Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough
The bond between them had been created shortly after Cato's birth, at which time Caepio was only three years old. Ailing, their mother (she was to die within two months) gave baby Cato into toddler Caepio's willing hands. Nothing save duty had parted them since, though even in duty they had usually managed to stay together. Perhaps the bond would naturally have weakened as they grew, had it not been that their Uncle Drusus was stabbed to death in the house they had all shared; when it happened Caepio was six and Cato barely three. That ghastly ordeal forged the bond in fires of horror and tragedy so intense it endured afterward even stronger. Their childhood had been lonely, war torn, unloving, humorless. No close relatives were left, their guardians aloof, and the two oldest of the six children involved, Servilia and Servililla, loathed the two youngest, Cato and his sister Porcia. Not that the battle between oldest and youngest was weighted in favor of the two Servilias! Cato might have been the littlest, but he was also the loudest and the most fearless of all six.
Whenever the child Cato was asked, “Whom do you love?," his answer was the same: "I love my brother." And if he was pressed to qualify this statement by declaring whom else he loved, his answer was always the same: "I love my brother."
In truth he never had loved anybody else except for that awful experience with Uncle Mamercus's daughter, Aemilia Lepida; and if loving Aemilia Lepida had taught Cato nothing else, it taught him to detest and mistrust women—an attitude helped along by a childhood spent with Servilia.
Whereas what he felt for Caepio was totally ineradicable, completely reciprocated, heartfelt, a matter of sinew and blood. Though he never would admit, even to himself, that Caepio was more than half a brother. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and none blinder than Cato when he wanted to be blind.
They journeyed everywhere, saw everything, Cato for once the expert. And if the humble little freedman Sinon who traveled in Caepio's train on Servilia's business had ever been tempted to treat her warning about Cato lightly, one look at Cato made him understand entirely why she had thought Cato worth mentioning as a danger to Sinon's real business. Not that Sinon was drawn to Cato's attention; a member of the Roman nobility did not bother with introductions to inferiors. Sinon looked from behind a crowd of servants and underlings, and made sure he did absolutely nothing to provoke Cato into noticing him.
But all good things must come to an end, so at the beginning of December the brothers parted and Caepio rode on down the Via Egnatia, followed by his retinue. Cato wept unashamedly. So did Caepio, all the harder because Cato walked down the road in their wake for many miles, waving, weeping, calling out to Caepio to take care, take care, take care....
Perhaps he had had a feeling of imminent danger to Caepio; certainly when Caepio's note came a month later, its contents did not surprise him as they ought to have done.
My dearest brother, I have fallen ill in Aenus, and I fear for my life. Whatever is the matter, and none of the local physicians seem to know, I worsen every day.
Please, dear Cato, I beg you to come to Aenus and be with me at my end. It is so lonely, and no one here can comfort me as your presence would. I can ask to hold no hand dearer than yours while I give up my last breath. Come, I beg of you, and come soon. I will try to hang on.
My will is all in order with the Vestals, and as we had discussed, young Brutus will be my heir. You are the executor, and I have left you, as you stipulated, no more than the sum of ten talents. Come soon.
When informed that Cato needed emergency leave immediately, Governor Marcus Rubrius put no obstacles in his path. The only advice he offered was to go by road, as late-autumn storms were lashing the Thracian coast, and there had already been several shipwrecks reported. But Cato refused to listen; by road his journey could not take less than ten days no matter how hard he galloped, whereas the screaming winds from the northwest would fill the sails of a ship and speed it along so swiftly he could hope to reach Aenus in three to five days. And, having found a ship's captain rash enough to agree to take him (for a very good fee) from Thessalonica to Aenus, the feverish and frantic Cato embarked. Athenodorus Cordylion and Munatius Rufus came too, each man accompanied by only one slave.
The voyage was a nightmare of huge waves, breaking masts, tattered sails. However, the captain had carried extra masts and sails with him; the little ship ploughed and wallowed on, afloat and, it seemed to Athenodorus Cordylion and Munatius Rufus, powered in some inscrutable way out of the mind and will of Cato. Who, when harbor was reached at Aenus on the fourth day, didn't even wait for the ship to tie up. He leaped the few feet from ship to dock and began running madly through the driving rain. Only once did he pause, to discover from an astonished and shelterless peddler whereabouts lay the house of the ethnarch, for there he knew Caepio would be.
He burst into the house and into the room where his brother lay, an hour too late to hold that hand while Caepio knew he was holding it. Quintus Servilius Caepio was dead.
Water pooling around him on the floor, Cato stood by the bed looking down at the core and solace of his entire life, a still and dreadful figure bleached of color, vigor, force. The eyes had been closed and weighted down with coins, a curved silver edge protruded between the slightly parted lips; someone else had given Caepio the price of his ferry ride across the river Styx, thinking Cato would not come.
Cato opened his mouth and produced a sound which terrified everyone who heard it, neither wail nor howl nor screech, but an eldritch fusion of all three, animal, feral, hideous. All those present in the room recoiled instinctively, shook as Cato threw himself onto the bed, onto dead Caepio, covered the dreaming face with kisses, the lifeless body with caresses, while the tears poured until nose and mouth ran rivers as well, and those dreadful noises erupted out of him time and time again. And the paroxysm of grief went on without let, Cato mourning the passing of the one person in his world who meant everything, had been comfort in an awful childhood, anchor and rock to boy and man. Caepio it had been who drew his three-year-old eyes away from Uncle Drusus bleeding and screaming on the floor, turned those eyes into the warmth of his body and took the burden of all those ghastly hours upon his six-year-old shoulders; Caepio it had been who listened patiently while his dunce of a baby brother learned every fact the hardest way, by repeating it endlessly; Caepio it had been who reasoned and coaxed and cajoled during the unbearable aftermath of Aemilia Lepida's desertion, persuaded him to live again; Caepio it had been who took him on his first campaign, taught him to be a brave and fearless soldier, beamed when he had received armillae and phalerae for valor on a field more usually famous for cowardice, for they had belonged to the army of Clodianus and Poplicola defeated thrice by Spartacus; Caepio it had always, always been.
Now Caepio was no more. Caepio had died alone and friendless, with no one to hold his hand. The guilt and remorse sent Cato quite mad in that room where Caepio lay dead. When people tried to take him away, he fought. When people tried to talk him away, he just howled out. For almost two days he refused to move from where he lay covering Caepio, and the worst of it was that no one— no one!—even began to understand the terror of this loss, the loneliness his life would now forever be. Caepio was gone, and with Caepio went love, sanity, security.
But finally Athenodorus Cordylion managed to pierce the madness with words concerning a Stoic's attitudes, the behavior fitting to one who, like Cato, professed Stoicism. Cato got up and went to arrange his brother's funeral, still clad in rough tunic and smelly sagum, unshaven, face smeared and crusted with the dried remains of so many rivers of grief. The ten talents Caepio had left him in his will would be spent on this funeral, and when no matter how he tried to spend all of it with the local undertakers and spice merchants, all he could procure amounted to one talent, he spent another talent on a golden box studded with jewels to receive Caepio's ashes, and the other eight on a statue of Caepio to be erected in the agora of Aenus.
"But you won't get the color of his skin or his hair or his
The funeral was the most impressive this small Greek colony just to the east of the mouth of the Hebrus had ever seen, with every woman drawn into service as a professional mourner, and every stick of aromatic spice Aenus contained burned upon Caepio's pyre. When the obsequies were over, Cato gathered up the ashes himself and placed them in the exquisite little box, which never left his person from that day until he arrived in Rome a year later and, as was his duty, gave the box to Caepio's widow.
He wrote to Uncle Mamercus in Rome with instructions to act on as much of Caepio's will as was necessary before he himself returned, and was quite surprised to find he didn't need to write to Rubrius in Thessalonica. The ethnarch had most correctly notified Rubrius of Caepio's death the day it happened, and Rubrius had seen his chance. So with his letter of condolences to Cato there arrived all Cato's and Munatius Rufus's possessions. It's nearly the end of your year of service, chaps, said the governor's scribe's perfect handwriting, and I wouldn't ask either of you to come back here when the weather's closed in and the Bessi have gone home to the Danubius for the winter! Take a long vacation in the East, get over it the right way, the best way.
"I will do that," said Cato, the box between his hands. "We will journey east, not west."
But he had changed, as both Athenodorus Cordylion and Titus Munatius Rufus saw, both with sadness. Cato had always been a working lighthouse, a strong and steady beam turning, turning. Now the light had gone out. The face was the same, the trim and muscular body no more bowed or cramped than of yore. But now the hectoring voice had a tonelessness absolutely new, nor did Cato become excited, or enthused, or indignant, or angry. Worst of all, the passion had vanished.
Only Cato knew how strong he had needed to be to go on living. Only Cato knew what Cato had resolved: that never again would he lay himself open to this torture, this devastation. To love was to lose forever. Therefore to love was anathema. Cato would never love again. Never.
And while his shabby little band of three free men and three attendant slaves plodded on foot down the Via Egnatia toward the Hellespont, a freedman named Sinon leaned upon the rail of a neat little ship bearing him down the Aegaean before a brisk but steady winter wind, his destination Athens. There he would take passage for Pergamum, where he would find the rest of his bag of gold. Of that last fact he had no doubt. She was too crafty not to pay up, the great patrician lady Servilia. For a moment Sinon toyed with the idea of blackmail, then he laughed, shrugged, tossed an expiatory drachma into the briskly foaming wake as an offering to Poseidon. Carry me safely, Father of the Deep! I am not only free, I am rich. The lioness in Rome is quiet. I will not wake her to seek more money. Instead, I will increase what is legally mine already.
The lioness in Rome learned of her brother's death from Uncle Mamercus, who came round to see her the moment he received Cato's letter. She shed tears, but not too many; Uncle Mamercus knew how she felt, no one better. The instructions to the branch of her bankers in Pergamum had gone not long after Caepio, a risk she had decided to take before the deed happened. Wise Servilia. No curious accountant or banker would wonder why after the death of Caepio his sister sent a large sum of money to a freedman named Sinon who would pick it up in Pergamum.
And, said Brutus to Julia later that day, "I am to change my name, isn't that amazing?"
"Have you been adopted in someone's will?" she asked, quite aware of the usual manner in which a man's name would change.
"My Uncle Caepio died in Aenus, and I am his heir." The sad brown eyes blinked away a few tears. "He was a nice man, I liked him. Mostly I suppose because Uncle Cato adored him. Poor Uncle Cato was there an hour too late. Now Uncle Cato says he's not coming home for a long time. I shall miss him."
"You already do," said Julia, smiling and squeezing his hand.
He smiled at her and squeezed back. No need to worry about Brutus's conduct toward his betrothed; it was as circumspect as any watchful grandmother could want. Aurelia had given up any kind of chaperonage very soon after the engagement contract was signed. Brutus was a credit to his mother and stepfather.
Not long turned ten (her birthday was in January), Julia was profoundly glad that Brutus was a credit to his mother and stepfather. When Caesar had told her of her marital fate she had been appalled, for though she pitied Brutus, she knew that no amount of time or exposure to him would turn pity into affection of the kind that held marriages together. The best she could say of him was that he was nice. The worst she could say of him was that he was boring. Though her age precluded any romantic dreams, like most little girls of her background she was very much attuned to what her adult life would be, and therefore very much aware of marriage. It had proven hard to go to Gnipho's school and tell her classmates of her betrothal, for all that she had used to think it would give her great satisfaction to put herself on a par with Junia and Junilla, as yet the only betrothed girls there. But Junia's Vatia Isauricus was a delightful fellow, and Junilla's Lepidus dashingly handsome. Whereas what could one say about Brutus? Neither of his half sisters could abide him— at least not to hear them talk at school. Like Julia, they deemed him a pompous bore. Now here she was to marry him! Oh, her friends would tease her unmercifully! And pity her.
"Poor Julia!" said Junia, laughing merrily.
However, there was no point in resenting her fate. She had to marry Brutus, and that was that.
“Did you hear the news, tata?” she asked her father when he came home briefly after the dinner hour had ended.
It was awful now that Pompeia lived here. He never came home to sleep, rarely ate with them, passed through. Therefore to have news which might detain him long enough for a word or two was wonderful; Julia seized her chance.
"News?" he asked absently.
"Guess who came to see me today?" she asked gleefully.
Her father's eyes twinkled. "Brutus?"
"Guess again!"
"Jupiter Optimus Maximus?"
"Silly! He doesn't come as a person, only as an idea."
"Who, then?" he asked, beginning to shift about restlessly. Pompeia was home; he could hear her in the tablinum, which she had made her own because Caesar never worked there anymore.
"Oh, tata, please please stay a little while longer!"
The big blue eyes were strained with anxiety; Caesar's heart and conscience smote him. Poor little girl, she suffered from Pompeia more than anyone else because she didn't see much of tata.
Sighing, he picked her up and carried her to a chair, sat himself down and put her on his knee. "You're growing quite tall!" he said, surprised.
"I hope so." She began to kiss his white fans.
"Who came to see you today?" he asked, keeping very still.
"Quintus Servilius Caepio."
His head jerked, turned. "Who?"
"Quintus Servilius Caepio."
"But he's quaestoring Gnaeus Pompeius!"
"No, he isn't."
“Julia, the only member of that family left alive is not here in Rome!" said Caesar.
"I am afraid," said Julia softly, "that the man you mean is no longer alive. He died in Aenus in January. But there is a new Quintus Servilius Caepio, because the will names him and he must soon be formally adopted."
Caesar gasped. "Brutus?"
"Yes, Brutus. He says he'll now be known as Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus rather than Caepio Junianus. The Brutus is more important than the Junius."
"Jupiter!"
"Tata, you're quite shocked. Why?"
His hand went to his head, he gave his cheek a mock slap. "Well, you wouldn't know." Then he laughed. "Julia, you will marry the riches
"Brutus didn't say anything like that."
"He probably doesn't really know. Not a curious young man, your betrothed," said Caesar.
"I think he likes money."
"Doesn't everyone?" asked Caesar rather bitterly. He got to his feet and put Julia in the chair. "I'll be back shortly," he said, dashed through the door into the dining room, and then, so Julia presumed, into his study.
The next thing Pompeia came flying out looking indignant, and stared at Julia in outrage.
"What is it?" asked Julia of her stepmother, with whom she actually got on quite well. Pompeia was good practice for dealing with Brutus, though she acquitted Brutus of Pompeia's stupidity.
"He just threw me out!" said Pompeia.
"Only for a moment, I'm sure."
It was indeed only for a moment. Caesar sat down and wrote a note to Servilia, whom he hadn't seen since May of the preceding year. Of course he had meant to get around to seeing her again before now (it was March), but time got away, he was frying several other fish. How amazing. Young Brutus had fallen heir to the Gold of Tolosa!
Definitely it was time to be nice to his mother. This was one betrothal could not be broken for any reason.
PART II
from MARCH of 73 B.C.
until QUINCTILIS of 65 B.C.
[CW 158.jpg]
The trouble with Publius Clodius was not lack of birth, intellect, ability or money; it was lack of direction, both in the sense of where he wanted to go and in the sense of firm guidance from his elders. Instinct told him he was born to be different, but that was not a novel thought in one springing from the patrician Claudii. If any Roman clan could be said to be stuffed with individualists, it was that of the patrician Claudii. Odd, considering that of all the patrician Famous Families, the Claudian was the youngest, having appeared at about the same time as King Tarquinius Superbus was deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus, and the era of the Republic began. Of course the Claudii were Sabines, and Sabines were fierce, proud, independent, untamable, warlike; they had to be, for they hailed from the Apennines to the north and east of Roman Latium, a cruelly mountainous area whose pockets of kindness were few and far between.