Pompey had contemplated this missive toward the end of his self-inflicted isolation from all save Metellus Scipio, though he had not mentioned the matter to his father-in-law.
Verpa! Cunnus! Mentula! said Pompey to himself, grinning savagely. How dared Titus Labienus presume to think himself great enough these days to be forgiven? He wasn't forgiven. He would never be forgiven, the wife stealer! But, on the other hand, he might prove very useful. Afranius and Petreius were getting old and incompetent. Why not replace them with Titus Labienus? Who, like them, would never have the clout to rival Pompey the Great. Never be able to call himself Labienus the Great.
A campaign in the East against the Parthians ... So that was where Caesar's ambitions lay! Clever, very clever. Caesar didn't want or need the headache of mastering Rome. He wanted to go into the history books as Rome's greatest-ever military man. So after the conquest of Gallia Comata—all brand-new territory—he would conquer the Parthians and add billions upon billions of iugera to Rome's provincial empire. How could Pompey measure up to that? All he'd done was to march over the same old Roman-owned or Roman-dominated ground, fight the traditional enemies, men like Mithridates and Tigranes. Caesar was a pioneer. He went where no Roman had gone before. And with Caesar in full command of those eleven—no, nine—fanatically devoted legions, there would be no defeat at Carrhae. Caesar would whip the Parthians. He'd walk to Serica, let alone India! He'd tread soil and see people even Alexander the Great had never dreamed existed. Bring back King Orodes to march in his triumphal parade. And Rome would worship him like a god.
Oh yes, Caesar had to go. Had to be stripped of his army and his provinces, had to be convicted so many times over in the courts that he would never be able to show his face in Italia again. Labienus, who knew him, who had fought with him for nine years, said he would never march on Rome. A judgement which was in complete agreement with Pompey's own. Therefore, he decided, buoyed up by those cheering crowds ecstatic at his recovery, he would not move to curb the boni in the persons of Cato and the Marcelli. Let them continue. In fact, why not help them out by spreading a few rumors to the plutocrats as well as to the Senate? Like: yes, Caesar is bringing his legions across the Alps into Italian Gaul; yes, Caesar is contemplating a march on Rome! Panic the whole city into opposing anything Caesar asked for. For when the last possible moment came, that lofty patrician aristocrat who could trace his lineage back to the goddess Venus would fold his tents and retreat with massive dignity into permanent exile.
In the meantime, thought Pompey, he would see Appius Claudius the Censor, and hint to him that it was perfectly safe to expel most of Caesar's adherents from the Senate. Appius Claudius would seize the chance eagerly—and go too far by trying to expel Curio, no doubt. Lucius Piso, the other censor, would veto that. Though probably not the smaller fry, knowing the indolent Lucius Piso.
Early in October came word from Labienus that Caesar had left Italian Gaul to journey with his usual fleetness all the way to the stronghold of Nemetocenna in the lands of the Belgic Atrebates, where Trebonius was quartered with the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Legions. Trebonius had written urgently, said Labienus, to inform Caesar that the Belgae were contemplating another insurrection.
Excellent! was Pompey's verdict. While Caesar was a thousand miles from Rome, he himself would use his minions to flood Rome with all kinds of rumors—the wilder, the better. Keep the pot bubbling, boil it over! Thus the whisper reached Atticus and others that Caesar was bringing four legions—the Fifth, the Ninth, the Tenth and the Eleventh—across the Alps to Placentia on the Ides of October, where he intended to station them and intimidate the Senate into leaving his provinces alone when the matter came up for debate again on the Ides of November.
For, said Atticus in an urgent letter to Cicero, who had reached Ephesus on his journey home from Cilicia, all of Rome knew that Caesar would absolutely refuse to give up his army.
Panicking, Cicero fled across the Aegaean Sea to Athens, which he reached on the fatal Ides of October. And said in his letter to Atticus that it was preferable to be beaten on the field with Pompey than to be victorious with Caesar.
Laughing wryly, Atticus stared at Cicero's letter in amazement. What a way to put it! Was that what Cicero thought? Honestly? Did he genuinely think that were civil war to break out, Pompey and all loyal Romans stood no chance in the field against Caesar? An opinion, Atticus was sure, he had inherited from his brother, Quintus Cicero, who had served with Caesar through his most taxing years in Gaul of the Long-hairs. Well, if that was what Quintus Cicero thought, might it not be wise to say and do nothing to make Caesar think that Atticus was an enemy?
Thus it was that Atticus spent the next few days reforming his finances and indoctrinating his senior staff; he then left for Campania to see Pompey, back in residence in his Neapolitan villa. Rome still hummed with stories about those four veteran legions stationed in Placentia—except that everyone who knew anyone in Placentia kept getting letters which swore that there were no legions anywhere near Placentia.
But on the subject of Caesar, Pompey was very vague and would commit himself to no opinion. Sighing, Atticus abandoned the subject (silently vowing that he would proceed as common sense dictated and do nothing to irritate Caesar) and went instead to eulogizing Cicero's governance of Cilicia. In which he did not exaggerate; the couch general and stay-at-home fritterer had done very well indeed, from a fair, just and rational reorganization of Cilicia's finances to a profitable little war. Pompey agreed with all of it, his round, fleshy face bland—how would you react if I told you that Cicero thinks it preferable to be beaten on the field with you than to be victorious with Caesar? thought Atticus wickedly. Instead, he spoke aloud of Cicero's entitlement to a triumph for his victories in Cappadocia and the Amanus; Pompey said warmly that he deserved his triumph, and that he would be voting for it in the House.
That he did not attend the critical meeting of the Senate on the Ides of November was significant; Pompey did not expect to see the Senate win, and did not wish to be humiliated personally while Curio hammered away at his same old nail—whatever Caesar gave up, Pompey should give up at one and the same moment. In which Pompey was right. The Senate got nowhere; the impasse simply continued, with Mark Antony bellowing bullishly when Curio was not yapping doggedly.
The People proceeded about their daily routines without a huge interest in all this; long experience had taught them that when these internecine convulsions occurred, all the casualties and the heartaches remained the province of those at the top of the social tree. And most of them, besides, considered that Caesar would be better for Rome than the boni.
In the ranks of the knights, particularly those senior enough to belong to the Eighteen, sentiments were very different—and very mixed. They stood to lose the most in the event of civil war. Their businesses would crumble, debts would become impossible to collect, loans would cease to materialize, and overseas investments would become unmanageable. The worst aspect was the uncertainty: who was right, who was speaking the truth? Were, there really four legions in Italian Gaul? And if there really were, why couldn't they be located? And why, if there were not four legions there, was this fact not made loudly public? Did the likes of Cato and the Marcelli care about anything other than their determination to teach Caesar a lesson? And what was the lesson all about anyway? What exactly had Caesar done that no one else had done? What would happen to Rome if Caesar was let stand for the consulship in absentia and extricated himself from the treason prosecutions the boni were so determined to levy against him? The answer to that, all men could see, save the boni themselves: nothing! Rome would go on in the same old way. Whereas civil war was the ultimate catastrophe. And this civil war looked as if it would be waged over a principle. Was anything more alien and less important to a businessman than a principle? Go to war over one? Insanity! So the knights began to exert pressure on susceptible senators to be nicer to Caesar.
Unfortunately the hardline boni were
disinclined to listen to this plutocratic lobbying, even if the rest of the Senate was; it meant nothing to Cato or the Marcelli compared to the staggering loss of prestige and influence they would suffer in all eyes if Caesar was to win his struggle to be treated in the same manner as Pompey. And what of Pompey, still dallying in Campania? Where did he truly stand? Evidence pointed to an alliance with the boni, but there were still many who believed that Pompey could be prised free of them could enough words be spoken in his reluctant ear.
At the end of November the new governor of Cilicia, Publius Sestius, departed from Rome with his senior legate, Brutus. Which left a shocking vacuum in the life of his first cousin, Porcia, though not in the life of his wife, Claudia, whom he scarcely ever saw. Servilia was much thicker with her son-in-law, Gaius Cassius, than ever she had been with her son; Cassius appealed to her love of warriors, of doers, of men who would make a military mark. All of which meant that she continued discreetly to pursue her liaison with Lucius Pontius Aquila.
"I'm sure I'll see Bibulus as I go east," said Brutus to Porcia when he went to take his leave of her. "He's in Ephesus, and I gather intends to remain there until he sees what happens in Rome—Caesar, I mean."
Though she knew it was not a right act to weep, Porcia wept bitterly. "Oh, Brutus, how will I survive without you to talk to? No one else is kind to me! Whenever I see Aunt Servilia, she nags about how I dress and how I look, and whenever I see tata he's present only in the flesh—his mind is on Caesar, Caesar, Caesar. Aunt Porcia never has time, she's too involved with her children and Lucius Domitius. Whereas you've been so kind, so tender. Oh, I will miss you!"
"But Marcia is back with your father, Porcia. Surely that must make a difference. She's not an unkind person."
"I know, I know!" cried Porcia, snuffling with nauseating clarity despite making play with Brutus's handkerchief. "But she belongs to tata in every way, just as she did when they were married the first time. I don't exist for her. No one does for Marcia except tata!" She sobbed and moaned. "Brutus, I want to matter to someone's heart! And I don't! I don't!"
"There's Lucius," he said, throat constricted. Didn't he know how she felt, he who had never mattered to anyone's heart either? Freaks and uglies were despised, even by those who ought to have loved in spite of every drawback, every deficiency.
"Lucius is growing up, he's moving away from me," she said, mopping her eyes. "I understand, Brutus, and I don't disapprove. It's right and proper that his attitude changes. It's months now since he preferred my company to my father's. Politics matter more than childish games."
"Well, Bibulus will be home soon."
"Will he? Will he, Brutus? Then why do I think I'll never see Bibulus again? I have a feeling about it!"
A feeling which Brutus found himself echoing, he had no idea why. Except that Rome was suddenly an intolerable place, because something horrible was going to happen. People were thinking more of their own petty concerns than they were of Rome herself. And that went for Cato too. Bringing Caesar down was everything.
So he picked up her hand, kissed it, and left for Cilicia.
On the Kalends of December, Gaius Scribonius Curio summoned the Senate into session, with Gaius Marcellus Major holding the fasces; a disadvantage, Curio knew. As Pompey was in his villa on the Campus Martius, the meeting was held in his curia, a site Curio for one found unwelcome. I hope Caesar wins his battle, he thought as the House came to order, because at least Caesar will be willing to rebuild our own Curia Hostilia.
"I will be brief," he said to the assembled senators, "for I am just as tired of this fruitless, idiotic impasse as you are. While ever I am in office, I will continue to exercise my veto every time this body tries to move that things be done to Gaius Julius Caesar without also being done to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Therefore I am going to submit a formal motion to this House, and I will insist upon a division. If Gaius Marcellus tries to block me, I will deal with him in the traditional manner of a tribune of the plebs obstructed in the exercise of his duties—I will have him thrown off the end of the Tarpeian Rock. And I mean it! I mean every word of it! If I have to summon half the Plebs—who are congregated outside in the peristyle, Conscript Fathers!—to assist me, I will! So be warned, junior consul. I will see a division of this House upon my motion."
Lips thinned, Marcellus Major sat on his ivory curule chair and said nothing; not only did Curio mean it, Curio legally could do it. The division would have to go ahead.
"My motion," said Curio, "is this: that Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus give up imperium, provinces and armies at one and the same moment. All in favor of it, please move to the right of the floor. All those opposed, please move to the left."
The result was overwhelming. Three hundred and seventy of the senators stood to the right. Twenty-two stood to the left. Among the twenty-two were Pompey himself, Metellus Scipio, the three Marcelli, the consul-elect Lentulus Crus (a surprise), Ahenobarbus, Cato, Marcus Favonius, Varro, Pontius Aquila (another surprise—Servilia's lover was not known to be her lover) and Gaius Cassius.
"We have a decree, junior consul," said Curio jubilantly. "Implement it!"
Gaius Marcellus Major rose to his feet and gestured to his lictors. "The meeting is dismissed," he said curtly, and walked out of the chamber.
A good tactic, for it all happened too quickly for Curio to summon the waiting Plebs inside. The decree was a fact, but it was not implemented.
Nor was it ever to be implemented. While Curio was speaking to an ecstatic crowd in the Forum, Gaius Marcellus Major called the Senate into session in the temple of Saturn, in close proximity to where Curio stood on the rostra, and a place from which the discomfited Pompey was debarred. For whatever happened from this day forward, Pompey would not be seen to be personally involved.
Marcellus Major held a scroll in his hand. "I have here a communication from the duumvirs of Placentia, Conscript Fathers," he announced in ringing tones, "which informs the Senate and People of Rome that Gaius Julius Caesar has just arrived in Placentia, and has four of his legions with him. He must be stopped! He is about to march on Rome, the duumvirs have heard him say it! He will not give up his army, and he intends to use that army to conquer Rome! At this very moment he is preparing those four veteran legions to invade Italia!"
The House erupted into a furor: stools overturned as men jumped to their feet, some on the back benches fled from the temple incontinently, some like Mark Antony started roaring that it was all a lie, two very aged senators fainted, and Cato began to shout that Caesar must be stopped, must be stopped, must be stopped!
Into which chaos Curio arrived, chest heaving from the effort of racing across the lower Forum and up so many steps.
"It's a lie!" he yelled. "Senators, senators, stop to think! Caesar is in Further Gaul, not in Placentia, and there are no legions in Placentia! Even the Thirteenth is not in Italian Gaul—it's in Illyricum at Tergeste!" He turned on Marcellus Major viciously. "You conscienceless, outrageous liar, Gaius Marcellus! You scum on Rome's pond, you shit in Rome's sewers! Liar, liar, liar!"
"House dismissed!" Marcellus Major screamed, pushed Curio aside so hard that he staggered, and left the temple of Saturn.
"Lies!" Curio went on shouting to those who remained. "The junior consul lied to save Pompeius's skin! Pompeius doesn't want to lose his provinces or his army! Pompeius, Pompeius, Pompeius! Open your eyes! Open your minds! Marcellus lied! He lied to protect Pompeius! Caesar is not in Placentia! There are not four legions in Placentia! Lies, lies, lies!"
But no one listened. Horrified and terrified, the Senate of Rome disintegrated.
"Oh, Antonius!" wept Curio when they occupied the temple of Saturn alone. "I never thought Marcellus would go so far—it never occurred to me that he'd lie! He's tainted their cause beyond redemption! Whatever happens to Rome now rests upon a lie!"
"Well, Curio, you know where to look, don't you?" snarled Antony. "It's that turd Pompeius, it's always that turd Pomp
eius! Marcellus is a liar, but Pompeius is a sneak. He won't say so, but he will never give up his precious position as First Man in Rome."
"Oh, where is Caesar?" Curio wailed. "The Gods forbid he's still in Nemetocenna!''
"If you hadn't left home so early this morning to trumpet in the Forum, Curio, you would have found his letter," Antony said. "We've both got one. And he's not in Nemetocenna. He was there just long enough to shift Trebonius and his four legions to the Mosa between the Treveri and the Remi, then he left to see Fabius. Who is now in Bibracte with the other four. Caesar is in Ravenna."
Curio gaped. "Ravenna? He couldn't be!"
"Huh!" grunted Antony. "He travels like the wind, and he didn't slow himself down with any legions. They're all still where they ought to be, across the Alps. But he's in Ravenna."
"What are we going to do? What can we tell him?"
"The truth," said Antony calmly. "We're just his lackeys, Curio, and never forget it. He's the one will make the decisions."
Gaius Claudius Marcellus Major had made a decision. As soon as he dismissed the Senate he walked out to Pompey's villa on the Campus Martius, accompanied by Cato, Ahenobarbus, Metellus Scipio and the two consuls-elect: his cousin Gaius Marcellus Minor and Lentulus Crus. About halfway there the servant Marcellus Major had sent running back to his house on the Palatine returned bearing Marcellus Major's own sword. Like most swords owned by noblemen, it was the usual two-foot-long, wickedly-sharp-on-both-sides Roman gladius; where it differed from the weapons carried by ordinary soldiers was in its scabbard, made of silver preciously wrought, and in its handle, made of ivory carved as a Roman Eagle.