The October Horse (84 page)

The problem was that Decimus had changed terribly, lost all his old panache, that marvelous military ability he had displayed so consistently during Caesar's war against the Long-hairs. He wouldn't hear of their moving from around Cularo, fretted about the unblooded state of the majority of their troops, insisted that they do nothing to provoke a confrontation with Antony. Their fourteen legions were just not enough—not nearly enough!

So everybody played a waiting game, unsure of success if it came to a pitched battle. This was not a clear cut ideological contest between two sides whose soldiers believed ardently in what they were fighting for, and there were no lions anywhere.

At the beginning of Sextilis the scales tipped Antony's way; Pollio and his two legions arrived from Further Spain to join him and Lepidus. Why not? asked a grinning Pollio. Nothing exciting was going on in his province now that Cicero's Senate had given command of Our Sea to Sextus Pompey—what a stupid thing to do!

“Truly,” said Pollio, shaking his head in despair, “they go from bad to worse. Anyone with a particle of sense can see that Sextus Pompeius is simply gathering strength to hold Rome to ransom over the grain supply. Still, it has made life extremely boring for an historian like me. There'll be more to write about if I'm with you, Antonius.” He gazed around in delight. “You do pick good camps! The fish and the swimming are superb, the Maritime Alps a magnificent backdrop— much nicer than Corduba!”

If life was offering Pollio a wonderful time, it was not doing nearly as well by Plancus. For one thing, he couldn't get away from Decimus Brutus's eternal complaints. For another, when the listless Decimus wouldn't, it fell to him to write to the Senate trying to explain why he and Decimus hadn't moved against Antony and his fellow inimicus, Lepidus. He had to make Octavian his chief butt, blame Octavian for not stopping Ventidius, and condemn him for refusing to give up his troops.

The moment Pollio arrived, the two inimici sent Plancus an invitation to join them; abandoning Decimus Brutus to his fate, Plancus accepted with relief. He marched for Forum Julii and its gala atmosphere, failing to notice as he came down the eastern slopes of the Rhodanus valley that everything was unnaturally dry, that the crops of this fertile region weren't forming ears.

•      •      •

The terrible panic and depression he had experienced after Caesar's death had returned to haunt Decimus Brutus; after Plancus deserted, he threw his hands in the air and abdicated his military duty and his imperium. Leaving his bewildered legions where they were in Cularo, he and a small group of friends set off overland to join Marcus Brutus in Macedonia. Not an unfeasible endeavor for Decimus, who was fluent in many Gallic tongues, and envisioned no problems en route. It was high summer, all the alpine passes were open, and the farther east they traveled, the lower and easier the mountains became.

He did well until he entered the lands of the Brenni, who inhabited the heights beyond that pass into Italian Gaul bearing their name. There the party was taken prisoner by the Brenni and brought before their chieftain, Camilus. Thinking that all Gauls must loathe Caesar, their conqueror, and thinking to impress Camilus, one of Decimus's friends told the chieftain that this was Decimus Brutus, who had killed the great Caesar. The trouble was that among the Gauls Caesar was passing into folklore alongside Vercingetorix, was loved as a supreme martial hero.

Camilus knew what was going on, and sent word to Antony at Forum Julii that he held Decimus Junius Brutus captive—what did the great Marcus Antonius want done with him?

“Kill him” was Antony's curt message, accompanied by a fat purse of gold coins.

The Brenni killed Decimus Brutus and sent his head to Antony as proof that they had earned their money.

On the last day of June the Senate declared Marcus Aemilius Lepidus inimicus for joining Antony, and confiscated his property. The fact that he was Pontifex Maximus created some confusion, as Rome's highest priest could not be stripped of his high priesthood, nor could the Senate deny him the big emolument he received from the Treasury every year. Hostis would have done it, inimicus didn't. Though Brutus, writing from Macedonia, deplored his sister Junilla's descent to pauperdom, the truth was that she continued to live very comfortably in the Domus Publica, and had the use of any villa she fancied between Antium and Surrentum. No one appropriated Junilla's jewelry, wardrobe or servants, nor would Vatia Isauricus, married to her elder sister, have condoned any financial measures on the part of the state that affected her well-being. All Brutus was doing was playing politics in the proper fashion; some of the donkeys would believe him, and weep.

The Liberators left in Rome were dwindling. Deriving an obscene pleasure from torturing a slave, Lucius Minucius Basilus found himself tortured and killed when his slaves rose up against him en masse. His death was not felt to be a loss, especially by those Liberators remaining, from the brothers Caecilius to the brothers Casca. They still attended the Senate, but privately wondered for how long: Caesar Octavianus lurked, in the person of his agents. Rome seemed filled with them, and all they did was ask people why the Liberators were still unpunished.

Indeed, Antony, Lepidus, Ventidius, Plancus, Pollio and their twenty-three legions worried those in Rome far less than Octavian did. Forum Julii seemed an eternity away compared to Bononia, right on the junction of the Via Aemilia and the Via Annia—two routes to Rome. Even Brutus in Macedonia considered Octavian a far greater threat to peace than he did Mark Antony.

The object of all this apprehension sat placidly in Bononia and did nothing, said nothing. With the result that he became shrouded in mystery; no one could say with any conviction that he knew what Caesar Octavianus was after. Rumor said he wanted the consulship— still vacant—but when applied to, his step-father, Philippus, and his brother-in-law, Marcellus Minor, just looked inscrutable.

By now people knew that Dolabella was dead and Cassius was governing in Syria, but, like Forum Julii, Syria was an eternity away compared to Octavian in Bononia.

Then, much to Cicero's horror (though secretly he toyed with the idea), another rumor started: that Octavian wanted to be the junior consul to Cicero's senior consul. The young man sitting at the feet of the wise, venerable older man, there to learn his craft. Romantic. Delicious. But even though exhausted by the great series of speeches against Mark Antony, Cicero retained sufficient good sense to feel that the picture this conjured up was utterly false. Octavian couldn't be trusted an inch.

•      •      •

Toward the end of Julius, four hundred centurions and hoary veterans arrived in Rome and sought an audience with the full Senate, bearing a mandate from their army and proposals from Gaius Julius Caesar Filius. For themselves, the promised bonuses. For Caesar Filius, the consulship. The Senate said a resounding no to both.

On the last day of the month renamed in his adopted father's honor, Octavian crossed the Rubicon into Italy with eight legions, then forged ahead with two legions of handpicked troops. The Senate flew into a panic and sent envoys to beg that Octavian halt his march. He would be allowed to stand for the consulship without needing to present himself inside the city, so there was no real reason to continue!

In the meantime, two legions of veterans from Africa Province arrived in Ostia. The Senate snatched at them eagerly and put them in the fortress on the Janiculum, from which they could look down on Caesar's pleasure gardens and Cleopatra's vacant palace. The knights of the First Class and the upper end of the Second Class donned armor, and a militia of young knights was raised to man the Servian Walls.

All of it was no more than a clutching at straws; those in nominal control had no idea what to do, and those with a status lower than the Second Class went serenely about their business. When the mighty fell out, the mighty did the bleeding. The only time the common people suffered was when they rioted, and not even the lowliest were in a mood to riot. The grain dole was being issued, commerce went on so jobs were safe, next month would see the ludi Romani, and nobody in his or her right mind ventured into the Forum Romanum, which was where the mighty usually bled.

The mighty went right on clutching at straws. When a rumor arose that two of Octavian's original legions, the Martia and the Fourth, were about to desert him and help the city, a huge sigh of relief went up—only to turn into a wail of despair when the rumor was found to be baseless.

On the seventeenth day of Sextilis, Caesar's heir entered Rome unopposed. The troops stationed in the Janiculan fortress reversed swords and pila and went over to the invader amid cheers and flowers. The only blood that was spilled belonged to the urban praetor, Marcus Caecilius Cornutus, who fell on his sword when Octavian walked into the Forum. The common people hailed him with hysterical joy, but of the Senate there was no sign. Very properly, Octavian withdrew to his men on the Campus Martius, there to receive anyone who asked to see him.

The next day the Senate capitulated, humbly asked if Caesar Octavianus would be a candidate for the consular elections, to be held immediately. As the second candidate, the senators timidly suggested Caesar's nephew, Quintus Pedius. Octavian graciously acceded, and was elected senior consul, with Quintus Pedius as his junior.

•      •      •

Nineteen days into Sextilis and still more than a month off his twentieth birthday, Octavian offered up his sacrificial white bull on the Capitol and was inaugurated. Twelve vultures circled overhead, in omen so portentous and awesome that it had not been seen since the time of Romulus. Though his mother and sister were barred from this all male gathering, Octavian was perfectly happy to count the faces present, from his doubting stepfather to the appalled senators. What the bewildered Quintus Pedius thought, his young cousin didn't know—or care about.

This Caesar had arrived on the world stage, and was not going to leave it untimely.

The Syndicate

From SEXTILIS (AUGUST) until

DECEMBER of 43 B.C.

[October 620.jpg]

To Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa had fallen the role of most faithful follower, a role he continued to welcome as much as he relished it. Not for Agrippa the pangs of envy or ambition to be first; his feelings for Octavian remained unalloyed love, total admiration, tender protectiveness. Others might condemn Octavian, or loathe him, or deride him, but Agrippa alone understood exactly who and what Octavian was, thought no worse of him for the extremes in his character. If Caesar's intellect had lifted him into the aether, Octavian's very different mentality, Agrippa decided, enabled him to descend into the underworld. No human failing escaped his notice, no weakness was ignored, no chance remark went unweighed. His instincts were reptilian, in that he preserved his immobility while others made the mistake of moving. When he did move, it was so fast that it was a blur, or else so slow that it seemed an illusion.

Agrippa interpreted his job as making sure that Octavian survived to achieve the great destiny he perceived as his right, as the natural outcome of who and what he was. And for Agrippa, the highest reward was to be Octavian's best friend, the one in whom he confided. He did nothing to deflect his idol's attention from men like Salvidienus and Maecenas, others like Gaius Statilius Taurus rising to the rank of intimate friend; there was no need, for Octavian's own instincts kept them at one remove from his innermost thoughts and desires. Those he reserved for Agrippa's ear, and Agrippa's alone.

“The first thing I must do,” Octavian said to Agrippa, “is have you, Maecenas, Salvidienus, Lucius Cornificius and Taurus put into the Senate. There's no time for quaestorian elections, so adlection it will have to be. Philippus can move it. Then we set up a special court to try the assassins. You will indict Cassius, Lucius Cornificius will indict Marcus Brutus. One of my friends for each assassin. Naturally I expect every juror to return a verdict of CONDEMNO. If any juror should vote ABSOLVO, I want to know his name. For future reference, you understand. It always pays to know the men who have the courage of their convictions.” He laughed. “Or their exonerations.”

“You'll legislate the court personally?” Agrippa asked.

“Oh, no, that wouldn't be wise. Quintus Pedius can do it.”

“It sounds,” said Agrippa, brows meeting, “as if you mean this to happen quickly, but it's high time that I returned to a certain place for another load of wooden planks.”

“No more wood for the moment, Agrippa. The Senate agreed to pay each of my original legionaries twenty thousand in bonuses, therefore the money will come out of the Treasury.”

“I thought the Treasury was empty, Caesar.”

“Not quite, but it isn't healthy. Nor do I intend to strip it. By tradition, the gold is never touched. However, the reports of the plebeian aediles are alarming,” said Octavian, revealing that he wasn't wasting any time wading into the work; this was one consul who intended to be hands-on. “Last year's harvest was a poor one, but this year's is disastrous. Not only in our grain provinces, but all the way from the western ocean to the eastern ocean. Nilus isn't inundating, the Euphrates and the Tigris are low, and there have been no spring rains anywhere. A colossal drought. That's why my asthma is rather bad.”

“It's better than it used to be,” soothed Agrippa. “Perhaps you're growing out of it.”

“I hope so. I detest having to appear in the House looking blue around the gills and wheezing, but appear I must. Though I do think the terrible attacks are less frequent.”

“I'll offer to Salus.”

“I do, every day.”

“The harvest?” Agrippa prompted, heeding the message: he too must offer to Salus every day.

“It seems there literally won't be one. What grain there is will fetch huge prices, so Quintus Pedius is going to have to bring some emergency measures into law forbidding the sale of grain to private vendors ahead of the state. That's why I can't strip the Treasury. It's no part of my strategy to impoverish business, but grain will have to be a special case. Despite my father's colonies for the urban poor, there are still a hundred and fifty thousand free grain chits issued, and that must continue. Cicero and Marcus Brutus wouldn't agree with me, but I value the esteem of the Head Count. It gives Rome most of her soldiers.”

“Why not pay the legion bonuses in wood, Caesar?”

“Because there's a principle involved,” Octavian said in tones that brooked no argument. “Either I run the Senate, or the Senate runs me. Were it a body of wise men, I'd be grateful for its counsel, but it's nothing but factions and frictions.”

“Do you plan to abolish it?” Agrippa asked, fascinated.

Octavian looked genuinely shocked. “No, never! What I have to do is re-educate it, Agrippa, though that won't be done in a single day—or a single consulship. The Senate's proper function is to recommend decent laws and leave executive government to the elected magistrates.”

“What about the wagons of wood, then?”

“They stay where they are. Things are going to get worse long before they get better, and I want a reserve of money against far more daunting situations than a drought and Marcus Antonius. This time tomorrow I become Caesar Filius in law, the lex curiata will be passed. That means I'll have Caesar's fortune—minus his gift to the people, which I'll pay immediately. But I don't mean to squander anything I have from my father, be it wood or investments. For the moment I have Rome to myself, but do you think I don't realize that must end? The contents of the Treasury are going to have to pay for everything while wastrels like Antonius exist.” He stretched contentedly, smiling Caesar's smile for Agrippa's eyes alone. “I wish,” he remarked, “that I had the Domus Publica as an office. My house is too small.”

Agrippa grinned. “Buy a bigger one, Caesar. Or hold a proper election and get yourself voted in as Pontifex Maximus.”

“No, Lepidus can stay Pontifex Maximus. I have my eye on a bigger house, but not the Domus Publica. Unlike my father, I have no desire to make a huge splash in Rome's pond. He reveled in magnificence because it suited his nature. He enjoyed notoriety. I do not,” said Octavian.

“But,” Agrippa objected, still haunted by the specter of legionary bonuses, “you have over three hundred million to pay the legions. That's twelve thousand talents of silver. I don't see how you can do it, Caesar, without using wood.”

“I don't intend to pay all of it,” Octavian said nonchalantly. “Just half of it. I'll owe them the rest.”

“They'll change sides!”

“Not after I talk to them and explain that payment over time guarantees a future income. Especially if there's ten percent interest payable on it. Do not fret so, Agrippa, I know what I'm doing. I'll talk them into it—and keep their loyalty.”

He will too, thought Agrippa, awed. What a plutocrat he'd make! Atticus would have to look to his laurels.

•      •      •

Two days later Philippus held a family dinner in honor of the new consuls, shrinking at the prospect of having to inform them that his younger son, Quintus, was making overtures to Gaius Cassius in Syria. Oh, for a life devoted to the pleasures of the table, of books, of a beautiful, cultured wife! Instead, he had been inflicted with a juvenile power grabber who apparently had no brakes. That, he remembered vaguely, was what Caesar's mother, Aurelia, had always said about her Caesar: he had no brakes. Nor did this second edition. Such a charming, inoffensive, quiet, sick little boy he had been! Now it was he, Philippus, who was sick. That long ambassadorial journey to Italian Gaul during the depths of winter had not only killed Servius Sulpicius; it was threatening to kill him and Lucius Piso too. Piso's ailment was pulmonary, his was rotting toes. The frostbite he had suffered had turned to something so unpleasant that the physicians shook their heads and the surgeons recommended amputation, which Philippus had rejected with horror. So the Philippus who greeted his guests wore slippers over socks stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs to disguise the stench of his blackened toes.

The men outnumbered the women because three of the men were bachelors—his elder son, Lucius, who stubbornly refused every bride Philippus suggested—Octavian—and Marcus Agrippa, whom Octavian had insisted upon bringing. When Philippus set eyes on this unknown Agrippa, his breath caught. So handsome, yet so much a man! Nearly as tall as Caesar had been, shoulders like Antonius, a soldierly bearing that endowed him with massive presence. Oh, Octavianus! cried Philippus within his mind, this young man will take it all off you! But by the time the dinner concluded, he had changed his mind. Agrippa belonged whole and entire to Octavianus. Not that he could level a charge of unchastity or indecency; they never touched, even when they walked together, and cast each other no caressing or languishing looks. Whatever this natural leader of men saw in Octavianus, it completely negated his own ambitions. My stepson is building a faction among men in his age group, and more shrewdly than Caesar, who always stood apart, held himself aloof from intimate friendships with men. Well, that old canard about King Nicomedes had done it, of course, but if Caesar had had an Agrippa, no one could have murdered him. My stepson is far different. He doesn't care about canards, they bounce off him like stones off a hippopotamus.

For Octavian the dinner was a delight because his sister had come. Of all the people in his life, including his mother, Octavia lay closest by far to his heart. How she had bloomed! Her fair beauty shone Atia's down, though her nose wasn't as lovely, nor her cheekbones as high. It was all in her eyes, the most wonderful eyes any woman had ever owned, wide apart, widely opened, the color of an aquamarine, as revealing as his were shut away. Her nature was entirely love and compassion, and it looked out of her eyes. She only had to appear in the Porticus Margaritaria to shop, and everyone who saw her loved her at a single glance. My father had his daughter, Julia, as a conduit to the common people; I have Octavia. I will treasure her and shelter her for all my days as my good spirit.

The three women were in a merry mood, Atia because her darling son was proving such a prodigy—why had she never suspected it? After nearly twenty years of worrying herself to the point of illness over someone she had thought too frail to hang on to life, she was beginning to discover that her little Gaius was a huge force to be reckoned with. For all his wheezing, it came as a shock to realize that he would probably outlive everyone, even that magnificent Marcus Agrippa.

Octavia was in a merry mood because her brother was there; his affection for her was fully returned. She was three years older than he, and wonderfully healthy herself; he had always been a superior kind of doll, toddling around in her wake beaming at her, plying her with questions, seeking haven with her when their mother fussed and clucked too unbearably. Octavia had always seen what Rome and her family were only now beginning to see: the strength, the determination, the brilliance, the ineradicable sense of specialness. She supposed that all of these were his Julian inheritance, but understood too that he possessed a hardheaded, frugal, down-to-earth side from their blood father's impeccably Latin stock. How composed he is! My brother will rule the world.

Valeria Messala was in a merry mood because suddenly her life had opened up. The sister of Messala Rufus the augur, she had been wife to Quintus Pedius for thirty years, given him two sons and a daughter; one son was grown, the younger of contubernalis age, and the girl sixteen. Her chief beauty was her mass of red hair, though her swampy green eyes attracted attention too. She and Quintus Pedius had married as part of Caesar's network of political connections. A patrician, she was of much better family than the Pedii of Campania, though not of the Julii, and she had found that she and Quintus suited each other very well. If anything had bothered Valeria Messala, it was her husband's absolute loyalty to Caesar, who hadn't advanced him as rapidly as she felt proper. Now that he was junior consul, her every wish was answered. Her sons came from consular stock on both sides, and her daughter, Pedia Messalina, would make a truly splendid marriage.

Oblivious to the masculine conversation, the women chattered about babies. Octavia had borne a girl, Claudia Marcella, last year, and was pregnant again. This time, she hoped, with a son.

Her husband, Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor, found himself in a curious position for one whose family had so obdurately and persistently opposed Caesar. He had retrieved his expectations—and preserved his large fortune—by marrying Octavia, whom he loved passionately because one couldn't not. But who would ever have dreamed that his wife's little brother would be senior consul at nineteen? And whereabouts was it all going to go? Somehow, he thought, to dizzying heights. Octavianus radiated success, though not in the flamboyant style of his great-uncle.

“Do you think,” Marcellus Minor asked Octavian and Pedius, “that it's the right time to prosecute the Liberators?” He caught the red look in Octavian's eyes at his use of this detested name, and amended it hastily. “The assassins, I mean, of course. Most of Rome uses 'Liberator' as an ironical device, not sincerely. But to go on with what I was saying, Caesar Octavianus, you have Marcus Antonius and the western governors to deal with, so is this the right time for trials, which are so drawn out?”

“And from what I hear,” said Philippus, coming to Marcellus Minor's rescue, “Vatinius isn't going to contest Marcus Brutus in Illyricum, he's coming home. That strengthens Brutus's position. Then there's Cassius in Syria, another threat to peace. Why try the assassins and exacerbate the situation? If Brutus and Cassius are tried and found guilty, they're outlaws and can't come home. That might tempt them into war, and Rome doesn't need yet another war. Antonius and the western governors are war enough.”

Quintus Pedius listened, but had no intention of answering. A most unhappy man, he was permanently embroiled in the affairs of the Julii, and hated it. His nature he had inherited from his country squire father, but his fate he had inherited from his mother, Caesar's eldest sister. All he wanted was a quiet life on his vast estates in Campania, not the consulship. Then his eyes fell on his wife, so animated, and he sighed. Patricians will always be patricians, he reflected wryly. Valeria loves being the consul's wife, talks of nothing but hosting the Bona Dea.