The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

Seventeen men gathered in the governor's audience chamber at the second hour of day on the morrow. Oh, thought Cato, heart sinking, I am back in my old arena, but I have lost the taste for it. Perhaps it is a fault in my character that I abhor all high commands, but if it is a fault, then it has led me to a philosophy that sits inexorably upon my Soul. I know the precise parameters of what I must do. Men may sneer at so much self-denial, but self-indulgence is far worse, and what are high commands except a form of self-indulgence? Here we are, thirteen men in Roman togas, about to tear each other into shreds for the sake of an empty shell called a command tent. A metaphor, even! How many commanders actually inhabit a tent or if they do, keep it austere and simple? Only Caesar. How I hate to admit that! The four other men present were Numidians. One of them was clearly King Juba himself, for he was dressed from head to foot in Tyrian purple and wore the white ribbon of the diadem tied around his curled and flowing locks. Beard curled too, entwined with golden threads. Like two of the other three, he seemed about forty years of age; the fourth Numidian was a mere youth. "Who are these persons?" Cato demanded of Varus in his loudest and most obnoxious tones. "Marcus Cato, lower your voice, please! This is King Juba of Numidia, Prince Masinissa and his son Arabion, and Prince Saburra," Varus said, embarrassed and indignant. "Eject them, Governor! Immediately! This is a convocation of Roman men!" Varus fought to keep his temper. "Numidia is our ally in the war against Caesar, Marcus Cato, and entitled to be present." "Entitled to be present at a war council, perhaps, but not entitled to watch thirteen Roman noblemen make utter fools of themselves arguing about purely Roman matters!" Cato roared. "The meeting hasn't started yet, Cato, but you're already out of order!" Varus articulated through his teeth. "I repeat, this is a Roman convocation, Governor! Kindly send these foreigners outside!" "I'm sorry, I can't do that." "Then I remain here under protest, and will have nothing to say!" Cato bellowed. While the four Numidians glowered at him, he retired to the back of the room behind Lucius Julius Caesar Junior, a pokered-up sprig of the Julian tree whose father was Caesar's cousin, right-hand man and staunchest supporter. Curious, thought Cato, eyes boring into Lucius Junior's back, that the son is a Republican. "He doesn't get on with his tata," Sextus whispered, sidling up to Cato. "Outclassed, but without the sense to acknowledge that he will never be his tata's bootlace." "Shouldn't you be somewhere closer to the front?" "At my tender age? Not likely!" "I note a streak of levity in you, Sextus Pompeius, that ought to be eliminated," Cato said in his normal loud voice. "I am aware of it, Marcus Cato, which is why I spend so much of my time with you," Sextus answered, equally loudly. "Silence at the back! The meeting will come to order!" "Order? Order? What do you mean, Varus? I can see at least one priest and one augur in this assembly! Since when has a legal convocation of Roman men met to discuss public business without first saying the prayers and taking the auspices?" Cato yelled. "Is this what our beloved Republic has descended to, that men like Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica can stand here and not object to an illegal meeting? I cannot compel you to expel foreigners, Varus, but I forbid you to start proceedings without first honoring Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Quirinus!" "If you would only wait, Cato, you'd see that I was about to call upon our good Metellus Scipio to say the prayers, and ask our good Faustus Sulla to take the auspices," Varus said, making a quick recovery that fooled no one except the Numidians. Oh, has there ever been a meeting more doomed to fail than this one? Sextus Pompey asked of himself, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of Cato making mincemeat out of at least ten Romans and four Numidians. I am right, he has changed a great deal since I met him in Paraetonium, but today I catch a glimpse of what he must have been like in the House on one of those mad occasions when he went tooth and claw for everyone from Caesar to my father. You cannot shout him down and you cannot ignore him. But, having made his protest and seen to it that the religious formalities were observed, Cato was true to his word and remained at the back in silence. Competition for the command tent revolved around Labienus, Afranius, Metellus Scipio and none other than the governor, Varus. That so much dissension occurred was due to the fact that the nonconsular Labienus had the best battle record by far, whereas the consular and ex-governor of Syria, Metellus Scipio, had both the legal entitlement and the blood. That Afranius even entered the fray involved his commitment to Labienus, for he bolstered the claims of Caesar's ex-second-in-command as a fellow Military Man and consular. Alas, like Labienus, he had no ancestors worth speaking of. The surprise candidate was Attius Varus, who took the line that he was the legal governor of his province, that the war was going to happen in his province, and that he outranked all others in his province. To Cato, it was a manifestation of luck that the height of feelings made it impossible for some of the debaters to express themselves adequately in Greek, the latter a language that didn't permit insults to roll like thunder off the tongue the way Latin did. So the argument quickly lapsed into Latin. The Numidians lost the verbal track at once, which didn't please Juba, a subtle and crafty man who secretly detested all Romans, but had worked out that his chances of expanding his kingdom west into Mauretania were far better with this lot than they would have been with Caesar, no Juba-lover. Whenever Juba thought about that famous day in a Roman court when Caesar, disgusted at the lies, had lost his temper and pulled the royal beard, that selfsame beard smarted all over again. Numidian resentments were fanned thanks to the fact that Varus had not imported any chairs; everyone was expected to stand, no matter how long the argument raged. An offended request for a chair to ease the royal feet was denied; apparently Romans in their congresses felt quite at home standing. Though I must co-operate with these Romans on the field, thought Juba, I also have to undermine Roman authority in their so-called African province. How enormously rich Numidia would be if I ruled the lands of the Bagradas River! Four short spring hours of forty-five minutes each saw the argument still raging, a decision no closer, and acrimony growing with every drip of the water clock. Finally, "There is no contest!" Varus cried, shaping up to Labienus truculently. "It was your tactics lost Pharsalus, so I spit on your contention that you're our best general! If you are, then what hope do we have of beating Caesar? It's time for new blood in the command tent Attius Varus blood! I repeat, this is my province, legally bestowed on me by Rome's true Senate, and a governor in his province is the highest-ranking man." "Arrant nonsense, Varus!" Metellus Scipio snapped. "I am the governor of Syria until I cross Rome's pomerium into the city, and that isn't likely to happen until after Caesar is defeated. What is more, the Senate gave me imperium maius! Your imperium is common old pro-praetore! You're small-fry, Varus." "I may not have unlimited imperium, Scipio, but at least I can find better things to do with my time than wallow in little boys and pornography!" Metellus Scipio howled and sprang at Varus while Labienus and Afranius folded their arms and watched the scuffle. A tall, well-built man once described as having a face like a haughty camel, Metellus Scipio gave a better account of himself than the younger Attius Varus had expected. Cato shouldered Lucius Caesar Junior aside and strode to the center of the room to wrench the two men apart. "I have had enough! ENOUGH! Scipio, go over there and stand absolutely still. Varus, come over here and stand absolutely still. Labienus, Afranius, unfold your arms and try to look who you are instead of a pair of barbered dancing girls trolling for arse outside the Basilica Aemilia." He took a turn around the floor, hair and beard disheveled from clutching at them in despair. "Very well," he said, facing his audience. "It is clear to me that this could go on all day, all tomorrow, all next month and all next year, without a decision being reached. Therefore I am making the decision, right this moment. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica," he said, using Metellus Scipio's awesome full name, "you will occupy the command tent as supreme leader. I appoint you for two reasons, both valid under the mos maiorum. The first is that you are a consular with existing imperium maius, which as you well know, Varus overrides all other imperium. The second is that your name is Scipio. Be it superstition or fact, soldiers believe that Rome can't win a victory in Africa without a Scipio in the command tent. To tempt Fortuna now is stupid. However, Metellus Scipio, you are no better a general of troops than I am, so you will not interfere with Titus Labienus on the battlefield, is that fully understood? Your position is titular, and titular only. Labienus will be in military command, with Afranius as his second man." "What about me?" Varus gasped, winded. "Whereabouts do I fit in your grand scheme, Cato?" "Where you rightly belong, Publius Attius Varus. As governor of this province. Your duty is to ensure the peace, order and good government of its people, see that our army is properly supplied, and act as liaison between Rome and Numidia. It's obvious that you're thick with Juba and his minions, so make yourself useful in that area." "You have no right!" Varus shouted, fists clenched. "Who are you, Cato? You're an ex-praetor who couldn't get himself elected consul, and very little else! In fact, did you not own a voice box made of brass, you'd be an utter nonentity!" "I do not dispute that," said Cato, unoffended. "I dispute your taking the decision even more than Varus!" Labienus snarled with teeth bared. "I'm fed up with doing the military dirty work minus a paludamentum!" "Scarlet doesn't suit your complexion, Labienus," Sextus Pompey said, butting in cheekily. "Come, gentlemen, Cato is in the right of it. Someone had to take the decision, and, whether you admit it or not, Cato is the proper person because he doesn't want the command tent." "If you don't want the command tent, Cato, what do you want?" Varus demanded. "To be prefect of Utica," said Cato, voice quite moderate. "A job I can do well. However, Varus, you'll have to find me a suitable house. My rented apartment is too small." Sextus whooped shrilly, laughed. "Good for you, Cato!" "Quin taces!" snapped Lucius Manlius Torquatus, a Varus supporter. "Sew your mouth up, young Pompeius! Who are you, to applaud the actions of the great-grandson of a slave?" "Don't answer him, Sextus," Cato growled. "What is going on?" Juba demanded, in Greek. "Is it decided?" "It is decided, King except for you," Cato said in Greek. "Your function is to supply our army with additional troops, but until Caesar arrives and you can be of some personal use, I suggest that you return to your own domains." For a moment Juba didn't answer, one ear cocked to hear what Varus whispered into it. "I approve of your dispositions, Marcus Cato, though not of the manner in which you made them," he said then, very regally. "However, I will not return to my kingdom. I have a palace in Carthage, and will live there." "As far as I'm concerned, King, you can sit on your thumb and let your legs hang down, but I warn you mind your own Numidian business, stay out of Roman affairs. Infringe that order, and I will send you packing," said Cato.

Thwarted and morose, his authority truncated, Publius Attius Varus concluded that the best way to deal with Cato was to give him whatever he asked for, and avoid being in the same room with him. So Cato was shifted to a fine residence on the main city square, adjacent to the waterfront, but not a part of it. The house's owner, an absentee grain plutocrat, had sided with Caesar and therefore was not in a position to object. It came complete with a staff and a steward aptly named Prognanthes, for he was too tall, had a gigantic lower jaw and an overhanging brow. Cato hired his own clerical help (at Varus's expense), but accepted the services of the house owner's agent, one Butas, when Varus sent him around. That done, Cato called the Three Hundred together. This was Utica's group of most powerful businessmen, all Romans. "Those of you with metal shops will cease to make cauldrons, pots, gates and ploughshares," he announced. "From now on, it's swords, daggers, the metal parts of javelins, helmets and some sort of mail shirt. All you can produce will be bought and paid for by me, as the Governor's deputy. Those in the building trade will commence work at once on silos and new warehouses Utica is going to ensure the welfare of our army in every way. Stonemasons, I want our fortifications and walls strengthened to withstand a worse siege than Scipio Aemilianus inflicted upon old Carthage. Dock contractors will concentrate upon food and war supplies to waste time on perfume, purple-dyes, fabrics, furniture and the like is hereby forbidden. Any ship with a cargo I deem superfluous to the war effort will be turned away. And, lastly, men between seventeen and thirty will be drafted to form a citizen militia, properly armed and trained. My centurion, Lucius Gratidius, will commence training in Utica's parade ground tomorrow at dawn." His eyes roamed the stunned faces. "Any questions?" Since apparently they had none, he dismissed them. "It was evident," he said to Sextus Pompey (who had resolved not to abandon Cato's company while ever Caesar was somewhere else) "that, like most people, they welcomed firm direction." "A pity, then, that you keep maintaining you have no talent for generaling troops," Sextus said rather sadly. "My father always said that good generaling was mostly preparation for the battle, not the battle itself." "Believe me, Sextus, I cannot general troops!" Cato barked. "It is a special gift from the gods, profligately dowered upon men like Gaius Marius and Caesar, who look at a situation and seem to understand in the tiniest moment where the enemy's weak points are, what the lie of the land will do, and whereabouts their own troops are likely to falter. Give me a good legate and a good centurion, and I will do what I am told to do. But think of what to do, I cannot." "Your degree of self-knowledge is merciless," Sextus said. He leaned forward, hazel eyes sparkling eagerly. "But tell me, dear Cato, do I have the gift of command? My heart says that I do, but after listening to all those fools squabble about talents the biggest moron can see they do not own, am I wrong?" "No, Sextus, you're not wrong. Go with your heart."

* * *

Within the space of two nundinae Utica fell into a new, more martial routine and seemed not to resent it, but on that second nundinae Lucius Gratidius appeared, looking worried. "There's something going on, Marcus Cato," he said. "What?" "Morale isn't nearly as high as it should be my young men are gloomy, keep telling me that all this effort will go for naught. Though I can discover no truth in it, they insist that Utica is secretly Caesarean in sympathies, and that these Caesareans are going to destroy everything." He looked grimmer. "Today I found out that our Numidian friend, King Juba, is so convinced of this nonsense that he's going to attack Utica and raze it to the ground to punish it. But I think it's Juba responsible for the rumors." "Ahah!" Cato exclaimed, getting to his feet. "I agree with you entirely, Gratidius. It's Juba plotting, not nonexistent Caesareans. He's making trouble to force Metellus Scipio into giving him a co-command. He wants to lord it over Romans. Well, I'll soon scotch his ambitions! The cheek of him!" Off went Cato in a temper and a hurry to the royal palace at Carthage where once Prince Gauda, a claimant to the Numidian throne, had moped and whined while Jugurtha warred against Gaius Marius. The premises were far grander than the governor's palace in Utica, Cato noted as he emerged from his two-mule gig, his purple-bordered toga praetexta folded immaculately. Preceded by six lictors in crimson tunics and bearing the axes in their fasces as the signal of his imperium, Cato marched up to the portico, gave the guards a curt nod, and swept inside as if he owned the place. It works every single time, he thought: one look at lictors bearing the axes and the purple border on the toga behind them, and even the walls of Ilium would crumble. Inside was spacious and deserted. Cato instructed his six lictors to remain in the vestibule, then marched onward into the depths of a house designed to envelop its denizens in a degree of luxury that he found nauseating. The invasion of Juba's privacy was not an issue; Juba had tampered with Rome's mos maiorum, he was a criminal. The first person Cato encountered was the King, lying on a couch in a beautiful room with a splashing fountain and a vast window looking onto a courtyard, the sun streaming in delightfully. Walking across the mosaic floor in front of Juba in a demure parade were perhaps two dozen scantily clad women. "This," barked Cato, "is a disgraceful sight!" The King seemed to have a convulsion, stiffening and jerking as he levered himself off the couch to face the invader in shaking outrage, while the women shrieked and blundered, squalling, into any corner, there to huddle and hide their faces. "Get out of here, you you pervert!" Juba roared. "No, you get out of here, you Numidian backstabber!" roared Cato at a volume that diminished the King's to a comparative whisper. "Get out, get out, get out! Quit Africa Province this very day, do you hear me? What do I care about your disgusting polygamy or your women, poor creatures devoid of any freedom? I am a monogamous Roman with a wife who manages her own business, can read and write, and is expected to conduct herself virtuously without the need for eunuchs and imprisonment! I spit on your women, and I spit on you!" Cato illustrated his point by spitting, not like a man getting rid of phlegm, but like a furious cat. "Guards! Guards!" Juba yelled. They piled into the room, the three Numidian princes hard on their heels. Masinissa, Saburra and young Arabion stood stunned at the sight of Cato with a dozen spears pressed against chest, back, sides. Spears Cato took absolutely no notice of, nor retreated an inch. "Kill me, Juba, and you'll reap havoc! I am Marcus Porcius Cato, senator and propraetore commander of Utica! Do you think that you can intimidate me, when I have stood up to men like Caesar and Pompeius Magnus? Look well at this face, and know that it belongs to one who cannot be deflected from his course, who cannot be corrupted or suborned! How much are you paying Varus, that he stomachs the likes of you in his province? Well, Varus may do as his purse dictates, but don't even think of producing your moneybags to bribe me! Get out of Africa Province today, Juba, or I swear by Sol Indiges, Tellus and Liber Pater that I will go to our army, mobilize it in one hour, and give every last one of you the death of a slave crucifixion!" He pushed the spears aside contemptuously, turned on his heel and walked out. By evening, King Juba and his entourage were on their way to Numidia. When appealed to, Governor Attius Varus had shivered and said that when Cato was in that sort of mood, the only thing to do was as one had been told.

The departure of Juba marked the end of Utica's attack of nerves; the city settled down to worship the ground Cato walked on, though had he known that, he would have assembled the entire populace and served it a diatribe on impiety. For himself, he was happy. The civilian job suited him, he knew it was one he could do superbly well. But where is Caesar? he asked himself as he strolled down to the harbor to watch the ceaseless comings and goings. When will he appear? Still no word of his whereabouts, and the crisis in Rome grows more dangerous every day. Which means that when he does pop into existence, he will have to deal with affairs in Rome as soon as he's evicted Pharnaces from Anatolia. His arrival is still months off; by the time he reaches Africa, we will be stale. Is that his trick? No one knows better than Caesar how divided our high command is. So it is up to me to keep all those stiff-necked fools from one another's throats for at least the next six months. While simultaneously damping down the savagery of barbarian Labienus, and depressing the intentions of our cunning King Juba. Not to mention a governor whose main ambition may well be to act as lord high chamberlain for a Numidian foreigner. In the midst of these cheerless musings, he became aware that a young man was walking toward him with a hesitant smile on his face. Eyes narrowed (he was finding it hard to see at a distance since the march), he studied the familiar form until recognition burst on him like a bolt of lightning. Marcus! His only son. "What are you doing here instead of skulking in Rome?" he asked, ignoring the outstretched arms. The face, so like Cato's own, yet lacking its set planes of grim determination, twisted and crumpled. "I thought, Father, that it was time I joined the Republican effort instead of skulking in Rome," young Cato said. "A right act, Marcus, but I know you. What exactly provoked this tardy decision?" "Marcus Antonius is threatening to confiscate our property." "And my wife? You left her to Antonius's tender mercies?" "It was Marcia insisted I come." "Your sister?" "Porcia is still living in Bibulus's house." "My own sister?" "Aunt Porcia's convinced that Antonius is about to confiscate Ahenobarbus's property, so she's bought a little house on the Aventine just in case. Ahenobarbus invested her dowry splendidly, she says it's been accruing interest for thirty years. She sends her love. So do Marcia and Porcia." How ironic, thought Cato, that the more able and intelligent of my two children should be the girl. My martial and fearless Porcia is soldiering on. What did Marcia say in that last letter I read? That Porcia is in love with Brutus. Well, I tried to match them for marriage, but Servilia wouldn't have it. Her dear precious emasculated son, marry his cousin, Cato's daughter? Hah! Servilia would kill him first. "Marcia begs that you write to her," young Cato said. His father's answer was oblique. "You'd best come home with me, boy, I have room for you. Do you still clerk well?" "Yes, Father, I still clerk well." So much for the hope that once his father saw him again, he might be forgiven for his flaws. His failings. Impossible. Cato had no flaws, no failings. Cato never swerved from the path of the righteous. How terrible it is to be the son of a man without weaknesses.

III

Putting Things Right in Asia Minor

From JUNE until SEPTEMBER of 47 B.C.

Matters had not gone well for Judaea since the death of old Queen Alexandra in the same year Cleopatra had been born; the widow of the formidable Alexander Jannaeus, she managed to rule sitting in a disintegrating Syria. Among her own Jewish people, however, her efforts were not universally admired or appreciated, for her sympathies were entirely Pharisaic; whatever she did was unacceptable to the Sadducees, the schismatic Samaritans, the heretical up-country Galilaeans, and the non-Jewish population of the Decapolis. Judaea was in a state of religious flux. Queen Alexandra had two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. After her husband's death she chose the elder, Hyrcanus, to succeed her, probably because he wouldn't give her any arguments. She made him high priest at once, but died before she could cement his power. No sooner was she buried than his younger brother seized both the high priesthood and the throne. But the most naturally able man at the Jewish court was an Idumaean, Antipater; a great friend of Hyrcanus's, he had a longstanding feud with Aristobulus, so when Aristobulus usurped power, he rescued Hyrcanus and the pair of them fled. They took refuge with King Aretas in the Arab country of Nabataea, enormously rich because of its trade with the Malabar coast of India and the island of Taprobane. Antipater was married to King Aretas's niece, Cypros; it had been a love match that cost Antipater any chance of assuming the Jewish throne himself, for it meant that his four sons and one daughter were not Jewish. The war between Hyrcanus/Antipater and Aristobulus raged on and on, complicated by the sudden appearance of Rome as a power in Syria; Pompey the Great arrived to make Syria a Roman province in the aftermath of the defeat of Mithridates the Great and his Armenian ally, Tigranes. The Jews rose and put Pompey's temper out dreadfully; he had to march on Jerusalem and take it instead of wintering comfortably in Damascus. Hyrcanus was appointed high priest, but Judaea itself was made a part of the new Roman Syrian province, stripped of all autonomy. Aristobulus and his sons continued to make trouble, assisted by a series of ineffectual Roman governors of Syria. Finally there arrived Aulus Gabinius, a friend and supporter of Caesar's and no mean military man himself. He confirmed Hyrcanus as high priest and dowered him with five regions as an income Jerusalem, Galilaean Sepphora, Gazara, Amathus and Jericho. An outraged Aristobulus contested him, Gabinius fought a short, sharp and effective war, and Aristobulus and one son found themselves on a ship for Rome a second time. Gabinius set out for Egypt to put Ptolemy Auletes back on his throne, fervently helped by Hyrcanus and his aide Antipater. Thanks to them, Gabinius had no difficulty forcing the Egyptian frontier north of Pelusium, whose Jewish population did not oppose him. Marcus Licinius Crassus, boon companion of Caesar's and the next governor of Syria, inherited a peaceful province, even around Judaea. Alas for the Jews, Crassus was no respecter of local religions, customs and entitlements; he marched into the Great Temple and removed everything of value it contained, including two thousand talents of gold stored in the Holy of Holies. High priest Hyrcanus cursed him in the name of the Jewish god, and Crassus perished shortly thereafter at Carrhae. But the loot from the Great Temple was never returned. Then came the unofficial governorship of a mere quaestor, Gaius Cassius Longinus, the only survivor of any importance from Carrhae. Despite his ineligibility, Cassius calmly assumed the reins of government in Syria, and started to tour the province to shore it up against certain Parthian invasion. In Tyre he met Antipater, who tried to explain the complications of religion and race in southern Syria, and why the Jews perpetually fought on two fronts between religious factions, and against any foreign power which sought to impose discipline. When Cassius managed to round up two legions, he blooded them on an army of Galilaeans intent on destroying Hyrcanus. Shortly after that, the Parthians did invade, and the thirty-year-old quaestor Gaius Cassius was the only general between the Parthian army and its conquest of Syria. Cassius acquitted himself brilliantly, beat the Parthian hordes decisively, and drove Prince Pacorus of the Parthians out. So when Caesar's boni enemy Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus finally deigned to arrive to govern Syria not long before the civil war broke out, Bibulus found a province at peace and all its books in order. How dare a mere quaestor do what Cassius had done? How dare a mere quaestor govern a province? In boni lights, a mere quaestor should have sat and twiddled his thumbs until the next governor arrived, no matter what happened to the province, including Jewish insurrections and Parthian invasions. Such was the mind-set of the boni. In consequence, Bibulus's manner was glacially cold toward Cassius, to whom he tendered no word of thanks. Rather, he ordered Cassius to quit Syria forthwith, but only after serving him a homily about taking things upon himself that were not a part of a quaestor's duties according to the mos maiorum.

* * *

Why then did Cassius choose the boni side in the civil war? Certainly not from love of his brother-in-law Brutus, though he adored Brutus's mother, Servilia. But she was neutral in the conflict, had close relatives on both sides. One reason lay in Cassius's instinctive antipathy toward Caesar: they were not unalike, in that both had taken military command upon themselves at an early age without the governor's approval Caesar at Tralles in Asia Province, Cassius in Syria and that both were physically brave, vigorous, no-nonsense men. To Cassius, Caesar had accreted too much glory to himself with that stunning nine-year war in Long-haired Gaul how could Cassius, when his time came, find anything half as glamorous to do? Though that was nothing compared to the fact that Caesar had marched on Rome just as Cassius was entering on his tribunate of the plebs, scattered routine government to the winds, and ruined his chances of making a big splash in that most controversial and immortal of magistracies. Another reason compounded Cassius's detestation: Caesar was the natural father of Cassius's wife, Servilia's third daughter, Tertulla. Legally she was Silanus's daughter and came with a huge dowry from Silanus's fortune, but half of Rome including Brutus knew whose child Tertulla really was. Cicero had the temerity to make jokes about it! After plundering a few temples to help fund the Republican war against Caesar, Cassius found himself sent to Syria to raise a fleet for Pompey. Sailing the high seas suited him a great deal more than being an insignificant member of Pompey's command chain; he found that his military talents extended to war on the sea, and ignominiously defeated a Caesarean fleet outside Sicilian Messana. Then off Vibo, in the Tuscan Sea, he intercepted the Caesarean admiral Sulpicius Rufus and would have beaten him too, had it not been for Fortuna! A legion of Caesar's veterans were sitting on the shore watching the battle, and got fed up with Sulpicius's ineptitude. So they commandeered the local fishing fleet, rowed out to charge into the mass of dueling warships, and thrashed Cassius so soundly that he had to flee for his life aboard a strange ship his own went down. Licking his spiritual wounds, Cassius decided to retire east to revictual and raise a few more ships to replace those Caesar's veterans had demolished. But as he crossed the sea-lanes from Numidia his luck returned; he encountered a dozen merchantmen loaded with lions and leopards intended for sale in Rome. What a windfall! Worth a huge fortune! With the merchantmen in his custody, he called in to Greek Megara to take on water and food. Megara was a fanatically loyal Republican town, and promised to care for Cassius's lions and leopards until he could find somewhere more remote to conceal them; after Pompey was victorious, he would sell them to Pompey for his victory games. The caged felines ashore, Cassius sailed with a dozen empty merchantmen to donate to Gnaeus Pompey as transports. At his next stop he learned of the defeat at Pharsalus. Stunned, he fled to Apollonia in Cyrenaica, where he found many refugees from Pharsalus Cato, Labienus, Afranius, Petreius among them. None, however, was disposed to take any notice of a blooming young tribune of the plebs thrown out of office by civil war. So Cassius sailed off in high dudgeon, refusing to donate his ships to the Republican cause in Africa Province. They can shove Africa Province up their arses! I want no part of a campaign that involves Cato or Labienus! Or that toplofty turd Metellus Scipio! Back he went to Megara to pick up his lions and leopards, only to find them gone. Quintus Fufius Calenus had come along to take the town for Caesar; the Megarans opened the cages and let the lions and leopards loose to eat Calenus's men. Instead, the lions and leopards ate the Megarans! Fufius Calenus rounded the beasts up, put them back into their cages and shipped them off to Rome for Caesar's victory games! Cassius was devastated. He did learn one interesting fact in Megara, however: that Brutus had surrendered to Caesar after Pharsalus, had been freely pardoned, and was at present sitting in the governor's palace at Tarsus while Caesar himself had gone off in search of Pompey, and Calvinus and Sestius had marched to Armenia Parva to face Pharnaces. Thus, with no better place to go, Gaius Cassius sailed for Tarsus. He would surrender his fleet to Brutus, his brother-in-law and coeval they were the same age within four months. If he couldn't stay in Tarsus, he could at least find out from Brutus what was real and what confabulation. Then perhaps he could more coolly decide what to do with the rest of his ruined life.

Brutus was so delighted to see him that Cassius found himself fervently hugged and kissed, ushered tenderly into the palace and given a comfortable suite of rooms. "I insist that you remain here in Tarsus," said Brutus over a good dinner, "and wait for Caesar." "He'll proscribe me," said Cassius, sunk in gloom. "No, no, no! Cassius, you have my word that his policy is clemency! You're in similar case to me! You haven't gone to war against him after he's pardoned you, because he hasn't seen you to pardon you a first time! Truly, you'll find yourself forgiven! After which, Caesar will advance your career just as if none of this had ever happened." "Except," muttered Cassius, "that I'll owe my future career to his generosity his say-so his condescension. What right has Caesar got to pardon me, when all's said and done? He's not a king, and I'm not his subject. We're both equal under the law." Brutus decided to be frank. "Caesar has the right of the victor in a civil war. Come, Cassius, this isn't Rome's first civil war we've had at least eight of them since Gaius Gracchus, and those on the winning side have never suffered. Those on the losing side certainly have. Until now. Now, in Caesar, we see a victor who is actually willing to let bygones be bygones. A first, Cassius, a first! What disgrace is there in accepting a pardon? If the word irks you, then call it by some other name letting bygones be bygones, for example. He won't make you kneel to him or give you the impression that he considers you an insect! He was terribly kind to me, I didn't feel at all as if he deemed me in the wrong. What I felt was his genuine pleasure in being able to do such a little thing for me. That's how he looks at it, Cassius, honestly! As if siding with Pompeius were a little thing, and every man's right if he so saw his duty. Caesar has beautiful manners, and no no no need to aggrandize himself by making others look or feel insignificant." "If you say so," said Cassius, head lowered. "Well, though I was too much a constitutional man to dream of siding with Caesar," said Brutus, having no idea whatsoever of constitutionality, "the truth is that Pompeius Magnus was far more the barbarian. I saw what went on in Pompeius's camp, I saw him let Labienus behave behave oh, I can't even speak of it! If it had been Caesar in Italian Gaul when my late father was there with Lepidus, Caesar would never have murdered him out of hand, but Pompeius did. Whatever else you may or may not think about Caesar, he is a Roman to the core." "Well, so am I!" Cassius snapped. "And I am not?" asked Brutus. "You're sure?" "Absolutely, unshakably sure." They passed then to news from home, but the truth was that neither of them had much of that to exchange; just gossip and hearsay. Cicero was reputed to have returned to Italy, Gnaeus Pompey to be making for Sicily, but no letters had come from Servilia, or Porcia, or Philippus, or anyone else in Rome. Eventually Cassius calmed down sufficiently to allow Brutus to talk about matters in Tarsus. "You can be of real help here, Cassius. I'm under orders to recruit and train more legions, but though I can recruit fairly capably, I'm hopeless at training. You've brought Caesar a fleet and transports, which he'll be grateful to have, but you can enhance your standing in his eyes by helping me train. After all, these troops are not for a civil war, they're for the war against Pharnaces. Calvinus has retreated to Pergamum, but Pharnaces is too busy laying waste to Pontus to be bothered following. So the more soldiers we can produce, the better. The enemy is foreign."

That had been January. By the time Mithridates of Pergamum passed through Tarsus late in February on his way to Caesar in Alexandria, Brutus and Cassius were able to donate him one full legion of reasonably well-trained troops. Neither of them had heard about Caesar's war in Alexandria, though word had come that Pompey had been foully murdered by King Ptolemy's palace cabal. Not from Caesar in Egypt, but in a letter from Servilia, who told them that Caesar had sent Pompey's ashes to Cornelia Metella. So conversant was Servilia with the deed that she even gave the names of the palace cabal Potheinus, Theodotus and Achillas. The two continued their work transforming civilian Cilicians into auxiliaries for Rome's use, waiting patiently in Tarsus for Caesar's return. Return he must, to deal with Pharnaces. Nothing was going to happen until the snows melted from the Anatolian passes, but when high spring arrived, so would Caesar. Early in April came a ripple, a shiver. "Marcus Brutus," said the captain of the palace guard, "we have detained a fellow at your door. Destitute, in rags. But he insists that he has important information for you from Egypt." Brutus frowned, his melancholy eyes reflecting the doubts and indecisions which always plagued him. "Does he have a name?" "He said, Theodotus." The slight figure stiffened, sat up straight. "Theodotus?" "That's what he said." "Bring him in and stay, Amphion." Amphion brought a man in his sixties, indeed festooned in rags, but the rags were still faintly purple. His lined face was petulant, his expression fawning. Brutus found himself physically revolted by his un-Roman effeminacy, the simpering smile that showed blackened, rotting teeth. "Theodotus?" Brutus asked. "Yes, Marcus Brutus." "The same Theodotus who was tutor to King Ptolemy of Egypt?" "Yes, Marcus Brutus." "What brings you here, and in such parlous condition?" "The King is defeated and dead, Marcus Brutus." The lips drew back from those awful teeth in a hiss. "Caesar personally drowned him in the river after the battle." "Caesar drowned him." "Yes, personally." "Why would Caesar do that if he had defeated the King?" "To eliminate him from the Egyptian throne. He wants his whore, Cleopatra, to reign supreme." "Why come to me with your news, Theodotus?" The rheumy eyes widened in surprise. "Because you have no love for Caesar, Marcus Brutus everyone knows that. I offer you an instrument to help destroy Caesar." "Did you actually see Caesar drown the King?" "With my own eyes." "Then why are you still alive?" "I escaped." "A weak creature like you escaped Caesar?" "I was hiding in the papyrus." "But you saw Caesar personally drown the King." "Yes, from my hiding place." "Was the drowning a public event?" "No, Marcus Brutus. They were alone." "Do you swear that you are indeed Theodotus the tutor?" "I swear it on my dead king's body." Brutus closed his eyes, sighed, opened them, and turned his head to look at the captain of the guard. "Amphion, take this man to the public square outside the agora and crucify him. And don't break his legs." Theodotus gasped, retched. "Marcus Brutus, I am a free man, not a slave! I came to you in good faith!" "You are getting the death of a slave or pirate, Theodotus, because you deserve it. Fool! If you must lie, choose your lies more carefully and choose the man to whom you tell them more carefully." Brutus turned his back. "Take him away and carry out the sentence immediately, Amphion."

* * *

"There's some pathetic old fellow hanging tied to a cross in the main square," said Cassius when he came in for dinner. "The guards on duty said you'd forbidden them to break his legs." "Yes," said Brutus placidly, putting down a paper. "That's a bit much, isn't it? They take days to die unless their legs are broken. I didn't know you had so much steel. Is an ancient slave a worthy target, Brutus?" "He's not a slave," said Brutus, and told Cassius the story. Cassius wasn't pleased. "Jupiter, what's the matter with you? You should have sent him to Rome in a hurry," he said, breathing hard. "The man was an eyewitness to murder!" "Gerrae," said Brutus, mending a reed pen. "You may detest Caesar all you like, Cassius, but many years of knowing Caesar endow me with sufficient detachment to dismiss Theodotus's tale as a tissue of lies. It isn't beyond Caesar to do murder, but in the case of Egypt's king, all he had to do was hand him over to his sister for execution. The Ptolemies love to murder each other, and this one had been at war with his sister. Caesar, to drown the boy in a river? It's not his style. What baffles me is why Theodotus thought that in mine, he'd find a pair of ears willing to listen. Or why he thought that any Roman would believe one of the three men responsible for Pompeius's hideous death. So too was the King responsible. I am not a vengeful man, Cassius, but I can tell you that it afforded me great satisfaction to crucify Theodotus one gasp at a time for days." "Take him down, Brutus." "No! Don't argue with me, Cassius, and don't bully me! I am governor in Cilicia, not you, and I say Theodotus dies." But when Cassius wrote next to Servilia, he recounted the fate of Theodotus in Tarsus very differently. Caesar had drowned a fourteen-year-old boy in the river to please Queen Cleopatra. Cassius had no fear that Brutus would write his own version, for Brutus and his mother didn't get along, so Brutus never wrote to her at all. If he wrote to anyone, it would be Cicero. Two timorous mice, Brutus and Cicero.

2

There was only one road north from Pelusium. It followed the coast of Our Sea and ran through inhospitable, barren country until it entered Syria Palestina at the town of Gaza. After that the land grew a little kinder, and a series of hamlets began to appear fairly regularly. Too early in the year for grain, but Cleopatra had loaded them down with pack camels imported from Arabia, odd creatures which groaned terribly but didn't need to drink every day like the Germans' horses. Caesar wasted no time until he reached Ptolemais, a bigger town just beyond the northern headland of a wide bay. Here he stopped for two days to interview the Jewish contingent, whom he had summoned from Jerusalem by a letter that explained gracefully how pressed he was for time. Antipater, his wife, Cypros, and his two elder sons, Phasael and Herod, were waiting for him. "No Hyrcanus?" Caesar asked, brows raised. "The high priest cannot leave Jerusalem," Antipater said, "even for the Dictator of Rome. It is a religious prohibition that he feels sure the Pontifex Maximus of Rome can forgive." The pale eyes twinkled. "Of course. How remiss of me!" An interesting family, Caesar was thinking. Cleopatra had told him of them, explained that wherever Antipater went, there also went Cypros a very devoted couple. Antipater and Phasael were handsome men, had the same clear dark skin as Cleopatra, but did not rejoice in her nose. Dark of eye, dark of hair, fairly tall. Phasael carried himself like a warrior prince, whereas his father had more the look of an energetic civil servant. Herod came from a different graft on the family tree; he was short, inclined to run to fat, and could have passed as a close cousin of Caesar's favorite banker, Lucius Cornelius Balbus Major from Spanish Gades. Phoenician stock full mouth, hooked nose, wide yet heavy-lidded eyes. All three men were clean-shaven and had cropped hair, which Caesar took to mean that they were not Jewish in every way. Racially he knew they were Idumaeans who had fully espoused the Judaic faith, but he wondered how tenderly they were regarded by the Jews of Jerusalem. Cypros, a Nabataean Arab, was the one who looked most like Herod, though she had a peculiar charm her son quite lacked; her roundness was desirable, and her eyes liquid pools of sensuous delights. Though he speculated that perhaps Cypros went everywhere with Antipater to make sure that he remained hers and hers alone. "You may tell Hyrcanus that Rome fully recognizes his high priesthood, and that he may call himself King of Judaea," Caesar announced. "Judaea? Which Judaea is that? The kingdom of Alexander Jannaeus? Are we to have a port again at Joppa?" asked Antipater with more caginess than eagerness in his voice. "I am afraid not," Caesar said gently. "Its boundaries are those laid down by Aulus Gabinius Jerusalem, Amathus, Gazara, Jericho and Galilaean Sepphora." "Five districts rather than continuous territory." "True, but each district is rich, particularly Jericho." "We need access to Your Sea." "You have it, since Syria is governed as a Roman province. No one will prevent your using any number of ports." The eyes were growing colder. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, my dear Antipater. I will guarantee that no troops are billeted in any Judaean territory, and I exempt all Judaean territory from taxes. Considering the income from Jericho's balsam, it's a good bargain for Hyrcanus, even if he will have to pay port dues." "Yes, of course," said Antipater, assuming a grateful look. "You may also tell Hyrcanus that he is at liberty to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and fortify them." "Caesar!" Antipater gasped. "That is very welcome news!" "As for you, Antipater," Caesar went on, eyes warming a little, "I confer the Roman citizenship upon you and your descendants, remit you from all personal taxes, and appoint you Hyrcanus's chief minister in government. I understand that the duties of high priest are onerous, that he needs civil help." "Too generous, too generous!" Antipater cried. "Oh, there are conditions. You and Hyrcanus are to keep the peace in southern Syria, is that clear? I want no rebellions and no pretenders to the kingship. Whosoever of Aristobulus's line is left makes no difference to me. They've all been a bother to Rome and a constant source of local trouble. So let there be no need for any governor of Syria to march in Jerusalem's direction, is that understood?" "It is, Caesar." Neither son, Caesar noted, allowed any expression to show on his face. Whatever Phasael and Herod thought would not be forthcoming until the family was out of Roman earshot.

Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and the rest of the cities of Phoenicia did not fare nearly as well as Judaea; nor did Antioch when Caesar reached it. They had all sided enthusiastically with Pompey, had given him money and ships. Therefore, said Caesar, each would be fined the value of whatever it had given Pompey as well as give Caesar the same as it had given Pompey. To make sure his orders were obeyed, he left his young cousin Sextus Julius Caesar in Antioch as the temporary governor of Syria. A post the highly flattered young man, grandson of Caesar's uncle, vowed to acquit himself in splendidly. Cyprus, however, was not to be governed from Syria as part of it any longer. Caesar sent it a quaestor in the person of young Sextilius Rufus, but not exactly to govern. "For the moment Cyprus won't be paying any Roman taxes or tributes, and its produce is to go to Egypt. Queen Cleopatra has sent a governor, Serapion. Your job, Rufus, is to make sure that Serapion behaves himself," said Caesar. "According to the lights of Rome, that is, not Egypt." The removal of Cyprus from, as he saw it, Rome's empire, did not amuse Tiberius Claudius Nero, whom Caesar found skulking in Antioch still convinced that he had done no wrong in Alexandria. "Does this mean," he asked Caesar incredulously, "that you have actually taken it upon yourself to give Cyprus back to the Crown of Egypt?" "Had I, Nero, what business is that of yours?" Caesar asked very coldly. "Hold your tongue." "You fool!" Sextilius Rufus said to Nero later. "He's giving nothing of Rome's away! All he's doing is allowing the Queen of Egypt to take timber and copper out of Cyprus to rebuild her city and fleets, and grain to ease the famine. If she believes Cyprus is Egyptian once more, then let her. Caesar knows better."

And so to Tarsus by the beginning of Quinctilis, having been a month on the march; disciplining Syria had taken time. Thanks to the presence of Hapd'efan'e, Caesar himself was well. His weight had returned to normal and he suffered no prodromal dizziness or nausea. He had learned to drink whatever juice or syrup Hapd'efan'e tendered at regular intervals during the day, and suffered the flagon of the same that sat beside his bed. Hapd'efan'e was thriving. He rode a donkey named Paser and carried his gear on three more named Pennut, H'eyna and Sut, their panniers loaded neatly with mysterious bundles and packets. Though Caesar had expected him to continue shaving his head and wearing his crisp white linen dresses, the priest-physician did not. Too noticeable, he said when asked. Cha'em had given him permission to dress like a Greek and wear his hair cropped like a Roman's. If they stopped in any kind of town for the night, he would be off to explore the herb stalls in the markets, or squat down to have an earnest conversation with some repulsive crone in a mouse-skull necklace and a girdle of dogs' tails. Caesar had several freedmen servants to attend to his personal wants; he was most particular about the cleanliness of his garb, down to requiring fresh inner soles daily in his marching boots, and had a man to pluck his body hair, done now for so long that it had almost given up growing. Since they liked Hapd'efan'e and approved of his addition to the fold, they would rush around finding fruit for him, peel it or crush it or strain it at his bidding. What didn't occur to Caesar was that they loved Caesar greatly, and Hapd'efan'e now represented Caesar's well-being. So they taught the inscrutable priest Latin, improved his Greek out of sight, and even enjoyed those ridiculous donkeys. At Antioch the camels were dispatched to Damascus, there to find buyers. Caesar was painfully aware that it was going to take a huge amount of money to set Rome on her feet again; every little helped, including the sale of prime camels to desert people. A far richer source of income first manifested itself at Tyre, the world capital of the purple-dye industry, and hardest hit of all Syrian cities when it came to war reparations. There a party of horsemen caught up with the Romans and presented Caesar with a box from Hyrcanus, one from Antipater, and another from Cypros. Each contained a gold crown not flimsy things of tissue-thin leaf, but extremely weighty objects no one could have worn without developing a bad headache. They were fashioned as olive wreaths, but the crowns that then began to arrive from the King of the Parthians were replicas of an eastern tiara, a towering edifice shaped like a truncated cone; even an elephant might have found it hard work to wear one, Caesar joked. After that, the crowns came thick and fast from every ruler of every minor satrapy along the Euphrates River. Sampsiceramus sent one in the form of a riband of braided gold studded with magnificent ocean pearls, the Pahlavi of Seleuceia-on-Tigris sent one of huge faceted and polished emeralds encased in gold. If this keeps on going, thought Caesar gleefully, I'll be able to pay for this war! So when the Sixth, the Germans and Caesar arrived in Tarsus, they had twelve mules loaded with crowns.

Tarsus appeared to be prospering despite the absence of the governor Sestius and his quaestor Quintus Philippus. When Caesar saw the camp dispositions on the Cydnus plain he was astonished at Brutus's talent for military layout and facilities. A riddle answered when he entered the governor's palace and found himself face-to-face with Gaius Cassius Longinus. "I know you won't require my intercession, Caesar, but I would like to intercede for Gaius Cassius just the same," Brutus said with that hangdog look only he could produce. "He's brought you a good fleet, and he's been a tremendous help in training the troops. He understands military matters much better than I do." Oh, Brutus, with your philosophies and your pimples, your miseries and your moneylending! thought Caesar, inwardly sighing. He couldn't remember ever meeting Gaius Cassius, whose older brother, Quintus, he knew well from the campaign against Afranius and Petreius in Nearer Spain; he had sent Quintus to govern in Further Spain afterward. This was not to say that he hadn't met Gaius. Simply that when last he had been in Rome with the time to look around, Gaius Cassius would have been a young man making tentative forays into the law courts to plead someone's case, therefore hardly worth noticing. Though he remembered how very pleased Servilia had been over his betrothal to Tertulla ye gods, this man is the husband of my natural daughter! I hope he disciplines her Julia used to say Servilia spoiled her too much. Well, now Gaius Cassius was a man of thirty-six. Tall but not overly so, he was sturdily built and had a martial air to him, regular features that some women might call handsome, a humorous quirk to the corners of his mouth, a very determined chin, and the kind of hair that drove a barber mad strong, springy, impossible to tame unless cut (as was Cassius's) close to the scalp. Light brown in color, as were his skin and eyes. The eyes looked straight into Caesar's without flinching, a faint trace of scorn tinging the anger in them. Oho! thought Caesar. Cassius doesn't like being presented as a suppliant. If I give him the slightest excuse, he'll throw my pardon in my face, storm out and run his sword up under his rib cage. I see why Servilia is so fond of him. He's exactly what she wanted poor Brutus to be. "I knew someone who's been around a few camps in his time engineered this one in Tarsus," Caesar said cheerfully, his smile open and his right hand out. "Gaius Cassius, of course! How can Rome thank you for keeping the Parthians out of Syria after poor Marcus Crassus died? I sincerely hope you've been made welcome, that you're comfortable?" And so the moment passed without any mention of pardons on either side; Gaius Cassius had little choice save to take the hand held out so naturally, had little choice save to smile, to deprecate his doings in Syria a few years ago. This too handsome, too charming patrician had managed to pardon him with a handshake and a warmly personal greeting.

* * *

"I've sent ahead to Calvinus to meet us with whatever troops he can muster in Iconium in ten days," Caesar said over dinner. "Brutus and Cassius, you'll be marching with me. I'll need you as a personal legate, Brutus, but I'll be very glad to give you a legion of your own to command, Cassius. Calvinus is sending Quintus Philippus back to govern in Tarsus, so the moment he arrives, we head up the Cilician Gates to Iconium. Marcus Antonius has shipped two legions of ex-Republicans from Italy to Calvinus, who says he's ready to meet Pharnaces again." He smiled, his eyes looking at something far beyond the room. "Things will go differently this time. Caesar is here." "His confidence is incredible!" snarled Cassius to Brutus later. "Does nothing ever dent it?" Brutus blinked, remembering the day when Caesar had come to his mother's house dressed in the purple and crimson glory of the Pontifex Maximus's robes, then calmly announced that he was going to marry Julia to Pompeius Magnus. I fainted. Not so much at the shock of it how much I loved her! but at the prospect of facing Mama's rage. Caesar had done the unforgivable, rejected a Servilius Caepio in favor of Pompeius Magnus, the peasant from Picenum. Oh, she was angry! And of course she blamed me, not Caesar. I shiver at the memory of that day. "No, nothing can dent Caesar's confidence," he said now to Cassius. "It is inborn." "Then if nothing can, maybe the answer is to dent Caesar's chest with a knife," Cassius said between his teeth. The pimples meant that Brutus couldn't shave, had to content himself with clipping his black beard as short as possible; as he heard this, he felt every one of those hairs stiffen. "Cassius! Don't even think of it!" he said in a terrified whisper. "Why not? It's every free man's duty to kill a tyrant." "He's not a tyrant! Sulla was a tyrant!" "Then give me another name for him," Cassius sneered. His eyes roamed over Brutus's pinched face the Furies take Servilia for making such a jelly out of her son! He shrugged. "Don't pass out, Brutus. Forget I ever said it." "Promise me you won't! Promise me!" For answer, Cassius went to his own quarters, there to pace up and down until his anger died.

By the time Caesar left Tarsus, he had collected a small group of penitent Republicans, all of whom received their pardons without the humiliation of hearing the word "pardon" spoken. In Antioch, young Quintus Cicero; in Tarsus, his father. They were the two who mattered most to Caesar. Neither was interested in joining the campaign against Pharnaces. "I should get home to Italy," said Quintus Senior, sighing. "My foolish brother is still in Brundisium, not sure enough of his safety to venture farther, yet afraid to return to Greece." His brown eyes looked into Caesar's ruefully. "The trouble is, Caesar, that you were such a wonderful commander to campaign with. When the time came, I couldn't take up arms against you, no matter what Marcus said." He squared his shoulders. "We quarrelled dreadfully in Patrae before he sailed to Brundisium. Did you know that Cato tried to make him commander-in-chief of the Republican forces?" Caesar laughed. "That's no surprise. Cato is an enigma to me. He has incredible strength of conviction, yet he's never formed any convictions for himself. And he refuses to take any responsibility for his own actions. It was he who forced Magnus into this war, but when Magnus reproached him with it, he had the gall to say that those who started the business should be the ones to finish it he meant us military men! To Cato, politicians don't create wars. And that means he doesn't understand power." "We're all what our upbringing makes of us, Caesar. How did you escape the taint?" "I had a mother strong enough to resist me without crushing me. One in many millions, I suspect." So the Quintus Cicerones waved them goodbye as they set out, a reasonable force of two Cilician legions, the Sixth, and the faithful Germans, who had been away from their misty forests for so long that they hardly ever thought of that old life. The mountains of Anatolia were mostly over ten thousand feet in height, and impossible to negotiate save through infrequent passes. The Cilician Gates were one such corridor, a narrow, steep track through mighty pine forests, every cleft filled with roaring cascades from melting snow, and still very cold at night. Caesar's recipe for minor complaints like freezing temperatures and high altitudes was to push his army on at full marching pace, so that when evening camp was made, everyone was too exhausted to feel the cold, and too dizzy from the height to stay awake. He insisted on proper camps, unsure until he met Calvinus exactly whereabouts Pharnaces was; all Calvinus had told him in his one letter was that the King of Cimmeria had definitely returned. Once through the pass the army descended to the high plateau which sat like a bowl in the center of Anatolia's vastness; hilly and grassy, at this time of year it was green and lush, ideal grazing for horses. Of which animals, Caesar noted, there were far too many. This was Lycaonia, not Galatia. Iconium was a big town on a major trade route crossroads. It sat beneath the peaks of the Taurus on its south and looked north across the plateau in the direction of Galatia and western Pontus. One road led to Cappadocia and thence to the Euphrates; one to the Cilician Gates, thence to Tarsus, Syria, the eastern end of Our Sea; one to Asia Province and thence to the Aegean Sea at Smyrna; one to Ancyra in Galatia and thence to the Euxine Sea; and one to Bithynia, the Hellespont, and thence to Rome on the Via Egnatia. Traffic was caravan style, great strings of camels, horses and mules herded by heavily armed businessmen on the lookout for marauding bands of backwoods tribesmen. A caravan might be Roman, Asian Greek, Cilician, Arab, Armenian, Median, Persian or Syrian. Iconium saw expensive dyed wools, furniture, cabinet timber, wine, olive oil, paints and pigments and dyes, iron-bound Gallic wheels, iron sows, marble statues and Puteoli glass heading east; west came rugs, tapestries, tin for bronze, brass sows, dried apricots, lapis lazuli, malachite, camel-hair paintbrushes, furs, astrakhan and fine leathers. What Iconium disliked were armies descending upon it, but such was its fate midway through Quinctilis: Caesar up from Tarsus with three legions and his German cavalry, Calvinus down from Pergamum with four good Roman legions. The abnormal number of horses was due to King Deiotarus, who had ridden from his own lands with two thousand Galatian horse troopers. It fell to Calvinus to provide the amalgamated army's food except for the Galatians, who brought their own. Calvinus was full of news. "When Pharnaces got home to Cimmeria, Asander proved clever enough to adopt Fabian tactics," he said, speaking to Caesar in private. "No matter where his father hounded him, Asander was one pace ahead. In the end Pharnaces decided that Asander would keep, loaded his troops back on board his transports, and sailed the Euxine to poor Amisus, which he sacked a second time. He's gone to earth in Zela, a part of Pontus I don't know, except that it's a fair way from the Euxine coast near Amaseia, where all the ancient Pontic kings are entombed in the cliffs. From what I hear, far kinder country than we encountered in Armenia Parva last December and January." Head bent over a map inked and painted on Pergamum parchment, Caesar traced a route with one finger. "Zela, Zela, Zela ... Yes, I have it." He frowned. "Oh, for some good Roman roads! They'll have to be the next governor of Pontus's first priority. I fear, Calvinus, that we'll have to loop around the eastern end of Lake Tatta and cross the Halys into more mountains. We'll need good guides, which I suppose means I'll have to forgive Deiotarus for pouring Galatian money and men into the Republican campaign." Calvinus grinned. "Oh, he's here with Phrygian cap in hand, shitting himself in terror. Once Mithridates was defeated and Pompeius Magnus was all over Anatolia doling out land, Deiotarus expanded his kingdom in every direction, including at the expense of the old Ariobarzanes. After that Ariobarzanes died and the new one came to Cappadocia's throne this one's a Philoromaios there was hardly any decent territory left in Cappadocia." "That may account for the money Cappadocia owes Brutus oh, oops, did I say Brutus? I meant Matinius, of course." "Fear not, Deiotarus is waist deep in debt to Matinius as well, Caesar. Magnus kept asking for money, money, money, and where was Deiotarus going to get it from?" "Answer, a Roman usurer," said Caesar, and huffed in exasperation. "Why won't they ever learn? They gamble everything on the reward of additional lands, or the discovery of a ten-mile reef of pure gold." "I hear that you're rather swimming in gold yourself or at least, in gold crowns," said Calvinus. "Indeed I am. So far I estimate that they'll melt down into about a hundred talents of gold, besides the value of the jewels in some of them. Emeralds, Calvinus! Emeralds the size of a baby's fist. I do wish they'd simply give me bullion. The workmanship in the crowns is exquisite, but who outside of the people who gave them to me are going to be interested in buying gold crowns? I have no choice other than to melt them down. Such a pity. Though I hope to sell the emeralds to Bogud, Bocchus and whoever inherits the throne of Numidia after Juba's defeated," said Caesar, ever practical. "The pearls aren't such a problem, I can sell them in Rome easily." "I hope the ship doesn't sink," said Calvinus. "Ship? What ship?" "The one carrying the crowns to the Treasury." Both fair brows flew up; Caesar's eyes twinkled. "My dear Calvinus, that foolish I am not. From all I hear of the situation in Rome, even if the ship didn't sink, the crowns would never see the inside of the Treasury. No, I'll keep them with me." "Wise man" was Calvinus's response; they had spent some time discussing the reports about Rome that had come to Pergamum.

Deiotarus did indeed have a Phrygian cap a fabric affair with a rounded point that flopped to one side. His, however, was made of Tyrian purple interwoven with gold thread, and he did hold it in his hand when Caesar received him. A twinge of mischief had prompted Caesar to make the audience a rather public one; not only Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, but several legates, including Brutus and Cassius. Now let's see how you behave, Brutus! Here before Caesar stands one of your principal debtors. Deiotarus was an old man now, but still vigorous. Like his people, he was a Gaul, a descendant of a Gallic migration eastward into Greece two hundred and fifty years earlier; deflected, most of the Gauls had gone home, but Deiotarus's people had continued east and finally occupied a part of central Anatolia where the country looked a dream to a horse people, rich in grass, and promising work for competent mounted warriors, of whom Anatolia had none. When Mithridates the Great had risen to power, he saw at once that the Galatians would have to go, invited all their chieftains to a feast, and massacred them. That had been in the time of Gaius Marius, sixty years ago. Deiotarus had escaped the massacre because he wasn't old enough to go to the feast with his father, but from the time he grew to manhood, Mithridates had a fierce enemy. He allied himself with Sulla, Lucullus and then Pompey, always against Mithridates and Tigranes, and finally saw his dreams come true when Pompey gave him huge territories and persuaded the Senate (with Caesar's connivance) to allow him to be called a king, his lands of Galatia a client-kingdom. Not for one moment had it occurred to him that anyone could defeat Pompey the Great; no one had moved more strenuously to assist Pompey than Deiotarus. Now here he was in front of this stranger, Gaius Julius Caesar Dictator, his cap in his hand, his heart knocking frantically at his ribs. The man he saw was very tall for a Roman, and fair enough of hair and eye to be a Gaul, but the features were Roman of mouth, nose, shape of eyes, shape of face, those knife-edged high cheekbones. A more different man from Pompey the Great would be hard to imagine, yet Pompey had been Gallic fair too; maybe he had taken to Pompey from the time of first meeting because Pompey truly did look a Gaul, including his facial features. If I had only seen this man first, I might have thought twice about giving Pompeius Magnus so much aid. Caesar is everything I have heard royal enough to be a king, and those cold, piercing eyes look straight through a man to his marrow. O Dann! O Dagda! Caesar has Sulla's eyes! "Caesar, I beg your merciful consideration," he began. "You must surely understand that I was in Pompeius Magnus's clientele his loyalest and most obedient client at all times! If I assisted him, it was my cliental obligation to assist him there was nothing personal in it! Indeed, finding money for his war chest has beggared me, I am in debt to his eyes went to Brutus, he hesitated "certain firms of moneylenders. Deeply in debt!" "Which firms?" Caesar asked. Deiotarus blinked, shifted his trousered legs. "I am not at liberty to divulge their names," he said, swallowing. Caesar's eyes slid sideways to where Brutus was sitting in a chair deliberately placed within the scope of Caesar's gaze. Ah! My Brutus is very concerned! So is brother-in-law Cassius. Does Cassius have shares in Matinius et Scaptius too? How amusing. "Why not?" he asked coolly. "It is a part of the contract, Caesar." "I'd like to see that contract." "I left it in Ancyra." "Dear, dear. Would the name Matinius be in it? Scaptius?" "I don't remember," Deiotarus whispered wretchedly. "Oh, come, Caesar!" Cassius said sharply. "Leave the poor man alone! You're like a cat with a mouse. He's right, it's his business to whom he owes money. Just because you're the dictator doesn't mean you have the right to poke and pry into affairs that don't concern Rome's government! He's in debt, that's surely the only factor of relevance to Rome." Had it been Tiberius Claudius Nero who said that, Caesar's answer would have been a barked order to get out, go back to Rome, go anywhere Caesar was not. But this was Gaius Cassius, who bore watching. Not afraid to speak his mind, and hot tempered. Brutus cleared his throat. "Caesar, if I may, I would like to speak for King Deiotarus, whom I know from his visits to Rome. Don't forget that in him, Mithridates had an implacable enemy, that in him, Rome had a perpetual ally. Does it truly matter whose side King Deiotarus chose in this civil war? I too chose Pompeius Magnus, but I have been forgiven. Gaius Cassius chose Pompeius Magnus, but he has been forgiven. What is the difference? Surely Rome in the person of Caesar Dictator needs every ally possible in this coming struggle against Pharnaces? The King is here to offer his services, he's brought us two thousand horse troopers we desperately need." "So you're advocating that I forgive King Deiotarus and let him go unpunished?" Caesar asked Brutus. The big sad eyes were on fire: he sees his money vanishing. "Yes," said Brutus. A cat with a mouse. No, Cassius, not a cat with a mouse a cat with three mice! Caesar leaned forward in his curule chair and pinned Deiotarus on Sulla's eyes. "I do sympathize with your plight, King, and it's admirable for a client to assist his patron to the top of his bent. The only trouble is that Pompeius had all the clients, Caesar none. So Caesar had to fill his war chest from Rome's Treasury. Which must be paid back at ten percent simple interest the only rate now legal from one end of the world to the other. Which ought to improve your lot considerably, King. It may be that I will allow you to keep most of your kingdom, but I hereby announce that I will not make any decisions until after Pharnaces is defeated. Caesar will be collecting every sestertius he can to pay the Treasury back, so Galatia's tribute will certainly increase, by somewhat less than the old rate of interest you were paying those anonymous usurers. Cherish that thought, King, until I call another council in Nicomedia after Pharnaces is defeated." He rose to his feet. "You are dismissed, King. And thank you for the cavalry."

A letter had come from Cleopatra, its advent contributing to the speed with which Caesar conducted his interview with Deiotarus. With the letter had come a camel train containing five thousand talents of gold.

My darling, wonderful, omnipotent God on earth, my own Caesar, He of Nilus, He of the Inundation, Son of Amun-Ra, Reincarnation of Osiris, beloved of Pharaoh I miss you! But all that is nothing, dearest Caesar, compared to the joyous news that on the fifth day of the last month of peret I gave birth to your son. Ignorance doesn't permit me to translate that perfectly into your calendar, but it was the twenty-third day of your June. He is under the sign of Khnum the Ram, and the horoscope you insisted I pay a Roman astrologer to draw for him says that he will be Pharaoh. A waste of money to learn that! The fellow was cagey, kept on muttering that there would be a crisis in his eighteenth year, but that the aspects didn't let him see clearly. Oh, dearest Caesar, he is beautiful! Horus personified. He was born before his due time, but perfectly formed. Just thin and wrinkled he takes after his tata, you perceive! His hair is gold, and Tach'a says his eyes will be blue. I have milk! Isn't that wonderful? Pharaoh should always feed her babies herself, it is tradition. My little breasts ooze milk. His temper is very sweet, but he has a strong will, and I swear that the first time he opened his eyes to look at me, he smiled. He is very long, more than two Roman feet. His scrotum is large, so is his penis. Cha'em circumcised him according to Egyptian custom. My labor was easy. I felt the pains, squatted down on a thick pad of clean linen, and there he was! His name is Ptolemy XV Caesar. Though we are calling him Caesarion. Things go well in Egypt, even in Alexandria. Rufrius and the legions are well settled into their camp, and the women you gave them as wives seem to have accepted their lot. The rebuilding continues, and I have started the temple of Hathor at Dendera with the cartouches of Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XV Caesar. We will do work at Philae too. Oh, darlingest Caesar, I miss you so much! Were you here, you could do all the ruling with my good wishes I hate having to be away from Caesarion to deal with litigious ship owners and crotchety landlords! My husband Philadelphus is growing more and more like our dead brother, whom I do not miss in the slightest. As soon as Caesarion is old enough, I will dispense with Philadelphus and elevate our son to the throne. I hope, by the way, that you are making sure that Arsino does not escape Roman custody. She's another would have me off my throne in a moment, could she. Now here is the best news of all. With the garrison so settled, I spoke to Uncle Mithridates and secured his promise that when you are settled in Rome, he will rule in my absence while I visit you. Yes, I know you said Pharaoh shouldn't leave her country, but there is one reason compels her to I must have more children with you, and sooner than your return to the East to war against the Parthians. Caesarion must have a sister to marry, and until he does, Nilus is in peril. For our next child might be another boy! They have to come often enough to ensure they are of both sexes. So, whether you like it or not, I am coming to see you in Rome the moment you have defeated the Republicans in Africa. A letter has come from Ammonius, my agent in Rome, to say that events there are going to tie you down in Rome for some time once you have established your rule beyond contest. I have authorized him to build me a palace, but I need you to make a grant of land. Ammonius says it's very difficult to set up a Roman citizen pretend-owner for prime land, so a grant from you would be quicker and easier. On the Capitol, near the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. My choice. I asked Ammonius which location had the best views. I am sending you five thousand gold talents with this letter in honor of our son. Please, please write to me! I miss you, I miss you, I miss you! Your hands especially. I pray for you every day to Amun-Ra, and to Montu, God of War. I love you, Caesar.

A son, apparently healthy. Caesar is absurdly pleased for an old man who ought to be welcoming the birth of grandchildren. But she has given the child a Greek name, Caesarion. Perhaps it's better. He isn't a Roman and he never can be a Roman. He will be the richest man in the world, and a powerful king. Oh, but the mother is immature! Such an artless letter, vain and vainglorious. Grant her land to build a palace on the Capitol, near the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest what a sacrilege, were it possible. She is determined to come to Rome, she will not be denied. Let it be upon her own head, then. Caesar, you are too hard on her. No one can be more than the capacity of their mind and talents allow, and her blood is tainted, for all that at heart she is a nice little thing. Her crimes are natural to her background, her mistakes not due to arrogance as much as to ignorance. I fear she'll never have the gift of foresight, so I must offer that our son does. But one thing Caesar has resolved: there will never be any sister for Caesarion to marry. Caesar will not quicken her again. Coitus interruptus, Cleopatra. He sat down and wrote to her, half his attention on the sounds drifting into his room sounds of legions pulling camp, of horses neighing, of men shouting and cursing, Carfulenus bellowing ghastly obscenities at a hapless soldier.

What good news, my dear Cleopatra. A son, just as was predicted. Would Amun-Ra dare disappoint his daughter on earth? Truly, I am very glad for you and Egypt. The gold is welcome. Since emerging into the wide world again, I have come to a better understanding of how deeply Rome is in debt. Civil war brings no booty in its train, and war is profitable only if there is booty. Your contribution in the name of our son will not be wasted. Since you insist upon coming to Rome, I will not stand in your way, only warn you that it will not be what you expect. I will arrange that you have land under the Janiculan Hill, adjoining my own pleasure gardens. Tell Ammonius to apply to the broker Gaius Matius. I am not a man famous for his love letters. Just accept the love and know that I am indeed very pleased with you and our son. I will write to you again when I reach Bithynia. Take care of yourself and our boy.

And that was that. Caesar rolled the single sheet, plopped a blob of melted wax on its junction, and sealed it with his ring, a new one Cleopatra had given him not entirely from love. It was also a sly poke at his reluctance to discuss his past emotional history with her. The amethyst intaglio was of a sphinx in Greek form, having a human head and a lion's body, and instead of the usual abbreviated full name, it simply said CAESAR in mirrored block letters. He loved it. When he decided which of his nephews or close cousins would be his adopted heir, the ring would go to him along with the name. Ye gods, a sorry lot! Lucius Pinarius? Even Quintus Pedius, the best of his nephews, wasn't exactly inspiring. Among the cousins, there were the young fellow in Antioch, Sextus Julius Caesar Decimus Junius Brutus and the man most of Rome assumed would be his heir, Marcus Antonius. Who, who, who? For it could not be Ptolemy XV Caesar. On his way out he gave the letter to Gaius Faberius. "Send this to Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria," he said curtly. Faberius was dying to know if the baby had been born, but one look at Caesar's face decided him not to ask. The old boy was in the mood to fight, not wax lyrical about babies, even his own.

Lake Tatta was a huge, shallow body of bitterly salty water; perhaps, thought Caesar, studying the conglomerate shores, it was the remnant of some past inland sea, for ancient shells were embedded in the soft rock. Despite its desert nature, it was strikingly beautiful to behold; the scummy surface of the lake glowed with greens, acid yellows, reddish yellows, ribbons of one color coiling through another, and the sere landscape for many miles reflected some of that vivid spectrum. Never having been in central Anatolia, Caesar found it both bizarre and splendid; the Halys River, the great red waterway that curled like an augur's lituus staff for hundreds of miles, lay in a narrow valley between high red cliffs that gave off extrusions and towers he thought reminiscent of a tall city. In other stretches of its course, the attentive Deiotarus told him, it flowed through a broad plain of fertile fields. The mountains began again, high and still smothered in snow, but the Galatian guides knew all the passes; the army weaved its way between them, a traditional Roman snake eight miles long, the cavalry dotting its flanks, the soldiers striding out singing their marching songs to keep the pace. Oh, this is more like! A foreign foe, a true campaign in a strange new land whose beauty is haunting. At which moment King Pharnaces sent his first gold crown to Caesar. This one resembled the Armenian rather than the Parthian tiara: mitered, not truncated, and encrusted with round, starred rubies all exactly the same small size. "Oh, if only I knew someone who could buy it for what it's worth!" Caesar breathed to Calvinus. "It's heartbreaking to melt this down." "Needs must," Calvinus said briskly. "Actually those little carbunculi will fetch an excellent price from any jeweler in the Porticus Margaritaria I've never seen stars in them before. The gold hardly shows, there are so many. Like a cake rolled in nuts." "Do you think our friend Pharnaces is becoming worried?" "Oh, yes. The degree of his worry will show in how often he sends you a crown, Caesar." Calvinus grinned. One every three days for the next nundinum, all the same in form and content; by that time Caesar was only five days' march from the Cimmerian camp. The count at three crowns, Pharnaces sent an ambassador to Caesar with a fourth crown. "A token of his regard from the King of Kings, great Caesar." "King of Kings? Is that what Pharnaces has taken to calling himself?" Caesar asked, aping astonishment. "Tell your master that it's a title bodes ill for its holder. The last King of Kings was Tigranes, and look what Rome did to him in the person of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Yet I defeated Pompeius Magnus, so what does that make me, Ambassador?" "A mighty conqueror," said the ambassador, swallowing. Why didn't Romans look like mighty conquerors? No golden litter, no traveling harem of wives and concubines, no bodyguard of picked troops, no glittering garments. Caesar wore a plain steel cuirass with a red ribbon knotted around its lower chest, and looked, save for that ribbon, no different from a dozen others around him. "Go back to your king, Ambassador, and tell him it's time he went home, said Caesar in businesslike tones. "But before he goes, I want sufficient gold bullion to pay for the damage he has done in Pontus and Armenia Parva. A thousand talents for Amisus, three thousand for the rest of those two countries. The gold will be used to repair his ravages, make no mistake. It is not for the Treasury of Rome." He paused to turn his head and stare at Deiotarus. "However," he went on urbanely, "King Pharnaces was a client of Pompeius Magnus's, and did not honor his cliental obligations. Therefore I fine King Pharnaces two thousand gold talents for not honoring his cliental obligations, and that will go to the Treasury of Rome." Deiotarus went purple, spluttered and choked, but said not a word. Did Caesar have no shame at all? Ready to punish Galatia for obeying its cliental obligations, equally ready to punish Cimmeria for not obeying its cliental obligations! "If I do not hear from your king today, Ambassador, I will continue my advance across this beautiful valley." "There isn't one-tenth that much gold in all of Cimmeria," said Calvinus, smothering his laughter at Deiotarus's outrage. "You might be surprised, Gnaeus. Don't forget Cimmeria was an important part of the old king's realm, and he amassed whole mountains of gold. Not all of it was in those seventy fortresses Pompeius stripped bare in Armenia Parva." "Did you hear him?" Deiotarus was squeaking to Brutus. "Did you hear him? A client-king can't do right, whichever course he elects! Oh, I don't believe his gall!" "There, there," Brutus soothed. "It's his way of getting the money to pay for this war. He's right, he did have to burgle Rome's Treasury, which has to be paid back." The mournful eyes grew hard and minatory; Brutus stared at the King of Galatia like a father at a naughty son. "And you, Deiotarus, have to pay me back. I hope that's understood." "And I hope you understand, Marcus Brutus, that when Caesar says ten percent simple interest, that's what he means!" Deiotarus said savagely. "That I'm willing to pay if I keep my kingdom but not one sestertius more. Do you want Matinius's books open to Caesar's auditors? And how do you think you can collect debts now that you can't commandeer legions for that purpose? The world has changed, Marcus Brutus, and the man who dictates how the new world will be run is not enamored of usurers, even among his own class. Ten percent simple interest if I keep my kingdom. And keeping my kingdom may well depend upon how lyrically you and Gaius Cassius plead my cause at Nicomedia after we meet Pharnaces!"

* * *

Zela had taken Caesar's breath away. A high, rocky outcrop, it stood in the middle of a fifty-mile basin of springtime wheat as green as the emeralds in that crown, surrounded on all sides by soaring lilac mountains still covered in snow halfway down their sides, with the Scylax River, a broad, steely blue stream, winding from one side of the plain to the other. The Cimmerian camp lay at the base of the outcrop, on top of which Pharnaces had put his command tents and harem; he had had a perfect view of the Roman snake as it had emerged from the northern pass, and sent his third crown. The ambassador returned after giving Caesar the fourth crown and delivered Caesar's message, but Pharnaces ignored it, convinced he was unbeatable. He watched Caesar put his legions and cavalry into a heavily fortified camp for the night, only a mile from his own lines. At dawn Pharnaces attacked en masse; like his father and Tigranes before him, he couldn't believe that a smallish force, no matter how well organized, could withstand a hundred thousand warriors charging at it. He did better than Pompey at Pharsalus; his troops lasted four hours before they disintegrated. Just as in the early days in Belgic Gaul, the Skythians stayed to fight to the death, deeming it an unendurable disgrace to abandon a field of defeat alive. "If Magnus's Anatolian foes were of this caliber," Caesar said to Calvinus, Pansa, Vinicianus and Cassius, "he doesn't deserve the epithet 'great.' It's no great task to beat them." "I suppose the Gauls were infinitely greater adversaries," said Cassius between his teeth. "Read my commentaries," Caesar said, smiling. "Bravery is not the issue. The Gauls owned two qualities today's adversaries don't have. First of all, they learned from their early mistakes. And secondly, they had an unquenchable patriotism that I had to work very hard to channel into avenues as useful to themselves as to Rome. But you did well, Cassius, led your legion like a true vir militaris. I'll have plenty of work for you in a few years, when I set out to deal with the Kingdom of the Parthians and bring our Eagles home. By then you'll have been consul, so you'll be one of my chief legates. I understand that you like waging war in dry places as well as on the sea." This should have thrilled Cassius, but it angered him. He speaks as if it is all in his personal gift. What glory can there be in that for me, his minion? The Great Man had wandered off to inspect the field, issue orders that mass graves be dug to bury the Skythians; there were too many to burn, even if Zela had owned any forests. Pharnaces himself had fled, gathered his war chest and his treasures to gallop off northward, leaving the women of his harem dead. When Caesar was told, his only concern was for the women. He donated the spoils to his legates, tribunes, centurions, legions and cavalry, declining to take the general's percentage; he had his crowns, they were enough. By the time the ceremony of dividing the spoils was over, the rankers found themselves ten thousand sesterces richer, and legates like Brutus and Cassius had amassed a hundred talents each. That was how much had lain around the Cimmerian camp, so who knew what Pharnaces had taken with him? Not that anybody received the money in his hand; it was an accounting exercise attended by elected representatives, for spoils were kept intact until they had been displayed in the general's triumph, after which the actual money was distributed.

Two days later the army marched for Pergamum, which greeted it with cheers and cascades of flowers. The threat of Pharnaces was no more, Asia Province could sleep peacefully. Though forty-two years had gone by, no one in Asia Province could forget the hundred thousand people Mithridates the Great had massacred when he invaded. "I'll be sending Asia Province a very good governor as soon as I return to Rome," Caesar told Archelaus, the son of Mithridates of Pergamum, in a private interview. "He'll come knowing what has to be done to set the province on its feet. The days of the tax farming publicani are over for good. Each district will collect its own taxes and pay them directly to Rome after the five-year moratorium on taxes is over. However, none of that is why I asked to see you." Caesar leaned forward, clasped his hands together on his desk. "I'll be writing to your father in Alexandria, yet Pergamum should know its fate now. I plan to shift the governor's seat to Ephesus Pergamum is too far north, too out of things. So all of Pergamum will become the Kingdom of Pergamum, and be ruled as a client-state by your father. It won't be as large a realm as the one the last Attalus bequeathed to Rome in his will, but it will be larger than it currently is. I'm adding western Galatia, to give Pergamum sufficient land for growing and grazing. My feeling is that the provinces of Rome are becoming too bureaucratically necessary to Rome, perpetuating additional expenses from layers of middlemen and superfluous paperwork. Whenever I find a good, capable family of local citizens fit to rule a client-state, I shall create that client-state. You will pay taxes and tributes to Rome, but Rome won't have the bother of collection." He cleared his throat. "There is a price. Namely, to hold Pergamum for Rome at all costs and against all foes. To remain not only Caesar's personal clients, but also the personal clients of Caesar's heir. To rule wisely and increase local prosperity for all your citizens, not merely the upper echelons." "I've always known that my father is a wise man, Caesar," said the young man, amazed at this incredible gift, "but the wisest thing he ever did was to aid you. We are oh, grateful is an inadequate word!" "I'm not after gratitude," Caesar said crisply. "I'm after a more precious thing loyalty."

From there it was north to Bithynia, the state along the southern shores of the Propontis, a vast lake forming a precursor to the mighty Euxine Sea, which filled it up through the straits of the Thracian Bosporus, upon which sat the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. The Propontis in its turn flowed south into the Aegean Sea through the straits of the Hellespont, thus linking the vast rivers of the Sarmatian and Skythian steppes with Our Sea. Nicomedia lay upon a long, calm inlet of the Propontis that had the trick of forming a mirror for the world above it, from the cloud-puffed sky in its depths to the perfectly reversed images of trees, hills, people, animals a place wherein the world seemed to go on as much below as above, like a miniature globe seen from its inside. To Caesar, it was one of the places he loved the most, for it was filled with heartwarming memories of an octogenarian king who wore a curled wig and elaborate face paint, kept an army of effeminate slaves to fulfill his every wish. No, they had never been lovers, the third King Nicomedes and Caesar! They had been something far better dear friends. And big, booming old Queen Oradaltis, whose dog, Sulla, had bitten her on her behind the day a twenty-year-old Caesar had arrived. Their only child, Nysa, had been kidnaped by Mithridates the Great and held for years. Lucullus had freed her, aged fifty, and sent her back to her mother; the old king was dead then. When Rome made Bithynia a province, Caesar had diddled the governor, Juncus, by transferring Oradaltis's funds to a bank in Byzantium and moving her to a nice mansion in a fishing village on the Euxine coast. There Oradaltis and Nysa had lived out their days very happily, fishing with hand-lines from the pier and taking walks with their new dog, named Lucullus. All dead now, of course. The palace he remembered so well had long been the governor's residence; its most priceless items had been removed by the first governor, Juncus, but the gilt and the purple marble were still in evidence. Juncus, Caesar reflected, had been the start of his determination to end gubernatorial peculations and looting. Well, Verres first, but he had not been a governor. Verres was in a class all his own, as Cicero proved. Men went out to govern provinces and make their fortunes at the expense of the provincials sold the citizenship, sold tax exemptions, confiscated fortunes, regulated the grain prices, took every work of art they could put their hands on, took bribes from the publicani and loaned their lictors, even their troops, to Roman moneylenders collecting debts. Juncus had done very well out of Bithynia, but some deity had taken offense at him or at his actions; he and his ill-gotten gains went to the bottom of Our Sea on the way home. Which does not put the statues and paintings back where they belong. Oh, Caesar, you are old! That was another time, and the many memories playing around these walls have the shape and content of lemures, creatures of the underworld let loose two nights a year. Too much has happened far too fast. What Sulla did lives on, and Caesar is its latest victim. No man can be happy who has marched on his own country. Caesar's kindnesses are conscious, done for Caesar's benefit, and Caesar no longer sees the world as a place wherein magical things can occur. Because they can't. Men and women ruin it with their impulses, desires, thoughtlessness, lack of intelligence, cupidity. A Cato and a Bibulus can bring down good government. And a Caesar can get very tired of trying to put good government back together again. The Caesar who dueled wits with that naughty old king was a different man from this Caesar, who has become cold, cynical, utterly weary. This man has no passions. This man just wants to get through each day with his image unimpaired. This man grows dangerously close to being tired of the act of living. How can one man put Rome back together again? Especially a man who has turned fifty-three? However, the days had to be gotten through, like it or not. One of Caesar's most promising protgs, Gaius Vibius Pansa, was appointed the governor of Bithynia; whereas, Caesar decided, for the moment Pontus should have its own governor rather than be ruled in tandem with Bithynia. He appointed another promising man, Marcus Coelius Vinicianus, governor of Pontus; it would be his task to repair the ravages of Pharnaces.

When the dispositions were finally completed, he shot the bolt on his study door and wrote letters: to Cleopatra and Mithridates of Pergamum in Alexandria, Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus in Rome, Marcus Antonius his Master of the Horse, and, last but not least, to the oldest of his friends, Gaius Matius. They were the same age. Matius's father had rented the other ground-floor apartment of Aurelia's insula in the Subura, so the two boys had played together in the beautiful garden Matius's father had created at the bottom of the insula's light well. The son had inherited Matius Senior's genius for ornamental horticulture, and designed, in his nebulous spare time, Caesar's pleasure gardens across the Tiber. Matius had invented the art of topiary, and seized eagerly upon any chance to trim box and privet into birds, animals, wonderful shapes. Caesar embarked upon this letter with his defenses down, for this recipient above all others had no axes to grind.

VENI, VIDI, VICI. I came, I saw, I conquered. I am thinking of adopting that as my motto, it seems to happen so regularly, and the phrase itself is so succinct. At least this last episode of coming, seeing, and conquering has been against a foreigner. Things in the East have been put right. What a mess! Thanks to rapacious governors and invading kings, Cilicia, Asia Province, Bithynia and Pontus are on their knees and groaning. I feel less sympathy for Syria. I've followed in the footsteps of that other dictator, Sulla simply revived all his relief measures, which were remarkably perceptive. Since you're not in the tax farming business, my reforms in Asia Minor won't hurt you, but the fur will fly among the publicani and other Asian speculators when I reach Rome I have clipped their wings back to stumps. Do I care? No, I do not. The trouble with Sulla was that he didn't know his political ABC. He resigned from his dictatorship without first making sure that his new constitution couldn't be overthrown. Believe me, Caesar won't make that mistake. The last thing I want is a Senate stuffed with my own creatures, but I fear that is what must happen. You might think it sensible to have a compliant Senate, but it isn't, Matius, it isn't. While ever there is healthy political competition, the more feral among my adherents can be kept in order. But once governmental institutions are composed entirely of my own adherents, what is to stop a younger, more ambitious man than I from stepping over my carcass into the dictator's chair? Government must have opposition! What government does not need is the boni, who oppose for the sake of opposing, who don't understand what it is that they oppose. Therefore boni opposition was irrational, rather than soundly based in genuine, thoughtful analysis. Note that I switched to the past tense. The boni are no more, Africa Province will see to that. What I had hoped to see was the right kind of opposition: now I am afraid that all a civil war actually achieves is the murder of opposition. I am in a cleft stick. From Tarsus onward I have had the dubious pleasure of the company of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius. Both now pardoned and working indefatigably for themselves. No, not for Rome, and certainly not for Caesar. A potential healthy senatorial opposition, then? No, I fear not. Neither man cares more for his country than for his own personal agenda. Though being with that pair has had its entertaining side, and I have learned a lot about moneylending. I have just concluded the rearrangement of Anatolia's client-kingdoms, chiefly Galatia and Cappadocia. Deiotarus needed a lesson, so I gave him one. Originally I had meant to pare Galatia back to a small area around Ancyra, but oh, oh, oh! Brutus suddenly roared like a lion and went to war to protect Deiotarus, who owes him millions upon millions. How dare I strip such a splendid fellow of three-quarters of his territories and turn a steady income into a permanent bad debt? Brutus just wouldn't have it. The eloquence, the rhetorical devices! Truly, Matius, had Cicero heard Brutus in full flight, he would have been tearing his hair out and gnashing his teeth in envy. With Cassius contributing his mite too, I add. They are more than mere brothers-in-law and old school chums. In the end I let Deiotarus keep a great deal more than I had intended, but he lost western Galatia to the new client-kingdom of Pergamum, and Armenia Parva to Cappadocia. Brutus may not want much, but what he does want, he wants desperately. Namely, the preservation of his fortune. Brutus's motives are as clear as Anatolian spring water, but Cassius is a far murkier individual. Arrogant, conceited and hugely ambitious. I shall never forgive him for that scurrilous report he sent back to Rome after Crassus died at Carrhae, extolling his own virtues and turning poor Crassus into nothing more than a money-grubber. I admit his weakness for money, but he was genuinely a great man. What irked Cassius about my client-kingdom arrangements was that I did them by my dictate without any debates in the House, without any laws on the tablets, without considering anybody's wishes save my own. In that respect it is terrific to be the Dictator saves huge amounts of time in dealing with matters I know I've fixed in exactly the fairest and most proper way. But it doesn't please Cassius. Or put it this way: it would only please Cassius if he were the Dictator. I am the father of a son. The Queen of Egypt presented me with a boy last June. Naturally he isn't a Roman, but his destiny is to rule Egypt, so I'm not complaining. As for the mother of my boy meet her and decide for yourself. She insists upon coming to Rome after the Republicans what a misnomer! have gone down to final defeat. Her agent, one Ammonius, is going to come to you and ask that she be granted a tract of land next door to my Janiculan gardens, thereon to build a palace for her stay in Rome. When you deal with the conveyancing, put it in my name, though she can pay for it. I have no intention of divorcing Calpurnia to marry her. That would be too churlish. Piso's daughter has been an exemplary wife. I may not have been in Rome for more than a few days since shortly after I married her, but I have my spies. Calpurnia is all that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. A nice girl. I know I sound hard, a trifle facetious, somewhat cagey. But I have changed out of all recognition, Matius. It is not meet that a man should rise so far above his equals that he has no equal, and I fear that that is what has happened to me. The very men who might have given me a run for my money are all dead. Publius Clodius. Gaius Curio. Marcus Crassus. Pompeius Magnus. I feel like the lighthouse on Pharos nothing stands half so tall. Which is not the way I would have it, did I have a choice. When I crossed the Rubicon into Italy and marched on Rome, something broke in me. It isn't fair that they should have pushed me into that did they genuinely think I would not march? I am Caesar, my dignitas is dearer to me than my very life. Caesar, to be convicted of a nonexistent treason and sent into an irreversible exile? Unthinkable. If I had it all to do again, I would do it all again. Yet something in me broke. I can never be what I wanted to be consul for the second time in my year, Pontifex Maximus, elder statesman whose opinion is asked for first in the House after the consuls-elect and the consuls, Military Man without peer. Now I am a god in Ephesus and a god in Egypt, I am Dictator of Rome and ruler of the world. But they are not my choice. You know me well enough to understand what I am saying. Few men do. They interpret my motives in the light of what their own motives would be were they in my place. It came as a grievous shock to hear of Aulus Gabinius's death in Salona. A good man exiled for a wrong cause. Old Ptolemy Auletes didn't have ten thousand talents to pay him, I doubt Gabinius ever got more than two thousand for the job. If Lentulus Spinther had gotten off his arse in Cilicia quickly enough to beat Gabinius to that particular contract, would he have been prosecuted? Of course not! He was boni, whereas Gabinius voted for Caesar. That is what has to stop, Matius one law for one man, another law for another man. On one subject my inimicus Gaius Cassius remains silent. When I told him that his brother Quintus had raped Further Spain, loaded his plunder on a ship and sailed for Rome before Gaius Trebonius arrived to govern, Cassius said not one word. Nor when I told him that the ship, very overloaded, capsized and sank in the Iberus estuary, and Quintus Cassius was drowned. I am not sure whether Gaius Cassius's silence is due to the fact that Quintus was my man, or that Quintus made the Cassii look bad. I shall be in Rome around the end of September.

Caesar had written one letter from Zela straight after the battle, and sent it to Asander in Cimmeria. It repeated what the ambassador had been told: that Cimmeria owed Pontus four thousand gold talents, and the Treasury of Rome two thousand more. It also informed Asander that his father had fled to Sinope, apparently en route for home. Just before Caesar left Nicomedia, he received an answer from Asander. It thanked him for his consideration, and was pleased to be able to tell Caesar Dictator that Pharnaces, having arrived in Cimmeria, had been put to death. Asander was now King of Cimmeria, and most desirous of being enrolled in Caesar's clientele. As evidence of good faith, the missive was accompanied by two thousand talents of gold; four thousand more had been sent to the new governor of Pontus, Vinicianus. So when Caesar sailed down through the Hellespont, his ship held seven thousand talents of gold and a great number of crowns. His first stop was the island of Samos, where he sought out one of the more moderate among his opponents, the great patrician consular Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who greeted him with pleasure and confessed that he was as unhappy as he was penitent. "We wronged you, Caesar, and I am sorry for that. Sincerely, I never dreamed that matters would go so far," Sulpicius said. "It wasn't your fault that they did. What I hope is that you'll return to Rome and resume your seat in the Senate. Not to suck up to me, but to consider my laws and measures in the light of their intrinsic worth." Here on Samos, Caesar lost Brutus, whom Caesar had promised a priesthood; as Servius Sulpicius was a great authority on priestly law and procedure, Brutus wanted to stay and study with the expert. Caesar's only regret in leaving him behind was that he still had Gaius Cassius. From Samos he sailed to Lesbos, where sat a far more obdurate opponent, the consular Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Who vehemently rebuffed all Caesar's overtures. The next stop was Athens, which had been ardently Pompeian in its sympathies; it did not fare well at Caesar's hands. He imposed a huge fine, then spent most of his time in taking a trip to Corinth, on the isthmus dividing the Greek mainland from the Peloponnese. Gaius Mummius had sacked it generations before, and Corinth had never recovered. Caesar poked through its deserted buildings, climbed the great rearing citadel of the Akrocorinth; Cassius, ordered to accompany him, couldn't make out why the Great Man was so fascinated. "The place is begging for a canal through the isthmus," the Great Man remarked, standing on the narrow spit of solid rock high above the water. "If there were a canal, ships wouldn't have to sail around Cape Taenarum at the mercy of its storms. They could go straight from Patrae to the Aegean. Hmmm." "Impossible!" Cassius snorted. "You'd have to cut down two hundred and more feet." "Nothing is impossible," Caesar said mildly. "As for the old city, it's begging for new settlers. Gaius Marius wanted to repopulate it with veterans from his legions." "And failed," said Cassius shortly. He kicked at a stone, watched it bounce. "I'm planning to stay in Athens." "I'm afraid not, Gaius Cassius. You'll go to Rome with me." "Why?" Cassius demanded, stiffening. "Because, my dear fellow, you're not an admirer of Caesar, and nor is Athens. I think it prudent to keep the pair of you well apart. No, don't flounce off, hear me out." Feet already turned to walk away, Cassius paused, turned back warily. Think, Cassius, think! You may hate him, but he rules. "I have a mind to advance you and Brutus, not because it is in my gift, but because both of you would have been praetors and consuls in or close to your year, therefore that should happen," Caesar said, holding Cassius's eyes. "Stop resenting me when you should be offering thanks to the gods that I am a merciful man. If I were Sulla, you'd be dead, Cassius. Convert your misdirected energies into the right channels and be of good use to Rome. I don't matter, you don't matter. Rome matters." "Do you swear on your newborn son's head that you have no ambition to be the King of Rome?" "I swear it," said Caesar. "King of Rome? I'd as soon be one of those mad hermits living in a cave above the Palus Asphaltites. Now look at the problem again, Cassius, and look at it dispassionately. A canal is possible."

IV

The Master of the Horse

From the end of SEPTEMBER to the end of DECEMBER of 47 B.C.

The Sixth Legion and the German cavalry had been sent from Pergamum to Ephesus to form the nucleus of Asia Province's army, so when Caesar set foot on Italian soil on Pompey the Great's birthday, he had only Decimus Carfulenus and a century of foot with him. As well as Aulus Hirtius, Gaius Cassius, his aide Gaius Trebatius, and a handful of other legates and tribunes all desirous of resuming their public careers. Carfulenus and his century were there to guard the gold, in need of an escort. The winds had blown them around the heel to Tarentum, most vexatious! Had they landed as planned in Brundisium, Caesar could have seen Marcus Cicero with no inconvenience; as it was, he had to instruct the others to proceed up the Via Appia without him, and set out himself to backtrack to Brundisium in a fast gig. As luck would have it, the four mules hadn't covered very many miles when they encountered a litter ambling toward them; Caesar whooped in delight. Cicero, it had to be Cicero! Who else would use a conveyance as slow as a litter in this kind of early summer heat wave? The gig drew up with a clatter, Caesar down from it before it stopped moving. He strode to the litter to find Cicero hunched over a portable writing table. For a moment Cicero gaped, then squawked and scrambled out. "Caesar!" "Come, walk with me a little." The two old adversaries strolled off down the baking road in silence until they were out of earshot, then Caesar stopped to face Cicero, his eyes busy. Such terrible changes! Not so much to Cicero's exterior, though that was much thinner, more lined; to the spirit, showing nakedly in the fine, intelligent brown eyes, gone a little rheumy. Here is another who simply wanted to be an eminent consular, an elder statesman, censor perhaps, asked for his opinion early in the House debates. Like me, it's no longer possible. Too much water has flowed under the bridge. "How has it been?" Caesar asked, throat tight. "Ghastly," said Cicero without prevarication. "I've been stuck in Brundisium for a year, Terentia won't send me any money, Dolabella has dumped Tullia, and the poor girl had such a falling out with her mother that she fled to me. Her health is poor, and why, I don't know! she still loves Dolabella." "Go to Rome, Marcus. In fact, I very much want you to take your seat in the Senate again. I need all the decent opposition I can get." Cicero bridled. "Oh, I couldn't do that! I'd be seen as giving in to you." A huge rush of blood; lips tightening, Caesar reined his temper in. "Well, let us not discuss it at the moment. Just pack your things and take Tullia to a more salubrious climate. Stay in one of your beautiful Campanian villas. Write a little. Think about things. Patch up matters with Terentia." "Terentia? That's beyond patching up," Cicero said bitterly. "Would you believe that she's threatening to leave all her money to strangers? When she has a son and a daughter to provide for?" "Dogs, cats or a temple?" Caesar asked gravely. Cicero spluttered. "To leave her money to any of those, she would need a heart! I believe that her choice has fallen on persons dedicated to the er 'wisdom of the East,' or some such. Tchah!" "Oh, dear. Has she espoused Isis?" "Terentia, put a whip to her own back? Not likely!" They talked a little longer, keeping the subject to nothing in particular. Caesar gave Cicero what news of the two Quintuses he had, rather surprised that neither had yet turned up in Italy. Cicero told him that Atticus and his wife, Pilia, were very well, their daughter growing heartbreakingly fast. They moved then to affairs in Rome, but Cicero was reluctant to speak of troubles he clearly blamed on Caesar. "What besides debt has bitten Dolabella?" Caesar asked. "How would I know? Except that he's taken up with Aesopus's son, and the fellow is a shockingly bad influence." "A tragic actor's son? Dolabella keeps low company." "Aesopus," said Cicero with dignity, "happens to be a good friend of mine. Dolabella's company isn't low, it's just bad." Caesar gave up, returned to his gig, and headed for Rome.

His cousin and dearest friend, Lucius Julius Caesar, met him at Philippus's villa near Misenum, not so very far from Rome. Seven years older than Caesar, Lucius looked a great deal like him in face and physique, though his eyes were a softer, kinder blue. "You know, of course, that Dolabella has been agitating all year for a general cancellation of debts, and that an amazingly capable pair of tribunes of the plebs have opposed him adamantly?" Lucius asked as they settled to talk. "Ever since I got out of Egypt. Asinius Pollio and Lucius Trebellius, two of my men." "Two very good men! Though they take their lives in their hands every time, they keep vetoing Dolabella's bill in the Plebeian Assembly. Dolabella thought to cow them by reviving Publius Clodius's street gangs, added some ex-gladiators, and began to terrorize the Forum. It made no difference to Pollio and Trebellius, who are still vetoing." "And your nephew and my cousin, Marcus Antonius, my Master of the Horse?" asked Caesar. "Antonius is a wolfshead, Gaius. Indolent, gluttonous, bad-mannered, priapic, and a drunkard to boot." "I am aware of his history, Lucius. But I had thought, given his good behavior during the war against Magnus, that he'd grown out of his bad habits." "He will never grow out of his bad habits!" Lucius snapped. "Antonius's answer to the mushrooming violence in Rome was to quit the city and go elsewhere to how did he put it? 'supervise affairs in Italy.' His idea of supervision consists in litters full of mistresses, wagons full of wine, a chariot harnessed to a quartet of lionesses, a retinue of dwarves, mummers, magicians and dancers, and an orchestra of Thracian Pan pipers and pitty-pat drummers he fancies himself the new Dionysus!" "The fool! I warned him," Caesar said softly. "If you did, then he paid you no heed. Late in March word came from Capua that the legions camped there were restive, so Antonius set off with his circus to Capua, where, as far as I can gather, he's still conferring with the legions six months later. No sooner had he left Rome than Dolabella stepped up the violence. Then Pollio and Trebellius sent Publius Sulla and plain Valerius Messala to see you in person you haven't seen them?" "No. Continue, Lucius." "Matters grew steadily worse. Two nundinae ago the Senate passed its Senatus Consultum Ultimum and ordered Antonius to deal with the situation in Rome. He took his time about responding, but when he did, what he did was unspeakable. Four days ago he marched the Tenth Legion from Capua straight into the Forum and ordered them to attack the rioters. Gaius, they drew their swords and waded into men armed only with cudgels! Eight hundred of them were killed. Dolabella called off his demonstrations immediately, but Antonius ignored him. Instead, he left the Forum reeking and sent some of the Tenth to round up a few men he called the ringleaders on whose say-so, I have no idea. About fifty altogether, including twenty Roman citizens. He flogged and beheaded the non-citizens, and threw the citizens off the Tarpeian Rock. Then, having added those bodies to the total, Antonius marched the Tenth back to Capua." Caesar's face was white, his fists clenched. "I've heard none of this," he said. "I'm sure you haven't, though the news of it is all over the entire country. But who would tell Caesar Dictator, except me?" "Where is Dolabella?" "Still in Rome, but lying low." "And Antonius?" "Still in Capua. He says the legions are mutinous." "And government, apart from Pollio and Trebellius?" "Nonexistent. You've been away too long, Gaius, and you did too little in Rome before you left. Eighteen months! While Vatia Isauricus was consul things rubbed along fairly well, but this has not been a year to leave Rome without consuls or praetors, and so I tell you straight! Neither Vatia nor Lepidus has any authority, and Lepidus is a weakling into the bargain. From the moment that Antonius brought the legions back from Macedonia, the trouble started. He and Dolabella what bosom friends they used to be! seem determined to wreck Rome so effectively that even you won't be able to pick up the pieces and if you can't pick up the pieces, Gaius, they'll fight it out to the finish to see which one of them will be the next dictator." "Is that what they're after?" Caesar asked. Lucius Caesar got to his feet and paced the room, his face grim. "Why," he demanded, spinning suddenly to confront Caesar, still sitting, "have you been away so long, cousin? It's unconscionable! Dallying in the arms of some Oriental temptress, boating down rivers, focusing your attention on the wrong end of Our Sea Gaius, it is a year since Magnus died! Where have you been? Your place is in Rome!" No one else could have said this to him, as Caesar well knew; no doubt Vatia, Lepidus, Philippus, Pollio, Trebellius and all those left in Rome had deliberately given the mission to the one man Caesar couldn't lash back at. His friend and ally of many years, Lucius Julius Caesar, consular, Chief Augur, loyalest legate of the Gallic War. So he listened courteously until Lucius Caesar ran down, then lifted his hands in a gesture of defense. "Even I can't be in two places at one and the same moment," he said, keeping his voice level and detached. "Of course I knew how much work I had to do in Rome, and of course I realized that Rome must come first. But I was faced with two alternatives, Lucius, and I still believe that I chose the correct one. Either I left the eastern end of Our Sea to become a hornet's nest of intrigue, Republican resistance, barbarian conquests and absolute anarchy, or I remained there and tidied the place because I just happened to be there when it all erupted. I decided to stay in the East, believing that Rome would survive until I could get home. My mistake is obvious now: I trusted Marcus Antonius too much. He can be so competent, Lucius, that's the most exasperating part of it! What did Julia Antonia do to those three boys, between her megrims and her vapors, her disastrous choice of husbands, and her inability to keep a properly Roman household? As you say, Marcus is a drunken, priapic wolfshead. Gaius is inept enough to qualify as a mental defective, and Lucius is so sly that he never lets his left hand know what his right is doing." Blue eyes looked into blue; both pairs crinkled up. Family! The curse of every man. "However, I am here now, Lucius. This won't happen again. Nor am I too late. If Antonius and Dolabella think to fight for the dictatorship over my corpse, they have another think coming. Caesar Dictator is not about to oblige them by dying." "I do see your point about the East," Lucius said, a little mollified, "but don't let Antonius charm you, Gaius. You have a soft spot for him, but he's gone too far this time." He frowned. "There's something peculiar going on with the legions, and I know in my bones that my nephew is at the bottom of it. He won't allow anyone else in their vicinity." "Have they reason to be discontented? Cicero hinted that they haven't been paid." "I assume they have been, because I know Antonius took silver from the Treasury to mint into coin. Perhaps they're bored? They are your Gallic veterans. Pompeius Magnus's Spanish veterans are there too," Lucius Caesar said. "Inaction can't please them." "They'll have work enough to do in Africa Province as soon as I've attended to Rome," Caesar said, and got to his feet. "We start for Rome this moment, Lucius. I want to enter the Forum at the crack of dawn." "One other thing, Gaius," Lucius said as they left the room. "Antonius has moved into Pompeius Magnus's palace on the Carinae." Caesar stopped in his tracks. "On whose authority?" "His own, as Master of the Horse. He said his old house was too small for his needs." "Did he now," said Caesar, moving again. "How old is he?" "Thirty-six." "Old enough to know better."

* * *

Every time Caesar comes back, Rome looks shabbier. Is it that Caesar visits so many other cities, cities planned and built by architecturally sophisticated Greeks who aren't afraid to rip things apart in the name of progress? Whereas we Romans revere antiquity and ancestors, cannot bear to demolish a public edifice simply because it's outgrown its function. For all her great size, she's not a glamorous lady, poor Roma. Her heart beats down in the bottom of a damp gulch that by rights should end in the swamps of the Palus Ceroliae, but doesn't because the rocky ridge of the Velia cuts clear across from Esquiline to Palatine, thereby turning the heart into a pond of its own. Did the Cloaca Maxima not flow directly beneath it, a pond it definitely would be. The paint is peeling everywhere, the temples on the Capitol are dingy, even Jupiter Optimus Maximus. As for Juno Moneta how many centuries is it since anyone has refurbished her? The vapors from the mint in her basement are wreaking havoc. Nothing is well planned or laid out, it's an ancient jumble. Though Caesar is trying to improve it with his own privately funded projects! The truth is that Rome is exhausted from these decades of civil war. It cannot go on thus, it has to stop. His eyes hadn't the leisure to seek out the public works he had begun seven years ago: the Forum Julium next door to the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia in the lower Forum Romanum where the two old basilicas Opimia and Sempronia used to be, the new Curia for the Senate, the Senate offices next door. No, his eyes were too busy taking in the rotting bodies, the fallen statues, wrecked altars, desecrated nooks and crannies. The Ficus Ruminalis was scarred, two other sacred trees had their lower limbs splintered, and the Pool of Curtius was fouled by blood. Above, on the first rise of the Capitol, the doors to Sulla's Tabularium gaped wide, broken shards of stone littered around them. "Did he make no attempt to clean up the mess?" Caesar asked. "None," said Lucius. "Nor has anyone else, apparently." "The ordinary people have been too afraid to venture here, and the Senate didn't want the public slaves to take the bodies away until relatives had had a chance to reclaim them," Lucius said unhappily. "It's one more symptom of lack of government, Gaius. Who takes charge when there's no praetor urbanus or aediles?" Caesar turned to his chief secretary, standing green-faced with a handkerchief plastered to his nose. "Faberius, go to the Port of Rome and offer a thousand sesterces to any man who's willing to cart putrefying bodies," he said curtly. "I want every corpse out of here by dusk, and they all go to the lime pits on the Campus Esquilinus. Though they were unjustifiably butchered, they were also rioters and malcontents. If their families haven't claimed them yet, too bad." Desperately anxious to be elsewhere, Faberius hurried off. "Coponius, find the superviser of the public slaves and tell him I want the entire Forum washed and scrubbed tomorrow," Caesar ordered another secretary; he blew through his nose, a sound of disgust. "This is the worst kind of sacrilege it's senseless." He walked between the temple of Concord and the little old Senaculum, and bent to examine the fragments lying around the Tabularium doors. "Barbarians!" he snarled. "Look at these, for pity's sake! Some of our oldest laws on stone, broken as fine as mosaic. Which is what we'll have to do hire workers in that art to put the tablets back together again. I'll have Antonius's balls for this! Where is he?" "Here comes one who might be able to answer that," Lucius said, watching the approach of a sturdy individual in a purple-bordered toga. "Vatia!" Caesar cried, holding out his right hand. Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus came from a great plebeian family of noblemen, and was the son of Sulla's loyalest adherent; the father had prospered while ever Sulla's constitution remained in place, and was so wily that he managed to continue to prosper after it fell; he was still alive, retired to a country villa. That the son should choose to follow Caesar was something of a mystery to those who assessed Roman noblemen according to their family's political leanings the Servilii Vatiae were extremely conservative, as indeed had Sulla been. This particular Vatia, however, had a gambling streak; he had fancied Caesar, the outside horse in the race for power, and was clever enough to know that Caesar was no demagogue, no political adventurer. Grey eyes sparkling, lean face grinning, Vatia took Caesar's hand in both his own, wrung it fervently. "Thank the gods that you're back!" "Come, walk with us. Where are Pollio and Trebellius?" "On their way. We didn't expect you half so early." "And Marcus Antonius?" "He's in Capua, but sent word that he's coming to Rome." They ended their tour at the massive bronze doors in the side of the very tall podium supporting the temple of Saturn, wherein lay the Treasury. After a very long, pounding assault, one leaf of the door finally opened a crack to reveal the frightened face of Marcus Cuspius, tribunus aerarius. "Answering in person, Cuspius?" Caesar asked. "Caesar!" The door was flung wide. "Come in, come in!" "I can't see why you were so terrified, Cuspius," Caesar said as he walked up the dimly lit passageway leading to the offices. "The place is as empty as a bowel after an enema." He stuck his head into a small room, frowning. "Even the sixteen hundred pounds of laserpicium are gone. Who's been busy with the clyster?" Cuspius did not pretend to be dense. "Marcus Antonius, Caesar. He has the authority as Master of the Horse, and he said he had to pay the legions." "All I took to pay for a war were thirty million sesterces in minted coins and ten thousand silver talents in sows. That left twenty thousand talents of silver and fifteen thousand talents of gold," Caesar said evenly. "Sufficient to tide Rome over, I would have thought, were there two hundred legions to pay. More to the point, I had some rough calculations in my head that took into account what I estimated would be in the Treasury when I inspected it. I did not expect it to be empty." "The gold is still here, Caesar," Marcus Cuspius said nervously. "I shifted it to the other side. A thousand talents of the silver were commissioned as coin during the consulship of Publius Servilius Vatia." "Yes, I coined," Vatia said, "but only four million were put into circulation. The bulk came back here." "I did try for some facts and figures, truly!" "No one is blaming you, Cuspius. However, while the Dictator is in Italy, no one is to remove one sestertius unless he is present, is that clear?" "Yes, Caesar, very clear!" "You may expect a shipment of seven thousand talents of gold and a great many gold crowns the day after tomorrow. The gold is the property of the Treasury, and will be stamped thus. Hold the crowns against my Asian triumph. Good day to you." Cuspius shut the door and sagged against it, gasping. "What is Antonius up to?" Vatia asked the Caesars. "I intend to find out," said Caesar Dictator.

Publius Cornelius Dolabella came from an old patrician family that had sunk into decay, a not uncommon story. Like another Cornelian, Sulla, Dolabella lived on his wits and little else. He had been a charter member of the old Clodius Club during the days when Clodius and his equally wild young cronies had set the more prudish elements of Rome by the ears with their scandalous goings-on. But almost seven years had elapsed since Milo had met Clodius on the Via Appia and murdered him, which had marked the disintegration of the club. Some Clodius Clubbers went on to enjoy distinguished public careers: Gaius Scribonius Curio, for instance, had been Caesar's brilliant tribune of the plebs and was killed in battle just when his star was in ascendancy; Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, always known as Decimus Brutus, had graduated from generaling Clodius's street gangs to generaling for Caesar with even greater genius, and was at present governing Long-haired Gaul; and, of course, Mark Antony had done so splendidly under Caesar that he was now the second-ranking man in Rome, the Dictator's Master of the Horse. Whereas nothing grand had happened for Dolabella, who always seemed to be somewhere else when Caesar was handing the good jobs out, though he had declared for Caesar the moment the Rubicon was known to be a fact. In many ways he and Mark Antony were very alike big, burly, obnoxiously egotistical, loud-mouthed. Where they differed was in style; Dolabella was smoother. Both were chronically impoverished, both had married for money; Antony to the daughter of a rich provincial, and Dolabella to Fabia, the ex-Chief Vestal Virgin. The rich provincial died in an epidemic, Fabia proved too long a virgin to be a satisfactory wife, but the two men had emerged from their first essays into marriage considerably wealthier. Then Antony married Antonia, his own first cousin, daughter of the revolting Antonius Hybrida; she was as famous as her father for torturing slaves, but Antony soon beat it out of her. Whereas Dolabella had married the second time for love, to Cicero's quite bewitching daughter, Tullia and what a letdown that had been! While Antony worked as a senior legate for Caesar, commanding the embarkation in Brundisium and then in the field in Macedonia and Greece, Dolabella commanded a fleet in the Adriatic and was defeated so ignominiously that Caesar never bothered with him again. In fairness to Dolabella, his ships had been tubs and the Republican fleet composed of Liburnians, the best combat ships of all. But did Caesar take that into account? No. So while Mark Antony soared ever upward, Publius Dolabella moped aimlessly. His situation became desperate. Fabia's fortune had long gone, and the dowry installments he had thus far received from Cicero never seemed to last one drip of the water clock. Living the same kind of life as Antony (if on a more modest scale), Dolabella's debts piled up and up. The moneylenders to whom the thirty-six-year-old rake owed millions began to dun him so persistently and unpleasantly that he hardly dared show his face in the better parts of Rome. Then, at about the moment that Caesar vanished from the face of the earth in Egypt, Dolabella realized that the answer to his woes had been staring at him for years; he would take an example from Publius Clodius, founder of the Clodius Club, and seek election as a tribune of the plebs. Like Clodius, Dolabella was a patrician, and therefore not eligible to stand for this most eye- and ear-catching of public offices. But Clodius had gotten around disbarment by having himself adopted by a plebeian. Dolabella found a lady named Livia, and proceeded to have her adopt him. Now a bona fide plebeian, he could run for election. Dolabella wasn't interested in using the office to cement political fame; he intended to legislate a general cancellation of debts. Given the current crisis, it wasn't as straw-plucking as it sounded. Groaning under the privations a civil war always brought in its train, Rome was filled with debt-ridden individuals and companies only too anxious to find a way out of their predicament that did not involve the payment of money. Dolabella ran on a platform of the general cancellation of debts, and came in at the top of the poll. He had been given a mandate. What he hadn't taken into account were two other tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Asinius Pollio and Lucius Trebellius, who had the gall to veto him during the first contio he called to discuss his measure. Contio after contio, Pollio and Trebellius vetoed. Dolabella reached into his grab bag of Clodian tricks and pulled out the street gang; the next thing the Forum Romanum was rocked by a wave of terror that ought to have driven Pollio and Trebellius into a self-imposed exile. It did not. They remained in the Forum, they remained on the rostra, they remained adamant. Veto, veto, veto. No general cancellation of debts. March came, and the stalemate in the Plebeian Assembly continued. Until now Dolabella had kept his gangs under some degree of control, but clearly worse violence was needed. Knowing Mark Antony of old, Dolabella knew perfectly well that Antony was even more heavily in debt; it was very much in Antony's interests to see the general cancellation of debts pass into law. "But the thing is, my dear Antonius, that I can't very well let my bully-boys loose in a serious way while the Dictator's Master of the Horse is in the neighborhood," Dolabella explained over a bucket or two of fortified wine. Antony's curly auburn head went down; he burped hugely and grinned. "Actually, Dolabella, the legions around Capua are restive, so I really ought to hie myself down there and do some investigating," he said. He pursed his lips to touch the tip of his nose, an easy trick for Antony. "It may well be that I'll find the situation so serious that I'll be stuck in Capua for um as long as it takes for you to pass your legislation." And so it was arranged. Antony proceeded to Capua on his rightful business as Master of the Horse, while Dolabella unleashed havoc in the Forum Romanum. Trebellius and Pollio were physically mauled by the gangs, savagely manhandled, drubbed unmercifully; but, like other tribunes of the plebs before them, they refused to be intimidated. Every time Dolabella called a contio in the Plebeian Assembly, Pollio and Trebellius were there to veto, sporting black eyes and bandages, but also being cheered. The Forum frequenters loved courage, and the gangs were not made up of Forum frequenters. Unfortunately for Dolabella, he couldn't possibly allow his bully-boys to kill or even half kill Pollio and Trebellius. They were Caesar's men, and Caesar would return. Nor would Caesar be in favor of a general cancellation of debts. Pollio in particular was dear to Caesar's heart; he had been there when the old boy crossed the Rubicon, and was busy writing a history of the last twenty years. What Dolabella hadn't expected was a militant surge of strength on the part of the Senate, not populous enough these days to form a quorum. Knowing this, Dolabella had entirely dismissed the senior governing body from his calculations. And then what did Vatia Isauricus do? Called the Senate into session and forced it to pass the Senatus Consultum Ultimum! Tantamount to martial law. None other than Mark Antony was directed to end violence in the Forum. After waiting vainly for six months for the general cancellation of debts, Antony was fed up. Without bothering to warn Dolabella, he brought the Tenth into the Forum and set them loose on the gangs and hapless Forum frequenters caught in the eye of the storm. Just who the men were Antony executed, Dolabella had no idea, and could only presume that Antony typical! simply grabbed the first fifty he saw in the alleyways of the Velabrum. Dolabella had always known that Antony was a butcher and that he would never implicate one of his own class and inclinations. Now here was Caesar back in Rome. Publius Cornelius Dolabella found himself summoned to the Domus Publica to see the Dictator.

It was Caesar's position as Pontifex Maximus that entitled him to live in the closest public building to a palace that Rome owned. Improved and enhanced first by Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus and then by Caesar Pontifex Maximus, it was a huge structure at the very center of the Forum, and had a peculiar dichotomy: on one side lived the six Vestal Virgins, on the other side the Pontifex Maximus. One of Rome's highest priest's duties was to supervise the Vestals, who didn't live an enclosed life, but whose intact hymens represented Rome's public well-being indeed, Rome's luck. Inducted at six or seven years of age, a girl served for thirty years, then was free to go into the community at large, even marry if she so desired. As had Fabia, to Dolabella. Their religious duties were not onerous, but they also served as the custodians of Roman citizen wills, and at the time that Caesar returned to Rome, this meant that they had upward of three million documents on hand, all meticulously filed, numbered, regionalized. For even the poorest Roman citizens were prone to make a will, lodge it with the Vestals no matter whereabouts in the world they lived. Once the Vestals took your will, you knew it was sacrosanct, that no one would ever get their hands on it until came proof of death and the person authorized to probate it. Thus when Dolabella presented himself at the Domus Publica, he went not to the Vestal side, nor to the ornate main entrance with the new temple pediment Caesar had erected over it (the Domus Publica was an inaugurated temple), but to the private door of the Pontifex Maximus. All the old folk from the days of Aurelia's insula in the Subura were dead, including Burgundus and his wife, Cardixa, but their sons and daughters-in-law still administered Caesar's many properties. The third of them, Gaius Julius Trogus, was in the steward's quarters at the Domus Publica, and admitted Dolabella with a slight bow. This brought his head down to the visitor's; a tall man, Dolabella wasn't used to being made to feel small, but Trogus dwarfed him. Caesar was in his study, clad in the glory of his pontifical robes, a significant fact, Dolabella knew, but why escaped him. Both toga and tunic were striped in alternating bands of purple and crimson; in this room, brightly lit from a window and myriad lamps, the magnificent raiment echoed the color scheme of crimson and purple, its plastered cornices and ceiling touched with gilt. "Sit down," Caesar said curtly, dropping the scroll he was reading to pin Dolabella on those awful eyes, cold, piercing, not quite human. "What have you to say for yourself, Publius Cornelius Dolabella?" "That things got out of hand," Dolabella said frankly. "You recruited gangs to terrorize the city." "No, no!" Dolabella said earnestly, his blue eyes wide and innocent. "Truly, Caesar, the gangs were not my doing! I simply promulgated legislation for a general cancellation of debts, and the moment I did so, I discovered that most of Rome was so badly in debt people were desperate for it. My proposed bill gathered a following in much the same way as as a snowball rolling down the Clivus Victoriae." "Had you not proposed this irresponsible legislation, Publius Dolabella, it would never have snowed," said Caesar without humor. "Are your own debts so massive?" "Yes." "So your measure was intrinsically selfish." "I suppose so. Yes." "Did it not occur to you, Publius Dolabella, that the two members of your tribunician college who opposed the measure were not about to let you legislate?" "Yes. Yes, of course." "Then what was your tribunician duty?" Dolabella blinked. "Tribunician duty?" "I can see where your patrician birth must make it difficult for you to understand plebeian matters, Publius Dolabella, but you do have some small political experience. You must have known what your duty was once Gaius Pollio and Lucius Trebellius proved so obdurate in vetoing." "Er no." The eyes never seemed to blink, they just kept boring into Dolabella's mind like two painful drills. "Persistence is a most admirable virtue, Publius Dolabella, but it goes only so far. When two of your own college members veto your every contio for three months, the message is plain. You withdraw your proposed legislation as unacceptable. Whereas you kept it going for ten months! There's not a scrap of use sitting there looking like a penitent child, either. Whether or not you were responsible for the organization of street gangs in the old Clodius manner or not, once they existed you were very happy to take full advantage of them including standing by while they physically assaulted two men who are protected by the old plebeian tenets of inviolability and sacrosanctity. Marcus Antonius threw twenty of your fellow Roman citizens off the Tarpeian Rock, but not one of them was a hundredth as guilty as you are, Publius Dolabella. By rights I ought to order the same fate for you. So, for that matter, should Marcus Antonius, who had to know who was responsible. You and my Master of the Horse have been holding each other's pricks to piss for twenty years." A silence fell; Dolabella sat with teeth clenched, feeling the sweat on his brow, praying the drops didn't roll into his eyes and force him to wipe them away. "As Pontifex Maximus, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, it is my duty to inform you that your adoption into the Plebs was illegal. It did not have my consent, and it must under the relevant lex Clodia. You will therefore lay down your tribunate of the plebs immediately, and withdraw entirely from all public life until the Bankruptcy Court is back in session and you can apply to it to sort your affairs out. The Law does have mechanisms for situations like yours, and since the jury will be your peers, you should get off more lightly than you deserve. Now go." The head went down. "That's all?" Dolabella asked incredulously. A scroll was already between Caesar's hands. "That is all, Publius Dolabella. Do you think me stupid enough to apportion blame where it doesn't belong? You're not the prime mover in this, you're a simple cat's-paw." Smarting yet relieved, the simple cat's-paw got up. "One more thing," Caesar said, busy reading. "Yes, Caesar?" "You are forbidden all congress with Marcus Antonius. I have my sources of information, Dolabella, so I suggest that you don't try to infringe that prohibition. Vale."

Two days later the Master of the Horse arrived in Rome. He came through the Capena Gate at the head of a squadron of German cavalry, riding the Antonian Public Horse, a big, showy beast as white as Pompey the Great's old Public Horse. Antony had gone one further than Pompey's scarlet leather tack; his mount wore leopard skin. As indeed did he, a short cloak slung around his neck on a golden chain, one side thrown back to reveal a scarlet lining the same as his tunic. His cuirass was gold, contoured to cuddle his magnificent pectoral muscles, and worked with a scene of Hercules (the Antonii traced their origins back to Hercules) slaying the Lion of Nemea; the scarlet leather straps of sleeves and kilt were emblazoned with gold medallions and bosses, and fringed with gold bullion. His gold Attic helmet with its dyed scarlet ostrich plumes (they had cost ten talents, for they were very rare in Rome) sat linked around the left posterior horn of his leopard skin saddle, for he wanted his head bare so that his gaping audience was in no doubt as to who was this powerful, godly figure. To add to his conceit, he had equipped his squadron of Germans with full scarlet tack for their uniformly black horses, and clad them in real silver with lion skins; the heads were draped over their helmets, the empty paws knotted across their chests. Any woman in the crowd clustered to watch him ride through the Capena market square might have debated the question of his handsomeness: was he beautiful, or was he ugly? Opinions were usually evenly divided, for the body's height and musculature were beautiful, whereas the face was ugly. Antony's hair was very thick and curly, a good auburn in color, his face heavyset and roundish, his neck both short and so thick that it looked like an extension of his head. His eyes, the same auburn as his hair, were small, deep in their orbits and too close together. Nose and chin tried very hard to meet across his small, full-lipped mouth, one curving its beak downward, the other upward; women whom he had honored with his amorous attentions likened kissing him to being nipped by a turtle. What no one could deny was that he stood out in any crowd. His fantasies were rich and fabulous; true of many men, but the difference between Antony and other men lay in the fact that Antony actually lived his fantasies in the real world. He saw himself as Hercules, as the new Dionysus, as Sampsiceramus the legendary eastern potentate, and he contrived to look and act like a combination of all three. Though his riotously luxurious mode of living dominated his thoughts, he was neither stupid like his brother Gaius nor quite an oaf; inside Mark Antony was a shrewd streak of self-serving cunning which, when needed, had extricated him from many a precarious predicament, and he knew how to make his staggering masculinity work for him with other men, especially Caesar Dictator, who was his second cousin. Added to this, he possessed his family's ability to orate oh, not in Cicero's or Caesar's class, but very definitely superior to most of the Senate. He did not lack courage or bravery, and he could think on a battlefield. What he lacked most was a sense of morality, of ethical behavior, of respect for life and human beings, yet he could be outrageously generous and tremendously good company. Antony was a bull at a gate, a creature of impulse and the flesh. What he wanted out of the noble life he had been born into was two-headed: on the one hand, he wanted to be the First Man in Rome; on the other hand, he wanted palaces, bonhomie, sex, food, wine, comedy and perpetual entertainments. Since returning to Italy with Caesar's legions almost a year ago, he had been indulging himself in all these areas. As the Dictator's Master of the Horse, he was constitutionally the most powerful of all men in the Dictator's absence, and had been using that power in ways he knew very well Caesar would deplore. But he had also been living like an eastern potentate, and spending a great deal more money than he had. Nor had he cared about what a more prudent man would have understood right from the beginning that the day would come when he would be called to account for his activities. To Antony, sufficient against the day. Except that now the day had arrived. Politic, he decided, to leave his friends behind in Pompey's villa at Herculaneum. No point in upsetting Cousin Gaius more than necessary. Men like Lucius Gellius Poplicola, Quintus Pompeius Rufus the Younger and Lucius Varius Cotyla were known to Cousin Gaius, but not liked by Cousin Gaius. His first stop in Rome was not the Domus Publica, or even Pompey's enormous mansion on the Carinae, now his abode; he went at once to Curio's house on the Palatine, parked his Germans in the garden attached to Hortensius's house, and strolled in asking to see the lady Fulvia. She was the granddaughter of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus through her mother, Sempronia, who had married Marcus Fulvius Bambalio, an appropriate alliance considering that the Fulvii had been Gaius Gracchus's most ardent supporters, and had crashed too. Sempronia had taken her grandmother's huge fortune with her, despite the fact that women were forbidden to be major heirs under the lex Voconia. But Sempronia's grandmother was Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi, powerful enough to procure a decree from the Senate waiving the lex Voconia. When Fulvius and Sempronia died, another senatorial waiver had allowed Fulvia to inherit from both her parents. She was the wealthiest woman in Rome. Not for Fulvia, the usual fate of heiresses! She chose her own husband, Publius Clodius the patrician rebel, founder of the Clodius Club. Why had she chosen Clodius? Because she was in love with her grandfather's demagogic image, and saw in Clodius great demagogic potential. Her faith was not misplaced. Nor was she a stay-at-home Roman wife. Even swollen in late pregnancy, she could be found in the Forum screaming encouragement at Clodius, kissing him obscenely, generally behaving like a harlot. In private life she was a full member of the Clodius Club, knew Dolabella, Poplicola, Antony and Curio. When Clodius was murdered she was heartbroken, but her old friend Atticus persuaded her to live for her children, and in time the terrible wound healed over a little. Three years into her widowhood she married Curio, another brilliant demagogue. By him she had a naughty little red-haired son, but their life together was cut tragically short when Curio died in battle. At the time that Antony strolled through her door she was thirty-seven years old, the mother of five children four by Clodius, one by Curio and looked no more than twenty-five. Not that Antony had much chance to assess her with his keen connoisseur's eye; she appeared in the atrium doorway, shrieked, and launched herself at him so enthusiastically that she bounced off his cuirass with a clang and fell on the floor laughing and crying together. "Marcus, Marcus, Marcus! Oh, let me see you!" she said, his face between her hands, for he had followed her down. "You never seem to grow a single day older." "Nor do you," he said appreciatively. Yes, as desirable as ever. Seductively big breasts as firm as when she had been eighteen, trim little waist she was not one to conceal her sexual assets no lines to mar that lovely clear-skinned face, with its black lashes and brows, its huge, dark-blue eyes. Her hair! Still that wonderful ice-brown. What a beauty! And all that money too. "Marry me," he said. "I love you." "And I love you, Antonius, but it's too soon." Her eyes filled with tears not joy at Antony's advent, but grief at Curio's going. "Ask me again in a year." "Three years between husbands as usual, eh?" "Yes, it seems so. But don't make me a widow a third time, Marcus, I beg you! You constantly spoil for trouble, which is why I love you, but I want to grow old with someone I remember from my youth, and who is there left except you?" she asked. He helped her up, but was too experienced to try to embrace her. "Decimus Brutus," he said, grinning. "Poplicola?" "Oh, Poplicola! A parasite," she said scornfully. "If you marry me, you'll have to drop Poplicola, I won't receive him." "No comment about Decimus?" "Decimus is a great man, but he's oh, I don't know, I see a light of ineradicable unhappiness around him. And he's too cold for me. Having Sempronia Tuditani for a mother ruined him, I think. She sucked cock better than anyone else in Rome, even the professionals." Fulvia was not a mincer of words. "I confess I was pleased when she finally dieted herself to death. So was Decimus, I imagine. He never even wrote from Gaul." "I hear Poplicola's mother died too, speaking of fellatrices." Fulvia pulled a face. "Last month. I had to hold her hand until it went stiff ugh!" They walked through to the peristyle garden, for it was a wonderful summer's day; she sat on the side of the fountain pool and played with the water, while Antony sat on a stone seat and watched her. By Hercules, she was a beauty! Next year . . . "You're not popular with Caesar," she said abruptly. Antony blew a derisive noise. "Who, old Cousin Gaius? I can handle him with one hand tied behind my back. I'm his pet." "Don't be too sure, Marcus. Well do I remember how he used to manipulate my darling Clodius! While ever Caesar was in Rome, there wasn't one thing Clodius did that Caesar hadn't planted in his mind first, from Cato's trip to annex Cyprus to all those weird laws governing the religious colleges and religious law." She sighed. "It was only after Caesar went to Gaul that my Clodius began to run amok. Caesar could control him. And he will insist on controlling you too." "He's family," Antony said, unperturbed. "I may get a tongue-lashing, but it won't be anything worse." "You'd better offer to Hercules for that, Marcus."

From Fulvia's he went to Pompey's palace and his second wife, Antonia Hybrida. Oh, she wasn't too bad, though she had the Antonian face, poor thing. What looked good on a man definitely didn't on a woman. A strapping girl he had tired of very quickly, though not as quickly as he spent her considerable fortune. She had borne him a daughter, Antonia, now five years old, but the matching of first cousins had not been felicitous when it came to offspring. Little Antonia was mentally dull as well as dismally ugly and grossly fat. From somewhere he'd have to find a gigantic dowry, or else marry the girl off to some foreign plutocrat who'd give half his fortune for the chance to acquire an Antonian bride. "You're in the boiling soup," said Antonia Hybrida when he found her in her sitting room. "I'll emerge unscalded, Hibby." "Not this time, Marcus. Caesar's livid." "Cacat!" he said violently, scowling, fist up. She flinched, shrank away. "No, please!" she cried. "I've done nothing nothing!" "Oh, stop whining, you're safe enough!" he snapped. "Caesar sent a message," she said, recovering. "What?" "To report to him at the Domus Publica immediately. In a toga, not in armor." "The Master of the Horse is armored all the time." "I'm just relaying the message." Antonia Hybrida studied her husband, in a quandary; it might be months and months before she saw him again, even if he lived in this selfsame house. He had beaten her regularly when they were first married, but he had not broken her spirit, just broken her of her habit of torturing her slaves. "Marcus," she said, "I would like another child." "You can like all you want, Hibby, but you're not getting another child. One mental defective is one too many." "She was damaged in the birth process, not in the womb." He walked to the big silver mirror Pompey the Great had once gazed into hoping to see the ghost of his dead Julia vanish into its depths, eyed himself with head to one side. Yes, impressive! A toga! No one knew better than Mark Antony that men of his physique didn't look impressive in a toga. Togas were for the Caesars of Rome's world it took height and grace to wear one well. Not, mind you, he had to admit, that the old boy didn't wear armor with panache too. He simply looks what he is, royal. The family dictator. That's what we used to call him among ourselves when we were boys, Gaius, Lucius and I. Ran the lot of us, even Uncle Lucius. And now he's running Rome. As dictator. "Don't expect me for dinner," he said, and clanked out.

"You look like Plautus's miles gloriosus in that ridiculous getup" was Caesar's opening remark. Seated behind his desk, he didn't rise, didn't attempt any kind of physical contact. "The soldiers drink me up. They love to see their betters look their betters." "Like you, their taste is in their arse, Antonius. I asked you to wear a toga. Armor's not appropriate inside the pomerium." "As Master of the Horse, I can wear armor inside the city." "As Master of the Horse, you do as the Dictator says." "Well, do I sit down or keep standing?" Antony demanded. "Sit." "I'm sitting. What now?" "An explanation of events in the Forum, I think." "Which events?" "Don't be obtuse, Antonius." "I just want the jawing over and done with." "So you know why I summoned you to give you, as you so succinctly put it, a jawing." "Isn't it?" "Perhaps I object to your choice of words, Antonius. I was thinking along the lines of castration." "That's not fair! What have I done, when it's all boiled down?" Antony asked angrily. "Your bum-boy Vatia passed the Ultimate Decree and instructed me to deal with the violence. Well, I did just that! As I see it, I did the job properly. There hasn't been a peep out of anyone since." "You brought professional soldiers into the Forum Romanum, then you ordered them to use their swords to cut down men armed with wood. You slaughtered wholesale! Slaughtered Roman citizens in their own meeting place! Not even Sulla had the temerity to do that! Is it because you've been called upon to take your sword to fellow Romans on a battlefield that you turn the Forum Romanum into a battlefield? The Forum Romanum, Antonius! You slimed the stones where Romulus stood with citizen blood! The Forum of Romulus of Curtius of Horatius Cocles of Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator of Appius Claudius Caecus of Scipio Africanus of Scipio Aemilianus of a thousand Romans more noble than you, more capable, more revered! You committed sacrilege!" Caesar said, biting off his words slowly and distinctly, his tones freezing, cutting. Antony leaped to his feet, fists clenched. "Oh, I hate it when you're sarcastic! Don't come the orator with me, Caesar! Just say what you want to say, and have done with it! Then I can get back to my job, which is trying to keep your legions calm! Because they're not calm! They're very, very unhappy!" he shouted, a little red light of cunning at the back of his eyes. That should sidetrack the old boy very sensitive about his legions. It did not. "Sit down, you ignorant lump! Shut your insubordinate mouth, or I'll cut your balls off here and now and don't think that I can't! Fancy yourself a warrior, Antonius? Compared to me, you're a tyro! Riding a pretty horse in the stage armor of the vainglorious soldier! You don't stand and lay about in the front line, you never have! I could take your sword off you right now and chop you into cutlets!" The temper was loose; Antony drew in a huge breath, shaken to the marrow. Oh, why had he forgotten Caesar's temper? "How dare you be insolent to me? How dare you forget who exactly you are? You, Antonius, are my creature I made you, and I can unmake you! If it were not for our blood ties, I'd have passed you over in favor of a dozen more efficient and intelligent men! Was it too much to ask that you comport yourself with a meed of discretion, of simple common sense? Obviously I asked too much! You're a butcher as well as a fool, and your conduct has made my task in Rome infinitely harder I have inherited the mantle of your butchery! From the moment I crossed the Rubicon, my policy toward all Romans has been clemency, but what do you call this massacre? No, Caesar can't trust his Master of the Horse to behave like a civilized, educated, genuine Roman! What do you think Cato will make of this massacre when he hears of it? Or Cicero? You're an incubus suffocating my clemency, and I do not thank you for it!" The Master of the Horse held up his hands in abject surrender. "Pax, pax, pax! I was in error! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" "Remorse is after the event, Antonius. There were at least half a hundred ways to deal with violence in the Forum without doing more than breaking one or two heads. Why didn't you arm the Tenth with shields and staves, as Gaius Marius did when he took on Saturninus's far vaster crowds? Hasn't it occurred to you that in ordering the Tenth to kill, you transferred a share of your guilt to their spirits? How am I to explain matters to them, let alone to the civilian populace?" The eyes were glacial, but they also bore revulsion. "I will never forget or forgive your action. What's more, it tells me that you enjoy wielding power in ways that might prove dangerous not only to the state, but to me." "Am I fired?" Antony asked, beginning to ease his bottom out of the chair. "Are you done?" "No, you are not fired, and no, I am not done. Put your arse back on the seat," Caesar said, still with that dislike. "What happened to the silver in the Treasury?" "Oh, that!" "Yes, that." "I took it to pay the legions, but I haven't gotten around to coining it yet," Antony said, shrugging. "Then is it at Juno Moneta's?" "Um no." "Where is it?" "At my house. I thought it was safer." "Your house. You mean Pompeius Magnus's house?" "Well, yes, I suppose so." "What gave you to understand that you could move there?" "I needed a bigger house, and Magnus's was vacant." "I can see why you'd pick it your taste is as vulgar as Magnus's was. But kindly move back to your own house, Antonius. As soon as I have the leisure, Magnus's house will be put up for auction to the highest bidder, as will the rest of his property," said Caesar. "The property of those who remain unpardoned after I deal with the resistance in Africa Province will be garnished by the state, though some can be dealt with sooner. But it will not be sold to benefit my own men, or my hirelings. I'll have no Chrysogonus in my service. If I find one, it won't take Cicero and a court case to bring about his or her downfall. Be very careful that you do not try to steal from Rome. Put the silver back in the Treasury, where it belongs. You may go." He let Antony get to the door, then spoke again. "By the way, how much back pay are my legions owed?" Antony looked quite blank. "I don't know, Caesar." "You don't know, but you took the silver. All the silver. As Master of the Horse, I suggest that you tell the legion paymasters to present their books directly to me here in Rome. My instructions to you when you took them back to Italy were to pay them once they were in camp. Have they not been paid at all since they returned?" "I don't know," said Antony again, and escaped.

"Why didn't you fire him on the spot, Gaius?" Antony's uncle asked his cousin over dinner. "I would have liked to, very much. However, Lucius, it isn't as simple as it looks, is it?" Lucius Caesar's eyes stilled, then went pensive. "Explain." "My mistake was in trusting Antonius in the first place, but to dismiss him out of hand would be an even bigger mistake," said Caesar, munching on a stick of celery. "Think about it. For close to twelve months Antonius has had the run of Italy and sole command of the veteran legions. With whom he's spent by far the major part of his time, especially since last March. I haven't seen the legions, and he's been mighty careful not to let any of my other representatives in Italy see them. There's evidence that they haven't been paid, so by now they're owed two years' money. Antonius pretended ignorance of the entire matter, yet eighteen thousand talents of silver were withdrawn from the Treasury and taken to Magnus's house. Apparently to go to Juno Moneta's for coining, though it hasn't." "My heart's knocking at my ribs, Gaius. Go on, do." "I don't have an abacus to hand, but my arithmetic isn't bad, even when I have to do the sums in my head. Fifteen legions times five thousand men times one thousand per capita per annum adds up to about seventy-five million sesterces. Which are three thousand talents of silver. Add another say, three hundred talents to pay the noncombatants, and then double the figure to make it two years' pay, and you have six thousand, six hundred talents of silver. That is far short of the eighteen thousand Antonius removed," said Caesar. "He's been living mighty high," said Lucius, sighing. "I know he's not paying rent for using Magnus's various residences, but that ghastly armor he's wearing would have cost a fortune to start with. Then there's the armor his sixty Germans wear. Plus the wine, the women, the entourage my nephew, I think, is drowning in debt and decided he'd better empty the Treasury the moment he heard you were in Italy." "He should have emptied it months ago," said Caesar. "Do you think he's been working on the legions to disaffect them by not paying them and blaming you?" Lucius asked. "Undoubtedly. Were he as organized as Decimus Brutus or as cognizantly ambitious as Gaius Cassius, we'd be deeper in the shit than we are. Our Antonius has high ideas, but no method." "He's a plotter, not a planner." "Indeed." A thick white goat's cheese looked appetizing; Caesar scooped some on to another stick of celery. "When do you intend to pounce, Gaius?" "I'll know because my legions will tell me," Caesar said. A spasm of pain crossed his face, he put the tidbit down quickly and pressed his hand against his chest. "Gaius! Are you all right?" How to tell a dear friend that the pain is not of the body? Not my legions! O Jupiter Optimus Maximus, not my legions! Two years ago it would not have occurred to me, but I learned from the mutiny of the Ninth. I trust none of them now, even the Tenth. Caesar trusts none of them now, even the Tenth. "Just a touch of indigestion, Lucius." "Then if you feel up to it, elucidate." "I need the rest of this year to maneuver. Rome comes first, the legions second. I'll have six thousand talents minted for pay, but I'm not going to pay anybody yet. I want to see just what Antonius has been saying, and that won't happen until the legions tell me. If I went to Capua tomorrow, I could squash it in a day, but this is one boil that I think has to come to a head, and the best way to make it do that is to avoid seeing the legions in person." Caesar picked up the celery stick and began to eat again. "Antonius is swimming in very deep water, and his eyes are fixed on a bobbing lump of cork that spells salvation. He's not quite sure what form the salvation will take, but he's swimming very hard. Perhaps he's hoping I'll die stranger things have happened. Or else he's hoping that I'll dash off to Africa Province ahead of my troops, and leave him a clear field to do whatever comes to his mind. He's a Fortuna man, he seizes his chance, he doesn't make his chance. I want him even farther from the shore before I strike, and I want to know exactly what he's been doing and saying to my men. Having to give the silver back is a blow, he'll swim feverishly now. But I will be waiting behind the cork. Frankly, Lucius, I'm hoping that he'll continue to swim for two or three more months. I need time for Rome before I deal with the legions and Antonius." "His actions are treasonable, Gaius." Caesar reached a hand out to pat Lucius's arm. "Rest easy, there'll be no treason trials within the family. I'll cut our relative off from salvation, but I'll leave him his head." He chuckled. "Both his heads. After all, a great deal of his thinking is done with his prick."

2

When Sulla had returned from the East with his fabled beauty utterly destroyed, to march on Rome a second time, he was appointed (by his own arrangement, something he preferred not to mention) the Dictator of Rome. For several nundinae he seemed to do nothing. But a few more observant people noticed a crabbed little old man muffled in a cloak walking all over the city, from Colline Gate to Capena Gate, from the Circus Flaminius to the Agger. It was Sulla, walking patiently up mean alleys and down main roads to see for himself what Rome needed how he, the Dictator, was going to mend her, broken as she was by twenty years of foreign and civil wars. Now Caesar was Dictator, a younger man whose beauty still sat fair upon him, and Caesar too walked from Colline Gate to Capena Gate, from the Circus Flaminius to the Agger, up mean alleys and down main roads, to see for himself what Rome needed how he, the Dictator, was going to mend her, broken as she was by fifty-five years of foreign and civil wars. Both Dictators had lived in the city's worst stews as children and young men, seen at first hand the poverty, the crime, the vice, the rough justice, the sunny acceptance of one's lot that seemed peculiar to the Roman temperament. But whereas Sulla had yearned for retirement to a world of the flesh, Caesar knew only that for as long as he lived, he must continue to work. His solace was work, for his life force was intellectual he had no powerful urges of the flesh crying within him to be gratified, as had Sulla. No need for Sulla's anonymity. Caesar walked openly and was happy to stop and listen to anyone, from the old crones who ran the public latrines to the latest generation of Decumii who ran the gangs selling protection to shops and small businesses. He talked to Greek freedmen, to mothers dragging children as well as produce, to Jews, to citizens of the Fourth and Fifth Classes, to Head Count laborers, to schoolteachers, to pasty vendors, bakers, butchers, herbalists and astrologers, landlords and tenants, makers of wax imagines, sculptors, painters, physicians, tradesmen. In Rome, a number of these people were women, who worked as potters, carpenters, physicians, all sorts; only upper-class women were not allowed to have jobs or a trade. He himself was a landlord; he still owned Aurelia's insula apartment block, now in the charge of Burgundus's eldest son, Gaius Julius Arvernus, also his business manager. The half German, half Gallic Arvernus (born free) had been personally trained by Caesar's mother, who had the best head for figures and accounts of anyone he had ever known, even including Crassus and Brutus. So he talked to Arvernus a great deal. This is what it is really all about, he would think exultantly as he left Arvernus's companytwo absolutely barbarian ex-slaves in Burgundus and Cardixa had produced seven absolutely Roman sons! Oh, perhaps they had had a few extra advantages owners who freed properly, popped them into rural tribes so their votes counted, educated them and encouraged them to acquire status, but all that aside, they were Roman to the core. And if that could work, as work it obviously did, why not the opposite? Take Head Count Romans too poor to belong to one of the five Classes and ship them off into the world to settle in foreign places, bring Rome to the provinces, replace Greek with Latin as the lingua mundi. Old Gaius Marius had tried to do it, but it offended the mos maiorum, it destroyed Roman exclusivity. Well, that was sixty years ago, and everything had changed. Marius's mind had shattered, he degenerated into a butchering madman. Whereas Caesar's mind was growing ever sharper, and Caesar was the Dictator there was no one to gainsay him, especially now that the boni were not a force in politics.

First and most important was to settle the question of debt. It had to take precedence over visits to see old friends as well as a meeting of the Senate, which he had not yet called. Four days after entering Rome he convoked the Popular Assembly, which was the comitia permitting the attendance of patricians as well as plebeians. The Well of the Comitia, a bowl in the lower Forum stepped down in tiers, used to be the place where the Assemblies met, but it was now in the process of being demolished to make way for Caesar's new Senate House, so Caesar called his meeting at the temple of Castor and Pollux. Though his normal speaking voice was deep, Caesar pitched it high for public oratory; it traveled a great deal farther. Lucius Caesar, standing with Vatia Isauricus, Lepidus, Hirtius, Philippus, Lucius Piso, Vatinius, Fufius Calenus, Pollio and the rest of Caesar's adherents at the front of the big crowd, was amazed anew at his cousin's command of such masses of people. He'd always been able to do it, and the years hadn't spoiled his touch. If anything, he was even better. Autocracy suits him, thought Lucius. He knows his own power, yet he's not drunk on it, or overly enamored of it, or tempted to see how far he can go with it. There would be no general cancellation of debts, he announced in tones that brooked no argument. "How can Caesar possibly cancel debts?" he asked, hands out wryly. "In me, you see Rome's greatest debtor! Yes, I borrowed from the Treasury a huge amount! It has to be paid back, Quirites, it has to be paid back at my new, uniform rate of interest on all loans ten percent simple. And I won't have any objections to that either! Think! If the money I borrowed isn't paid back, where is the money for the grain dole to come from? The money to repair the Forum? The money to fund Rome's legions? The money to build roads, bridges, aqueducts? The money to pay the public slaves? The money to build more granaries? The money to fund the games? The money to add a new reservoir to the Esquiline?" The crowd was quiet and attentive, not as disappointed or angry as it might have been with a different beginning. "Cancel debt, and Caesar doesn't have to pay Rome back one sestertius! He can sit with his feet on his desk and sigh in content, he doesn't need to shed a tear because the Treasury is empty. He doesn't owe Rome any money, his debt is canceled along with all the other debts. Now we can't have that, can we? It's ridiculous! And so, Quirites, because Caesar is an honest man who believes that debts must be repaid, he must say no to a general cancellation." Oh, very clever! thought Lucius Caesar, enjoying himself. But, Caesar went on, there would be a measure of relief, there had to be. He understood how hard the times were. Roman landlords would have to accept a reduction of two thousand a year in rent, Italian landlords a reduction of six hundred. Later he would announce other measures of relief and negotiate a settlement of outstanding debts that would be of benefit to both sides of the debt equation. But they would have to be patient a little longer, because when relief came, it had to be absolutely fair and impartial, which took time to work out. Next he announced a new fiscal policy, again not to come into effect immediately oh, the paperwork! Namely, that the state would borrow money from private firms and individuals, and from other cities and districts throughout Italy and the whole Roman world. Client-kings would be asked if they would like to become Rome's creditors. Interest would be paid at the standard ten percent simple. The res publicae the Things Public said Caesar, could not be funded from the few taxes Rome levied: customs duties, a fee to free a slave, the income from provinces, the state's share of war booty, and that was it. No income tax, no head tax, no property tax, no banking tax where was the money to come from? Caesar's answer was that the state would borrow, rather than institute new taxes. The poorest citizen could become Rome's creditor! What was the collateral? Why, Rome herself! The greatest nation on the face of the globe, rich and powerful, incapable of bankruptcy! However, he warned, those frippery fellows and languid ladies who paraded around in Tyrian purple litters studded with ocean pearls had better count their days, because there was one tax he intended to bring in! No tax-free Tyrian purple, no tax-free extravagantly expensive banquets, no tax-free laserpicium to relieve the symptoms of over-indulgence! In conclusion, he said quite chattily, it had not escaped his attention that there was a large amount of property belonging to persons who were now nefas, disbarred from Rome and citizenship due to crimes against the state. Their assets would be auctioned fairly and the proceeds put in the Treasury, which was filling up a trifle, thanks to the gift of five thousand talents of gold from Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and two thousand talents of gold from King Asander of Cimmeria. "I will institute no proscriptions!" he cried. "No private citizens will profit from those unfortunates who abrogated their right to call themselves Roman citizens! I am not selling slave manumission for information, I am not handing out any rewards for information! I already know everything I need to know. Rome's knight-businessmen are the cause of her well-being, and it is to them that I look to help me heal these terrible scars." He lifted both hands above his head. "Long live the Senate and People of Rome! Long live Rome!" A fine speech, couched simply and clearly, free of rhetorical devices. It did the trick; the thousands went away feeling as if Rome were under the care of someone who would genuinely help without shedding more blood. After all, Caesar had still been away when the massacre in the Forum happened had he been here, it would not have happened. For, among the many other things he said, he apologized for the Forum slaughter and said that those responsible would be punished.

* * *

"He's as slippery as an eel," said Gaius Cassius to his mother-in-law, teeth showing. "My dear Cassius, he has more intelligence in his ring finger than the rest of noble Rome put together," Servilia answered. "If you assimilate nothing more from Caesar's company than that, you'll benefit How much cash can you lay your hands on?" He blinked. "About two hundred talents." "Have you touched Tertulla's dowry?" "No, of course not! Her money's hers," he said indignantly. "That never stopped many a husband." "It stopped me!" "Good. I'll tell her to have her money liquid." "What exactly are you up to, Servilia?" "Surely you've guessed. Caesar is about to auction some of the primest property in Italy mansions in Rome, country and seaside villas, latifundia estates, probably a fish farm or two. I intend to buy, and I suggest you do the same," she said, a purr in her voice. "Though I do believe Caesar when he says he doesn't intend that he himself or his minions should profit, it will follow the pattern of Sulla's auctions nonetheless there's only so much money available to buy. The plum properties will be sold first, and they'll fetch what they're worth. After a half dozen are gone, prices will fall until the run-of-the-mill pieces go for almost nothing. Then I'll buy." Cassius leaped to his feet, face mottling. "Servilia, how can you? Do you think that I'd profit from the misfortunes of men I've messed with, fought alongside, shared common ideals with? Ye gods! I'd rather be dead than do that!" "Gerrae," she said placidly. "Do sit down! Ethics are no doubt splendid abstractions, but it's sensible to face the fact that someone is going to benefit. If it comforts you, buy a piece of Cato's land and tell yourself that you're a better custodian than one of Caesar's or Antonius's leeches. Is it better that a Cotyla or a Fonteius or a Poplicola should own Cato's lovely estates in Lucania?" "That's sophistry," he muttered, subsiding. "It's plain good sense." Her steward entered, bowing. "Domina, Caesar Dictator is asking to see you." "Bring him in, Epaphroditus." Cassius stood again. "That's it, I'm off." Before she could say a word, he slipped out of her sitting room toward the kitchen. "My dear Caesar!" said Servilia, lifting her face for a kiss. He obliged with a chaste salute and seated himself opposite her, his eyes derisive. Older than he, she was pushing sixty now, and the years were finally beginning to show. Her beauty was night from her hair to her heart, he reflected, and that would never change. Now, however, two broad ribbons of pure white slashed through the masses of sooty hair and lent her a peculiar visual malignity that could be nothing new to her spirit. Crones and veneficae have such hair, but she has achieved the ultimate triumph of combining evil with good looks. Her waist had thickened and her once lovely breasts were bound up with ruthless severity, but she had not put on sufficient weight to destroy the clean lines of her jaw or plump out that faint sag of weakened muscles on the right side of her face. Her chin was pointed, her mouth small, full and enigmatic, her nose too short for Roman beauty, knobbed at its end. A fault everyone had forgiven because of the mouth and the eyes, which were wide yet heavy-lidded, dark as a moonless night, stern and strong and very intelligent. Her skin was white, her hands slender and graceful, with tapering fingers and manicured nails. "How are you?" he enquired. "I'll be happier when Brutus comes home." "I imagine, knowing Brutus, that he's having a wonderful time in Samos with Servius Sulpicius. I promised him a priesthood, you see, so he's busy learning from an acknowledged authority." "What a fool he is!" she snarled. "You are the acknowledged authority, Caesar. But of course he wouldn't learn from you." "Why should he? I broke his heart when I took Julia away." "My son," said Servilia deliberately, "is a pusillanimous coward. Not even a broom handle laced to his backbone could make him stand up straight." She nipped her bottom lip with her small white teeth and slewed her eyes sideways at her visitor. "I don't suppose his pimples have improved?" "They haven't, no." "Nor has he, your tone says." "You underestimate him, my dear. There's a little cat in Brutus, a lot of ferret, and even a trace of fox." She waved both hands in the air irritably. "Oh, let's not talk about him! How was Egypt?" she asked sweetly. "Extremely interesting." "And its queen?" "For beauty, Servilia, she can't hold a candle to you as a matter of fact, she's very thin, small, and ugly." His face took on a secretive smile, he veiled his eyes. "Yet she is fascinating. Her voice is pure music, her eyes belong to a lioness, her education is formidable, and her intellect above average for a woman. She speaks eight languages well, nine now, because I taught her Latin. Amo, amas, amat." "What a paragon!" "You may find out for yourself one of these days. She'll be in Rome when I finish with Africa Province. We have a son." "Yes, I'd heard that you've finally produced one. Your heir?" "Don't talk such rubbish, Servilia. His name is Ptolemy Caesar and he'll be Pharaoh of Egypt. A great destiny for a non-Roman, don't you think?" "Indeed. So who will be your heir? Do you hope to get one from Calpurnia?" "I doubt it at this stage." "Her father's married again very recently." "Has he? I haven't spoken much to Piso yet." "Is Marcus Antonius your heir?" she persisted. "As of this moment, no one is my heir. I have yet to make my will." The eyes gleamed. "How is Pontius Aquila?" "Still my lover." "How nice." He rose to his feet, kissed her hand. "Don't despair of Brutus. He may surprise you yet."

So that was one renewal of an old acquaintance off his list. Piso has married again? Interesting. Calpurnia said nothing about it to me. Still quiet and peaceful. I enjoy making love to her, but I'll make her no babies. How much longer have I left? Not enough time for fatherhood, if Cathbad is right.

Amid days filled with talks to plutocrats, bankers, Marcus Cuspius of the Treasury, the legion paymasters, major landlords and many others, amid nights filled with paperwork and the click-click-click of his ivory abacus, what time was there for social engagements? Now that Mark Antony had returned the silver, the Treasury was quite respectably full considering two years of war, but Caesar knew what he had yet to do, and one of those tasks was going to cost immense amounts of money: he would have to find the funds to pay good prices for thousands upon thousands of iugera of good land, land upon which to settle as many as thirty legions of veteran troops. The days of filching public lands from rebellious Italian towns and cities were virtually gone. His land would come expensive, for the legionaries were from Italy or from Italian Gaul and expected to retire on ten iugera of Italian land, not foreign land. Gaius Marius, who first threw Rome's legions open to the propertyless Head Count, had dreamed of pensioning them off in the provinces, there to spread Roman customs and the Latin language. He had even begun that, on the big island of Cercina in the African bight adjacent to Africa Province. Caesar's father had been his principal agent in the business, spent most of his time at Cercina. But it all came to nothing in the aftermath of Marius's madness, the Senate's implacable opposition. So unless circumstances changed, Caesar's land would have to be in Italy and Italian Gaul the most expensive real estate in the world.

At the end of October he did manage to have one dinner party in the Domus Publica triclinium, a beautiful dining room able to hold nine couches with ease. It opened on one side into the wide colonnade around the Domus Publica's main peristyle garden, and as the afternoon was mild and sunny, Caesar threw all the doors open. Inside, among the exquisite murals of the battle at Lake Regillus when Castor and Pollux themselves had fought for Rome, Pompey the Great had met Julia for the first time, and fallen in love. What a triumph that had been. How pleased his mother had been. Gaius Matius and his wife, Priscilla, were there; Lucius Calpurnius Piso and his new wife, another Rutilia, were there; Publius Vatinius came with his adored wife, Caesar's ex-wife Pompeia Sulla; Lucius Caesar, a widower, came on his own his son was with Metellus Scipio in Africa Province, a Republican in the Caesarean nest; Vatia Isauricus came with his wife, Junia, Servilia's eldest daughter; and Lucius Marcius Philippus arrived with a small army: his second wife, Atia, who was Caesar's niece; her daughter by Gaius Octavius, Octavia Minor; and her son, the young Gaius Octavius; his own daughter, Marcia, wife of Cato but great friend of Caesar's wife, Calpurnia; and his elder son, the stay-at-home Lucius. The notable absentees (who had been invited) were Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. The menu had been chosen with huge care, for Philippus was a famous Epicure, whereas Gaius Matius, for example, liked plain food. The first course consisted of shrimp, oysters and crabs from the fish farms of Baiae, some cooked in elegant sauces, some served natural, some lightly grilled; accompanied by salads of lettuce, cucumber and celery laced with various dressings of the best oils and aged vinegars; smoked freshwater eel; a perch doused with garum sauce; deviled eggs, fresh crusty bread, fine olive oil for dipping. The second course offered a variety of roast meats, from leg of pork with crisply crackled skin to many fowls and a suckling pig baked brown for hours in sheep's milk; delicate pork sausages coated with diluted thyme honey and gently broiled; a lamb stew redolent with marjoram and onion; a baby lamb roasted in a clay oven. The third course consisted of honey cakes, sweet pastries containing minced raisins soaked in spicy fortified wine, sweet omelets, fresh fruits including strawberries brought down from Alba Fucentia and peaches from Caesar's own Campanian orchards, both hard and soft cheeses, stewed prunes and bowls of nuts. The wines were vintage from the best Falernian grapes, red or white, and the water came from Juturna's spring. To Caesar, a matter of indifference; he would have been far happier with bread-and-oil of any kind, some celery and a thick pease porridge boiled down with a chunk of bacon. "I can't help it, I'm a soldier." He laughed, looking suddenly younger and more relaxed. "Do you still drink vinegar in hot water in the mornings?" Piso asked. "If there are no lemons, yes." "What's that you're drinking now?" Piso persisted. "Fruit juice. It's my new health regimen. I have an Egyptian priest-physician, and it's his idea. I've grown to enjoy it." "You'd enjoy this Falernian far more," said Philippus, rolling the wine on his tongue. "No, I've grown no fonder of wine." The men's couches formed a large U, with the host's lectus medius at its blind end, and the tables, exactly the same height as the couches, sat flush against their fronts, thus enabling the diners to extend a hand and take whatever they fancied from the platters. There were bowls and spoons for anything too sloppy or sticky for the fingers, and the delicacies were presented already carved into bite-sized pieces; a diner desirous of rinsing his hands simply turned toward the back side of his couch and availed himself of a dish of water and a towel tendered by some attentive servant. Togas were abandoned as too clumsy to dine in, shoes were doffed and feet washed before the men reclined with the left elbow on a bolster for comfort. On the opposite side of the U of tables the women's chairs were placed; in more modern establishments it was now considered chic for women to recline as well, but the old-fashioned ways still held in the Domus Publica, so the women sat. If anything about the dinner was novel, that lay in Caesar's letting his guests choose their own spots to recline or sit, with two exceptions: he directed his cousin Lucius to the locus consularis at the right-hand end of his own couch, and told his great-nephew, young Gaius Octavius, to insert himself between them. His favoring a mere lad was noted by all and a few brows were raised, but... The impulse to distinguish young Gaius Octavius arose out of Caesar's surprise when he set eyes on the lad, who very correctly and unobtrusively located himself in his stepfather's shadow while Philippus, delighted to have been invited, made much of greeting all and sundry. Ah! thought Caesar. Now here's someone different! Of course he remembered Octavius well; they'd had some conversation two and a half years ago when he had stayed in Philippus's villa at Misenum. How old would he be now? Sixteen, probably, though he still wore the purple-bordered toga of childhood, the bulla medallion of childhood on a thong around his neck. Yes, he was definitely sixteen, because Octavius Senior had made such a fuss about his birth during the year of Cicero's consulship, right in the midst of growing suspicion about Catilina's intention to overthrow the state. Late September, while the House waited for news of a revolt in Etruria and a defiant Catilina was still brazening it out in Rome. Good! His mother and stepfather had decided that he would celebrate his manhood on the feast of Juventas in December, when most Roman boys assumed the toga virilis, the plain white toga of a citizen. Some wealthy and preeminent parents allowed their sons a special manhood day on their actual birthdays, but this had not been accorded to young Gaius Octavius. Good! Unspoiled. He was strikingly beautiful, enough so to be called epicene. His masses of softly waving, bright gold hair were worn a trifle long to hide his only real flaw, his ears; though not overly big, they stuck straight out like jug handles. A clever mother, not a vain son, for the boy didn't comport himself like one aware of his physical impact. Clear brown skin devoid of any blemishes, a firm mouth and chin, a longish nose with a sliding upward tilt to it, high cheekbones, an oval face, darkish brows and lashes, and a pair of remarkable eyes. Spaced well apart and very large, they were a light, luminous grey that had no hint of blue or yellow in it; a little unearthly, yet not in the Sulla or Caesar way, for they were neither cold nor unsettling. Rather, they warmed. Yet, thought Caesar, studying those orbs analytically, they give absolutely nothing away. Careful eyes. Who said that to me in Misenum? Or was it I found that particular word for myself? Octavius wasn't going to be tall, but nor was he going to be unduly short. An average height, a slender physique, but well-muscled calves. Good! His parents have made him walk everywhere from infancy, to develop those calves. But his chest is on the small side, his rib cage restricted, which narrows the width of his shoulders. And the skin beneath those amazing eyes is blue with weariness. Now where have I seen that look before? I have, I know I have, but it was a very long time ago. Hapd'efan'e. I must ask Hapd'efan'e. Oh, for that mop of hair! To be balding is no fate for a man whose cognomen, "Caesar," means a fine thick head of hair he won't go bald, he has his father's thatch. We were very good friends, his father and I. We met at the siege of Mitylene and clubbed together with Philippus against that flea Bibulus. So it pleased me when Octavius married my niece sound old Latin stock, immensely wealthy too. But Octavius died untimely, and Philippus took his place in Atia's life. Interesting, what's happened to Lucullus's junior military tribunes. Who would ever have thought that Philippus would turn out the way he has?

"Just what are you up to, Gaius?" Lucius whispered after Caesar put the lad between them. A question his host ignored, too busy making sure that Atia was comfortable on the chair opposite him, and that Calpurnia was not going to make the mistake of seating herself and Marcia too close to Lucius Piso, whose enormously thick black brows were meeting across his nose in displeasure because he had to share this excellent dinner with Cato's wife, of all people! One or two deft juggles with chairs, and Marcia sat next to Atia with Calpurnia on her other side, while Piso's brows beetled at no more vulnerable targets than Matius's Priscilla, that beautiful idiot Pompeia Sulla, and his own Rutilia. This Rutilia, Caesar noted, was a sour-looking girl of no more than eighteen, possessed of her family's sandy hair and freckled skin. Buck teeth. A belly beginning to show a pregnancy. Piso might have a son at last. "When do you plan to leave for Africa?" Vatinius asked. "As soon as I can assemble enough ships." "Am I a legate for this campaign?" "No, Vatinius," Caesar said, turning up his nose at the fish and settling for a heel of bread, "you're staying in Rome as one of the consuls." Conversation ceased; all eyes turned to Caesar, then to Publius Vatinius, who was sitting bolt upright, lost for words. He was Caesar's client, a diminutive man with wasted lower legs and a large wen on his forehead that had once caused him to be rejected as an augur. His wit, cheerful disposition and high intelligence had made him much loved by those who came into contact with him in Forum, Senate or the courts, and despite his physical handicaps, Vatinius proved to be as able a soldier as he was a politician. Sent to relieve Gabinius in the siege at Salona in Illyricum, he and his legate Quintus Cornificius had not only taken the city, but then moved to crush the tribes of Illyricum before they could ally themselves with Burebistas and the tribes of the Danubius basin and become a bigger nuisance to Rome and Caesar than Pharnaces. "It isn't much of a consulship, Vatinius," Caesar went on, "as it's just for the rump of this year. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't have bothered with consuls until the New Year, but there are reasons why I need two consuls in office immediately." "Caesar, I would be happy to be consul for two nundinae, let alone two months," Vatinius managed to say. "Will you hold proper elections, or simply appoint me and ?" "Quintus Fufius Calenus," said Caesar obligingly. "Oh, yes, I'll hold proper elections. Far be it from me to upset some of the senators I'm still hoping to win over." "Will they be Sulla-style elections, or will you permit other men to run as well as Vatinius and Calenus?" Piso asked, scowling. "I don't care if half of Rome wants to stand, Piso. I shall ah indicate my personal preferences, and leave the decision to the Centuries." No one commented on that. In Rome's present condition, and after the marvelous speech about debt, the knight-businessmen of the Eighteen senior Centuries would be happy to elect a Tingitanian ape if Caesar nominated it. "Why," Vatia Isauricus enquired, "is it so necessary to have consuls in office for the rump of this year when you're here in Rome yourself, Caesar?" Caesar blandly changed the subject. "Gaius Matius, I have a favor to ask," he said. "Anything, Gaius, you know that," said Matius, a quiet man with no political aspirations; his businesses had prospered thanks to his old friendship with Caesar, more than enough for him. "I know that Queen Cleopatra's agent, Ammonius, approached you and secured a grant of land for her palace next to my gardens under the Janiculum. Would you give its gardens your personal touch? I'm sure the Queen will donate the palace to Rome later." Matius knew perfectly well that she would; the property was in Caesar's name, as ordered. "I am delighted to help, Caesar." "Is the Queen as beautiful as Fulvia?" Pompeia Sulla asked, well aware that she herself was more beautiful than Fulvia. "No," Caesar said, his tone forbidding further discussion. He turned to Philippus. "Your younger son is a very capable man." "I'm pleased that he has pleased, Caesar." "I intend to have Cilicia governed as a part of Asia Province for the next year or two. If you don't mind his remaining in the East a while longer, Philippus, I'd like to leave him in Tarsus as deputy governor propraetore." "Excellent!" Philippus beamed. Caesar's eyes had gone to the elder son, now well into his thirties. Very handsome, reputedly quite as talented as Quintus, yet always stuck in Rome letting his opportunities go by without his father's excuse of Epicureanism. At that moment the reason broke on Caesar as a shock; Lucius's gaze was fixed hungrily on Atia, a look of hopeless love. But the look went unnoticed because the emotion clearly was not returned. Atia sat tranquilly, smiling at her husband from time to time in the way women do when they are perfectly satisfied with their marital lot. Hmmm. Undercurrents in the Philippus household. From Atia, Caesar transferred his attention to young Octavius, who thus far had not vouchsafed a single remark. Not from shyness, rather from a consciousness of his junior status. The lad was staring at his stepbrother with complete comprehension but rigid dislike and disapproval. "Who's to govern Asia Province combined with Cilicia?" asked Piso, a question loaded with meaning. He wants the job desperately, and in many ways he's a good man, but... "Vatia, will you go?" Caesar asked. Vatia Isauricus looked startled, then very exalted. "It would be an honor, Caesar." "Good, then you have the job." He stared at the mortified Piso. "Piso, I have work for you too, but inside Rome. I'm still trying to get the debt relief legislation into order, but I won't have it anything like completed before I leave for Africa Province. As you're a brilliant legal draftsman, I'd like to collaborate with you on the subject and then leave it in your hands when I go." He paused, spoke very seriously. "One of the most inequitable aspects of Roman government concerns payment for services rendered. Why should a man be forced to make his fortune governing a province? That has led to shocking abuses, and I'll see an end to them. Why shouldn't a man be able to receive a governor's stipend for work he does at home, work of equal importance? What I propose is to pay you a proconsular governor's stipend for finishing the laws I draft roughly." That shut him up! "That shut him up, young Octavius said under his breath. When the third course was removed from the tables and only the wine flagons and water pitchers remained, the women departed to Calpurnia's spacious quarters upstairs for a good gossip. Now Caesar could focus on the most silent of his guests. "Have you changed your mind about how you intend to pursue your public career, Octavius?" he asked. "Keeping my counsel, you mean, Caesar?" "Yes." "No, I still think it suits my character." "I remember you said that Cicero's tongue runs away with him too much. You're quite right. I encountered him on the Via Appia outside Tarentum the day I arrived back in Italy, and was rudely reminded of that fact." Octavius answered obliquely. "It's said in the family, Uncle Gaius, that when you were about ten years old you acted as a kind of nurse-companion to Gaius Marius while he was recovering from a stroke. And that he talked, you listened. That you learned much about waging war from listening." "I did indeed. However, Octavius, I still betrayed my talent for waging war, I am not sure how. Perhaps I listened too hard, and he sensed qualities in me I didn't know I had." "He was jealous," Octavius said flatly. "Very perceptive! Yes, he was jealous. His day was clearly over, mine hadn't begun. Old men struck down can be nasty." "Yet though his day was clearly over, he returned to public life. His jealousy of Sulla was greater." "Sulla was old enough to have demonstrated his ability. And Marius took care of my pretensions with remarkable cunning." "By appointing you the flamen Dialis and marrying you to Cinna's tiny daughter. A lifelong priesthood that forbade you to touch a weapon of war or witness death." "That is so." Caesar grinned at his great-nephew. "But I wriggled out of the priesthood with Sulla's connivance. Sulla didn't like me at all, but though Marius was long dead by then, he still loathed Marius oh, almost to mania. So he freed me to spite a dead man." "You didn't try to wriggle out of the marriage. You refused to divorce Cinnilla when Sulla commanded it." "She was a good wife, and good wives are rare." "I shall remember that." "Have you many friends, Octavius?" "No. I'm tutored at home, I don't meet many other boys." "You must meet them on the Campus Martius when you go there for the boys' military drills and exercises, surely." The brown skin flushed crimson; Octavius bit his lip. "I hardly ever go to the Campus Martius." "Does your stepfather forbid it?" Caesar asked, astonished. "No, no! He's very good to me, very kind. I just I just don't get to the Campus Martius often enough to make friends." Another Brutus? Caesar was asking himself, dismayed. Does this fascinating boy avoid his military duties? During our conversation at Misenum he said he didn't have any military talent. Can that be it, a reluctance to betray his ineptitude? Yet he doesn't have the smell of a Brutus about him, I'd swear he isn't craven or uninterested. "Are you a good student?" he asked, leaving sensitive subjects alone. There was time to investigate further. "At mathematics, history and geography, very good, I think," Octavius said, regaining his composure. "It's Greek I can't seem to master. No matter how much Greek I read, write, or speak, I can never manage to think in it. So I have to think in Latin and then translate." "That's interesting. Perhaps later, after six months living in Athens, you'll learn to think in Greek," Caesar said, hardly able to credit that anyone suffered this inability. He thought automatically in whichever language he was speaking. "Yes, perhaps," Octavius said rather neutrally. Caesar settled deeper into the couch, aware that Lucius was eavesdropping shamelessly. "Tell me, Octavius, how far do you want to rise?" "To the consulship, returned by every Century." "Dictator, even?" "No, definitely, definitely not." This didn't sound critical. "Why so emphatic?" "Ever since they forced you to cross the Rubicon, Uncle Gaius, I've watched and listened. Though I don't know you well, I think that to be the dictator was the last thing you wanted." "Rather any office than that," said Caesar grimly, "but rather that office than undeserved exile and ignominy." "I shall offer regularly to Jupiter Optimus Maximus that I am never faced with that alternative." "Would you dare it if you had to?" "Oh, yes. In my heart I am a Caesar." "A Gaius Julius Caesar?" "No, merely a Julian of the Caesares." "Who are your heroes?" "You," Octavius said simply. "Just you." He slid off the back of the couch. "Please excuse me, Uncle Gaius, Cousin Lucius. My mother made me promise that I'd go home early." The two men left on the lectus medius watched the slight figure leave the room without drawing attention to himself. "Well, well, well," drawled Lucius. "What do you think of him, Lucius?" "He's a thousand years old." "Give or take a century or two, yes. Do you like him?" "It's plain you do, but do I? Yes with reservations." "Expatiate." "He's not a Julian of the Caesares, much though he may think he is. Oh, there are echoes of the old Patriciate, but also echoes of a mind never shaped in the patrician mold. I can't catalogue his style, yet I know he has one. It may well be that Rome hasn't seen his style before." "You're saying he's going to go far." The vivid blue eyes twinkled. "A fool I am not, Gaius! If I were you, I'd take him as my personal contubernalis the moment he turns seventeen." "So I thought when I met him at Misenum a few years ago." "One thing I'd watch." "What?" "That he doesn't grow too fond of arses." The paler blue eyes twinkled. "A fool I am not, Lucius!"