The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
They expected him to be away some small while, as the Via Nova was perched atop a thirty-foot cliff; Antony would have to run a short distance to the Ringmakers’ Steps, which would bring him to the back of the Porticus Margaritaria and the Domus Publica.
He returned quite quickly, looking furious. “I don’t believe it!” he gasped, out of breath. “When I got to the peristyle wall, there were servants sitting on top of it with torches!”
“Is this a new thing, for Caesar to mount a watch?” Cimber asked curiously.
“I don’t know, do I?” snarled Antony. “This is the first time I’ve ever tried to sneak into the place during the night.”
Two days later Caesar summoned the Senate to the very first meeting of that body since his return; the venue was Pompey’s Curia on the Campus Martius behind his hundred-pillared courtyard and the vast bulk of his theater. Though it meant a fairly long walk, those summoned breathed a sigh of relief. Pompey’s Curia had been specifically built for meetings of the Senate, and could accommodate everyone in comfort and proper gradation. As it lay outside the pomerium, in the days when the Curia Hostilia of the Forum had existed, it was mostly used for discussing foreign war, a subject considered inappropriate for pomerium-confined meetings.
Caesar was already ensconced on the podium in his curule chair, a folding table in front of him loaded with documents he had to find time to read, wax tablets and a steel stylus used to gouge writing in the wax. He took no notice as men dribbled in, had their slaves set up their stools on the correct tier: the top one for pedarii, senators allowed to vote but not speak; the middle one for holders of junior magistracies, namely ex-aediles and ex-tribunes of the plebs; and the front, lowest tier for ex-praetors and consulars.
Only when Fabius, his chief lictor, tapped him on the shoulder did Caesar lift his head and gaze about. Not too bad on the back benches, he thought. So far he had appointed two hundred new men, including the three centurions who had won the corona civica. Most were scions of the families who made up the Eighteen senior Centuries, but some were from prominent Italian families, and a few, like Gaius Helvius Cinna, from Italian Gaul. The “unsuitable” appointments had not met with approval from those of Rome’s old noble families who regarded the Senate as a body purely for them. The word had gone around that Caesar was filling the Senate with trousered Gauls and ranker legionaries, along with rumors that he intended to make himself King of Rome. Every day since he had come back from Africa someone asked Caesar when he was going to “restore the Republic”—a question he ignored. Cicero was being very vocal about the deteriorating exclusivity of the Senate, an attitude heightened by the fact that he himself was not a Roman of the Romans, but a New Man from the country. The more of his like filled the Senate, the less his own triumph in attaining it against all the odds. He was, besides, a colossal snob.
A few men Caesar had yearned to see there were sitting on the front benches: the two Manius Aemilius Lepiduses, father and son; Lucius Volcatius Tullus the elder; Calvinus; Lucius Piso; Philippus; two members of the Appius Claudius Pulcher gens. And some men not so yearned for: Marcus Antonius and Octavia’s betrothed, Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. But no Cicero. Caesar’s lips thinned. No doubt too busy eulogizing Cato to attend.
The podium was quite crowded. Himself and Lepidus, the two consuls, and six of the praetors, including his staunch ally Aulus Hirtius and Volcatius Tullus’s son. That boor Gaius Antonius had his behind on the tribunician bench, along with the other, equally uninspiring, holders of the tribunate of the plebs.
Enough, thought Caesar, counting more than a quorum. He rose to pull a fold of toga over his head and say the prayers, waited for Lucius Caesar to take the auspices, then got down to business.
“Some sad news first, conscript fathers,” he said in his usual deep voice; the acoustics in Pompey’s Curia were good. “I have had word that the last of the Licinii Crassi, Marcus the younger son of the great consular, has died. He will be missed.”
He swept on without looking as if his next item of news was going to cause a sensation, and so caught the senators unaware. “I have to draw a second unpleasantness to your attention. Namely, that Marcus Antonius has made an attempt on my life. He was seen trying to enter the Domus Publica at an hour when I am known to be asleep, and the interior deserted. His garb was not formal—a tunic and a knife. Nor was his mode of entry formal—the wall of my private peristyle.”
Antony sat, rigid with shock—how did Caesar know? No one had seen him, no one!
“I mention this with no intention of pursuing the matter. I simply draw your attention to it, and take leave to inform all of you that I am not as unprotected as I may seem. Therefore those of you who do not approve of my dictatorship—or of my methods!—had best think twice before deciding that you will rid Rome of this tyrant Caesar. I tell you frankly that my life has been long enough, whether in years or renown. However, I am not yet so tired of it that I will do nothing to avert its being terminated by a deed of murder. Remove me, and I can assure you that Rome will suffer far greater ills than Caesar Dictator. Rome’s present situation is much the same as it was when Lucius Cornelius Sulla took up the dictatorship—she needs one strong hand, and in me she has that hand. Once I have set my laws in place and made sure that Rome will survive to grow ever greater, I will lay down my dictatorship. However, I will not do that until my work is entirely finished, and that may take many years. So be warned, and cease these pleas that I ‘return the Republic’ to its former glory.
“What glory?” he thundered, making his appalled audience jump. “I repeat, what glory? There was no glory! Just a fractious, obstinate, conceited little group of men jealously defending their privileges. The privilege of going to govern a province and rape it. The privilege of granting business colleagues the opportunity to go to a province and rape it. The privilege of having one law for some, and another law for others. The privilege of putting incompetents in office simply because they bear a great name. The privilege of voting to quash laws that are desperately needed. The privilege of preserving the mos maiorum in a form suitable for a small city-state, but not for a worldwide empire.”
They were sitting bolt upright, their faces slack. For some, it had been a long time since this Caesar had last bellowed his radical ideas to the House; for others, this was the first time.
“If you believe that all Rome’s wealth and privilege should remain in the Eighteen from which you come, senators, then I will cut you down to size. I intend to restructure our society to distribute wealth more equally. I will make laws encouraging the growth of the Third and Fourth Classes, and enhance the lot of the Head Count by encouraging them to emigrate to places where they can rise into higher classes. Further to this, I am introducing a means test on the distribution of free grain so that men who can afford to buy grain will no longer be able to obtain it free. At present there are three hundred thousand recipients of the free grain dole. I will cut that figure in half overnight. I will also make it impossible for a man to free slaves in order to benefit from the grain dole. How am I going to do this? By holding a new kind of census in November. My census agents will go from door to door throughout Rome, Italy, and all the provinces. They will assemble mountains of facts about housing, rents, hygiene, income, population, literacy and numeracy, crime, fire, and the number of children, aged and slaves in every family. My agents will also ask members of the Head Count if they would like to emigrate abroad to the colonies I will found. Since Rome now has a huge surplus of troop transport ships, I will use them.”
Piso spoke. “Be he rich or poor, Caesar, every Roman citizen is entitled to the free grain dole. I warn you that I will oppose any attempt to impose a means test!” he said loudly.
“Oppose all you like, Lucius Piso, the law will come into effect anyway. I will not be gainsaid! Nor do I advise you to oppose—it will harm your career. The measure is fair and just. Why should Rome pay out her precious moneys to men like you, well able to buy grain?” asked C
There were mutterings, dark looks; the old, high-handed, arrogant Caesar was back with a vengeance. However, the faces on the back benches, though alarmed, were not angry. They owed their position to Caesar, and they would vote for his laws.
“There will be innumerable agrarian laws,” Caesar continued, “but there’s no need for fury, so don’t get furious. Any land I buy in Italy and Italian Gaul for retiring legionaries will be paid for up-front and at full value, but most of the agrarian legislation will involve foreign land in the Spains, the Gauls, Greece, Epirus, Illyricum, Macedonia, Bithynia, Pontus, Africa Nova, the domain of Publius Sittius, and the Mauretanias. At the same time as some of our Head Count and some of our legionaries go to settle in these colonies, I will also grant the full citizenship to deserving provincials, physicians, schoolteachers, artisans and tradesmen. If resident in Rome, they will be enrolled in the four urban tribes, but if resident in Italy, in the rural tribe common to the district wherein they live.”
“Do you intend to do anything about the courts, Caesar?” asked the praetor Volcatius Tullus in an attempt to calm the House.
“Oh, yes. The tribunus aerarius will disappear from the jury list,” the Dictator announced, willing to be sidetracked. “The Senate will be increased to one thousand members, which will, with the knights of the Eighteen, provide more than enough jurors for the courts. The number of praetors will go to fourteen per year to enable swifter hearings in the busier courts. By the time that my legislation is done, there will hardly be any need for the Extortion Court, because governors and businessmen in the provinces will be too hamstrung to extort. Elections will be better regulated, so the Bribery Court will also stultify. Whereas ordinary crimes like murder, theft, violence, embezzlement and bankruptcy need more courts and more time. I also intend to increase the penalty for murder, but not in a way that disturbs the mos maiorum. Execution for crime and imprisonment for crime, two concepts alien to Roman thought and culture, will not be introduced. Rather, I will increase the time of exile and make it absolutely impossible for a man sentenced to exile to take his money with him.”
“Aiming for Plato’s ideal republic, Caesar?” Piso sneered; he was taking the greatest offense.
“Not at all,” Caesar said genially. “I’m aiming for a just and practical Roman republic. Take violence, for example. Those desirous of organizing street gangs will find it much harder, for I am going to abolish all clubs and sodalities save those that are harmless of intent—Jewish synagogues, trade and professional guilds—and the burial clubs, of course. Crossroads colleges and other places where troublemakers can meet on a regular basis will disappear. When men have to buy their own wine, they drink less.”
“I hear,” said Philippus, who was a huge landowner, “a tiny rumor that you have plans to break up latifundia.”
“Thank you for reminding me, Lucius Philippus,” said Caesar, smiling broadly. “No, latifundia will not be broken up unless the state has bought them for soldier land. However, in future no owner of a latifundium will be allowed to run it entirely on slaves. One-third of his employees must be free men of the region. This will help the jobless rural poor as well as local merchants.”
“That’s ridiculous!” yelled Philippus, dark face flushed. “You’re going to introduce legislation to tamper with everything! A man will soon have to apply for permission to fart! You, Caesar, are deliberately setting out to strip Rome of any kind of First Class! Where do you get these insane ideas from? Help the rural poor indeed! Aman has rights, and one of them is the right to run his businesses and enterprises exactly how he wants! Why should I have to pay wages to one-third of my latifundia workers when I can buy cheap slaves and not pay them at all?”
“Every man should pay his slaves a wage, Philippus. Can’t you see,” Caesar asked, “that you have to buy your slaves? Then you have to build ergastula to house them, buy food to feed them, and use up twice as many workers to supervise these unwilling men? If you were any good at arithmetic or you had agents who could add up two and two, you’d soon realize that employing the free is cheaper. You don’t have the initial outlay, and you don’t need to house or feed free men. They go home each night and eat out of their own gardens because they have wives and children to grow for them.”
“Gerrae!” Philippus growled, subsiding.
“What, no sumptuary laws?” Piso asked.
“Sheaves of them,” Caesar answered readily. “Luxuries will be severely taxed, and while I will not forbid the erection of expensive tombs, the man who builds one will have to pay Rome’s Treasury the same amount of money he pays his tomb builder.”
He looked down at Lepidus, who hadn’t said a word, and raised a brow. “Junior consul, just one more thing and you can dismiss the meeting. There will be no debate.”
He turned back to the House and proceeded to tell it that he intended to bring the calendar into line with the seasons for perpetuity, so this year would be 455 days long: Mercedonius was over, but a 67-day period called Intercalaris would also be added following the last day of December. New Year’s Day, when eventually it came, would be exactly where it was supposed to be, one-third of the way through winter.
“There isn’t a name for you, Caesar,” Piso declared as he left, his whole body trembling. “You’re a—a—a freak!”
Miming injured innocence to those who stared at him, Antony waited to get Caesar to himself. “What do you mean, Caesar, to come out with that assassination rot? Then you barged on about returning the Republic to its days of glory without even giving me a chance to defend myself!” He pushed his face aggressively close to Caesar’s. “First you humiliate me in public, now you’ve accused me of attempted murder in the Senate! It isn’t true—ask any of the three men I was with all that night at Murcius’s tavern!”
Caesar’s eyes wandered to Lucius Tillius Cimber, descending from the top left-hand tier with his stool slave following him. What an interesting man. Full of useful information.
“Do go away, Antonius,” he said wearily. “As I’ve already indicated, I have no intention of pursuing the matter. However, I felt that your playing the fool with murder was an excellent excuse to inform the House that I’m not so easily gotten rid of. In the financial soup worse than ever, eh?”
“I’m marrying Fulvia and shortly I’ll have my share of the Gallic booty,” Antony countered. “Why do I need to murder you?”
“One question, Antonius—how do you know which night the attempt was made if you didn’t make it? I neglected to mention the date. Of course you tried! In a temper, following the Varro apology. Now go away.”
“I despair for Antonius,” said Lucius Caesar, approaching.
Almost to the doorway, his lictors passed outside, Caesar turned to look back down the ostentatious hall with its splendid marbles and not-quite-right color scheme—typical of its author! And there at the rear of the platform accommodating the curule magistrates stood the statue of Pompey the Great in his white marble toga with the purple marble border, his face, hands, right arm and calves painted to the perfect tones of his skin, even including the faint freckles. The bright gold hair was superbly done, the vivid blue eyes seeming to sparkle with life.
“A very good likeness,” Lucius said, following his cousin’s gaze.
“I hope you don’t mean to emulate Magnus and put a statue of yourself behind the curule magistrates in your new Curia?”
“It’s not a bad idea, Lucius, when you think about it. If I were away for ten years, every time the Senate met in its Curia it would be reminded of the fact that I’ll be back.”
They moved outside, passed through the colonnade and emerged on the road back to town.
“One thing I meant to ask you, Lucius. How did young Gaius Octavius go when he served as city prefect?”
“Didn’t you ask him in person, Gaius?”
“He didn’t mention it, and I confess it slipped my mind.”
“You need have no fears, he did very well. Pr
“Did you know that he suffers the wheezing sickness?”
Lucius stopped. “Edepol! No, I didn’t.”
“It represents a dilemma, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Yet I think it has to be him, Lucius.”
“There’s time enough.” Lucius put an arm around Caesar’s shoulders, squeezed them comfortingly. “Don’t forget Caesar’s luck, Gaius. Whatever you decide carries Caesar’s luck with it.”
2
Cleopatra arrived in Rome at the end of the first nundinum in September. She was conveyed from Ostia in a curtained litter, an enormous procession of attendants before her and behind her, including a detachment of the Royal Guard in their quaint hoplite gear, but mounted on snow-white horses with purple tack. Her son, a little unwell, traveled in another litter with his nursemaids, and a third one held King Ptolemy XIV, her thirteen-year-old husband. All three litters had cloth-of-gold curtains, the jewels in the gilded woodwork flashing in the bright sun of a beautiful early summer’s day, ostrich-feather plumes caked in gold dust nodding at all four corners of the faience-tiled roofs. Each was borne by eight powerfully built men with plummy black skin, clad in cloth-of-gold kilts and wide gold collars, big feet bare. Apollodorus rode in a canopied sedan chair at the head of the column, a tall gold staff in his right hand, his nemes headdress cloth-of-gold, his fingers covered with rings, the chain of his office around his neck. The several hundred attendants wore costly robes, even the humblest among them; the Queen of Egypt was determined to make an impression.