Caesar's Women (93 page)

The eyes so like Sulla's passed from face to face, lingered on Cicero with the ghost of a menace in them not only Cicero felt. What a power the man had! It radiated out of him, and hardly any senator there didn't suddenly understand that what would work on anyone else, even Pompey, would never stop Caesar. If they called his bluff, they all knew it would turn out to be no bluff. He was more than merely dangerous. He was disaster.

When the division was called, only Cato stood to Bibulus's right; Metellus Scipio and the rest gave in.

Whereupon Caesar went back to the People and demanded one additional clause for his lex agraria: that every senator be compelled to swear an oath to uphold it the moment it was ratified after the seventeen days' wait was done. There were precedents, including the famous refusal of Metellus Numidicus which had resulted in an exile some years in duration.

But times had changed and the People were angry; the Senate was seen as deliberately obstructive, and Pompey's veterans wanted their land badly. At first a number of senators refused to swear, but Caesar remained determined, and one by one they swore. Except for Metellus Celer, Cato and Bibulus. After Bibulus crumbled it went down to Celer and Cato, who would not, would not, would not.

“I suggest,” Caesar said to Cicero, “that you persuade that pair to take the oath.” He smiled sweetly. “I have permission from the priests and augurs to procure a lex Curiata allowing Publius Clodius to be adopted into the Plebs. So far I haven't implemented it. I hope I never have to. But in the long run, Cicero, it depends on you.”

Terrified, Cicero went to work. “I've seen the Great Man,” he said to Celer and Cato, without realizing that he had applied that ironic term to someone other than Pompey, “and he's out to skin you alive if you don't swear.”

“I'd look quite good hanging in the Forum flayed,” said Celer.

“Celer, he'll take everything off you! I mean it! If you don't swear, it means political ruin. There's no punishment attached for refusing to swear, he's not so stupid. No one can say you've done anything particularly admirable in refusing, it won't mean a fine or exile. What it will mean is such odium in the Forum that you won't ever be able to show your face again. If you don't swear, the People will damn you as obstructive for the sake of obstruction. They'll take it personally, not as an insult to Caesar. Bibulus should never have shrieked to an entire meeting of the People that they'd never get the law no matter how badly they wanted it. They interpreted that as spite and malice. It put the boni in a very bad light. Don't you understand that the knights are for it, that it isn't simply Magnus's soldiers?”

Celer was looking uncertain. “I can't see why the knights are for it,” he said sulkily.

“Because they're busy going round Italia buying up land to sell for a fat profit to the commissioners!” snapped Cicero.

“They're disgusting!” Cato shouted, speaking for the first time. “I'm the great-grandson of Cato the Censor, I won't bow down to one of these overbred aristocrats! Even if he does have the knights on his side! Rot the knights!”

Knowing that his dream of concord between the Orders was a thing of the past, Cicero sighed, held out both hands. “Cato, my dear fellow, swear! I see what you mean about the knights, I really do! They want everything their way, and they exert utterly unscrupulous pressures on us. But what can we do? We have to live with them because we can't do without them. How many men are there in the Senate? Certainly not enough to stick one's medicus up in a knightly direction, and that's what refusal means. You'd be offering anal insult to the Ordo Equester, which is far too powerful to tolerate that.”

“I'd rather ride out the storm,” said Celer.

“So would I,” said Cato.

“Grow up!” cried Cicero. “Ride out the storm? You'll sink to the bottom, both of you! Make up your minds to it. Swear and survive, or refuse to swear and accept political ruin.” He saw no sign of yielding in either face, girded his loins and went on. “Celer, Cato, swear, I beg of you! After all, what's at stake if you look at it coldly? What's more important, to oblige the Great Man this once in something which doesn't affect you personally, or go down to permanent oblivion? If you kill yourselves politically, you won't be there to continue the fight, will you? Don't you see that it's more important to remain in the arena than get carried out on a shield looking gorgeous in death?”

And more, and more. Even after Celer came round, it took the beleaguered Cicero another two hours of argument to make the very stubborn Cato give in. But he did give in. Celer and Cato took the oath, and, having taken it, would not forswear it; Caesar had learned from Cinna, and made sure neither man held a stone in his fist to render the swearing void.

“Oh, what an awful year this is!” Cicero said to Terentia with genuine pain in his voice. “It's like watching a team of giants battering with hammers at a wall too thick to break! If only I wasn't here to see it!”

She actually patted his hand. “Husband, you look absolutely worn down. Why are you staying? If you do, you'll become ill. Why not set out with me for Antium and Formiae? We could make it a delightful vacation, not return until May or June. Think of the early roses! I know you love to be in Campania for the start of spring. And we could pop in at Arpinum, see how the cheeses and the wool are doing.”

It loomed deliciously before his gaze, but he shook his head. “Oh, Terentia, I'd give anything to go! It just isn't possible. Hybrida is back from Macedonia, and half of Macedonia has come to Rome to accuse him of extortion. The poor fellow was a good colleague in my consulship, no matter what they say. Never gave me any real trouble. So I'm going to defend him. It's the least I can do.”

“Then promise me that the moment your verdict is in, you'll leave,” she said. “I'll go on with Tullia and Piso Frugi—Tullia is keen to see the games in Antium. Besides, little Marcus isn't well—he complains so of growing pains that I dread his inheriting my rheumatism. We all need a holiday. Please!”

Such a novelty was it to hear a beseeching Terentia that Cicero agreed. The moment Hybrida's trial was done, he would join them.

The problem was that Caesar's forcing him to remonstrate with Celer and Cato was still at the forefront of Cicero's mind when he undertook the defense of Gaius Antonius Hybrida. To have acted as Caesar's lackey smarted; it sat ill with someone whose courage and resolution had saved his country.

Not therefore so inexplicable that when the moment came to deliver his final speech before the jury found for or against his colleague Hybrida, Cicero found it beyond his control to stick to the subject. He did his habitual good job, lauded Hybrida to the skies and made it clear to the jury that this shining example of the Roman nobility had never pulled the wings off a fly as a child or maimed a considerable number of Greek citizens as a young man, let alone committed any of the crimes alleged by half of the province of Macedonia.

“Oh,” he sighed as he built up to his peroration, “how much I miss the days when Gaius Hybrida and I were consuls together! What a decent and honorable place Rome was! Yes, we had Catilina skulking in the background ready to demolish our fair city, but he and I coped with that, he and I saved our country! But for what, gentlemen of the jury? For what? I wish I knew! I wish I could tell you why Gaius Hybrida and I stuck by our posts and endured those shocking events! All for nothing, if one looks around Rome on this terrible day during the consulship of a man not fit to wear the toga praetexta! And no, I do not mean the great and good Marcus Bibulus! I mean that ravening wolf Caesar! He has destroyed the concord among the Orders, he has made a mockery of the Senate, he has polluted the consulship! He rubs our noses in the filth which issues from the Cloaca Maxima, he smears it from our tails to our toes, he dumps it on our heads! As soon as this trial is ended I am leaving Rome, and I do not intend to come back for a long time because I just cannot bear to watch Caesar defaecating on Rome! I am going to the seaside, then I am sailing away to see places like Alexandria, haven of learning and good government…”

The speech ended, the jury voted. CONDEMNO. Gaius Antonius Hybrida was off to exile in Cephallenia, a place he knew well—and that knew him too well. As for Cicero, he packed up and quit Rome that afternoon, Terentia having left already.

The trial had ended during the morning, and Caesar had been inconspicuously at the back of the crowd to hear Cicero. Before the jury had delivered its verdict he had gone, sending messengers flying in several directions.

It had been an interesting trial for Caesar in a number of ways, commencing with the fact that he himself had once tried to bring Hybrida down on charges of murder and maiming while the commander of a squadron of Sulla's cavalry at Lake Orchomenus, in Greece. Caesar had also found himself fascinated by the young man prosecuting Hybrida this time, for he was a protégé of Cicero's who now had the courage to face Cicero from the opposite side of the legal fence. Marcus Caelius Rufus, a very handsome and well-set-up fellow who had put together a brilliant case and quite cast Cicero into the shadows.

Within moments of Cicero's opening his speech in Hybrida's defense, Caesar knew Hybrida was done for. Hybrida's reputation was just too well known for anyone to believe he hadn't pulled the wings off flies when a boy.

Then came Cicero's digression.

Caesar's temper went completely. He sat in the study at the Domus Publica and chewed his lips as he waited for those he had summoned to appear. So Cicero thought himself immune, did he? So Cicero thought he could say precisely what he liked without fear of reprisal? Well, Marcus Tullius Cicero, you have another think coming! I am going to make life very difficult for you, and you deserve it. Every overture thrown in my face, even now your beloved Pompeius has indicated he would like you to support me. And the whole of Rome knows why you love Pompeius—he saved you from having to pick up a sword during the Italian War by throwing the mantle of his protection around you when you were both cadets serving under Pompeius's father, the Butcher. Not even for Pompeius will you put your trust in me. So I will make sure I use Pompeius to help haul you down. I showed you up with Rabirius, but more than that—in trying Rabirius, I showed you that your own hide isn't safe. Now you're about to find out how it feels to look exile in the face.

Why do they all seem to believe they can insult me with total impunity? Well, perhaps what I am about to do to Cicero will make them see they can't. I am not powerless to retaliate. The only reason I have not so far is that I fear I might not be able to stop.

Publius Clodius arrived first, agog with curiosity, took the goblet of wine Caesar handed him and sat down. He then sprang up, sat down again, wriggled.

“Can you never sit still, Clodius?'' Caesar asked.

“Hate it.”

“Try.”

Sensing that some sort of good news was in the offing, Clodius tried, but when he managed to control the rest of his appendages, his goatee continued to wriggle as his chin worked at pushing his lower lip in and out. A sight which Caesar seemed to find intensely amusing, for he finally burst out laughing. The odd thing about Caesar and his merriment, however, was that it failed to annoy Clodius the way—for instance—Cicero's did.

“Why,” asked Caesar when his mirth simmered down, “do you persist in wearing that ridiculous tuft?''

“We're all wearing them,” said Clodius, as if that explained it.

“I had noticed. Except for my cousin Antonius, that is.”

Clodius giggled. “It didn't work for poor old Antonius, quite broke his spirit. Instead of sticking out, his goatee stuck up and kept tickling the end of his nose.”

“Am I allowed to guess why you are all growing hair on the ends of your faces?''

“Oh, I think you know, Caesar.”

“To annoy the boni.”

“And anyone else who's foolish enough to react.”

“I insist that you shave it off, Clodius. Immediately.”

“Give me one good reason why!” said Clodius aggressively.

“It might suit a patrician to be eccentric, but plebeians are not sufficiently antique. Plebeians have to obey the mos maiorum.”

A huge smile of delight spread over Clodius's face. “You mean you've got the consent of the priests and augurs?”

“Oh, yes. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

“Even with Celer still here?”

“Celer behaved like a lamb.”

Down went the wine, Clodius leaped to his feet. “I'd better find Publius Fonteius—my adoptive father.”

“Sit down, Clodius! Your new father has been sent for.”

“Oh, I can be a tribune of the plebs! The greatest one in the history of Rome, Caesar!”

A goateed Publius Fonteius arrived on the echo of Clodius's words, and grinned fatuously when informed that he, aged twenty, would become the father of a man aged thirty-two.

“Are you willing to release Publius Clodius from your paternal authority and will you shave off that thing?” asked Caesar of him.

“Anything, Gaius Julius, anything!”

“Excellent!” said Caesar heartily, and came round his desk to welcome Pompey.

“What's amiss?” asked Pompey a trifle anxiously, then stared at the other two men present. “What is amiss?”

“Not a thing, Magnus, I assure you,” said Caesar, seating himself once more. “I need the services of an augur, is all, and I thought you might like to oblige me.”

“Anytime, Caesar. But for what?”

“Well, as I'm sure you know, Publius Clodius has been desirous of abrogating his patrician status for some time. This is his adoptive father, Publius Fonteius. I'd like to get the business done this afternoon, if you'd act as augur.”

No, Pompey was not a fool. Caesar hadn't got it out before he understood the object of the exercise. He too had been in the Forum to listen to Cicero, and he had hurt more from it than Caesar had, for whatever insults were heaped on Caesar's head reflected on him. For years he'd put up with Cicero's vacillations; nor was he pleased with the way Cicero had shied on every occasion he had asked for help since his return from the East. Savior of his country indeed! Let the conceited nincompoop suffer a little for a change! Oh, how he'd cringe when he knew Clodius was on his tail!