The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
And that was all the conversation they managed before the Caesar residence was reached.
One look at his son’s chosen bride caused Caesar to change his thinking somewhat. This was no spoiled, capricious beauty! Oh, she was everything he had heard she was—colossally beautiful—but not in any accepted mode. Then again, he reasoned, that was probably why to her alone did they append the hyperbole “colossal.” What wonderful children they would have! Children he would not live to see.
“Sit down, Aurelia.” His voice was scarcely audible, so he pointed to a chair right alongside his own, but enough to the front for him to see her. His son he placed upon his other side.
“What did Marcus Aurelius tell you about the talk we had?” he asked then.
“Nothing,” said Aurelia.
He went right through the discussion of her dowry he had had with Cotta, making no bones about his own feelings, or about Cotta’s.
“Your uncle your guardian says the choice is yours. Do you want a house or an insula?” he asked, eyes on her face.
What would Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi do? This time she knew the answer: Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi would do the most honorable thing, no matter how hard. Only now she had two honors to consider, her beloved’s as well as her own. To choose the house would be more comfortable and familiar by far, but it would injure her beloved’s pride to know his wife’s money provided their house.
She took her gaze off Caesar and stared at his son very gravely. “Which would you prefer?” she asked him.
“It’s your decision, Aurelia,” he said.
“No, Gaius Julius, it’s your decision. I am to be your wife. I intend to be a proper wife, and know my proper place. You will be the head of our house. All I ask in return for yielding the first place to you is that you always deal with me honestly and honorably. The choice of where we live is yours. I will abide by it, in deed as well as word.”
“Then we will ask Marcus Aurelius to find you an insula, and register the deeds of ownership in your name,” young Caesar said without hesitation. “It must be the most profitable and well-built real estate he can find, and I agree with my father—its location is of no moment. The income from the rents will be yours. We will live in one of its ground-floor apartments until I am in a position to buy us a private dwelling. I will support you and our children from the income of my own land, of course. Which means that you will have the full responsibility for your insula—I will not be a part of it.”
She was pleased, it showed at once, but she said nothing.
“You’re not a talker!” said Caesar, amazed.
“No,” said Aurelia.
*
Cotta got to work with a will, though his intention was to find his niece a snug property in one of the better parts of Rome. However, it was not to be; look though he would, the wisest and shrewdest investment was a fairly big insula in the heart of the Subura. Not a new apartment block (it had been built by its single owner some thirty years before, and since this owner had lived in the larger of its two ground-floor apartments, he had built to last), it had stone-and-concrete footings and foundations up to fifteen feet in depth and five feet in width; the outer and load-bearing walls were two feet thick, faced on either side with the irregular brick-and-mortar called opus incertum, and filled with a stout mixture of cement and small-stone aggregate; the windows were all relief-arched in brick; the whole was reinforced with wooden beams at least a foot square and up to fifty feet in length; foot-square wooden beams supported floors of concrete aggregate in the lower storeys and wooden planks in the upper storeys; the generous light-well was load-bearing yet retained its open nature through a system of two-foot-thick square pillars every five feet around its edge, joined at every floor by massive wooden beams.
At nine storeys of nine feet each in height including the foot-thick floors, it was quite modest—most of the insulae in the same neighborhood were two to four storeys higher— but it occupied the whole of a small triangular block where the Subura Minor ran into the Vicus Patricii. Its blunted apex faced the crossroads, its two long sides ran one down the Subura Minor and the other down the Vicus Patricii, and its base was formed by a lane which ran through from one street to the other.
Their first sight of it had come at the end of a long string of other properties; Cotta, Aurelia, and young Caesar were by this inured to the patter of a small, glib salesman of impeccably Roman ancestry—no Greek freedman sales staff for the real-estate firm of Thorius Postumus!
“Note the plaster on the walls, both inside and out,” droned the agent. “Not a crack to be seen, foundations as firm as a miser’s grip on his last bar of gold... eight shops, all under long lease, no trouble with the tenants or the rents... two apartments ground-floor with reception rooms two storeys high... two apartments only next floor up... eight apartments per floor to the sixth floor... twelve apartments on the seventh, twelve on the eighth... shops all have an upper floor for living in... additional storage above false ceilings in the sleep cubicles of the ground-floor apartments...”
On and on he extolled the virtues of the property; after a while Aurelia shut him out and concentrated upon her own thoughts. Uncle Marcus and Gaius Julius could listen to him and take heed. It was a world she didn’t know, but one she was determined to master, and if it meant a very different life-style than the one she knew, that was surely all to the good.
Of course she had her fears, wasn’t panting eagerly to embark upon two new life-styles at once, namely the lifestyle of marriage and the life-style of insula living. And yet she was discovering in herself a fearlessness too, born of a sense of freedom too new to assimilate fully. Ignorance of any other kind of life had excluded conscious boredom or frustration during her childhood, which indeed had been busy enough, involving as it had many learning processes. But as marriage had loomed, she had found herself wondering what she would do with her days if she couldn’t fill them with as many children as had Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi—and it was a rare nobleman who wanted more than two children. By nature Aurelia was a doer, a worker; by birth she was excluded from very much in the way of action. Now here she was about to become a landlady as well as a wife, and she was shrewd enough to see that the first at least promised rare opportunities to work. Not only work, but interesting and stimulating work.
So she looked about her with shining eyes, and plotted and schemed, tried to imagine what it was going to be like.
There was a difference in size between the two ground-floor apartments, for the owner-builder had done himself proud in the matter of the apartment he had occupied. After the Cotta mansion on the Palatine it was very small; in fact, the Cotta mansion was bigger in floor area than the whole of the ground floor of this insula, including shops, crossroads tavern, and both apartments.
Though the dining room would barely fit the standard three couches in, and the study was smaller than any study in any private house, they were lofty; the wall between them was more a partition and did not reach the ceiling, thus enabling air and light to flow from the light-well through the dining room into the study beyond. The reception room (it could not properly be called an atrium) had a good terrazzo floor and well-decorated plaster walls, and the two columns down its center were of solid wood painted to look like fancifully colored marble; air and light came in from the street through a huge iron grille high up on the outside wall between the end of a shop along its front and the stairwell which led to the upper floors. Three typically windowless sleeping cubicles led off the reception room, and two more, one of them larger, off the study. There was a little room she could use as her sitting room, and between it and the stairwell was a smaller room Cardixa could have. But the greatest relief of all was to discover that the apartment contained a bathroom and a latrine—for, as the agent gleefully explained, the insula lay right athwart one of Rome’s main sewers, and was legally supplied with an adjutage to the water supply.
“There’s a public latrine right oppos
Aurelia listened to this fervently, for she had heard that her new life-style would not include the luxuries of laid-on water and a latrine; if any aspect of living in an insula had dismayed her, it was the idea of going without her private bath and her private excretions. None of the other insulae they had inspected provided either water or sewer, even though most of them had been in better districts. If Aurelia had not made up her mind this insula was the right one before, she now certainly did.
“How much rent can we expect?” asked young Caesar.
“Ten talents a year—a quarter of a million sesterces.”
“Good, good!” said Cotta, nodding.
“Upkeep on the building is negligible because it was built to top standards,” said the agent. “That in itself means it is never without a full complement of tenants—so many of these insulae come tumbling down, you know, or go up like dry bark. Not this place! And it has a street frontage on two of its three sides as well as a somewhat wider than usual lane behind, which means it is less likely to catch fire if a neighboring building does go up. Yes, this place is as sound as a Granius ship. I can say it with truth.”
Since it was senseless to battle through the Subura encumbered by a litter or a sedan chair, Cotta and young Caesar had brought along the pair of Gauls as extra protection, and undertook to escort Aurelia safely on foot. Not that there was much risk involved, for it was high noon, and everyone on the jam-packed streets seemed more interested in his or her own business than in molesting the beautiful Aurelia.
“What do you think?” Cotta asked her as they came down the slight slope of the Fauces Suburae into the Argiletum and prepared to cross the lower end of the Forum Romanum.
“Oh, Uncle, I think it’s ideal!” she said, then turned to look at young Caesar. “Do you agree, Gaius Julius?”
“I think it will suit us very well,” he said.
“All right then, I’ll close the deal this afternoon. At ninety-five talents, it’s a good buy, if not a bargain. And you’ll have five talents left to use on furniture.”
“No,” said young Caesar firmly, “the furniture is my responsibility—and I’m not destitute, you know! My land at Bovillae brings me in a good income.”
“I know it does, Gaius Julius,” said Cotta patiently. “You told me, remember?”
He didn’t remember. All young Caesar could think about these days was Aurelia.
*
They were married in April, on a perfect spring day, with every omen auspicious; even Gaius Julius Caesar seemed better.
Rutilia wept and Marcia wept, the one because this was the first of her children to enter the married state, the other because this was the last of her children to do so. Julia and Julilla were there, as was Sextus’s wife, Claudia, but none of their husbands were; Marius and Sulla were still in Africa, and Sextus Caesar was recruiting in Italy, unable to get leave from the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus.
Cotta had wanted to rent a house on the Palatine for the young couple for their first month together. “Get used to being married first, then get used to living in the Subura,” he said, most concerned for his only girl.
But the young couple resolutely refused, so the wedding walk was a very long one, and the bride was cheered by— or so it seemed—-the whole of the Subura. Young Caesar was profoundly glad the veil hid his bride’s face, but took his own share of the casually obscene raillery in excellent part, smiling and bowing as they walked.
“It’s our new neighborhood, we’d best learn to get on with them,” he said. “Just close your ears.”
“I’d rather you steered clear of them,” muttered Cotta, who had wanted to hire gladiators to escort the bridal party; the teeming masses and the crime rate worried him sick, as did the language.
By the time they reached Aurelia’s insula they had quite a gathering tacked on behind, hopeful it seemed that there would be plenty of wine at the end of the road, and determined to invade the festivities. However, when young Caesar got the big door unlocked and swung his new wife off her feet to carry her across the threshold, Cotta, Lucius Cotta, and the two Gauls managed to keep the throng at bay for long enough for young Caesar to get inside and slam the door. Amid howls of protest, Cotta marched away down the Vicus Patricii with his head up.
Only Cardixa was present inside the apartment; Aurelia had decided to use her leftover dowry money to buy household servants, but had postponed this duty until after her marriage, for she wanted to do it all by herself, not suffer the presence and advice of her mother or her mother-in-law. Young Caesar too had servants to buy—the steward, the wine steward, his secretary, a clerk, and a valet—but Aurelia had more: two heavy-duty cleaning maids, a laundress, a cook and assistant cook, two general-purpose servants, and a strong man. Not a large household by any means, but adequate.
It was growing dark outside, but the apartment was far darker, something the high noon of their only previous visit had not indicated. Light percolating down the nine floors of the central well dimmed early, as did light coming in from the street, a defile of tall insulae. Cardixa had lit what lamps they had, but they were far too few to banish black corners; she herself had retired to her little room, to leave the newlyweds decently alone.
The noise was what amazed Aurelia. It came from everywhere—the street outside, the stairwell leading to the upper floors, the central light-well—even the ground seemed to rumble. Cries, curses, crashes, shouted conversations, screamed altercations and vituperations, babies crying, children wailing, men and women hawking and spitting, a band of musicians banging away at drums and cymbals, snatches of song, oxen bellowing, sheep bleating, mules and asses wheezing, carts endlessly trundling, howls of laughter.
“Oh, we won’t be able to hear ourselves think!” she said, blinking away sudden tears. “Gaius Julius, I’m so sorry! I never thought of the noise!”
Young Caesar was wise enough and sensitive enough to know that a part at least of this uncharacteristic outburst was due not to the noise, but to an unacknowledged nervousness brought on by the hectic events of the past few days, the sheer strain of getting married. He had felt it himself; how much greater then must it be for his new little wife?
So he laughed cheerfully and said, “We’ll get used to it, never fear. I guarantee that in a month we won’t even notice it. Besides, it’s bound to be less in our bedroom.” And he took her by the hand, feeling it tremble.
Sure enough, the master’s sleeping cubicle, reached through his study, was quieter. It was also pitch-black and utterly airless unless the door to the study was left open, for it had been given a false ceiling for storage purposes.
Leaving Aurelia standing in the study, young Caesar went and fetched a lamp from the reception room. Hand in hand, they entered the cubicle, and stood enchanted. Cardixa had decked it out in flowers, strewn scented petals all over the double sleeping couch, and stood every height of vase along the walls, then stuffed them with roses, stocks, violets; on a table reposed a flagon of wine, one of water, two golden cups, and a big plate of honey cakes.
Neither of them was shy. Being Romans, they were properly enlightened about sexual matters, yet modest. Every Roman who could afford it preferred privacy for intimate activities, especially if the body was to be bared; yet they were not inhibited. Of course young Caesar had had his share of adventures, though his face belied his nature; the one was strikingly noticeable, the other quietly inconspicuous. For with all his undeniabl
Publius Rutilius Rufus’s instincts had been exactly right. Young Caesar and Aurelia fitted together beautifully. He was tender, considerate, respectful, warmly loving rather than full of fire; perhaps had he burned with passion, shemight have kindled from him, but that neither of them would ever know. Their lovemaking was delicate in its touch, soft in its kisses, slow in its pace. It satisfied them; it even inspired them. And Aurelia was able to tell herself that she had surely earned the unqualified approval of Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi, for she had done her duty exactly as Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi must have done hers, with a pleasure and contentment that guaranteed the act itself would never rule her life or dictate her conduct outside the marriage bed—yet also guaranteed that she would never come to dislike the marriage bed.
3
During the winter which Quintus Servilius Caepio spent in Narbo grieving for his lost gold, he received a letter from the brilliant young advocate Marcus Livius Drusus, one of Aurelia’s most ardent—and most disappointed—suitors.
I was but nineteen when my father the censor died, and left me to inherit not only all his property, but also the position of paterfamilias. Perhaps luckily, my only onerous burden was my thirteen-year-old sister, deprived as she was of both father and mother. At the time, my mother, Cornelia, asked to take my sister into her household, but of course I declined. Though there was never any divorce, you are I know aware of the coolness between my parents that came to a head when my father agreed that my young brother should be adopted out. My mother was always far fonder of him than of me, so when my brother became Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, she pleaded his young age as an excuse, and went with him to his new household, where indeed she found a kind of life far freer and more licentious than ever she could have lived under my father’s roof. I refresh your memory about these things as a point of honor, for I feel my honor touched by my mother’s shabby and selfish behavior.