Caesar's Women (104 page)

“I'll start by making changes to the lex Aelia and the lex Fufia, that's certain. To permit consuls like Bibulus the use of religious laws as a political ploy is lunatic. After I get through with them, the lex Aelia and the lex Fufia will hold no attraction for the likes of Bibulus.”

“I applaud that! But do come to me for help in drafting.”

Clodius grinned wickedly. “Want me to make it a retroactive law, eh? Illegal to watch the skies backward as well as forward?”

“To shore up my own legislation?” Caesar looked haughty. “I will manage, Clodius, without a retroactive law. What else?”

“Condemn Cicero for executing Roman citizens without trial, and send him into permanent exile.”

“Excellent.”

“I also plan to restore the crossroads colleges and other sorts of brotherhoods outlawed by your cousin Lucius Caesar.”

“Which is why you want to visit Lucius Decumius. And?”

“Make the censors conform.”

“An interesting one.”

“Forbid the Treasury clerks to engage in private commerce.”

“Well overdue.”

“And give the People completely free grain.”

The breath hissed between Caesar's teeth. “Oho! Admirable, Clodius, but the boni will never let you get away with it.”

“The boni will have no choice,” said Clodius, face grim.

“How will you pay for a free grain dole? The cost would be prohibitive.”

“By legislating to annex the island of Cyprus. Don't forget that Egypt and all its possessions—chiefly Cyprus—were left to Rome in King Ptolemy Alexander's will. You reversed Egypt by getting the Senate to award Ptolemy Auletes tenure of the Egyptian throne, but you didn't extend your decree to cover his brother of Cyprus. That means Cyprus still belongs to Rome under that old will. We've never exercised it, but I intend to. After all, there are no kings in Syria any more, and Egypt can't go to war alone. There must be thousands and thousands of talents lying around in the palace at Paphos just waiting for Rome to pick them up.”

It came out sounding quite virtuous, which pleased Clodius immensely. Caesar was a very sharp fellow; he'd be the first to smell duplicity. But Caesar didn't know about the old grudge Clodius bore Ptolemy the Cyprian. When pirates had captured Clodius, he had made them ask Ptolemy the Cyprian for a ten-talent ransom, trying to emulate Caesar's conduct with his pirates. Ptolemy the Cyprian had simply laughed, then refused to pay more than two talents for the hide of Admiral Publius Clodius, saying that was all he was worth. A mortal insult. Well, Ptolemy the Cyprian was about to pay considerably more than two talents to satisfy Clodius's thirst for revenge. The price would be everything he owned, from his regency to the last golden nail in a door.

Had Caesar known this story, he wouldn't have cared; he was too busy thinking of a different revenge. “What a splendid idea!” he said affably. “I have just the person to entrust with a delicate mission like the annexation of Cyprus. You can't send someone with sticky fingers or Rome will end with less than half of what's there, and the grain dole will suffer. Nor can you go yourself. You'll have to legislate a special commission to annex Cyprus, and I have just the person for the job.”

“You do?'' asked Clodius, taken aback at a kindred malice.

“Give it to Cato.”

“Cato?”

“Absolutely. It must be Cato! He'll ferret out every stray drachma from the darkest corner, he'll keep immaculate accounts, he'll number off every jewel, every golden cup, every statue and painting—the Treasury will get the lot,” said Caesar, smiling like the cat about to break the mouse's neck. “You must, Clodius! Rome needs a Cato to do this job! You need a Cato to do this job! Commission Cato, and you'll have the money to pay for a free grain dole.”

Clodius went whooping away, leaving Caesar to reflect that he had just managed to do the most personally satisfying piece of work in years. The opponent of all special commissions, Cato would find himself hemmed into a corner with Clodius aiming a spear at him from every direction. That was the beauty of the Beauty, as Cicero was prone to refer to Clodius, punning on his nickname. Yes, Clodius was very clever. He had seen the nuances of commissioning Cato immediately. Another man might offer Cato a loophole, but Clodius wouldn't. Cato would have no choice other than to obey the Plebs, and he would be away for two or three years. Cato, who loathed being out of Rome these days for fear his enemies would take advantage of his absence. The Gods only knew what havoc Clodius was planning for next year, but if he did nothing more to oblige Caesar than eliminate Cicero and Cato, then Caesar for one would not complain.

“I'm going to force Cato to annex Cyprus!” said Clodius to Fulvia when he got home. His face changed, he scowled. “I ought to have thought of it for myself, but it's Caesar's idea.”

By now Fulvia knew exactly how to deal with Clodius's more mercurial mood swings. “Oh, Clodius, how truly brilliant you are!” she cooed, worshiping him with her eyes. “Caesar is accustomed to use other people, now here you are using him! I think you ought to go right on using Caesar.”

Which interpretation sat very well with Clodius, who beamed and started congratulating himself on his perception. “And I will use him, Fulvia. He can draft some of my laws for me.”

“The religious ones, definitely.”

“Do you think I ought to oblige him with a favor or two?”

“No,” said Fulvia coolly. “Caesar's not fool enough to expect a fellow patrician to oblige him—and by birth you're a patrician, it's in your bones.”

She got up a little clumsily to stretch her legs; her new pregnancy was beginning to hamper her, and she found that a nuisance. Just when Clodius would be at the height of his tribunate, she would be waddling. Not that she intended baby woes to interfere with her presence in the Forum. In fact, the thought of scandalizing Rome afresh by appearing publicly at eight and nine months was delectable. Nor would the birth ordeal keep her away for more than a day or two. Fulvia was one of the lucky ones: she found carrying and bearing children easy. Having stretched her aching legs, she lay down again beside Clodius in time to smile at Decimus Brutus when he came in, looking jubilant because of Clodius's victory at the polls.

“I have a name—Lucius Decumius,” said Clodius.

“For your source of information about the little fellows, you mean?'' asked Decimus Brutus, lying down on the couch opposite.

“I mean.”

“Who is he?” Decimus Brutus began to pick at a plate of food.

“The custodian of a crossroads college in the Subura. And a great friend of Caesar's, according to Lucius Decumius, who swears he changed Caesar's diapers and got up to all sorts of mischief with him when Caesar was a boy.”

“So?” asked Decimus Brutus, sounding skeptical.

“So I met Lucius Decumius and I liked him. He also liked me. And,” said Clodius, his voice sinking to a conspiratorial whisper, “I've found my way into the ranks of the lowly at last—or at least that segment of the lowly which can be of use to us.”

The other two leaned forward, food forgotten.

“If Bibulus has demonstrated nothing else this year,” Clodius went on, “he's shown what a mockery constitutionality can be. In the name of Law he's put the triumvirs outside it. The whole of Rome is aware that what he's really done is to use a religious trick, but it's worked. Caesar's laws are in jeopardy. Well, I'll soon make that sort of trick illegal! And once I do, there will be no impediment to prevent my passing my laws legally.''

“Except persuading the Plebs to pass them in the first place,” sneered Decimus Brutus. “I can name a dozen tribunes of the plebs foiled by that factor! Not to mention the veto. There are at least four other men in your College who will adore to veto you.”

“Which is where Lucius Decumius is going to come in extremely handy!” cried Clodius, his excitement obvious. “We are going to build a following among the lowly which will intimidate our Forum and senatorial opponents to the point whereat no one will have the courage to interpose a veto! No law I care to promulgate will not be passed!”

“Saturninus tried that and failed,” said Decimus Brutus.

“Saturninus thought of the lowly as a crowd, he never knew any names or shared drinks with them,” Clodius explained patiently. “He failed to do what a really successful demagogue must do—be selective. I don't want or need huge crowds of lowly. All I want are several groups of real rascals. Now I took one look at Lucius Decumius and knew I'd found a real rascal. We went off to a tavern on the Via Nova and talked. Chiefly about his resentment at being disqualified as a religious college. He claimed to have been an assassin in his younger days, and I believed him. But, more germane to me, he let it slip that his and quite a few of the other crossroads colleges have been running a protection ploy for—oh, centuries!”

“Protection ploy?” asked Fulvia, looking blank.

“They sell protection from robbery and assault to shopkeepers and manufacturers.”

“Protection from whom?”

“Themselves, of course!” said Clodius, laughing. “Fail to pay up, and you're beaten up. Fail to pay up, and your goods are stolen. Fail to pay up, and your machinery is destroyed. It's perfect.”

“I'm fascinated,” drawled Decimus Brutus.

“It's simple, Decimus. We will use the crossroads brethren as our troops. There's no need to fill the Forum with vast crowds. All we need are enough at any one time. Two or three hundred at the most, I think. That's why we have to find out how they're gathered, where they're gathered, when they're gathered. Then we have to organize them like a little army—rosters, everything.”

“How will we pay them?” Decimus Brutus asked. He was a shrewd and extremely capable young man, despite his appearance of mindless vice; the thought of work which would make life difficult for the boni and all others of boringly conservative inclination he found immensely appealing.

“We pay them by buying their wine out of our own purses. One thing I've learned is that uneducated men will do anything for you if you pay for their drinks.”

“Not enough,” said Decimus Brutus emphatically.

“I'm well aware of that,” said Clodius. “I'll also pay them with two pieces of legislation. One: legalize all of Rome's colleges, sodalities, clubs and fraternities again. Two: bring in a free grain dole.” He kissed Fulvia and got up. “We are now venturing into the Subura, Decimus, where we will see old Lucius Decumius and start laying our plans for when I enter office on the tenth day of December.”

* * *

Caesar promulgated his law to prevent governors' extorting in their provinces during the month of Sextilis, sufficiently after the events of the month before to have allowed tempers to cool down. Including his own.

“I am not acting in a spirit of altruism,” he said to the half-filled chamber, “nor do I object to a capable governor's enriching himself in acceptable ways. What this lex Iulia does is to prevent a governor's cheating the Treasury, and protect the people of his province against rapacity. For over a hundred years government of the provinces in the provinces has been a disgrace. Citizenships are sold. Exemptions from taxes, tithes and tributes are sold. The governor takes half a thousand parasites with him to drain provincial resources even further. Wars are fought for no better reason than to ensure a triumph upon the governor's return to Rome. If they refuse to yield a daughter or a field of grain, those who are not Roman citizens are subjected to the barbed lash, and sometimes decapitated. Payment for military supplies and equipment isn't made. Prices are fixed to benefit the governor or his bankers or his minions. The practice of extortionate moneylending is encouraged. Need I go further?”

Caesar shrugged. “Marcus Cato says my laws are not legal due to the activities of my consular colleague in watching the skies. I have not let Marcus Bibulus stand in my way. I will not let him stand in the way of this bill either. However, if this body refuses to give it a consultum of approval, I will not take it to the People. As you see from the number of buckets around my feet, it is an enormous body of law. Only the Senate has the fortitude to plough through it, only the Senate appreciates Rome's predicament anent her governors. This is a senatorial law, it must have senatorial approval.” He smiled in Cato's direction. “You might say I am handing the Senate a gift— refuse it, and it will die.”

Perhaps Quinctilis had acted as a catharsis, or perhaps the degree of rancor and rage had been such that the sheer intensity of emotion could not be maintained a moment longer; whatever the reason might have been, Caesar's extortion law met with universal approval in the Senate.

“It is magnificent,” said Cicero.

“I have no quarrel with the smallest subclause,” said Cato.

“You are to be congratulated,” said Hortensius.

“It's so exhaustive it will last forever,” said Vatia Isauricus.

Thus the lex Iulia repetundarum went to the Popular Assembly accompanied by a senatus consultum of consent, and passed into law halfway through September.

“I'm pleased,” said Caesar to Crassus amid the turmoil of the Macellum Cuppedenis, filled to overflowing with country visitors in town for the ludi Romani.

“You ought to be, Gaius. When the boni can't find anything wrong, you should demand a new kind of triumph awarded only for the perfect law.”

“The boni could find absolutely nothing wrong with my land laws either, but that didn't stop their opposing me,” said Caesar.

“Land laws are different. There are too many rents and leases at stake. Extortion by governors in their provinces shrinks the Treasury's revenues. It strikes me, however, that you ought not to have limited your law against extortion to the senatorial class only. Knights extort in the provinces too,” said Crassus.

“Only with gubernatorial consent. However, when I'm consul for the second time, I'll bring in a second extortion law aimed at the knights. It's too long a process drafting extortion laws to permit more than one per consulship.”

“So you intend to be consul a second time?”

“Definitely. Don't you?”

“I wouldn't mind, actually,” said Crassus thoughtfully. “I'd still love to go to war against the Parthians, earn myself a triumph at last. I can't do that unless I'm consul again.”