavius had never been quite that handsome, and he certainly had not been that muscular and broad-shouldered.

The boy gazed up at the statue with a less critical eye. “Father tells me that you were at Philippi, too, Grandfather, when the assassins Brutus and Cassius were brought to justice. He says you fought right alongside the emperor.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly.” Octavius, as he recalled, had been sick in bed for most of the battle, except for the time he spent hiding in a marsh after his camp was overrun by Brutus. “I myself inflicted no bloodshed at Philippi. I was in charge of supply lines for the legions led by Marcus Antonius.”

“Antonius?” The boy frowned. “But he was the emperor’s enemy, wasn’t he? He became the willing slave of the Egyptian whore!”

Lucius winced. “That happened later, much later. At Philippi, Octavius and Antonius-”

“Octavius?”

“I misspoke. Octavius was the name that the emperor received at birth. Later, of course, he was adopted by the Divine Julius, and was called Caesar from that time forward. Later he took the majestic title of Augustus, and so we call him Caesar Augustus. But I digress. As I was saying, at Philippi, the emperor and Marcus Antonius were allies. They fought together to avenge the Divine Julius. Cassius and Brutus were defeated, and they killed themselves. But Philippi was only the beginning. Some sixty senators took part in the conspiracy against Caesar; within a few years, every one of them was dead. Some died by shipwreck, some in battle; some took their own lives, using the same dagger with which they had stabbed Caesar. Even some who had not plotted against Caesar were dead, like Cicero; he made an enemy of Antonius, and he lost his head and his hands for it.”

“His hands?”

“Cicero made vile speeches against Antonius, so when Antonius ordered him killed, he commanded that Cicero’s hands should be cut off along with his head, for having written such offensive words. There is no denying that Antonius had a vindictive nature.”

“Was that why the emperor killed Antonius, because he murdered Cicero?”

“No.” Lucius sighed. The truth was so very complicated, especially when large parts of it were not to be spoken aloud. “The two of them remained friends-well, allies-for a number of years. Then Antonius threw in his lot with Cleopatra, and some thought that Antonius and Cleopatra would rule Egypt and the East, and the emperor would rule Roma and the West. But-so philosophers tell us-just as the heavens are one under the rule of Jupiter, so the earth naturally desires to be united under one emperor. Antonius’s dreams came to ruin.”

“Because of the Egyptian whore?”

Again Lucius winced. “Come with me, young man. There’s something else I want you to see.”

They made their way to the Julian Forum. Left unfinished by Caesar, the arcades for courtrooms and offices had been completed by the emperor. Still dominating the open square was the magnificent statue of Caesar sitting atop a charger. How much more at home in his armor the Divine Julius looked than did his successor, thought Lucius.

The square was crowded with men going to and fro, talking to one another and carrying documents. Under the emperor, the legal codes had grown more complicated than ever, and lawyers were kept even busier than they had been under the Republic, settling private disputes, adjudicating bankruptcies, and negotiating contracts.

Lucius and the boy walked past the splashing fountain and into the Temple of Venus. Lucius still considered it the most beautiful interior in all of Roma, unsurpassed even by the emperor’s most lavish projects. Here were the famous paintings of Ajax and Medea by Timomachus; here were the cabinets containing the fabulous jewels and gemstones that Caesar had collected in his travels.

Holding the boy’s hand, Lucius strode before the two statues at the far end of the sanctuary. The Venus of Arcesilaus remained unsurpassed. And beside the Venus, despite the misfortunes that had befallen the flesh-and-blood original, stood the gilded statue of Queen Cleopatra, last of the long line of the Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt since the time of Alexander the Great. Some had thought that the emperor would remove the statue, but here it remained, where Julius Caesar himself had installed it.

“Despite what you may have heard, she was not a whore,” said Lucius quietly. “As far as I know, she slept with only two men in her entire life: the Divine Julius and Marcus Antonius. To both she gave children. The emperor in his wisdom saw fit to execute Caesarion, but he spared her children by Antonius.”

“But everyone says that she-”

“What everyone says is not always the truth. It served the emperor’s purposes to call her a whore and a seducer, but she was far more than that. She considered herself a goddess. For better or for worse, she behaved like one.”

The boy frowned. “And when she lured Antonius to join her, you sided with the emperor to fight against them?”

“No. Not in the beginning. At the start of the war between them, I fought for Antonius.”

“For Antonius? With Cleopatra? Against the emperor?” The boy was incredulous.

“Antonius was my friend. He was my protector when I was very young, in the perilous days after Caesar was murdered. He had always been loyal to Caesar; I felt obliged to be loyal to him. So I served under him at Philippi, and I remained in his service afterward, even when another civil war broke out and the emperor declared him the enemy of Roma. Antonius posted me to the city of Cyrene, to watch his west flank. Do you know where Cyrene is?”

The boy frowned. “Not exactly.”

“It’s on the Libyan coast, west of Alexandria, which was Cleopatra’s capital. If she and Antonius had won, my boy, Alexandria-not Roma-would have become the capital of the world. Roma might have become nothing more than a provincial backwater.”

“Impossible!”

“Yes, you’re right. I once heard the Divine Julius himself declare that the gods chose Roma to rule the world; how could I forget? But back in those heady days, when I was young and Antonius and Cleopatra were riding the serpent’s tail, anything seemed possible. Anything!” He sighed. “At any event, there I was in Cyrene. I was to be Antonius’s watchdog should his enemies attempt to sail toward Egypt hugging the Libyan coastline. In the meantime, while I watched and waited and drilled my soldiers, I minted coins for Antonius to pay his debts. War is expensive! That reminds me, I have a silver denarius for you, one of the coins I minted for Antonius.” Lucius reached into his toga. “They’re rather rare these days. Many of them were melted down and recast with the image of the emperor.”

The boy accepted the heavy coin and gazed at it with great interest. “I recognize Victory, bare-breasted in profile with her wings behind her and carrying a wreath…but there’s something else I can’t make out…”

“A palm frond,” says Lucius. “Palms grow wild along the Nile.”

The boy turned the coin over. “But who is this fellow, with the flowing beard?”

“None other than the king of gods, Jupiter.”

“But he has ram’s horns!”

“That’s because this is Jupiter Ammon, his Egyptian manifestation, who is called Zeus Ammon by the Alexandrians, who speak Greek. Alexander the Great worshiped Zeus Ammon. So did his general Ptolemy, who inherited Egypt. It was Ptolemy who founded the dynasty that ruled Egypt for almost three hundred years, until the royal house ended with Cleopatra.”

“And…she was not a whore?” The boy remained dubious.

“Her enemies in Roma alleged that she was, while she lived. Everyone seems to believe so now, long after she’s dead. But Caesar didn’t think so. Nor did Antonius. Cleopatra considered herself the manifestation of the goddess Isis. A woman tends to take procreation rather seriously when she thinks that carnal union might result in a god or goddess springing out of her womb!”

“Whatever she was, she lost everything, didn’t she, and she took down Antonius along with her?”

Lucius nodded. “Antonius and Cleopatra gathered a great navy and sailed off to Greece, to meet the Emperor in battle. I stayed behind in Cyrene, and waited for news. The sea battle took place at Actium. The navy of the emperor, under the command of Marcus Agrippa, destroyed the navy of Antonius and Cleopatra. It was all over then, and everyone knew it. Antonius sent me a desperate message, saying he was coming to collect my troops.”

“And then what happened?”

Lucius’s face grew dark. “I killed the messengers. I sent word to Antonius that he would not be welcome in Cyrene. I finally came to my senses, you see. I saw that the gods had sided with the emperor, that they had sided with him all along, and only an ungodly man would continue to stand against him.”

The boy nodded gravely, as at the outcome of a moral tale, satisfied that his grandfather had at last seen reason. But the look on Lucius’s face was grim.

“Antonius and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, to await the end. Some say they spent those final months indulging in every possible vice, squeezing life for the last vestiges of pleasure. Perhaps that tale is only another slander against them, but to me it has the ring of truth. How those two loved to drink and carouse! Cleopatra also set about testing various poisons on her slaves, to determine which caused the least painful death. When the emperor and his legions arrived in Egypt, and all hope was gone, Antonius fell on his sword. But Cleopatra…”

“Yes, Grandfather? What happened to Cleopatra?” The boy studied his grandfather’s face. His eyes grew wide. “Were you there, Grandfather? Were you there in Alexandria when…?”

“Yes, I was there. Octavius-the emperor-insisted that I accompany him. He was determined to take Cleopatra alive. He wanted to bring her back to Roma and parade her in his triumph. But the queen had other plans.”

How much should he tell the boy? Certainly not all of the story. He had never told that to anyone…

Antonius was dead. Cleopatra’s army had vanished, like smoke on the wind. Occupied by Octavius’s forces, the city of Alexandria held its breath. The queen remained in the royal palace, holed up with two handmaidens in a sealed chamber that could be entered only by climbing a rope through a trapdoor from below. She could not flee, but nor could she be taken by force.

On a terrace of the palace with a splendid view of the harbor and the famous lighthouse, Lucius was summoned before Octavius. The commander dispensed with greetings and got straight to the point.

“You have a long association with the queen. She knows you, cousin. She trusts you.”

“Not anymore. I betrayed her.”

“Even so, you stand a better chance of coaxing her out of her lair than I do. I want Cleopatra alive, not dead. Go to her. Talk about Antonius and the good old days, and what might have been. Flatter her. Cajole her. When you’ve regained her trust, say whatever you have to say to convince her to surrender to me. Assure her that I intend to treat her with all the respect due to her rank and lineage. She will appear in my triumphal procession, but she will not be mistreated.”

“Is that the truth?”

Octavius laughed. “Of course not. I intend to see her completely broken and humiliated before she dies. Roma demands nothing less than the complete destruction of the Egyptian whore. She’ll be raped and beaten, kept in chains, starved, and tortured. When people see her crawling naked behind my chariot, they’ll wonder how such a wretched hag ever seduced a man like Antonius. Then she’ll be strangled in the Tullianum, but not before she sees the boy Caesarion killed before her eyes.”

“He’s only fourteen,” said Lucius.

“And he shall never be fifteen.”

Lucius had no choice. He agreed to act as Octavius’s emissary.

Through the trapdoor, in whispers, he negotiated with the queen’s handmaidens, Charmion and Iras. Cleopatra agreed to see him the following day, but only if he arrived alone, with no other Roman in sight.

The next day, Lucius arrived at the appointed time. He brought a gift for the queen. She had expressed a craving for figs. The basket that Lucius lifted up through the opening was full of plump, ripe figs nestled atop a bed of fig leaves. Iras accepted the basket. A little later, Charmion lowered a rope, and Lucius was allowed to climb up.

He had expected to find the three women cowering in a squalid little room, but the chamber was magnificent. Small openings high in the walls admitted beams of sunlight. The floor was black marble. The columns were red granite. The walls were painted in dazzling colors. Cleopatra sat on a magnificent throne in the shape of a vulture with its wings spread, ornamented with gold, silver, and lapis. She wore a cobra-headed diadem and a robe encrusted with jewels. Iras sat at her feet with the basket of figs.

“Will you not change your mind, Your Majesty?” said Lucius.

“Too late for that,” said Cleopatra. In one hand she held a fig. On her wrist were two puncture marks-the bite of the asp, which Lucius himself had obtained from one of the queen’s agents and hidden beneath the fig leaves. “Thank you, Lucius Pinarius. When I see Antonius in Elysium, I will tell him of the great favor you did me.”

Her eyelids fluttered and closed. Her head fell to one side. The fig dropped from her hand.

Lucius’s eyes filled with tears. “Was this a fitting end? Was this worthy of your mistress?” he demanded of the handmaidens.

Iras was silent. She had already joined her mistress in death. Charmion, beginning to stagger and sway, was using her final moments to straighten the queen’s crown, so that in death her appearance would be perfect. “It was very worthy,” she whispered, “as befits the last of all the Pharaohs.”

Lucius wept, but only briefly. He braced himself to deliver the bad news to Octavius….

To his grandson, Lucius merely said, “The queen submitted to the bite of an asp. The emperor wanted her for his triumph, but she cheated him of that victory, at least.”

“But even so, they say it was the greatest triumph of all time,” said the boy.

“So it was. A very great triumph, indeed. On that day, my cousin Gaius, who had been born Octavius but had become Caesar, took the name Augustus, to celebrate his elevation to divinity. The whole world was made to see that the emperor was worthy of worship-not just a king, but a god on earth.”

Lucius gazed at the statue of Cleopatra for a long moment, then reached for the boy’s hand and led him away.

As they were leaving the Temple of Venus, there was a stir of excitement in the square.

“The emperor! The emperor!” men shouted.

A litter appeared, splendidly appointed with purple and gold and surrounded by a veritable army of attendants. Onlookers fell back in awe. Within the litter, Augustus could clearly be seen, reclining on purple cushions. To Lucius, despite the jowls and wrinkles and all the other ravages of age, Octavius still looked like the callow boy who boldly laid claim to Caesar’s legacy, rode the whirlwind to greatness, annihilated every rival, and never looked back.

The ways of the gods were capricious and impossible to predict, thought Lucius, and their methods were often maddeningly obscure; and yet, surely, steadily, the story of mankind progressed. After many convulsions, the world had at last attained a state of stability and peace, perhaps even of perfection: one empire, ever expanding, to be ruled by one emperor, from one city, Roma.

Men like Romulus or Alexander or Caesar could seemingly arise from nowhere and change everything. If men could become gods, anything was possible. Might the older gods, like men, someday perish altogether? Who could say what might be occurring at that very moment somewhere else in the world-perhaps in some obscure backwater at the empire’s edge-where the birth of a certain man or movement might alter the world’s destiny once again? Perhaps Jupiter himself might be thrown down, to be replaced by another king of heaven! Not only one empire and one emperor, but one god: Might such a world not represent an even greater state of perfection?

Lucius banished the blasphemous thought, and concentrated instead on the earthly splendor of the receding retinue of Caesar Augustus, emperor of Roma, surely the greatest of all men who had ever lived or ever would live on earth.

But Lucius had almost forgotten the most important thing! He reached inside his toga and removed the necklace he was wearing.

“This is for you, my boy. I should have liked to wait until your toga day to present it to you, but I think you’re ready for it.”

“What is it, Grandfather?” The boy gazed at the amulet in his hand.

“Its origin is uncertain. I don’t even know the name of the god it represents. But when I received it, I was told that this talisman is older than Roma itself. It’s been handed down in our family for many generations, since before the days of Romulus.”

Young Lucius peered at the object curiously, unable to discern what it was meant to represent. After so many years and so many wearers, the details of the winged phallus had worn away. In outline, the shape appeared to be little more than a simple cross-not dissimilar, the boy thought, to the crucifixes upon which the Romans executed criminals.

“As it was handed down to me,” said his grandfather, “so I now hand it down to you, my namesake. You must vow to do the same thing yourself, in a future generation.”

The boy gazed at the pendant, then solemnly placed the necklace over his head.