The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
“Caesar’s heir,” said Agrippa. “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means,” Plautius answered, “that Gaius Octavius inherits all Caesar’s money and estates, that he will be rich beyond any imagination. But Marcus Antonius expected to inherit, and isn’t pleased.”
“Caesar also adopted me. I am no longer Gaius Octavius, I am Gaius Julius Caesar Filius.” As he announced this, Octavius seemed to swell, his grey eyes as brilliant as his smile. “What Plautius didn’t say was that, as Caesar’s son, I inherit his enormous clout—and his clientele. I will have at least a quarter of Italy as my clients—my legal followers, pledged to do my bidding—and almost everyone in Italian Gaul, because Caesar absorbed all Pompeius Magnus’s clients there as well as having multitudes of his own.”
“Which is why your stepfather doesn’t want you to take up this terrible inheritance!” Plautius cried.
“But you will,” Agrippa said, grinning.
“Of course I will. Caesar trusted me, Agrippa! In giving me his name, Caesar said that he thinks I have the strength and the spirit to continue his struggle to put Rome on her feet. He knew that I don’t have the ability to inherit his military mantle, but that didn’t matter as much to him as Rome does.”
“It’s a death sentence.” Plautius groaned.
“The name Caesar will never die, I will make sure of that.”
“Don’t, Octavius!” Plautius implored. “Please don’t!”
“Caesar trusted me,” Octavius repeated. “How can I betray that trust? If he were my age and this was given to him to do, would he abrogate it? No! And nor will I.”
Caesar’s heir broke the seal on his mother’s letter, glanced at it, tossed it into the brazier. “Silly,” he said, and sighed. “But then, she always is.”
“I take she’s begging you not to take up your inheritance either?” asked Agrippa, back into the food.
“She wants a living son, she says. Pah! I do not intend to die, Agrippa, no matter how much Antonius might want me to. Though why he should, I have no idea. No matter how the estate’s divided, he’s not an heir. Maybe,” Octavius went on, “we wrong Antonius. Perhaps his chief desire isn’t Caesar’s money, but Caesar’s clout and clientele.”
“If you don’t intend to die, then eat,” said Agrippa. “Go on, Caesar, eat! You’re not a tough, stringy old bird like your namesake, and you’ve nothing in your stomach at all. Eat!”
“You can’t call him Caesar!” Plautius bleated. “Even if he is adopted, his name becomes Caesar Octavianus, not plain Caesar.”
“I’m going to call him Caesar,” said Agrippa.
“And I will never, never forget that the first person to call me Caesar was Marcus Agrippa,” the debatably named heir said, gaze soft. “Will you cleave to me through thick and thin?”
Agrippa took the outstretched hand. “I will, Caesar.”
“Then you will rise with me. So I pledge it. You will be famous and powerful, have your pick of Rome’s daughters.”
“You’re both too young to know what you’re doing!” Plautius moaned, wringing his hands.
“We’re not, you know,” said Agrippa. “I think Caesar knew what he was doing too. He chose his heir wisely.”
Because Agrippa was right, Octavian* ate, his mind putting aside this extraordinary fate in favor of a more immediate and pressing concern: his asthma. Again, Caesar had come to his rescue in providing Hapd’efan’e, who had explained his malady to him in simple yet unoptimistic terms. Something no physician had done before. If he was in truth to survive, then he must follow Hapd’efan’e’s advice in all ways, from avoiding foods like honey and strawberries to disciplining his emotions into positive channels. Dust, pollen, chaff and animal hair would always be hazards, there was nothing he could do about those beyond try to avoid them, and that wouldn’t always be possible. Nor would he ever be a good sailor, between the heavy air and the seasickness. What he had to banish was fear, not easy for one whose mother had inculcated it in him so firmly. Caesar’s heir should know no fear, just as Caesar had known no fear. How can I assume Caesar’s name and massive dignitas if I stand there in public whistling like a bellows and blue in the face? I will conquer this handicap, because I must. Exercise, Hapd’efan’e had said. Good food. And a placid frame of mind. How can the owner of Caesar’s name have a placid frame of mind?
Very tired, he slept dreamlessly from just after that late dinner until two hours before dawn, not sorry that Plautius’s spacious house permitted him and Agrippa to have separate rooms. When he woke, he felt well and breathed easily. A drumming sound brought him to the window, where he found Brundisium in the grasp of driving rain; a glance up at the faint outline of the clouds ascertained that they were ragged, scudding before a high wind. There would be nobody on the streets today, for this weather had set in. Nobody on the streets today…
An idle thought, it wandered aimlessly through his mind and bumped into a fact he hadn’t remembered until the two collided. From what Plautius had said, all of Brundisium knew that he was Caesar’s heir, just like the rest of Italy. The news of Caesar’s death had spread like wildfire, so the news of Caesar’s heir, this eighteen-year-old nephew (he would forget the “great”), had gone after it with equal speed. That meant that whenever he showed his face, people would defer to him, especially if he announced himself as Gaius Julius Caesar. Well, he was Gaius Julius Caesar! He would never again call himself anything else, save perhaps to tack “Filius” on to it. As for the Octavianus—a useful way to tell friend from enemy. Those who called him Octavianus would be those who refused to acknowledge his special status.
He remained at the window watching the thick rods of rain angle down before the wind, his face, even his eyes, composed into a tranquil mask that gave nothing of his thoughts away. Inside that bulbous cranium—the same huge skull Caesar and Cicero both owned—his thoughts were very busy, but not tumultuous. Marcus Antonius was desperate for money, and there would be none from Caesar. The contents of the Treasury were probably fairly safe, but right next door in the vaults of Gaius Oppius, chief banker to Brundisium and one of Caesar’s loyalest adherents, lay a vast sum of money. Caesar’s war chest. Possibly in the neighborhood of thirty thousand talents of silver, from what Caesar had said—take it all with you, don’t rely on sending back to the Senate for more because you mightn’t get it. Thirty thousand talents amounted to seven hundred and fifty million sesterces.
How many talents can one of those massive wagons I saw in Spain carry if it’s drawn by ten oxen? These will be Caesar’s wagons here too—the very best from axle grease to stout, iron-bound Gallic wheels. Could one wagon carry three, four, five hundred talents? Now that’s the kind of thing Caesar would know at once, but I do not. How fast does a groaning wagon travel?
First I have to get the war chest out of the vaults. How? Unabashed. Just walk in and ask for it. After all, I am Gaius Julius Caesar! I have to do this. Yes, I must do this! But even supposing I managed to spirit it away, where to hide it? That’s easy—on my own estates beyond Sulmo, estates my grandfather had as spoils from the Italian War. Useful only for the timber they bear, logged and sent to Ancona for export. So cover the silver with a layer of wooden planks. I have to do this! I must!
Holding a lamp, he went to Agrippa’s room and woke him. A true warrior, Agrippa slept like the dead, yet was fully alert at a soft word.
“Get up, I need you.”
Agrippa slipped a tunic over his head, ran a comb through his hair, bent to lace on boots, grimacing at the sound of rain.
“How many talents can a heavy army wagon carry, and how many oxen are needed to pull it?” asked Octavian.
“One of Caesar’s wagons, at least a hundred with ten oxen, but a lot depends on how the load is distributed—the smaller and more uniform the components, the heavier the cargo can be. Roads and terrain are factors too. If I knew what you were after, Caesar, I could tell you more.”
“Are there any wagons and teams in
“Bound to be. The heavy baggage is still in transit.”
“Of course!” Octavian slapped his thigh in vexation at his own density. “Caesar would have conveyed the war chest from Rome in person, it’s still here because he’ll take it on in person, so the wagons and oxen are here too. Find them for me, Agrippa.”
“Am I allowed to ask what and why?”
“I’m appropriating the war chest before Antonius can get his hands on it. It’s Rome’s money, but Antonius would use it to pay his debts and run up more. When you find the teams and wagons, bring them into Brundisium in a single line, then dismiss their drivers. We’ll hire others after they’re loaded. Park the leading one outside Oppius’s bank next door. I’ll organize the labor,” said Octavian briskly. “Pretend you’re Caesar’s quaestor.”
Agrippa departed wrapped in his waterproof circular cape, and Octavian went to break his fast with Aulus Plautius.
“Marcus Agrippa has gone out,” he said, looking very ill.
“In this weather?” Plautius asked, then sniffed. “Looking for a whorehouse, no doubt. I hope you have more sense!”
“As if asthma were not enough, Aulus Plautius, I feel a sick headache coming on, so it’s bed for me in absolute silence. I’m sorry I won’t be able to keep you company on such an awful day.”
“Oh, I shall curl up on my study couch and read a book, which is why I’ve sent my wife and children to my estates—peace and quiet to read. I intend to best Lucius Piso—oh, you’ve eaten nothing!” cried Plautius, clucking. “Off you go, Octavius.”
Off the young man went, into the rain. The living rooms opened on to the back lane to avoid the noise of wagons rumbling up and down the main street; if Plautius became immersed in his book, he’d hear nothing. Fortuna is my partner in this enterprise, thought Octavian; the weather is perfect for this, and the Lady of Good Luck loves me, she will see me through. Brundisium is used to strings of wagons and moving armies.
* * *
Two cohorts of troops were camped in a field on the outskirts of the city, all veterans not yet incorporated into legions, having enlisted too late or come too far to reach Capua before the legions left. Whatever military tribune was in charge of them had abandoned them to their own devices, which in weather like this consisted of dice, knucklebones, board games and talk; wine was off legionary menus since the Tenth and Twelfth had mutinied. These men, who had belonged to the old Thirteenth, had no sympathy with mutiny and had only enlisted again because they loved Caesar and fancied a good long campaign against the Parthians. Having heard of his awful death, they grieved, and wondered what was going to happen to them now.
No expert on legionary dispositions, the rather small, hooded and caped visitor had to enquire of the sentries whereabouts the primipilus centurion lived, then trudged down the rows of wooden huts to knock on the door of a somewhat larger structure. The noise of voices inside ceased; the door opened. Octavian found himself looking up at a tall, burly fellow who wore a red, padded tunic. Eleven other men sat around a table, all in the same gear, which meant that the visitor surveyed the entire centurion complement of two cohorts.
“Shocking weather,” said the door opener. “Marcus Coponius at your service.”
Engaged in doffing his sagum, Octavian didn’t reply until he was done, then stood in his trim leather cuirass and kilt, mop of golden hair damp but not wringing wet. There was something about him that brought the eleven other centurions to their feet, quite why they didn’t know.
“I’m Caesar’s heir, so my name is Gaius Julius Caesar,” said Octavian, big grey eyes welcoming their hard-bitten faces, a smile on his lips that was hauntingly familiar. A collective gasp went up, the men stiffened to attention.
“Jupiter! You look just like him!” Coponius breathed.
“A smaller edition,” Octavian said ruefully, “but I hope I still have some growing to do.”
“Oh, it’s terrible, terrible!” said one at the table, tears gathering. “What will we do without him?”
“Our duty to Rome,” said Octavian, matter-of-fact. “That’s why I’m here, to ask you to do a duty for Rome.”
“Anything, young Caesar, anything,” said Coponius.
“I have to get the war chest out of Brundisium as soon as I possibly can. There won’t be any campaign to Syria, I’m sure you realize that, but so far the consuls haven’t indicated what’s going to happen to the legions over the waves in Macedonia—or men like you, still waiting to be shipped. My job is to collect the war chest on behalf of Rome. My adjutant, Marcus Agrippa, is rounding up the wagons and oxen that carry the war chest, but I need loading labor, and I don’t trust civilians. Will your men put the money on board the wagons for me?”
“Oh, gladly, young Caesar, gladly! There’s nothing worse than wet weather without no work to do.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Octavian with the smile so reminiscent of Caesar’s. “I’m the closest thing Brundisium has to a commanding officer at the moment, but I wouldn’t like you to think that I have imperium, because I don’t. Therefore I ask humbly, I don’t command that you help me.”
“If Caesar made you his heir, young Caesar, and gave you his name, there’s no need to command,” said Marcus Coponius.
With a thousand men at his beck and call, many more than one of the sixty wagons were loaded simultaneously. Caesar had devised a knacky way to carry his money—it was money, not unminted sows. Each talent, in the form of 6,250 denarii, was stored in a canvas bag equipped with two handles, so that two soldiers could easily carry a one-talent bag between them. Swiftly loading while the rain poured down unabated and all Brundisium remained indoors, even on this usually busy street, the wagons moved onward steadily to a timber yard where sawn planks were carefully placed over the bags to look as if sawn planks were all the wagons carried.
“It’s sensible,” said Octavian glibly to Coponius, “to disguise the cargo, because I don’t have the imperium to order a military escort. My adjutant is hiring drivers, but we won’t let them know what we’re really hauling, so they won’t get here until after you’re gone.” He pointed to a hand cart that held a number of smaller linen bags. “This is for you and your men, Coponius, as a token of my thanks. If you spend any of it on wine, be discreet. If Caesar can help you in any way in the future, don’t hesitate to ask.”
So the thousand soldiers pushed the hand cart back to their camp, there to discover that Caesar’s heir had gifted them with two hundred and fifty denarii for each ranker, one thousand for each centurion, and two thousand for Marcus Coponius. The unit for accounting was the sestertius, but the denarius was far more convenient to mint, at four sesterces to the denarius.
“Did you believe all that, Coponius?” asked one of the very gratified centurions.
Coponius eyed him in scorn. “What d’you take me for, an Apulian hayseed? I don’t have no idea what young Caesar’s up to, but he’s his tata’s son, that’s for sure. A thousand miles ahead of the opposition. And whatever he’s up to ain’t none of our business. We’re Caesar’s veterans. As far as I’m concerned, for one, anything young Caesar does is all right.” He put his right index finger to the side of his nose and winked. “Mum’s the word, boys. If someone comes asking, we don’t know nothing, because we was never out in the rain.”
Eleven heads nodded complete agreement.
So the sixty wagons rolled out in the pouring rain on the deserted Via Minucia almost to Barium, then set off cross-country on hard, stony ground toward Larinum, with Marcus Agrippa in civilian dress shepherding this precious load of timber planks. The drivers, who walked alongside their leading beasts rather than sat holding reins, were being paid very well, but not so excessively that they were curious; they were simply glad for the work at this slack season. Brundisium was the busiest harbor in all Italy, cargo and armies came and went incessantly.
Octavian left Brundisium a full nundinum later and took the Via Minucia to Barium. There he left
“It’s flat ground without hazards. It won’t be so easy once we get into the mountains,” Agrippa said.
“Then follow the coast, don’t turn inland until you see an unsealed road ten miles south of the road to Sulmo. You’ll be safe enough on that road, but don’t use any others. I’m going ahead to my lands to make sure there are no chattering locals and a good but accessible hiding place.”
Luckily chattering locals were few and far between, for the estate was forest in a land of forests. Having discovered that Quintus Nonius, his father’s manager, still occupied the staff quarters of the comfortable villa where Atia used to bring her ailing son for a summer in mountain air, Octavian decided that the wagons would be safe in a clearing several miles beyond the villa. Logging, said Nonius, was going on in a different area, and people didn’t prowl; there were too many bears and wolves.
Even here, Octavian was astonished to learn, people already knew that Caesar was dead and that Gaius Octavius was Caesar’s heir. A fact that delighted Nonius, who had loved the quiet, sick little boy and his anxious mother. However, few if any of the locals knew who owned these timber estates, still referred to as “Papius’s place” after their original Italian owner.
“The wagons belong to Caesar, but people who aren’t entitled to them will be looking for them everywhere, so no one must know that they’re here on Papius’s place,” he explained to Nonius. “From time to time I may send Marcus Agrippa—you’ll meet him when the wagons arrive—to pick up one or two of them. Dispose of the oxen as you think best, but always have twenty beasts on hand. Luckily you use oxen to tow logs to Ancona, so the presence of oxen won’t seem unusual. It’s important, Nonius—so important that my life may depend upon your and your family’s silence.”