The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
“What a paragon!”
“You may find out for yourself one of these days. She’ll be in Rome when I finish with Africa Province. We have a son.”
“Yes, I’d heard that you’ve finally produced one. Your heir?”
“Don’t talk such rubbish, Servilia. His name is Ptolemy Caesar and he’ll be Pharaoh of Egypt. A great destiny for a non-Roman, don’t you think?”
“Indeed. So who will be your heir? Do you hope to get one from Calpurnia?”
“I doubt it at this stage.”
“Her father’s married again very recently.”
“Has he? I haven’t spoken much to Piso yet.”
“Is Marcus Antonius your heir?” she persisted.
“As of this moment, no one is my heir. I have yet to make my will.” The eyes gleamed. “How is Pontius Aquila?”
“Still my lover.”
“How nice.” He rose to his feet, kissed her hand. “Don’t despair of Brutus. He may surprise you yet.”
So that was one renewal of an old acquaintance off his list. Piso has married again? Interesting. Calpurnia said nothing about it to me. Still quiet and peaceful. I enjoy making love to her, but I’ll make her no babies. How much longer have I left? Not enough time for fatherhood, if Cathbad is right.
Amid days filled with talks to plutocrats, bankers, Marcus Cuspius of the Treasury, the legion paymasters, major landlords and many others, amid nights filled with paperwork and the click-click-click of his ivory abacus, what time was there for social engagements? Now that Mark Antony had returned the silver, the Treasury was quite respectably full considering two years of war, but Caesar knew what he had yet to do, and one of those tasks was going to cost immense amounts of money: he would have to find the funds to pay good prices for thousands upon thousands of iugera of good land, land upon which to settle as many as thirty legions of veteran troops. The days of filching public lands from rebellious Italian towns and cities were virtually gone. His land would come expensive, for the legionaries were from Italy or from Italian Gaul and expected to retire on ten iugera of Italian land, not foreign land.
Gaius Marius, who first threw Rome’s legions open to the propertyless Head Count, had dreamed of pensioning them off in the provinces, there to spread Roman customs and the Latin language. He had even begun that, on the big island of Cercina in the African bight adjacent to Africa Province. Caesar’s father had been his principal agent in the business, spent most of his time at Cercina. But it all came to nothing in the aftermath of Marius’s madness, the Senate’s implacable opposition. So unless circumstances changed, Caesar’s land would have to be in Italy and Italian Gaul—the most expensive real estate in the world.
At the end of October he did manage to have one dinner party in the Domus Publica triclinium, a beautiful dining room able to hold nine couches with ease. It opened on one side into the wide colonnade around the Domus Publica’s main peristyle garden, and as the afternoon was mild and sunny, Caesar threw all the doors open. Inside, among the exquisite murals of the battle at Lake Regillus when Castor and Pollux themselves had fought for Rome, Pompey the Great had met Julia for the first time, and fallen in love. What a triumph that had been. How pleased his mother had been.
Gaius Matius and his wife, Priscilla, were there; Lucius Calpurnius Piso and his new wife, another Rutilia, were there; Publius Vatinius came with his adored wife, Caesar’s ex-wife Pompeia Sulla; Lucius Caesar, a widower, came on his own—his son was with Metellus Scipio in Africa Province, a Republican in the Caesarean nest; Vatia Isauricus came with his wife, Junia, Servilia’s eldest daughter; and Lucius Marcius Philippus arrived with a small army: his second wife, Atia, who was Caesar’s niece; her daughter by Gaius Octavius, Octavia Minor; and her son, the young Gaius Octavius; his own daughter, Marcia, wife of Cato but great friend of Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia; and his elder son, the stay-at-home Lucius. The notable absentees (who had been invited) were Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.
The menu had been chosen with huge care, for Philippus was a famous Epicure, whereas Gaius Matius, for example, liked plain food. The first course consisted of shrimp, oysters and crabs from the fish farms of Baiae, some cooked in elegant sauces, some served natural, some lightly grilled; accompanied by salads of lettuce, cucumber and celery laced with various dressings of the best oils and aged vinegars; smoked freshwater eel; a perch doused with garum sauce; deviled eggs, fresh crusty bread, fine olive oil for dipping. The second course offered a variety of roast meats, from leg of pork with crisply crackled skin to many fowls and a suckling pig baked brown for hours in sheep’s milk; delicate pork sausages coated with diluted thyme honey and gently broiled; a lamb stew redolent with marjoram and onion; a baby lamb roasted in a clay oven. The third course consisted of honey cakes, sweet pastries containing minced raisins soaked in spicy fortified wine, sweet omelets, fresh fruits including strawberries brought down from Alba Fucentia and peaches from Caesar’s own Campanian orchards, both hard and soft cheeses, stewed prunes and bowls of nuts. The wines were vintage from the best Falernian grapes, red or white, and the water came from Juturna’s spring.
To Caesar, a matter of indifference; he would have been far happier with bread-and-oil of any kind, some celery and a thick pease porridge boiled down with a chunk of bacon.
“I can’t help it, I’m a soldier.” He laughed, looking suddenly younger and more relaxed.
“Do you still drink vinegar in hot water in the mornings?” Piso asked.
“If there are no lemons, yes.”
“What’s that you’re drinking now?” Piso persisted.
“Fruit juice. It’s my new health regimen. I have an Egyptian priest-physician, and it’s his idea. I’ve grown to enjoy it.”
“You’d enjoy this Falernian far more,” said Philippus, rolling the wine on his tongue.
“No, I’ve grown no fonder of wine.”
The men’s couches formed a large U, with the host’s lectus medius at its blind end, and the tables, exactly the same height as the couches, sat flush against their fronts, thus enabling the diners to extend a hand and take whatever they fancied from the platters. There were bowls and spoons for anything too sloppy or sticky for the fingers, and the delicacies were presented already carved into bite-sized pieces; a diner desirous of rinsing his hands simply turned toward the back side of his couch and availed himself of a dish of water and a towel tendered by some attentive servant. Togas were abandoned as too clumsy to dine in, shoes were doffed and feet washed before the men reclined with the left elbow on a bolster for comfort.
On the opposite side of the U of tables the women’s chairs were placed; in more modern establishments it was now considered chic for women to recline as well, but the old-fashioned ways still held in the Domus Publica, so the women sat. If anything about the dinner was novel, that lay in Caesar’s letting his guests choose their own spots to recline or sit, with two exceptions: he directed his cousin Lucius to the locus consularis at the right-hand end of his own couch, and told his great-nephew, young Gaius Octavius, to insert himself between them. His favoring a mere lad was noted by all and a few brows were raised, but…
The impulse to distinguish young Gaius Octavius arose out of Caesar’s surprise when he set eyes on the lad, who very correctly and unobtrusively located himself in his stepfather’s shadow while Philippus, delighted to have been invited, made much of greeting all and sundry. Ah! thought Caesar. Now here’s someone different! Of course he remembered Octavius well; they’d had some conversation two and a half years ago when he had stayed in Philippus’s villa at Misenum.
How old would he be now? Sixteen, probably, though he still wore the purple-bordered toga of childhood, the bulla medallion of childhood on a thong around his neck. Yes, he was definitely sixteen, because Octavius Senior had made such a fuss about his birth during the year of Cicero’s consulship, right in the midst of growing suspicion about Catilina’s intention to overthrow the state. Late September, while the House waited for
He was strikingly beautiful, enough so to be called epicene. His masses of softly waving, bright gold hair were worn a trifle long to hide his only real flaw, his ears; though not overly big, they stuck straight out like jug handles. A clever mother, not a vain son, for the boy didn’t comport himself like one aware of his physical impact. Clear brown skin devoid of any blemishes, a firm mouth and chin, a longish nose with a sliding upward tilt to it, high cheekbones, an oval face, darkish brows and lashes, and a pair of remarkable eyes. Spaced well apart and very large, they were a light, luminous grey that had no hint of blue or yellow in it; a little unearthly, yet not in the Sulla or Caesar way, for they were neither cold nor unsettling. Rather, they warmed. Yet, thought Caesar, studying those orbs analytically, they give absolutely nothing away. Careful eyes. Who said that to me in Misenum? Or was it I found that particular word for myself?
Octavius wasn’t going to be tall, but nor was he going to be unduly short. An average height, a slender physique, but well-muscled calves. Good! His parents have made him walk everywhere from infancy, to develop those calves. But his chest is on the small side, his rib cage restricted, which narrows the width of his shoulders. And the skin beneath those amazing eyes is blue with weariness. Now where have I seen that look before? I have, I know I have, but it was a very long time ago. Hapd’efan’e. I must ask Hapd’efan’e.
Oh, for that mop of hair! To be balding is no fate for a man whose cognomen, “Caesar,” means a fine thick head of hair—he won’t go bald, he has his father’s thatch. We were very good friends, his father and I. We met at the siege of Mitylene and clubbed together with Philippus against that flea Bibulus. So it pleased me when Octavius married my niece—sound old Latin stock, immensely wealthy too. But Octavius died untimely, and Philippus took his place in Atia’s life. Interesting, what’s happened to Lucullus’s junior military tribunes. Who would ever have thought that Philippus would turn out the way he has?
“Just what are you up to, Gaius?” Lucius whispered after Caesar put the lad between them.
A question his host ignored, too busy making sure that Atia was comfortable on the chair opposite him, and that Calpurnia was not going to make the mistake of seating herself and Marcia too close to Lucius Piso, whose enormously thick black brows were meeting across his nose in displeasure because he had to share this excellent dinner with Cato’s wife, of all people! One or two deft juggles with chairs, and Marcia sat next to Atia with Calpurnia on her other side, while Piso’s brows beetled at no more vulnerable targets than Matius’s Priscilla, that beautiful idiot Pompeia Sulla, and his own Rutilia. This Rutilia, Caesar noted, was a sour-looking girl of no more than eighteen, possessed of her family’s sandy hair and freckled skin. Buck teeth. A belly beginning to show a pregnancy. Piso might have a son at last.
“When do you plan to leave for Africa?” Vatinius asked.
“As soon as I can assemble enough ships.”
“Am I a legate for this campaign?”
“No, Vatinius,” Caesar said, turning up his nose at the fish and settling for a heel of bread, “you’re staying in Rome as one of the consuls.”
Conversation ceased; all eyes turned to Caesar, then to Publius Vatinius, who was sitting bolt upright, lost for words.
He was Caesar’s client, a diminutive man with wasted lower legs and a large wen on his forehead that had once caused him to be rejected as an augur. His wit, cheerful disposition and high intelligence had made him much loved by those who came into contact with him in Forum, Senate or the courts, and despite his physical handicaps, Vatinius proved to be as able a soldier as he was a politician. Sent to relieve Gabinius in the siege at Salona in Illyricum, he and his legate Quintus Cornificius had not only taken the city, but then moved to crush the tribes of Illyricum before they could ally themselves with Burebistas and the tribes of the Danubius basin and become a bigger nuisance to Rome and Caesar than Pharnaces.
“It isn’t much of a consulship, Vatinius,” Caesar went on, “as it’s just for the rump of this year. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have bothered with consuls until the New Year, but there are reasons why I need two consuls in office immediately.”
“Caesar, I would be happy to be consul for two nundinae, let alone two months,” Vatinius managed to say. “Will you hold proper elections, or simply appoint me and—?”
“Quintus Fufius Calenus,” said Caesar obligingly. “Oh, yes, I’ll hold proper elections. Far be it from me to upset some of the senators I’m still hoping to win over.”
“Will they be Sulla-style elections, or will you permit other men to run as well as Vatinius and Calenus?” Piso asked, scowling.
“I don’t care if half of Rome wants to stand, Piso. I shall—ah—indicate my personal preferences, and leave the decision to the Centuries.”
No one commented on that. In Rome’s present condition, and after the marvelous speech about debt, the knight-businessmen of the Eighteen senior Centuries would be happy to elect a Tingitanian ape if Caesar nominated it.
“Why,” Vatia Isauricus enquired, “is it so necessary to have consuls in office for the rump of this year when you’re here in Rome yourself, Caesar?”
Caesar blandly changed the subject. “Gaius Matius, I have a favor to ask,” he said.
“Anything, Gaius, you know that,” said Matius, a quiet man with no political aspirations; his businesses had prospered thanks to his old friendship with Caesar, more than enough for him.
“I know that Queen Cleopatra’s agent, Ammonius, approached you and secured a grant of land for her palace next to my gardens under the Janiculum. Would you give its gardens your personal touch? I’m sure the Queen will donate the palace to Rome later.”
Matius knew perfectly well that she would; the property was in Caesar’s name, as ordered. “I am delighted to help, Caesar.”
“Is the Queen as beautiful as Fulvia?” Pompeia Sulla asked, well aware that she herself was more beautiful than Fulvia.
“No,” Caesar said, his tone forbidding further discussion. He turned to Philippus. “Your younger son is a very capable man.”
“I’m pleased that he has pleased, Caesar.”
“I intend to have Cilicia governed as a part of Asia Province for the next year or two. If you don’t mind his remaining in the East a while longer, Philippus, I’d like to leave him in Tarsus as deputy governor propraetore.”
“Excellent!” Philippus beamed.
Caesar’s eyes had gone to the elder son, now well into his thirties. Very handsome, reputedly quite as talented as Quintus, yet always stuck in Rome letting his opportunities go by without his father’s excuse of Epicureanism. At that moment the reason broke on Caesar as a shock; Lucius’s gaze was fixed hungrily on Atia, a look of hopeless love. But the look went unnoticed because the emotion clearly was not returned. Atia sat tranquilly, smiling at her husband from time to time in the way women do when they are perfectly satisfied with their marital lot. Hmmm. Undercurrents in the Philippus household. From Atia, Caesar transferred his attention to young Octavius, who thus far had not vouchsafed a single remark. Not from shyness, rather from a consciousness of his junior status. The lad was staring at his step-brother with complete comprehension but rigid dislike and disapproval.
“Who’s to govern Asia Province combined with Cilicia?” asked Piso, a question loaded with meaning.
He wants the job desperately, and in many ways he’s a good man, but…
“Vatia, will you go?” Caesar asked.
Vatia Isauricus looked startled, then very exalted. “It would be an honor, Cae
“Good, then you have the job.” He stared at the mortified Piso. “Piso, I have work for you too, but inside Rome. I’m still trying to get the debt relief legislation into order, but I won’t have it anything like completed before I leave for Africa Province. As you’re a brilliant legal draftsman, I’d like to collaborate with you on the subject and then leave it in your hands when I go.” He paused, spoke very seriously. “One of the most inequitable aspects of Roman government concerns payment for services rendered. Why should a man be forced to make his fortune governing a province? That has led to shocking abuses, and I’ll see an end to them. Why shouldn’t a man be able to receive a governor’s stipend for work he does at home, work of equal importance? What I propose is to pay you a proconsular governor’s stipend for finishing the laws I draft roughly.”
That shut him up!
“That shut him up,” young Octavius said under his breath.
When the third course was removed from the tables and only the wine flagons and water pitchers remained, the women departed to Calpurnia’s spacious quarters upstairs for a good gossip.
Now Caesar could focus on the most silent of his guests.
“Have you changed your mind about how you intend to pursue your public career, Octavius?” he asked.
“Keeping my counsel, you mean, Caesar?”
“Yes.”
“No, I still think it suits my character.”
“I remember you said that Cicero’s tongue runs away with him too much. You’re quite right. I encountered him on the Via Appia outside Tarentum the day I arrived back in Italy, and was rudely reminded of that fact.”