The Triumph of Caesar (19 page)

I nodded, and considered the irony that the master of the world should be so unaware of events in his own household. From what I had observed, Uncle Gnaeus disapproved of his niece's obsession with the "superstitious nonsense" fostered by the haruspex Porsenna, of whom Caesar appeared to know nothing.

He laughed softly. "But why am I telling you all this? It must be that gift you possess."

"Gift?"

"Your special gift—the power to compel the truth from others. Cicero warned me about it a long time ago. Catilina said the same thing—do you remember him?—and Meto confirmed it. The gift of Gordianus—that must be what's loosened my tongue. Or perhaps . . . perhaps I'm just tired."

The moon had risen above the roofline. Its blue light gleamed on Caesar's bald pate. He turned his face upward into the moonbeam, and I saw that his eyes were closed. He fell silent and breathed so deeply that I thought he might have fallen asleep, until he sighed and spoke again.

"Ah, but I've strayed from the point of my visit. I wanted to give you this."

He produced a thin, square token carved from bone. I took it from him. Squinting under the moonlight, I saw there was a letter and a number painted on it.

"What's this, Dictator? What does 'F XII' refer to?"

"It's the section reserved for you and your family in the viewing stands. I'm told the seats are quite good. They're rather high up, but that's what you want for a spectacle, isn't it? A bit of distance? You wouldn't want to be too close; you're not the sort to make a rush at the captives as they pass or to bait the exotic animals. Just show that token to the usher, and he'll lead you and your family to your seats. They're reserved for tomorrow's triumph, and for the next two triumphs as well."

"This is for Meto's sake?"

"Because Meto cannot be here, yes, I'll honor Meto's father and family in his stead. But you deserve a seat on your own merits, Gordianus, at least for tomorrow's Egyptian Triumph. You were there in Alexandria, after all. You witnessed history in the making. Now you can witness the celebration."

I began to object, but Caesar silenced me with a gesture. "No, don't thank me! You've earned this favor, Gordianus. It's the least I can do." He stood and straightened his toga. "I meant to ask: did you manage to find good seats for the Gallic Triumph on your own?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. There's a little ledge at Lucullus's Temple of Fortuna that affords a good view of the route."

"Ah, yes." He nodded, then his face grew long. "If you were at the Temple of Fortuna, then you must have seen the . . . unexpected interruption."

"When the axle of the chariot broke? Yes. But I thought you handled it very well. The episode provided a bit of relief from all that grandiose formality. Your soldiers must love you very much indeed to think they can tease you so mercilessly."

"Yes," he said, his tone a bit cool. "A funny thing, that—the axle breaking. When we examined it later, it appeared almost as if someone had tampered with it."

"Tampered?"

"Caused it to break intentionally. It looked to me as if the wood had been partially sawed through. But it was impossible to be sure, the way the wood had splintered."

"Sabotage? But who would have done such a thing?"

He shook his head. "It was probably a simple accident, after all. And now I really must be going. Calpurnia becomes especially worried if I'm not home after dark."

I accompanied him through the house and into the vestibule, where the family still gathered, suspending their normal activities as long as the dictator was among us. Diana nudged Davus, who nudged Mopsus, who gave his little brother a kick. Androcles rushed to open the door, and Caesar, his thoughts now elsewhere, departed without another word.

The family gathered around me. While they peppered me with questions, I peered at the token in the palm of my hand. I would have preferred to stay at home the next day, avoiding the Egyptian Triumph altogether, but now that Caesar himself had gone to the effort to present this gift to me, I could hardly be absent. On the morrow, I would have an excellent view of the princess Arsinoë and her minister Ganymedes as they took their final walk on this earth.

XIII

Bethesda was quite pleased when I showed her the token Caesar had given me and explained what it was good for. Such signs of favor from a social superior always seemed to matter to her far more than they did to me, perhaps because of her origins. She had been born a foreigner and a slave; now she was a Roman matron and proud of it, despite clinging to certain foreign ways.

My own attitude toward the elite and the favors they could bestow was more problematical. Though born a Roman, I had realized from an early age that I would never become one of the so-called
nobilitas,
"those who are known" for having won public office; I never expected even to be allowed into the homes of such people. Now, after a lifetime of serving them, I was still not the sort of person they cared to invite to dinner. Rome's noble families are few in number and they closely guard their privileges, though outsiders of exceptional ability and ambition can occasionally join their ranks; Cicero was the prime example of such a New Man, the first of the Tullius family to be elected to office and set upon the Course of Honor in the quest to become consul for a year.

Many of those nobles, who had thought me barely worthy to serve them and certainly unworthy of their friendship, were dead now, while I, a humble citizen of no distinction, was still alive. For those aristocrats who had survived, what did the Course of Honor or nobility itself mean now, with one man installed in a permanent position at the apex of power?

And what did this token of favor from the dictator mean to me? I pondered this question as I examined the little piece of carved bone in my hand by the soft morning light in my vestibule. I was already dressed in a toga, with a simple breakfast of farina and stewed fruit in my belly. Menenia had just arrived with the twins. Bethesda insisted that the family set out early to claim our seats, even though I tried to explain to her that the whole point of possessing such a token was to allow us to show up whenever we wanted, since the seats were reserved for us. I think she wanted us to be seated early so that we might be conspicuously visible to the arriving throng, ensconced in our place of privilege.

With my family surrounding me, including Mopsus and Androcles ("We'll need them to fetch food and drinks," Bethesda had insisted), I set out, descending from the Palatine directly to the Forum, which was already more crowded than I would have expected at such an early hour. The stands with our seats were located near the end of the route, facing the foot of the Capitoline Hill and high enough to afford a panoramic view. Directly across from us were the most prestigious of the viewing stands, upon which curtained boxes with plush appointments had been erected for the comfort of important dignitaries. Those seats were still empty.

Beyond and between the dignitaries' boxes, I could clearly see the trail that led up the slope of the Capitoline to the Carcer. Later, if I cared to, I could probably watch Arsinoë and Ganymedes being led to the very door of the prison, behind which they would meet their deaths in the pit of the Tullianum.

While we waited for the procession to begin, I thought about what Caesar had said regarding his accident during the Gallic Triumph. If someone had deliberately severed the axle of his chariot, did the sabotage support Calpurnia's suspicions of a plot against Caesar? It was hard to see how; such an accident could hardly have been counted on to injure Caesar, much less kill him. Perhaps it had been devised merely to embarrass him, but by whom and for what reason? Renegade Gauls in the city might have wished to mar his victory over Vercingetorix, but how could they have obtained access to the sacred chariot? Caesar's veterans had felt free to tease him with lewd verses; might some of them have been so bold as to sever the axle to play a practical joke on him?

Had Caesar only imagined signs of tampering, and, if so, what did such imaginings indicate about his state of mind? Or was Caesar's speculation about sabotage a ruse? He had seemed to reveal this concern in a genuinely unguarded moment, but did such a man ever speak without premeditation? It might be that Caesar was disseminating this rumor of sabotage with the intent of dispelling any notion that the accident was an evil omen, the result of divine displeasure rather than human intervention.

"Husband!"

My thoughts were interrupted by Bethesda. Her voice was hushed, her tone excited.

"Husband, is that
her
?"

I blinked and looked about. While I had been staring abstractedly into empty space, the stands around me had filled up. Below us, every spot along the route was taken. The Forum was a sea of spectators bisected by the broad path left open for the triumph.

"Over there," Bethesda said insistently, "in the special seats. Is that really
her
?"

I gazed across the way. The boxes for dignitaries had also filled up. Amid the gaudily attired ambassadors and emissaries and visiting heads of states sat a lone female, resplendent in a purple gown and a golden diadem. The walls and high parapet of the box kept her from being seen by the crowd around and below her, but because our seats were directly across from the box, we had a clear view of her.

"Yes," I said. "That is Cleopatra."

The queen had arrived without fanfare. No one in the crowd seemed to be aware of her presence. Barred by Caesar from taking part in the triumph, she was merely another spectator amid the thousands present that day.

Bethesda squinted, tilted her head to one side, and frowned. "She's not as pretty as I had imagined."

I looked sidelong at my wife and smiled. "She's certainly no rival to you."

It was the right thing to say; Bethesda could not suppress a smile of triumph. And it was true. In her heyday, Bethesda had been much more beautiful than Cleopatra, and when I looked at Bethesda now, did I not still see the girl she had been?

A deafening cheer rang out. The procession had begun.

First came the senators and magistrates. Again I saw Cicero and Brutus strolling side by side, talking to each other and ignoring the crowd, as if nothing of importance was taking place.

The trumpeters followed. Their fanfare had a distinctly Egyptian flourish to it, and charged the air with anticipation. What wonders from the distant Nile would Caesar present to the people of Rome?

The spoils of Gaul had been vast and impressive, but the items from Egypt were of another order of magnificence. They were not booty, strictly speaking, since Caesar had not conquered the country; his role had been to end the civil war between the royal siblings and install one of them on the throne. Many of the items displayed that day were gifts from Queen Cleopatra to demonstrate her gratitude to Caesar and to the people of Rome for taking her side in the war with her siblings.

There was a towering black obelisk etched with hieroglyphs and decorated with gold bosses in the shape of lotus blossoms. There were bronze statues of various gods, including an incarnation of the Nile represented as an old man surrounded by river nymphs, with creatures of the deep entwined in his flowing beard. There was a grand procession of magnificent sphinxes, one after another, carved from granite and marble.

The wagons bearing these massive objects were pulled not by beasts but by exotic-looking slaves from the teeming markets of Alexandria. These slaves came from far-off lands whose very names excited wonder—Nubia, Arabia, Ethiopia—and the sight of their dark, gleaming bodies excited almost as much comment as the treasures they were pulling.

The crowd gasped with amazement at the appearance of the final sphinx. It was being pulled by the longest train of slaves, and at a distance appeared to loom far larger than the other sphinxes. This was a trick of the eye. It was not the sphinx but the slaves who were out of scale; these were the miniature people called Pygmies who were said to dwell in a land of dense forests near the source of the Nile. The incongruity of the sight appealed to the Roman sense of humor and prompted gales of laughter.

A replica of the sarcophagus of Alexander was presented, along with several statues of the conqueror. The founding of Alexandria had been his most enduring accomplishment, and his burial place was one of the principle shrines of the city.

There followed a visual catalog of the municipal achievements of Alexander's successors, the Ptolemies. A remarkably detailed model of Alexandria carved from ivory depicted the walls of the city, the great library and museum, the royal palace and the theater, the broad avenues decorated with ancient monuments, and the jetties embracing the great harbor. (Caesar had very nearly met his death in that harbor, when his ship was sunk in a naval engagement and he was forced to swim ashore).

A towering model of the Pharos lighthouse rolled by, complete with a fiery beacon at the summit. This was followed by a model of the gigantic Temple of Serapis and a statue of the god whom the Greek Ptolemies had established as the chief deity of Egypt; Serapis resembled bearded Zeus, or Jupiter, sitting on a throne and wielding a scepter, but on his head he wore a grain basket for a crown and at his feet crouched a three-headed dog meant to be Cerberus but rendered in a style more akin to the jackal-headed Egyptian god, Anubis.

An exotic bestiary followed, featuring the fabled creatures of the Nile and of regions even more remote. Muzzled crocodiles were paraded, fitted with harnesses attached to leashes held by teams of beastmasters: the creatures were so strong and unpredictable, it seemed to take all the keepers' strength to prevent them from lurching into the crowd. Images were displayed of the
híppos potámios,
the famous Nile river-horse, and of the
rhinókeros,
which looks like a leathery, overgrown boar brandishing a single monstrous tusk.

The beast show ended with a genuine crowd-pleaser: a troupe of Pygmies rode by, mounted on the gigantic, flightless birds the Greeks call
strouthokamelos,
"camel-sparrows," famed for their magnificent feathers and absurdly long necks. They are said to hide their heads in the sand when frightened.